Page:The Snake's Pass (Stoker).djvu/293

 speak pretty loud in order to be heard through the sound of the growing storm. The rain fell in torrents, and the men passed down the boreen stumbling and slipping. I followed on the other side of the hedge, and I can tell you I felt grateful to the original Mackintosh, or Golosh, or whatever was the name of the Johnny who invented waterproof. When they had reached the foot of the hill, they went on the road which curves round by the south-east, and I managed to scramble through the fir wood without losing sight of them. When they came to the bridge over the stream, where it runs out on the north side of the Peninsula, they turned up on the far bank. I slipped over the bridge behind them, and got on the far side of the fringe of alders. Here they stopped and sheltered for a while, and as I was but a few feet from them I heard every word which passed. Murdock began by saying to Moynahan:—

Now, keep yer wits about ye, if ye can. Ye'll get lashins iv dhrink whin we get back, but remimber ye promised to go over the ground where yer father showed ye that the Frinchmin wint wid the gun carriage an' the horses. Where was it now that he tuk ye?' Moynahan evidently made an effort to think and speak:—

It was just about this shpot wheer he seen thim first. They crast over the sthrame—there wor no bridge thin nigher nor Galway—an' wint up the side iv the hill sthraight up.'