When the
innkeeper's son and the waiter returned to the hall, the former asked
her what the nature of her business with him might be. To this she made
no reply, except by uttering the word husht! and pulling the ends, first
of the white ribbon, and afterwards of the black. The knot of the first
slipped easily from the complication, but that of the black one, after
gliding along from its respective ends, became hard and tight in the
middle.
"_Tha sha marrho!_ life passes and death stays," she exclaimed. "Andy
Connor's dead, Meehaul Neil; an' you may tell your father that he must
get some one else to look afther his sheep. Ay! he's dead!--But that's
past. Meehaul, folly me; it's you I want, an' there's no time to be
lost."
She passed out as she spoke, leaving the waiter in a state of wonder
at the extent of her knowledge, and of the awful means by which, in his
opinion, she must have acquired it.
Meehaul, without uttering a syllable, immediately walked after her. The
pace at which she went was rapid and energetic, betokening a degree of
agitation and interest on her part, for which he could not account.
As she had no object in bringing him far from the house, she availed
herself of the first retired spot that presented itself, in order to
disclose the purport of her visit. "Meehaul Neil," said she, "we're now
upon the Common, where no ear can hear what passes between us.
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