"But why that far only, Charley--eh?"

"That's what you could never guess," said he, "and very few else aither;
but go I must, an' go I will. At all events, I'll be company for you in
passin' it. Are you never afeard at night, as you go near it?"

"Divil a taste," she replied; "what 'ud I be afeard of? my father laughs
at sich things; although," she added, musing, "I think he's sometimes
timorous for all that. But I know he's often out at all hours, and he
says he doesn't care about ghosts--I know I don't."

The conversation now flagged a little, and Hanlon, who had been all the
preceding part of the evening full of mirth and levity, could scarcely
force himself to reply to her observations, or sustain any part in the
dialogue.

"Why, what the sorra's comin' over you?" she asked, as they began to
enter into the shadow of the hill at whose foot her father's cabin
stood, and which here, for about two hundred yards, fell across the
road. "It is gettin' afeard you are?"

"No," he replied; "but I was given to undherstand last night, that if
I'd come this night to the Grey Stone, I'd find out a saicret that I'd
give a great deal to know."

"Very well," she replied, we'll see that; an' now, raise your spirits.
Here we're in the moonlight, thank goodness, such as it is. Dear me,
thin, but it's an awful night, and the wind's risin'; and listen to the
flood, how it roars in the glen below, like a thousand bulls!"