“I reckon we’d better not try to go down to it,” he said, after a moment of silent observation. “Thar’s nothin’ to hold on to till ye get to that ledge an’ it’s plain to see that the box isn’t alongside o’ the lamp. Howsome-ever, it bears out my notion that things was hurled hither and yon when the tower fell so thar’s no tellin’ whar the little box landed.”
Then, drawing the girl back to a place of greater safety, he continued, as he glanced at the sky: “It’s gettin’ toward midafternoon, colleen, an’ those blizzardy lookin’ clouds over on the horizon ar’ spreadin’ fast. I reckon as how we’d better put off huntin’ for the box till arter thar’s been a thaw; then, likie’s not, we’ll find it easy when the snow’s gone.”
“All right, Uncle Barney,” the girl replied. “We will do just as you think best, but how I do wish that, just for a moment, I might visit my dear old Treasure Cave. Don’t you suppose that if we went along the beach I might be able to climb up to it? I’ve been there many a time in winter and I know just where my steps are even under the snow.”
The girl’s eyes were so glowingly eager that the old man could not refuse. “Wall, wall, Rilly gal,” he said, “I reckon we’d have time to poke around a while longer if ’twould be pleasin’ to you. The storm’s likely to hold off till nigh dark.”
“Oh, thank you, Uncle Barney.” Muriel caught the old man’s mittened hand and led him along at a merry pace, breaking a path in the snow just ahead of him. At last they reached the very spot where many months before Muriel had stood when she had beheld a city lad for the first time.
“D’ye ever hear from Gene Beavers nowadays?” the captain asked when Rilla recalled to him the incident of which she had been thinking.
“Indeed I do, and, oh, Uncle Barney, such wonderful times as Gene is having. He has a new friend in England whom he calls Viscount of Wainwater.”
The old man gazed at his companion in uncomprehending amazement.
“The Viscount of Wainwater is it? Rilly, can I be hearin’ right? Why, gal, he’s as big a man as thar is in all England barrin’ the king himself. He’s what folks call a philanthropist, though thar’s them as calls him an Irish sympathizer; but ’tisn’t the Irish only that he’s benefactin’, but all as are down-trodden. Why, Rilly, he ’twas that bought a whole township over in Connaught and tore down the mud huts and had decent little cabins built for the old folks to be livin’ in. Many’s the time he’s ridden by on that han’some brown horse of his an’ stopped at me mither’s door for a bit of refreshment an’ it was me ol’ mither that couldn’t talk of anything for days but of how foine a gintleman was the Viscount of Wainwater. It’s curious now, ain’t it, that Gene Beavers is arter knowin’ him. It sartin is an honor to be a friend of the viscount.”
As the captain talked, Muriel, surefooted on the rocky paths that she had followed since childhood, led him down to the beach, where the sand had been swept clear of snow by the prevailing winds. They walked around the island and stood just beneath the cave to which Muriel had carried every little treasure that had been given her by her few friends or that had been tossed high on the beach by the sea. The trail looked very steep and slippery to the old man. “Rilla gal,” he said, “I reckon I’ll stay here a bit and he waitin’ for ye while ye do yer explorin’.”