“I know there is,” he replied, “a sartin individual who could do it; ay, in troth, and maybe if he fell into the flames, too, he’d only find himself in his own element; and if it went to that could dance a hornpipe in the middle of it.”

This repartee of the priest’s elicited loud laughter from the by-standers, who, on turning round to see how the other bore it, found that he had disappeared.  This occasioned considerable amazement, not unmixed with a still more extraordinary feeling.  Nobody there knew him, nor had ever even seen him before; and in a short time the impression began to gain ground that he must have been no other than the conjurer who was said to have arrived in the town that day.  In the meantime, while this point was under discussion, a clear, loud, but very mellow voice was heard about twenty yards above them, saying, “Stand aside, and make way—­leave me room for a run.”

The curiosity of the people was at once excited by what they had only a few minutes before pronounced to be a feat that was impossible to be accomplished.  They accordingly opened a lane for the daring individual, who, they imagined, was about to submit himself to a scorching that might cost him his life.  No sooner was the lane made, and the by-standers removed back, than a person evidently youthful, tall, elastic, and muscular, approached the burning mass with the speed, and lightness of a deer, and flew over it as if he had wings.  A tremendous shout burst forth, which lasted for more than a minute, and the people were about to bring him to receive his reward at the whiskey keg, when it was found that he also had disappeared.  This puzzled them once more, and they began to think that, there were more present at these bonfires than had ever received baptism; for they could scarcely shake themselves free of the belief that the mysterious stranger either was something supernaturally evil himself, or else the conjurer as aforesaid, who, by all accounts, was not many steps removed from such a personage.  Of the young person who performed this unprecedented and terrible exploit they had little time to take any notice.  Torley Davoren, however, who was one of the spectators, turned round to his wife and whispered,

“Unfortunate boy—­madman I ought-to say—­what devil tempted him to come here?”

“Was it him?” asked his wife.

“Whist, whist,” he replied; “let us say no more about it.”

In the meantime, although the youthful performer of this daring feat may be said to have passed among them like an arrow from a bow, yet it so happened that the secret of his identity did not rest solely with Torley Davoren.  In a few minutes whisperings began to take place, which spread gradually through the crowd, until at length the name of Shawn na Middogue was openly pronounced, and the secret—­now one no longer—­was instantly sent abroad through the people, to whom his fearful leap was now no miracle.  The impression so long entertained of his connection with the fairies was thus confirmed, and the black stranger was no other, perhaps, than the king of the fairies himself.