nd
wasn't that cur'ous enough? And as quare as anythin' it was to behould
the people all peltin' along be the two wet banks of the river as hard
as they could dhrive, and thrippin' theirselves up over the roots of the
trees, and slitherin' into the pools, wid the coffin just skimmin' and
swimmin' away down the sthrame ahead of them, as aisy and plisant as if
it was a bit of a pookawn. You might ha' sworn there was ne'er a nothin'
in it, to look at it. And he they were after hangin' a fine big man,
'ud weigh every ounce of fourteen stone. I tould you it was a quare
thing. So where it would be sailin' to nobody could say; very belike out
into the bay below. But sure when it come where the river runs past th'
ould church, the strong current that was racin' under it just gave a
sort of lap round wid it, and washed it clane up on the flat stones at
the gate goin' into the buryin'-ground, and left it lyin' there, same as
if the lads had set it down off their shoulders. Bedad now it was a very
lucky thing it so happint there was none of the polis or red coats
about, be raison of their gettin' notice the buryin' was somewhere
else--oncommon lucky."

"It's as quare as the rest of it," said Peter Dooley, who had heard the
story before, "that nobody among them had had the wit to put a few
brickbats in it, or some good big lumps of heavy stones. Stones is
plinty, and chape enough."

"They're things you haven't the sellin' of then, I'll go bail," said old
Felix. He spoke in resentment of the interruption, but Mr. Dooley took
the speech as a flattering tribute to his business capacity, and
acknowledged it with a good-humoured smirk.

So Bridget might have spared herself the uneasiness which made her say
hurriedly to her brother: "If you was lookin' for Mr. Polymathers's bit
of writin', Felix, I left it lyin' convanient to you under the plate
there on the table."

"Oh, ay, bedad, that's what's been botherin' me," said the old man,
reachin' for it, "I dunno rightly what to say to it. But sure any of
yous that like can be readin' it, and see what he sez for yourselves."

Reading was not a question simply of liking with all members of the
company; but everybody could hold the paper and look wise, and if he
were none the more so afterwards, that may have been only because he
knew the contents of it beforehand. When it was Peter Dooley's turn he
examined the signature closely, and said, "But what name's this he's put
to it? 'John Cam