en washed ashore the time of the Spanish Armada, and had been
found in the sand. Mick took it into his hands to feel the weight.
Suddenly the old woman looked up, and asked Pat what was the young
gentleman's name. Mick answered for himself. She rose from her stool
with a screech: "Michael Darragh! Is that who ye are? Mother a' God!
an' yer father's gun in his han'." Mick turned in bewilderment to Pat,
but he was leaning against the wall, shaking all over. "In the name of
God," he was saying. Then he took the gun away, and hurried Mick out
of the cottage. "I niver knew that was who ye were," he said; "I made
sure you were wan a' the young Bogues." He told Mick not to think
about it again--the old woman was doting, and did not know what she was
saying--but he made him promise never to tell anyone what had happened,
and never let anyone know they were friends--they might both get into
trouble if it were known, he said. Soon after this Mick went back to
Rowallan, and then he was not able to see Pat so often. If the
friendship had not been a secret he could have gone, but it was hard to
get away from the others without explaining where he was going. Once
or twice through the summer he slipped away, and found Pat about the
cottage. On one of these days Pat told him he was going away to
America soon, to his father. Mick had imagined that Mr M'Garvey was
dead. He thought Pat looked very miserable. "Don't ye want to go?" he
asked.

"It's not so much the goin' I mind as a terrible piece a' work I have
to do afore I go," he said. Then after a pause he added: "But I'll not
be goin' yet a bit; I'll wait till I bury my ould granny."

Mick did not go back till one day in November. He could not see Pat
anywhere outside, so he knocked at the cottage door. It was opened by
Pat himself. "She's dead," he said. He came out, and they sat on the
wall. "Then ye'll be off to America," Mick said sadly--he had never
seen Pat look so thin and ill; "I'll be quare an' sorry to see ye go."

Pat did not answer, he was looking straight out at the line of grey
sea. Mick could hear the waves beating on the rocks below. At last
Pat said: "I have that bit of a job to do before I go." Mick thought
he meant he must bury his granny. He tried to cheer him up. "Yer
father'll be brave an' glad to see ye," he said.

"It's six years the morra since I seen him," said Pat, still looking
out to sea.

"Six years the morra; why, that's