The child now got up and opened the door, and let him into the single room which the cabin contained. There were still a few embers of turf alight on the hearth, but not sufficient to have enabled Thady to see anything had not the moon shone brightly in through the door. There was but one bed in the place,--at the end of the cabin farthest from the door, standing between the hearth and the wall, and in this the old woman was lying. The child, about eight years, had jumped out of bed, stark naked, and now in this condition was endeavouring with a bit of stick to poke the hot embers together, so as to give out a better heat and light. But Thady was in want of neither, and he therefore desired the boy to get into bed, and upsetting with his foot the little heap which the urchin had so industriously collected together for his benefit, so as to extinguish the few flickering flames which it afforded, he sat down to try and think what it would now be best for him to do. "Where's Corney, then," he said, "at this hour? Will he be long before he's here?" "Not a one of me rightly knows, yer honer; maybe it 'll not be long afore he's here, and maybe it 'll not be afore the morning," said the child. "And, maybe, not then," added his grandmother. "There's no knowing when he 'll be here; maybe not for days. I don't know what's come to them at all now--being out night skirring through the counthry; it can't come to no good, any ways." "When Corney's at home, where does he sleep?" said Thady, looking round the cabin for a second bed, but seeing none. "He mostly takes a stretch then down there afore the fire; but Corney's not over partickler where he sleeps. For the matter of that, I b'lieve he sleeps most out in the bog at day time." Thady now sat down on one of the two rude stools with which the place was furnished, either to wait for Corney, or to make up his mind what other steps he would take. He had closed and bolted the door, and was just in the act of asking the old woman whether Joe Reynolds was at present living on his bit of land, or if not, where he was, when he heard footsteps coming up to the little path to the door, and the woman, sitting up in bed, said, "There's both on 'em thin; get up, Terry, and open the door." One of the men outside rattled the latch quietly, to let the inmates know who it was that desired admittance; and the naked boy again jumped out of bed, and opening the door, ran back and jumped in again. Two men now entered, whom Thady, as they appeared in the moonlight through the open door, at once recognised as Joe Reynolds and Corney Dolan. He was seated close to the fire, and in the darkness and obscurity of the cabin, they did not at first perceive him.