Page:The Snake's Pass (Stoker).djvu/327

 "Quite certain, old fellow. You may set your mind at rest on that score. In so far as the bog is concerned, she and her father are in no danger. The only way they could run any risk of danger would be by their going to Murdock's house, or by being by chance lower down on the hill, and I do not think that such a thing is likely to happen."

This set my mind more at ease, and while Dick sat down to write some letters I continued to look at the rain.

By-and-by I went down to the tap-room, where there were always a lot of peasants, whose quaint speech amused and interested me. When I came in one of them, whom I recognized as one of our navvies at Knocknacar, was telling something, for the others all stood round him. Andy was the first to see me, and said as I entered:—

"Ye'll have to go over it all agin, Mike. Here's his 'an'r, that is just death on to bogs—an' the like," he added, looking at me slyly.

"What is it?" I asked.

"Oh, not much, yer 'an'r, except that the bog up at Knocknacar has run away intirely. Whin the wather rose in it, the big cuttin' we med tuk it all out, like butthermilk out iv a jug. Begor! there never was seen such a flittin' since the wurrld begun. An' more betoken, the quare part iv it is that it hasn't left the bit iv a hole behind it at all, but it's all mud an' wather at the prisint minit."