back put her tongue out of the corner of her mouth and winked at the
kitchen-maid.

Mrs. Alexander found her conversation with Willy Fennessy less
satisfactory than usual. He could not give any definite account of what
he and Patsey had seen: maybe they'd seen nothing at all; maybe--as an
obvious impromptu--it was the calf of the Kerry cow; whatever was in it,
it was little he'd mind it, and, in easy dismissal of the subject, would
the misthress be against his building a bit of a coal-shed at the back
of the lodge while she was away?

That evening a new terror was added to the situation. Jimmy the
boot-boy, on his return from taking the letters to the evening post,
fled in panic into the kitchen, and having complied with the etiquette
invariable in such cases by having "a wakeness," he described to a
deeply sympathetic audience how he had seen something that was like a
woman in the avenue, and he had called to it and it returned him no
answer, and how he had then asked it three times in the name o' God what
was it, and it soaked away into the trees from him, and then there came
something rushing in on him and grunting at him to bite him, and he was
full sure it was the Fairy Pig from Lough Clure.

Day by day the legend grew, thickened by tales of lights that had been
seen moving mysteriously in the woods of Craffroe. Even the hounds were
subpoenaed as witnesses; Patsey Crimmeen's mother stating that for three
nights after Patsey had seen that Thing they were singing and screeching
to each other all night.

Had Mrs. Crimmeen used the verb scratch instead of screech she would
have been nearer the mark. The puppies, Ruby and Remus, had, after the