When I emerged from that it was to find my grandfather stern and sad,
and my grandmother with a scared look and the roses of her cheeks
faded.

And for long the shadow lay over Aghadoe. But in course of time people
grew used to it as they will to all things, and my grandfather took
snuff and played whist with his cronies, and drank his French claret,
and rode to hounds, as he had been used; and my grandmother played on
the harp to him of evenings when we were alone, and walked with him and
talked to him, and saw to the affairs of her household, as though the
machinery of life had not for a period run slow and heavy.




CHAPTER II

THE GHOSTS


We were very old-fashioned at Aghadoe Abbey and satisfied with
old-fashioned ways. There was a great deal of talk about opening up the
country, and even the gentry were full of it, but my grandfather would
take snuff and look scornful.

"And when you have opened it up," he said, "you will let in the devil
and all his angels."

It was certainly true that the people had hitherto been kind and
innocent, so that any change might be for the worse, yet I was a little