sh tongue that's past me altogether."

"And you found them at the door, ye say?"

"Out there fornint the tower. 'Twas the chaps that run away from Master
Mark that dropped them. Ye'r a dhroll bit of a rope as ever I seen,"
added he, as he poised the lead in his hand, "av a body knew only what
to make of ye:" then turning to the book, he pored for several minutes
over a page, in which there were some lines written with a pencil. "Be
my conscience I have it," said he, at length; "and faix it wasn't bad of
me to make it out. What do you think, now, the rope is for?"

"Sure I tould you afore I didn't know."

"Well, then, hear it, and no lie in it--'tis for measurin' the say."

"Measurin' the say! What bother you're talking; isn't the say thousands
and thousands of miles long."

"And who says it isn't?--but for measurin' the depth of it, that's what
it is. Listen to this--'Bantry Bay, eleven fathoms at low water inside
of Whiddy Island; but the shore current at half ebb makes landing
difficult with any wind from the westward;' and here's another piece,
half rubbed out, about flat-bottomed boats being best for the surf."

"'Tis the smugglers again," chimed in Mrs. Branagan, as though summing
up her opinion on the evidence.

"Troth, then, I don't think so; they never found it hard to land, no
matter how it blew. I'm thinking of a way to find it out at last."

"And what's that?"

"I'll just go up to the parlour, wid an innocent face on me, and I'll
lay the rope and the little book down on the table before the strange
man there; and I'll just say, 'There's the things your honour dropped
at the door outside;' and maybe ould Archy won't have the saycrct out of
him."

"Do that, Kerry avich," said Mrs. Branagan, who at length vouchsafed a
hearty approval of his skill in devices. "Do that, and I'll broil a bit
o' meat for ye agin ye come down."

"Wid an onion on it, av it's plazing to ye, ma'am," said Kerry,
insinuatingly.

"Sure I know how ye like it; and if ye have the whole of the say-cret,
maybe you'd get a dhrop to wash it down besides.

"And wish you health and happy days, Mrs. Branagan," added Kerry, with
a courteous gallantry he always reserved for the kitchen; so saying,
he arose from his chair, and proceeded to arrange his dress in a manner
becoming the dignity of his new mission, rehearsing at the same time the
mode of his entry.

"'Tis the rope and the little book, your honour, I'll say, that ye
dropped