We rooted it out at last by help of the parish constable, who was standing at the corner of a by-road talking to the coachman of a gorgeous carriage waiting there, with its two splendid horses smoking in the thick night air.

When, over the shingle of what we call “the street,” we reached the low straggling crofter-cottage under its thick trammon tree (supposed to keep off the evil spirits), I rapped with my knuckles at the door, and it was opened by a tall scraggy woman with a candle in her hand.

This was Nessy MacLeod, harder and uglier than ever, with her red hair combed up, giving her the appearance of a bunch of carrots over two stalks of rhubarb.

Almost before I had time to say that we had come to see Mr. O’Neill, and to step into the house while saying so, a hoarse, husky, querulous man’s voice cried from within: 

“Who is it, Nessy?”

It’s Father Dan, and Martin . . .  I mean Sir. . . .”

“That’ll do,” I said, and the next moment we were in the living-room—­a bare, bleak, comfortless Curraghman’s kitchen.

A more incongruous sight than we saw there human eyes never beheld.

Daniel O’Neill, a shadow of the big brute creature he once was, a shrivelled old man, with his bony hands scored and contracted like an autumn leaf, his shrunken legs scarcely showing through his baggy trousers, his square face whiter than the wall behind it, and a piece of red flannel hanging over his head like a cowl, sat in the elbow-chair at the side of the hearth-fire, while at a deal table, which was covered with papers that looked like law deeds and share certificates (being stamped and sealed), sat the Bishop of the island, and its leading lawyer, Mr. Curphy.

On hearing my name and seeing me enter the house, Daniel O’Neill lost all control of himself.  He struggled to his feet by help of a stick, and as I walked up to him he laid hold of me.

“You devil!” he cried.  “You infernal villain!  You. . . .”

But it is of no use to repeat what else he said in the fuming of his rage, laying hold of me by the collar of my coat, and tugging at it as if he would drag me to his feet.

I was half sorry for the man, badly as I thought of him, so I only opened his hand (easy enough to do, for the grip was gone from it) and said: 

“You’re an old man, sir, and you’re a sick man—­don’t tempt me to forget that you are the father of Mary O’Neill.  Sit down.”

He sat down, breathless and broken, without another word.  But the Bishop, with a large air of outraged dignity, faced about to poor Father Dan (who was standing near the door, turning his round hat in his trembling hands) and said: 

“Father Donovan, did you know that Mr. O’Neill was very ill?”

“I did, Monsignor,” said Father Dan.

“And that a surgeon is coming from London to perform an operation upon him—­did you know that?”