Judy, meanwhile, with shrill wails and much rocking backwards and forwards, was incoherently declaring that she wouldn't sit there to be murdhered, an' she didn't know why they was all shoutin' at her that way, an' that—as the culmination of woe—she'd lost her lovely pipe.
After some time Roseen succeeded in calming the belligerents, and in gathering the sense of their various statements.
Trembling with eagerness and excitement, she led Judy to the stackyard, and there, after much coaxing and persuasion, induced her to describe her position on the fateful night in question.
"I was sittin' here," announced Judy, pointing to a certain spot.
"You had your back to the rick then?" said Roseen, "ye can't see the haggard gate at all from here. No wonder ye didn't see Mike."
"I was tired waitin' for him," said Judy. "I just put me pipe out o' me hand," she added meditatively. "I was thinkin' of goin' to look for him—and when I woke up it was black night an' I couldn't find—"
Suddenly she uttered a shrill scream, and darting forward, stooped over one of the stone supports which had formerly upheld old Peter's beloved rick, eagerly groping in a certain little fissure in the rough stone, almost hidden beneath the horizontal slab which surmounted it.
"Sure, there it is!" she cried triumphantly, producing indeed the grimy little object so dear to her heart. "I have it now! there's me darlin' pipe! I was afther forgettin' I put it there; it was turned upside down in the crack an' all me baccy's spilt on me!"
Roseen could at first scarcely believe her own eyes and ears; this then was the solution of the mystery which had so long baffled them. Poor old Judy, growing sleepy and tired after her long wait, had laid her pipe on one side intending to rise and look for Mike, but, overcome by drowsiness, she had slept instead, and on awaking had forgotten the spot where she had stowed her treasure. The little pipe, slipping downwards in the crack, had turned over, upsetting its contents upon the loose hay beneath the rick, which being, as Judy had related, dry as tinder, quickly caught fire from the smouldering embers. A strong breeze had arisen that night, and the flame had spread to the stack itself with the results which Roseen knew. The pipe that had done all the damage, being snugly stowed away beneath the overhanging slab of stone, had told no tales; but now its evidence was conclusive, and while Judy rapturously embraced and mumbled over it, Roseen fell upon her knees and thanked God.
It was on a bright October morning that Mike was released from prison, but in spite of the joys of regained liberty and the warm congratulations of his friends, the poor fellow looked downcast and bewildered enough when he came forth into the sunshiny world. Roseen had sent her car for him to the prison door, and Mike, releasing himself at length from the handshakes of the friends who awaited him outside, and being anxious to dispense with their escort, had induced the driver, with a hasty whispered word or two, to whip up the fast-trotting mare, which had thereupon started at a break-neck pace down the street, soon leaving the astonished convoy far behind.