tterly out of reach, though every fleeting
instant carried it nearer to that hopeless point. However, she and her
neighbors stood the test unshaken. Mrs. Ryan rolled her eyes
deliberatively, and said to Mrs. M'Gurk, "The saints bless us, was it
yisterday or the day before, me dear, you said you seen a couple of them
below, near ould O'Beirne's?"

And Mrs. M'Gurk replied, "Ah, sure, not at all, ma'am, glory be to
goodness. I couldn't ha' tould you such a thing, for I wasn't next or
nigh the place. Would it ha' been Ody Rafferty's aunt? She was below
there fetchin' up a bag of male, and bedad she came home that dhreeped,
the crathur, you might ha' thought she'd been after fishin' it up out of
the botthom of one of thim bog-houles."

And Mrs. Kilfoyle heroically hustled her Thady into the house, as she
saw him on the brink of beginning loudly to relate his encounter with a
strange man, and desired him to whisht and stay where he was in a manner
so sternly repressive that he actually remained there as if he had been
a pebble dropped into a pool, and not, as usual, a cork to bob up again
immediately.

Then Mrs. M'Gurk made a bold stroke, designed to shake off the
hampering presence of the professionals, and enable Ody's amateur
services to be utilized while there was yet time.

"I declare," she said, "now that I think of it, I seen a feller crossin'
the ridge along there a while ago, like as if he was comin' from
Sallinbeg ways; and according to the apparence of him, I wouldn't won'er
if he _was_ a one of thim tinker crathures--carryin' a big clump of cans
he was, at any rate--I noticed the shine of thim. And he couldn't ha'
got any great way yet to spake of, supposin' there was anybody lookin'
to folly after him."

But Constable Black crushed her hopes as he replied, "Ah, it's nobody
comin' _from_ Sallinbeg that we've anything to say to. There's after
bein' a robbery last night, down below at Jerry Dunne's--a shawl as good
as new took, that his wife's ragin' over frantic, along wid a sight of
fowl and other things. And the Tinkers that was settled this long while
in the boreen at the back of his haggard is quit out of it afore
daylight this mornin', every rogue of them. So we'd have more than a
notion where the property's went to if we could tell the road they've
took. We thought like enough some of them might ha' come this way."

Now, Mr. Jerry Dunne was not a popular person in Lisconnel, where he has
even become, a