“Come here, till I button it proper, or it’s into the room I’ll be gettin’ to make your tylet for you,” said Con, putting one leg over the window-sill. Now Con was the biggest coward on earth, and he had all sorts of strange ideas about the law. He would help in a burglary as long as he could do so safely; that is to say, he would urge another man on and give advice, and help to dispose of the plunder, but he was far too careful of his skin to enter a house or take an active part in the matter. Even now, though he put his leg over the sill of the window, he would not have dared to enter the room, for that would have been housebreaking; but nothing could be done to a man for simply standing at a window and “colloguing” with his nephew. If Mrs Kinsella had appeared armed with a broom he would have run like a scared rabbit; but Patsy did not know this, Patsy took his uncle on his face value, and certainly Con’s face was of more value to him in affairs of this sort than his heart, for his face was the face of a formidable and villainous-looking rogue. Scaring old women and children, sucking eggs, stealing turnips, milking stray cows and trapping rabbits, that was his way of life. Yet he had the appearance of a brigand chief. There are many people in the world like Con. Patsy took a step towards his uncle; he seemed fascinated, just as a mouse is fascinated by a cat. “Come on.” said Con, “before I put my other leg over.” “Sure, what do you want of me at all, at all?” said the unfortunate Patsy, advancing against his will; “what harm have I done you?—what ails—ouch!” Con had suddenly seized him by the collar of his jacket and dragged him through the window. “Speak a word, and you’re dead,” said his uncle. They were in the midst of a clump of laurel bushes that grew almost up to the window. “Come on now,” whispered Patsy’s uncle, dragging him along by the collar; “I’m not goin’ to hurt a feather of you, but if you scream it’s killed you’ll be. I’ve left the candle burnin’ on the chest o’ drawers, sure it’ll burn itself out. Come on now, and tread gentle.” They took a path that led them round by the side of the house to the terrace in front. It was a starlight night, brilliant almost, as if lit by the moon. Con led the way down the terrace steps, and then, striking across the park, made for the beech woods on the right. Patsy followed him. They entered the long drive that cut through the woods in the direction of Castle Knock. They had gone scarcely a quarter of a mile down it when a faint, flickering glow amidst the trees on the right became visible, and Patsy, clutching at his uncle’s coat-tail, hung back. He had heard often enough that the witches had a habit of meeting by night in the woods here about. They would light a fire and make soup in a big pot, and whilst it was boiling they would all sit round and make jokes and tell stories, and their laughter—so the tale went—was enough to turn a man’s hair grey.