earth? Is it a different color--like copper?" Copper, he knew, was often
green when it was found.

"Gold is always gold," said Brother Basil, coming out of his fit of dreamy
abstraction. "I have seen it washed out of rivers. Gold is heavier than
gravel, and when the river carries the gold with the earth down from the
mountains, the gold sinks to the bottom."

Padraig said no more, but a day or two later he was missing. The Abbot was
not pleased, for now he would have to take a man from other work to do
what the boy had been doing. Brother Basil was surprised and hurt. He had
never had such a pupil, and had begun to hope that they might always work
together for the love of the work and the glory of their Church.

"I suppose he was tired of us," Brother Basil said with a sigh. "He is
only a boy."

But Padraig was only a few miles away, high up among the hills where a
stream flowed through a ravine,--digging. He remembered seeing something
there long ago, before ever he came to the Abbey. He worked for two or
three days without finding anything at all. Then, just at sunset, he saw a
gleam of something like sunshine in a shadow where no sun shone. He
grubbed like a mole for a few minutes, and half a dozen tiny grains of
gold lay in his palm.

There was not much gold in the stream, but there was some. He dug and
pried and washed the scanty soil until he was sure that no more was there,
and then toward evening of the next day started home to the Abbey. When he
reached the gate it was dark, and the porter was astonished to see him.