The _Hen Hawk_ had really been built at Barnstable, a dozen years before, for the Devon fisheries, but she did not look unlike those unwieldy Dutch boats which curious summer visitors watch with unfailing interest from the soft sands of Scheveningen. Her full-flushed deck had been an afterthought, dating back to the time when her activities were diverted from the fishing to the carrying industry. The O’Mahony had bought her at Cork, ostensibly for use in the lobster-canning enterprise which he had founded at Muirisc. Duck-breasted, squat and thick-lined, she looked the part to perfection. The men were busy now getting out from the hold below a score of small kegs, each wrapped in oil skin swathings, and, after these, more than a score of long, narrow wooden cases, which, as they were passed up the little gangway from the glow of candlelight into the darkness, bore a gloomy resemblance to coffins. An hour passed before the empty boat returned from shore, having landed its finishing load, and the six men, stiff and chilled, clumsily swung themselves over the side of the vessel into it. “Sure, it’s a new layse of life, I’m beginnin’,” murmured one of them, Dominic by name, as he clambered out upon the stone landing-place. “It’s dead I was intoirely--an’ restricted agin, glory be to the Lord!” “Sh-h! You shall have some whisky to make a fresh start on when we’re through,” said The O’Mahony. “Jerry, you run ahead an’ open the side door. Don’t make any noise. Mrs. Sullivan’s got ears that can hear grass growin’. We’ll follow on with the things.” The carrying of the kegs and boxes across the village common to the castle, in which the master bore his full share of work, consumed nearly another hour. Some of the cottage lights ceased to burn. Not a soul stirred out of doors. The entrance opened by Jerry was a little postern door, access to which was gained through the deserted and weed-grown church-yard, and the possible use of which was entirely unsuspected by even the housekeeper, let alone the villagers at large. The men bore their burdens through this, traversing a long, low-arched passage-way, built entirely of stone and smelling like an ancient tomb. Thence their course was down a precipitous, narrow stairway, winding like the corkscrew stairs of a tower, until, at a depth of thirty feet or more, they reached a small square chamber, the air of which was mustiness itself. Here a candle was fastened in a bracket, and the men put down their loads. Here, too, it was that Jerry, when the last journey had been made, produced a bottle and glasses and dispensed his master’s hospitality in raw spirits, which the men gulped down without a whisper about water.