While they were making the invalid easy, I stepped through the open door into the court-yard. Opposite to me frowned the low, prison-like door that led to the Castle itself. I longed to enter it, to see the places about which there were so many legends, but there was no time. The court-yard itself was like a deep well into which little light entered. Round about it were little staring windows, unprotected by ivy. Not a green thing grew in the place, though the broken pavement was slimy with damp. At one side the dogs were chained to heavy staples in the wall--great, lumbering, piteous-looking brutes, with their eyes full of blood. I did not feel afraid of them, and they showed no hostility. One, an old yellow dog, with sharp fangs, was, I thought, the one Sir Rupert had called "Venom" that day he had ridden under my tree long ago, but I could not be sure. The dogs looked beyond me to the postern, through which Harry De Lacy had passed, and their eyes were full of despair. I could well believe that they knew they were losing their one friend. "Poor brutes!" I said to them. "I wish we could take you too." But they looked away from my voice still towards the postern-gate. "Come, Hilda," said Esther, close to me, "we are ready now, and it is time we were gone." I looked round the place once more, and then stepped back across the threshold and pulled-to the door. As I did so the dogs set up a dismal howling, and as long as we were within earshot of the place the sound followed us. Larry now went in front, leading the donkey. On either side of the cart Esther and Mrs. O'Flaherty walked, each watching absorbedly the face so dear to both of them, the face of the dead it might be, as it lay helplessly on the pillows, but moving to and fro with the motion of the cart. Mike O'Flaherty and I walked behind, and the peasant's florid face wore an unusually grave look. "'Twill be too bad, Miss Hilda," he said, as the cart disappeared from us round the bend of a path, "if we've only got him out to lose him after all." "It will, Mike," said I; "but, please God, that won't be." "Amen, Miss Hilda; but he looks mortal bad." "He is young, Mike, and, God willing, he will recover. Your wife's nursing will do wonders for him." "Oh, the woman'll do her best! 'Tis wonderful what nature is in women for the childher they've rared. I doubt now if she's as much took up wid her own Johnny." "Oh, I am sure she is!" said I, fearing a tinge of jealousy in the speech of the good-natured giant; "only, you see, Johnny hasn't the great need of her that her foster-son has just now." "True for you, Miss Hilda. The woman's love goes where the need is greatest, an' thank God for that same." "Your Johnny did us a great service, Mike," I said. "I know my sister will never forget it." "He did so, the young thief o' the world,--an', would you believe it, when it was all done herself threatened the boy with the belt, and left him bawlin' melia murther."