the same rate.
It made one giddy to look for any length of time. After a few minutes both men drew back by mutual consent.
"No mortal man could live down there for five minutes," said O'Hanlon, with a shiver.
"No," said O'Brien, with a laugh, "or ghost either, for that matter. But, I say, O'Hanlon, what cool and roomy lodging it would afford to all the Fishery Commissioners in the United Kingdoms!"
"This is no place for joking," said O'Hanlon, uneasily. "Let us get back. I am sick of this place."
"Wait a minute," said O'Brien. "As this wretched man Fahey was seen here both in the flesh and the spirit for the last time, let me read the documents he left in your charge."
He put his hand in his pocket, and read the papers by the fast-fading light.
"Come on. Take care you don't slip. The papers are simple enough on the surface, except No. 11. Shall I read it to you?"
"Ay," answered O'Hanlon absently.
It was nothing to him. He was devoting his thoughts to getting safely over this greasy, clammy, slippery surface.
O'Brien read out slowly:
"'Memorandum. Rise 15·6 lowest. At lowest minute of lowest forward with all might undaunted. The foregoing refers to sculls . With only one skull any lowest or any last quarter; but great forward pluck required for this. In both cases (of course!) left.'
"Well," said O'Brien, "I confess I can't make anything of it. Can you?"
"No," said the other listlessly.
They had now reached the foot of the path.
"I think it's rubbish. What do you say?"
"Unmitigated rubbish."
"What, for instance, can he mean by 'skull' and 'sculls' with a line under each? The writing is that of a man of some education."
"Oh, yes-he was a man of some education."
O'Brien paused in his walk, and cried:
"Stop! I think I have an idea."
"Eh?"
"From what you know of this man, do you think he could spell a word of ordinary English?"
"I should think so."
"Then I have an idea.
"What is it?"
"Wait ."
CHAPTER XXIV KILCASH
"I'm ashamed of two sensible men such as you," said the driver, in a southern brogue, "going down there on an uncertain season like this, and at the end of daylight. It's a mercy you ever got back alive."
"Or dead," said O'Brien, with a laugh.
"Never mind, Terry; we're none the worse for it. Now, drive on to Kilcash, and pull up at the Strand Hotel."
The driver whipped his horse, and the remainder of the journey was accomplished in silence.
Kilcash is a small, straggling village, built on the slopes of the cliffs surrounding Kilcash Bay, and on the low ground lying in front of the bay. In summer it is usually pretty full of people, for although no railway has yet reached it, hundreds of families live in the neighbourhood, and many who dwell at a distance use it as a holiday resort. In winter it is dreary, deserted, dead. The closed-up lodging-houses and cottages which, under the influence of the summer sun, grow bright and cheerful with flowers and the faces of children, in winter stare with blank window eyes at the cold gray sky and monotonous level of the sea. It was difficult to say who governed Kilcash-five policemen and seven coastguardsmen, possibly; for there was no other sign of official life.
There was no Corporation, no Commissioners under the Towns Improvement Act, no gas-house, no water-works, no sanitary board, no guardians of the poor, no bellman, no watering-carts, no workhouse, no police-court, no tax or rate collector, no exciseman, no soldier, no lawyer. There were only three institutions, and these were curative-namely, two houses of worship of different denominations, and a dispensary.
Indirect taxation reached the people occultly; of direct taxation they knew nothing. No doubt some one paid for mending their sewer when the rain-water of winter burst it. No doubt some one paid for putting metal on the roads when the ruts became absolutely dangerous. No doubt some one paid the men who built up the breach in the Storm Wall.
There was a slumbering belief that the police had powers, and the coastguards functions. For instance, the police fished a good deal, smoked fairly well, and were respectable with haughtiness. The coastguards had a boat. In the eyes of Kilcash the possession of a boat was sufficient to account for anything in the world. The coastguards
went out in their boat only in fine weather, which gave them the aspect of gentlemen. They kept their boat scrupulously mopped and painted-painted, not tarred; which was foppish, and a little weak-minded. They carefully displayed in the station on the hill, carbines and cutlasses of which Kilcash stood in no more awe than it did of the bulrushes in the bog at the back of the village. To be sure, there was a theory that upon occasion the police might call on the coastguards to come out and assist them. But what this occasion was no one knew. Sergeant Mahony had been heard to hint broadly that in such a dire extremity-which would not, he said, curdle his blood in the least-the chief command would devolve on him. Although nothing was known for certain as to the exigency which might place the whole offensive and defensive forces of the village under the command of Mahony, Tim Curran had, when going home late of an evening, said he supposed the landing of the French in Dublin Bay would lead to that extraordinary act of power. Tim had been in Dublin for three days, and was believed to be infallible on all matters connected, or that might ever be connected, with the bay-from herrings to the French Fleet. It must not be deduced from this that Kilcash assumed a very servile attitude towards Dublin; for if Dublin had a bay, so likewise had Kilcash.