She gathered a rich silk and gold handkerchief
that was in her fingers up to her lips,
and seemed to thrust ever so much of it, fold
after fold, into her capacious mouth, as
they thought to smother her laughter, with
which she seemed convulsed, for she was
shaking and quivering, as it seemed, with
suppressed merriment; but her eyes,
which remained uncovered, looked angrier
than they had ever seen eyes look before.

But the lady was so beautiful they
looked on her instead, and she continued
to caress and kiss the little boy on her
knee; and smiling at the other children
she held up a large russet apple in her
fingers, and the carriage began to move
slowly on, and with a nod inviting them
to take the fruit, she dropped it on the
road from the window; it rolled some way
beside the wheels, they following, and then
she dropped another, and then another,
and so on. And the same thing happened
to all; for just as either of the children who
ran beside had caught the rolling apple,
somehow it slipt into a hole or ran into a
ditch, and looking up they saw the lady
drop another from the window, and so the
chase was taken up and continued till they
got, hardly knowing how far they had
gone, to the old cross-road that leads to
Owney. It seemed that there the horses'
hoofs and carriage wheels rolled up a
wonderful dust, which being caught in one of
those eddies that whirl the dust up into a
column, on the calmest day, enveloped the
children for a moment, and passed whirling
on towards Lisnavoura, the carriage, as they
fancied, driving in the centre of it; but
suddenly it subsided, the straws and leaves
floated to the ground, the dust dissipated
itself, but the white horses and the lackeys,
the gilded carriage, the lady and their little
golden haired brother were gone.

At the same moment suddenly the upper
rim of the clear setting sun disappeared
behind the hill of Knockdoula, and it was
twilight. Each child felt the transition
like a shock—and the sight of the rounded
summit of Lisnavoura, now closely
overhanging them, struck them with a new
fear.

They screamed their brother's name
after him, but their cries were lost in the
vacant air. At the same time they thought
they heard a hollow voice say, close to them,
"Go home."

Looking round and seeing no one, they
were scared, and hand in hand—the little
girl crying wildly, and the boy white as
ashes, from fear—they trotted homeward,
at their best speed, to tell, as we have seen,
their strange story.

Molly Ryan never more saw her darling.
But something of the lost little boy was
seen by his former playmates.

Sometimes when their mother was away
earning a trifle at hay-making, and Nelly
washing the potatoes for their dinner, or
"beatling" clothes in the little stream that
flows in the hollow close by, they saw the
pretty face of little Billy peeping in archly at
the door, and smiling silently at them, and as
they ran to embrace him, with cries of
delight, he drew back, still smiling archly,
and when they got out into the open day,
he was gone, and they could see no trace of
him anywhere.

This happened often, with slight variations
in the circumstances of the visit.
Sometimes he would peep for a longer time,
sometimes for a shorter time, sometimes
his little hand would come in, and, with
bended finger, beckon them to follow; but
always he was smiling with the same arch
look and wary silence—and always he was
gone when they reached the door. Gradually
these visits grew less and less frequent,
and in about eight months they ceased
altogether, and little Billy, irretrievably lost,
took rank in their memories with the dead.

One wintry morning, nearly a year and
a half after his disappearance, their mother
having set out for Limerick soon after
cock-crow, to sell some fowl at the market,
the little girl, lying by the side of her elder
sister, who was fast asleep, just at the
grey of the morning heard the latch lifted
softly, and saw little Billy enter and close
the door gently after him. There was
light enough to see that he was barefoot
and ragged, and looked pale and famished.
He went straight to the fire, and cowered
over the turf embers, and rubbed his hands
slowly, and seemed to shiver as he gathered
the smouldering turf together.

The little girl clutched her sister in terror
and whispered,

"Waken, Nelly, waken; here's Billy
come back!"

Nelly slept soundly on, but the little boy,
whose hands were extended close over the
coals, turned and looked toward the bed,
it seemed to her, in fear, and she saw the
glare of the embers reflected on his thin
cheek as he turned toward her. He rose
and went, on tiptoe, quickly to the door, in
silence, and let himself out as softly as he
had come in.

After that, the little boy was never seen
more by any one of his kindred.