“'Tis what I can't do, then,” said Kerry; “for it's writ in some outlandish tongue that's past me altogether.”
“And you found them at the door, ye say?”
“Out there fornint the tower. 'Twas the chaps that run away from Master Mark that dropped them. Ye'r a dhroll bit of a rope as ever I seen,” added he, as he poised the lead in his hand, “av a body knew only what to make of ye:” then turning to the book, he pored for several minutes over a page, in which there were some lines written with a pencil. “Be my conscience I have it,” said he, at length; “and faix it wasn't bad of me to make it out. What do you think, now, the rope is for?”
“Sure I tould you afore I didn't know.”
“Well, then, hear it, and no lie in it—'tis for measurin' the say.”
“Measurin' the say! What bother you're talking; isn't the say thousands and thousands of miles long.”
“And who says it isn't?—but for measurin' the depth of it, that's what it is. Listen to this—'Bantry Bay, eleven fathoms at low water inside of Whiddy Island; but the shore current at half ebb makes landing difficult with any wind from the westward;' and here's another piece, half rubbed out, about flat-bottomed boats being best for the surf.”
“'Tis the smugglers again,” chimed in Mrs. Branagan, as though summing up her opinion on the evidence.
“Troth, then, I don't think so; they never found it hard to land, no matter how it blew. I'm thinking of a way to find it out at last.”
“And what's that?”