Page:The Snake's Pass (Stoker).djvu/74

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62
THE SNAKE'S PASS.

to Shleenanaher or any other place in the neighbourhood."

"Shure no, yer 'an'r, but I remimber ye said ye'd like to see the Shiftin' Bog; an' thin Misther Joyce and Miss Norah is in throuble, and ye might be a comfort to thim."

"Mr. Joyce! Miss Norah! who are they?" I felt that I was getting red and that the tone of my voice was most unnatural.

Andy's sole answer was as comical a look as I ever saw, the central object in which was a wink which there was no mistaking. I could not face it, and had to say:

"Oh yes, I remember now! was not that the man we took on the car to a dark mountain?"

"Yes, surr—him and his daughther!"

"His daughter! I do not remember her. Surely we only took him on the car." Again I felt angry, and with the anger an inward determination not to have Andy or anyone else prying around me when I should choose to visit even such an uncompromising phenomenon as a shifting bog. Andy, like all humourists, understood human nature, and summed up the situation conclusively in his reply—inconsequential though it was:—

"Shure yer 'an'r can thrust me; its blind or deaf an' dumb I am, an' them as knows me knows I'm not the man to go back on a young gintleman goin' to luk at a bog. Sure doesn't all young min do that