One day a serving-man rode up to Costello, who was helping his two
lads to reap a meadow, and gave him a letter, and rode away without a
word; and the letter contained these words in English: 'Tumaus
Costello, my daughter is very ill. The wise woman from Knock-na-Sidhe
has seen her, and says she will die unless you come to her. I
therefore bid you come to her whose peace you stole by treachery.-
DERMOTT, THE SON OF DERMOTT.'
Costello threw down his scythe, and sent one of the lads for
Duallach, who had become woven into his mind with Oona, and himself
saddled his great horse and Duallach's garron.
When they came to Dermott's house it was late afternoon, and Lough
Gara lay down below them, blue, mirror-like, and deserted; and though
they had seen, when at a distance, dark figures moving about the
door, the house appeared not less deserted than the Lough. The door
stood half open, and Costello knocked upon it again and again, so
that a number of lake gulls flew up out of the grass and circled
screaming over his head, but there was no answer.
'There is no one here,' said Duallach, 'for Dermott of the Sheep is
too proud to welcome Costello the Proud,' and he threw the door open,
and they saw a ragged, dirty, very old woman, who sat upon the floor
leaning against the wall. Costello knew that it was Bridget Delaney,
a deaf and dumb beggar; and she, when she saw him, stood up and made
a sign to him to follow, and led him and his companion up a stair and
down a long corridor to a closed door.
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