A sound, a very slight sound, made him raise his head. There was no one in sight. He had the earth, as I have told you, to himself. Only the wind whispered among the heather and grass, and rustled softly through the gorse bushes.
John went down on his knees and raised the flat stone. Sheer idle curiosity prompted the action. He hadn’t the faintest expectation of seeing anything beneath. He peered within; and then gave vent to a tiny chuckle of amazed surprise. He put his hand within the circle of stones, and drew forth three objects,—firstly, a piece of green ribbon; secondly, a small, a very small, thimble; and thirdly, a rosary of red beads.
“Oh, ho!” quoth he to himself, “if fairies have been at work here, they are Catholic fairies, it would seem.”
He fitted the thimble on the top of his little finger, where it sat in an insecure and ludicrous position.
“A cache,” said John, “but whose?”
He looked before him down the sloping moorland. And now, far off, he descried a small black speck. The black speck was a figure. It was coming towards him.
“There’s just the faintest conceivable chance,” said John.
He removed the thimble from its ridiculous position. He put it, the ribbon, and the rosary once more within their hiding-place, replaced the flat stone, and withdrew himself to a post of vantage, couched behind a gorse bush. Therefrom he awaited possible developments.
As the black speck drew nearer, it defined itself as a girl child, some eleven years old or thereabouts. A gypsy-looking elf she was. Coming nearer still, he saw that she was dark-haired, smutty-eyed. Her head was uncovered; she was clad in a faded green frock; her brown legs were bare, her feet cased in old shoes. She was walking quickly; eagerness, expectation, were in her bearing. To John’s mind the possibility already resolved itself into something akin to certainty. The next moment he saw that his surmise had been correct.
She came straight across the heather to the small circle of stones, and went down on her knees beside it. The flat stone was pushed aside; the small brown hand dived within the circle.