There was nothing but the hand, which was rather short but
handsomely formed, and white and plump, laid on the edge of the
window-sill; and it was not a very young hand, but one aged, somewhere
about forty, as she conjectured. It was only a few weeks before that the
horrible robbery at Clondalkin had taken place, and the lady fancied
that the hand was that of one of the miscreants who was now about to
scale the windows of the Tiled House. She uttered a loud scream and an
ejaculation of terror, and at the same moment the hand was quietly
withdrawn.
Search was made in the orchard, but no indications of any person's
having been under the window, beneath which, ranged along the wall,
stood a great column of flower-pots, which it seemed must have prevented
any one's coming within reach of it.
The same night there came a hasty tapping, every now and then, at the
window of the kitchen. The women grew frightened, and the servant-man,
taking firearms with him, opened the back-door, but discovered nothing.
As he shut it, however, he said, 'a thump came on it,' and a pressure as
of somebody striving to force his way in, which frightened _him_; and
though the tapping went on upon the kitchen window panes, he made no
further explorations.
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