"Badly, very badly, but I's forced to leave he. I lock the door and put
the key in me pocket, for I's bin up the hill yonner cuttin' peat sin
seven o'clock this mornin'. He do get awfu' lonesome, he say, an' if me
niece hadn't a married and gone to 'Merica, I should have kept she to
tend him."

"Who is she?" asked Roy, as after a few more words the woman moved on.

"She lives at the bottom of the hill over there. Her husband has been
ill of consumption these last two years, and she works to support them
both. She's a hard-working woman, is Martha Cullen; she works in the
fields harvesting just now; if I could feel I'd be welcome I would go to
sit with her husband sometimes, but she's very queer, she won't let a
neighbor come near him, I have tried more than once. It seems hard on
him to be bedridden there day after day without a soul to speak to; or
any one to give him a drink!"

Roy gazed thoughtfully after the retreating figure of the woman, and
then turned his attention again to the cave.

When an hour later he and Dudley were walking home footsore, and rather
dirty, but with little bundles of treasures from the cave in their
grubby hands, he startled his cousin by saying--

"To-morrow we'll go and see Martha Cullen's husband. It's an opportunity
for us."

"How shall we get in?" queried Dudley.