"Ay, of coorse he's going. It'll be to-morrow, it seems. I'm to go, too."
"Danny, you must not go," said Mona, dropping Ruby's hand to take hold of the lad's arm. He glanced up vacantly.
"Seems to me it doesn't matter much what I do," he said.
"But it does matter, Danny. What these men are attempting is crime—black, cruel, pitiless crime—murder, no less."
"That's what the young masther was sayin'," answered the lad, absently; "and the one of them hadn't a word to say agen it."
Ruby had tripped away for a moment. Returning with a little oval thing in her hand, she cried, "Danny, what's this? I found it under a stone, and its gills were shining like fire."
"A sea-mouse," said the lad, and taking it out of the child's hand, he added, "I'm less nor this worm to our Bill."
"Danny, would it hurt you much if you were to hear that your uncle Kisseck was being punished?"
The lad lifted his eyes with a bewildered stare. The idea that Bill Kisseck could be punished had never really come to him as within the limits of possibility. Once, indeed, he had thought of something that he might himself do, but the wild notion had vanished with the next glance at Kisseck's face.
"He could be punished," said Mona, "and must be."