Page 245 - The snake's pass

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BOG-FISHING AND SCHOOLING. 233
one spadeful too much in the right place and you'll
have a torrent that will sweep away all you have. I
have told you that I don't like the locality of your
house down in the hollow. If the bog ever moves
again, God help you ! You seem also to have been
tampering with the stream that runs into the Cliff:
Fields. It is all very well for you to try to injure poor
Joyce more than you have done — and that's quite
enough, God knows —but here you are actually im-
!
perilling your own safety. That stream is the safety
valve of the bog, and if you continue to dam up that
cleft in the rock you will have a terrible disaster.
Mind now ! I warn you seriously against what you
are doing. And besides, you do not even know for
certain that the treasure is here. Why, it may be
anywhere on the mountain, from the brook below the
boreen to the Cliff Fields; is the off chance worth the
risk you run ? " Murdock started when he mentioned
the Cliff Fields, and then said suddenly:
" If ye' re afraid ye can go. I'm not."
!
" Man alive " said Dick, " why not be afraid if you
see cause for fear ? I don't suppose I'm a coward any
more than you are, but I can see a danger, and a very
distinct one, from what you are doing. Your house is
directly in the track in which the bog has shifted at
any time this hundred years ; and if there should be
another movement, I would not like to be in the
house when the time comes."
" All right ! " he returned doggedly, " I'll take me