“At last! at last! me threasure! All me own!”
Dick stood up with a look of disgust on his handsome face:—
“Come away, Art; it’s too terrible to see a man degraded to this pitch. Leave the wretch alone with his god!” Murdock turned to us, and said with savage glee:—
“No! shtay! Sthay an’ see me threasure! It’ll make ye happy to think of afther! An’ ye can tell Phelim Joyce what I found in me own land—the land what I tuk from him.” We stayed.
Murdock took his spade and began to remove the filth and rubbish from the mass. And in a very few moments his discovery proclaimed itself.
There lay before us a rusty iron gun-carriage! This was what we had dragged with so much effort from the bottom of the bog; and beside it Murdock sat down with a scowl of black disappointment.
“Come away!” said Dick. “Poor devil, I pity him! It is hard to find even a god of that kind worthless!” And so we turned and left Murdock sitting beside the gun-carriage and the slime, with a look of baffled greed which I hope never to see on any face again.
We went to a brook at the foot of the hill, Andy being by this time in the sheebeen about half a mile off. There we cleansed ourselves as well as we could from the hideous slime and filth of the bog, and then walked to the top of the hill to let the breeze freshen us up a bit if possible. After we had been there for a while, Dick said:—
“Now, Art, you had better run back to the cottage. Miss Joyce will be wondering what has become of you all this time, and may be frightened.” It was so strange to hear her—Norah, my Norah—called “Miss Joyce,” that I could not help smiling—and blushing whilst I smiled. Dick noticed and guessed the cause. He laid his hand on my shoulder, and said:—
“You will hear it often, old lad. I am the only one of all your friends privileged to hear of her by the name you knew her by at first. She goes now into your class and amongst your own circle; and, by George! she will grace it too—it or any circle—and they will naturally give to her folk the same measure of courtesy that they mete to each other. She is Miss Joyce—until she shall be Mrs. Arthur Severn!”