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"An' how's it goin' to be?" he asked, breaking off; "an' if 'tis by Shamus O'Neil's blunderbust that he's fumblin' yondther, will I stand afore or ahint ut? for 'tis fatal both ends, I'm thinkin', like Barney Sullivan's mule. Wirra, wirra! May our souls find mercy, Shamus O'Neil, for we'll both, be wantin' ut this day.
"I'm almost minded to let you off the third task," the King exclaimed, "but a vow is a vow and must not be broken. Bring me last the hare that dances by moonlight." Shamus went off a third time and traveled until he came to a fine grassy slope, and there he awaited the full moon. Sure enough, as he lay hidden, out came the hare and began to dance, leaping and bounding and playing with his shadow.
At these words the old Queen upon the throne burst into loud weeping. "Long have you been gone, Shamus," said she. "It is seven times seven years since you left me. And now I am old, and you are as you were. It is too late!" To Shamus, the time passed in Elfland had been no more than a year, and his heart was sorrowful as he turned away without a word.
His wife and little ones soon slept soundly, but Shamus lay for hours inaccessible to nature's claims for sleep as well as for food. From where he lay he could see, through the open front of his shed, out into the ruins abroad.
The shed built over the old friar's tombstone was built by the hands you feel on your throttle, and that tombstone is his hearthstone; and," continued Shamus, beginning to bind the prostrate man with a rope snatched from a bench near them, "while you lie here awhile, an' no one to help you, in the cool of the morning, I'll just take a start of you on the road home, to lift the flag and get the threasure; and follow me if you dare!
When you have won gold and wear fine clothes, perhaps after long years you will return to see me in my old age, and I will think better of you." Shamus was glad at these words and, packing a few things in a bag and slinging his harp upon his back, off he went to the house of the King. It was a fine house with many servants and poor relations of the King, eating the bread of idleness.
It appeared, indeed, pretty certain that, neither for the violence done to his person nor for the purse appropriated by his nephew, the outlawed murderer would raise a hue and cry after one who, aware of his identity, could deliver him up to the laws of his country. But Shamus felt certain that it would be a race between him and his uncle for the treasure that lay under the friar's tombstone.
There are evidences in 'Shamus O'Brien, and even in 'Phaudrig Croohore, of a power over the mysterious, the grotesque, and the horrible, which so singularly distinguish him as a writer of prose fiction. 'Uncle Silas, the fairest as well as most familiar instance of this enthralling spell over his readers, is too well known a story to tell in detail.
Hitherto his weakness and confusion had left him passive. Before his uncle spoke the last words, his silent prayer was offered, and Shamus had jumped upon his assailant. They struggled and dragged each other down. Shamus felt the muzzle of the pistol at his breast; heard it snap but only snap; he seized and mastered it, and once more the uncle was at the mercy of his nephew.
"Shamus Dempsey, why have you not gone to London Bridge, and your wife so near the time when she will want what you are to get by going there? Remember, this is my second warning." "Musha, your reverence, an' what am I to do on Lunnon Bridge?" Again he rose to approach the figure; again it eluded him.
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