"Sure, I 'll step down and see what's gone wid him," said Mick.

The descent of the cliff, though not riskless, was no great feat
for an active youth, and Mick accomplished it safely, but to little
purpose, he thought at first, since the irreclaimable cow appeared
to be the sole denizen of the shrinking beach. However, when he
had shouted and scrambled for some time without result, he came
abruptly upon a nook among the piled-up rocks, where a very small
black-headed boy in tattered petticoats was digging the sandy floor
with a razor-shell.

"Och, it's there you are," said Mick, stepping down from a weedy
ledge; "and what have you in it at all that you didn't hear me
bawlin' to you?"

"Throops," said Pat, gloatingly, almost too absorbed t o glance
off his work; "it's Ballyclavvy, the way it did be in the school
readin'-book at Duffclane. There's the Roossian guns" (he pointed
to a row of black-mouthed mussel-shells, mounted on periwinkle
carriages), "and here's the sides of the valley I'm makin'; long
and narrer it was. Just step round and look at it from where I am,
Micky, but don't be clumpin' your fut on the French cavalary."

"The divil's in it all," said Mick, with a sudden bitter vehemence,
which he accounted for to himself by adding, as he pointed toward
the seething white line: "D' you see where that's come to, you
little bosthoon? And you sittin' grubbin' away here as if you were
pitaty-diggin' a dozen mile inland."

Pat looked in the desired direction, but misapprehended the object