Before they reached the house, however, the door opened
and two half-naked, tow-headed urchins came toddling out, and as soon
as they saw the strangers scampered back in a state of great alarm. A
lusty dame, ragged and shoeless, and with her hair hanging loose about
her neck, now came to the door, with a broom in one hand and a
frying-pan in the other.

"Where on arth are you two come from?" enquired the woman, in a surly
tone, as she raised her broom. "Another lot o' fools com'd to look for
Mr. Kidd's money," she continued, without waiting for a reply. "Seems as
if all the folks atween this and Yonkers had got crazy about Mr. Kidd,
and was a comin' up here to dig for his money."

The men confessed that she was right in regard to their mission, and
begged that she would get them some breakfast, for which they would pay
her liberally.

"Yes!" rejoined the woman, angrily, "I know'd what you'd cum fur. Thar
ain't nothin' in this house to get breakfast on--nothin' fur my poor old
man and the two little children. Work's hard to get up here. And them
fools what comes up here to dig for Mr. Kidd's money eat up what little
we had, and did'nt pay fur it, nither. Go home, like honest men, and get
some honester work than comin' up here thinkin' you kin find Mr. Kidd's
money. Don't believe in Mr. Kidd--I don't!" The woman kept swinging her
broom as she spoke. Then the two children ventured back and peered from
behind her skirts at the strangers. "Don't believe he had any money,
anyhow. If he had he was a mighty fool to come up here and bury it.
People round here would 'a stole every dollar on it long ago. There's a
Yankee and a Dutchman diggin' a big hole a piece above here--expectin'
to find Mr. Kidd's money."

Such was the reception these boatmen met with at the hands of Mrs.
Brophy, whose husband, a short, thick-shouldered, bullet-headed son of
the Emerald Isle, with a short, black pipe in his wide mouth, and in his
shirt and trousers, came to the door and seated himself on the sill.

"Is it Misther Kidd's money ye's is afther?" he enquired, querulously,
putting his elbows on his knees and resting his head in his hands. "Much
luck may ye's have finding it. Divel a cint meself iver saw uv Misther
Kidd's money, an' we've liv'd here this two years an' more. It's mighty
little uv any other man's money--not enough, troth, to get bread for the
childher--have we seen."

The boatmen enquired of Mr. Brophy if he could tell them wh