Such was the fact.  Harry was quite enamoured of sport, and, finding dogs, guns, and fishing-rods ready to his hand, he became a regular sportsman—­a pursuit in which he found Barney a very able and intelligent assistant, inasmuch as he knew the country, and every spot where game of every description was to be had.  They had traversed a considerable portion of rough mountain land, and killed two or three hares, when the heat of the day became so excessive that they considered it time to rest and take refreshments.

“The sun, Masther Harry, is d——­ hot,” said Barney; “and now that ould Bet Harramount hasn’t been in it for many a long year, we may as well go to that desolate cabin there above, and shelter ourselves from the hate—­not that I’d undhertake to go there by myself; but now that you are wid me I don’t care if I take a peep into the inside of it, out of curiosity.”

“Why,” said Woodward, “what about that cabin?”

“I’ll tell you that, sir, when we get into it.  It’s consarnin’ coorsin’ too; but nobody ever lived in it since she left it.”

“Since who left it?”

“Never mind, sir; I’ll tell you all about it by and by.”

It was certainly a most desolate and miserable hut, and had such an air of loneliness and desertion about it as was calculated to awaken reflections every whit as deep and melancholy as the contemplation of a very palace in ruins, especially to those who, like Barney, knew the history of its last inhabitant.  It was far up in the mountains, and not within miles of another human habitation.  Its loneliness and desolation alone would not have made it so peculiarly striking and impressive had it been inhabited; but its want of smoke—­its still and lifeless appearance—­the silence and the solitude around it—­the absence of all symptoms of human life—­its significant aspect of destitution and poverty, even at the best—­all contributed to awaken in the mind that dreamy reflection that would induce the spectator to think that, apart from the strife and bustle of life, it might have existed there for a thousand years.  Humble and contemptible in appearance as it was, yet there, as it stood—­smokeless, alone, and desolate, as we have said, with no exponent of existence about it—­no bird singing, no animal moving, as a token of contiguous life, no tree waving in the breeze, no shrub, even, stirring, but all still as the grave—­there, we say, as it stood, afar and apart from the general uproar of the world, and apparently gray with long antiquity, it was a solemn and a melancholy homily upon human life in all its aspects, from the cabin to the palace, and from the palace to the grave.  Now, its position and appearance might suggest to a thinking and romantic mind all the reflections to which v& have alluded, without any additional accessories; but when the reader is informed that it was supposed to be the abode of crime, the rendezvous of evil spirits, the theatre of unholy incantations, and the temporary abode of the Great Tempter—­and when all these facts are taken in connection with its desolate character, he will surely admit that it was calculated to impress the mind of all those who knew the history of its antecedents with awe and dread.