Part 29 (2/2)
”His proper name is 'The Eton Boy',” replied the wretch wretchedly
And neither of us could see anything in the other's re the stable together, we gravely agreed that a thunderstor about
Still a new eirl's face and voice, even in the uneasy movement of her hands At last it broke out--
”I s'pose you haven't had any dinner?”
”Don't let that trouble you, Miss Q----”
”Father's not hi an old straw-stack; and I'm sure we never done it
Mother's been at hiht between the house and the road; and it was '78 straw, rotten with rust But I' vengeance on whoever done it; and he's awful at finding out things”
”Mr Q---- mentioned it to me,” I replied, with polite interest
”But don't you think it seeer to do?
Perhaps some of your own horses or cattle trod on a match that Mr Q---- had accidentally dropped there himself?”
”That couldn't be; for father never allows any matches about the place, only the
My brothers has to smoke on the sly”
”Have you many Irish people about here, Miss Q----?”
”None only the Fogartys; and they're the best neighbours we got”
”And was nobody seen near the stack before the fire broke out?”
”Not a soul I was past there myself, not twentys white pig, curled under the edge of the stack, that always juarden Well, father's always threatening to shoot that pig; and un and went after it; and us in a fright for fear he would find it, but he did n't
Then e seen hiht, I went over to the stack quietly, to shoo the pig hon of fire then, and nobody in sight Then -yard, and s off the line, when little Enoch seen the fire We couldn't make it out at all; and I examined up and down the drain for boot-marks, but there was none
And just before you co, to see if his feet had struck fire on anything; but I was as wise as ever”
”Ah! the horse was shod, Miss Q----?”
”No; he's barefooted all round Well, he trod on a piece of a brick, near the corner of the garden; but the fire never travelled from there
It's very unaccountable”
”Very I wonder would there have been such a thing as a broken bottle anywhere about the stack, Miss Q----? The sun ca, I noticed; and it's a well-known scientific fact that the action of the solar rays, focussed by such a nition--provided, of course, that the inflale of refraction”
”I don't know, sir,” she replied reverently
”Why, gold has been melted in four seconds, silver in three, and steel in ten, under the mere influence of the sun's heat-rays, concentrated by a lens”-- she shi+vered, and I nanimously withheld my hand ”If this hypothesis should prove untenable,” I continued gently, ”we nition, produced by chemical combination Nor are we confined to this supposition Silex is an eleely into the composition of wheaten straw; and it is worthy of reenerated by the agency of thermo-dynamics, some form of silex is enlisted--flint, for instance, or the silicious covering of endogenous plants, such as baht be built on this”
”It seelad the old stack's out of the road The place looks a lot cleaner”
”Well, I won't keep you out in the sun,” said I reluctantly
”Good bye, Miss Q---- And I'ed to you”