CHAPTER IX.

A MOONLIGHT EXPEDITION.

It was a lovely night when I set out with the merrymakers to the bog in search of peat. Barney was full of drollery, a typical Irish lad such as I had not seen in Wicklow before; and Moira, though at first fulfilling Winifred's predictions by sitting silently with her heels kicking together where they hung out of the cart, and her head hanging down, after a while awoke to the spirit of fun and frolic that was abroad.

"Ah, then, Danny avick, will you move on!" cried Barney to the horse. "Is it standin' still you'd be, you Tory, and Miss Winifred in the cart and the strange lady from America?"

The horse seemed moved by this adjuration, as well as by a touch of the whip, and trotted along the shining, silent road.

"I should enjoy a run with Moira on this road!" said Winifred.

"Get down, then, and have your run," I answered. "Barney and I will easily keep you in sight."

"You will not mind if I leave you for a little while?" asked Winifred.

"No, indeed, dear. Barney and I will entertain each other."

Barney pulled up the horse.

"Be still, you spalpeen," he cried, "and let Miss Winifred down!"

The horse, nothing loath, stood still.

Winifred leaped lightly to the ground, followed more clumsily by Moira.

"Ah, then, Moira," exclaimed her brother, "will you be all night gettin' out of the cart?"

Moira made no answer. Her red cheeks were aglow with delight at the prospect of escaping for a time from my embarrassing company and having a run along the grass-bordered road.

Winifred stopped a moment or two to pet the horse.

"Poor Danny!" she said. "Barney is always calling you names. But you don't mind; do you, Danny?"

The horse seemed to answer that he did not in the least, rubbing his nose against the child's arm in a gratified way. Then Winifred gave the word, and together the two girls were off, their happy voices coming back to us as we drove leisurely along in the soft, balmy air. They stopped now and again to pick flowers from the hedge or to seek out daisies and wild violets in the fresh grass; while Barney kept up a series of droll remarks,--sometimes addressed to the horse, sometimes to me.

"I hear you're thinking of taking a trip to America, Barney," I remarked.

"True for you, ma'am--between now and Doomsday. I'm afeard it will be that long before I get the passage money together."

"Why should you be so anxious to leave this beautiful country?" I said.

"Why?" exclaimed Barney, casting a shrewd glance at me. "Oh, then, sure it's meself that's had enough of beauty without profit. I want to go where I'll get paid for my work, and be able to hold up my head with a dacent hat upon it."

As he spoke he took off and surveyed his own head-covering, which was of the kind described but too accurately as a caubeen. I could not help laughing at the gleam of humor which shot out of his eyes--good eyes they were, too.

"Oh, you villain of the world, is it straight into the hedge you want to drive the lady from America? What'll she be thinkin' of you at all for an unmannerly beast?"

The animal, being unable to answer these reproaches, shook out his mane again, and resumed his jog-trot till he came up with the two girls, who, out of breath from their exertions, were glad to jump into the cart. And so we drove on till we came at last to the bog. It was a strange, wild scene, with the moon shining over it in broad patches of silver, showing the green turf here and the black ground there, with mounds of earth arising ghost-like, and clamps of turf left drying for use, and the clusters of trees, fragments of old-time forests.

We all got down from the cart, whence Barney produced a slane, or turf-spade. He wanted to cut and leave to dry a bernum of sods, and so set to work without delay. He cut around till the sods were of sufficient depth; then he dug them up, and, turning them over, he left them to dry. He explained to me that they had afterward to be "footed "--that is, made into parcels,--and then put into rickles, which are turf-sods piled upon each other to a certain height; and lastly into clamps, which are tall stacks.

Moira took a turn at the spade, her face growing redder with the exertion. Winifred ran over to her.

"Let me have a turn," she said; "you know I like to dig."

And dig Winifred did, in spite of the protestations of Barney and Moira. The former said to me:

"Och, then, you might as well try to stop the wind from whistlin' through the trees beyant as to stop Miss Winifred when she's set on anything!"

He watched her with a comical look as the girl dug the slane into the earth, cutting with great precision and actually raising two or three sods.

"D'ye see that now?" cried the rustic, with a mingling of admiration and amusement.

"Oh, but you're the wonder of the world, Miss Winifred asthore!" cried Moira. "When it was all I could do to raise the sod meself!"

All three then busied themselves in removing some of the dry turf from the clamp which Barney had previously erected, and in stowing it away in the cart. This done, Winifred said to me:

"Come; and you too, Moira and Barney! There's a fairy ring here and we'll dance about it in the moonlight."

"The blessin' of God between us and harm!" cried the alarmed boy and girl in a breath. "Is it dancin' in a fairy ring you'd be doin'?"

"Yes, there and nowhere else!" she said imperiously. "Come!--the lady and I are waiting for you."

Seeing their reluctance, I had gone forward at once, to show them that a fairy ring was no more to me than a patch of earth where the grass was softer and greener, and which was now whitened by the moon. And dance we