?" while he was undoing the
several knots. When they were all unfastened, the handkerchief was seen
to hold a number of eggs and a fair supply of broken bread. Thady might
well scout the possibility of famishing. "That's somethin' like," he
said, as he saw Judy surveying his stores, "and I've a shillin'
somewheres besides."

"Glory be!" said Judy, looking as if she could scarcely realise a world
with which they were so much beforehand.

"And we'll be givin' them a boil in a one of the little saucepans," said
Thady. "Raw eggs do be ugly could brashes, and we've plinty of wather
handy--lashins and lavins of dhrink runnin' on tap there, so to spake."

Supper was accordingly prepared on these simple lines with much success.
They boiled many eggs and ate them, using their scraps of bread for
plates--an expedient not unknown at far earlier banquets--and they
scooped up water to drink out of the palms of their hands--also in an
old-fashioned manner. But when they had finished Thady gave a
comparatively modern touch to the entertainment by lighting his pipe. He
occupied the nearest place to the fire, in consideration for the
scarecrow-like raggedness of his garments, which now began to weigh upon
Judy's mind amid the comfort of her magnificent wrap.

"Froze stiff you'll be in thim ould tatters, man alive," she said
despondently. "Sure, you might as well be slingin' yourself round wid
the ould wisps of spiders' webs up over your head for any substance
there is in thim. I won'er, now, could I conthrive to reive the top-cape
off of this. 'Twould be as good that way as a cloak apiece for the two
of us."

Thady, however, said decidedly: "Blathers, not _at all_. Is it
destroyin' it you'd be after? I'm plinty warm enough." And he rolled the
big red handkerchief which had held the eggs into many folds about his
neck, tucking it down under his coat-collar all round. "There was a
surprisin' hate in it," he said.

By this time the dusk far and near had gloomed into darkness--the black
beetle had scared away the grey moth. As Thady and Judy sat with their
backs to the curving wall, they caught only fitful glimpses of the
opposite one when any long-fronded flickers of the fire-light waved
across and touched it. More often they fell short, and made quivering
circles shine where they struck the broken water in the mid-stream.
Without, beyond either arch, nothing was distinguishable except glimmers
of white foam shaken and tossing. On t