To describe the pitch to which he had them wound up would be utterly impossible.  He sat in the cook’s arm-chair, leaning a little back, his feet placed upon the fender, and his eyes, as before, immovably, painfully, and abstractedly fixed upon the embers.  He was now the centre of a circle, for they were all crowded about him, wrapped up to the highest possible pitch of curiosity.

“We were talkin’ about Masther Harry,” said he, “the other night, and I think I tould you something about him; it’s like a dhrame to me that I did.”

“You did, indeed, Barney,” said the cook, coaxingly, “and I hope that what you tould us wasn’t true.”

“Aye, but about to-day, Barney; somthin’ has happened to-day that’s troublin’ you.”

“Who is it said that?” said he, his eyes now closed, as if he were wrapped up in some distressing mystery.  “Was it you, Nanse?  It’s like your voice, achora.”

Now, the reader must know that a deadly jealousy lay between Nanse and the cook, quoad honest Barney, who, being aware of the fact, kept the hopes and fears of each in such an exact state of equilibrium, that neither of them could, for the life of her, claim the slightest advantage over the other.  The droll varlet had an appetite like a shark, and a strong relish for drink besides, and what between precious tidbits from the cook and borrowing small sums for liquor from Nanse, he contrived to play them off one against the other with great tact.

“I think,” said he, his eyes still closed, “that that is Nanse’s voice; is it, acushla?”

“It is, Barney, achora,” replied Nanse; “but there’s something wrong wid you.”

“I wish to goodness, Nanse, you’d let the boy alone,” said the cook; “when he chooses to spake, he’ll spake to them that can undherstand him.”

“O, jaminy stars! that’s you, I suppose; ha, ha, ha.”

“Keep silence,” said Barney, “and listen.  Nanse, you are right in one sinse, and the cook’s right in another; you’re both right, but at the present spakin’ you’re both wrong.  Listen—­you all know the Shan-dhinne-dhuv?”

“Know him!  The Lord stand between us and him,” replied Nanse; “I hope in God we’ll never either know or see him.”

“You know,” proceeded Barney, “that he keeps’ the haunted house, and appears in the neighborhood of it?”

“Yes, we know that, achora,” replied the cook, sweetly.

“Well, you can’t forget Bet Harramount, the witch, that lived for some time in Rathfillan?  She that was hunted in the shape of a white hare by pious Father McFeen’s famous greyhound, Koolawn.”

“Doesn’t all the world know it, Barney, avillish?” said Nanse.

“Divil the word she’ll let out o’ the poor boy’s lips,” said the cook, with a fair portion of venom.  Nanse made no reply, but laughed with a certain description of confidence, as she glanced sneeringly at the cook, who, to say the truth, turned her eyes with a fiery and impulsive look towards the ladle.