"It takes all summer to get the peat dry enough to burn," Danny told her. "In August and September there will be hundreds of little donkeys, all over the country, going to market loaded with big creels of dry peat. Twenty bricks of the peat are sold for a sixpence." Danny was cutting turf for Patrick and Uncle Barney in a bog which lay on the border of Lough Gara, and Kathleen stopped occasionally to rest her arms and watch a boat-load of peasants who had hired the next bank to Patrick's, and who came across the lake to cut it. It was hard work to carry the wet turf, and she was quite ready to go home when Patrick drove the mule down to the lake for them at five o'clock. "Two of Mike Drury's cows were swallowed up in a moving bog over in County Galway last week," she heard him tell Danny. It was the first time she had ever heard of a moving bog, and she looked at him with frightened eyes. "Will this bog swallow Danny up?" she asked. "Hop into the trap and forget it, alanna," replied Patrick cheerfully. "Nothing of the sort will ever happen here. This bog is too well drained for that. But they do say that in times past whole houses have been swallowed up in the bogs." "What made the bog-land?" Kathleen asked, as they rode along toward home. "The bushes and trees gradually fell into the swamp and decayed, and those that grew above them fell and decayed in the same way," Patrick told her. "It was going on before ever the giants or fairies lived in the country." "Here's something I found in the bog more than a foot below the surface," said Danny. "It must have been buried there for hundreds of years, for the turf was solid all around it." He took from his pocket a small iron cross of curious design and beautiful workmanship, and Patrick examined it with great interest. "It is an ancient ornament," he said, "such as they used to make here in Ireland in olden times. Mayhap it belonged to Queen Maive herself, she that was Queen of the West nearly two thousand years ago. All kinds of things are found in the bogs. Sometimes men find firkins of butter and moulds of cheese which have been buried for years and years. Bee will tell you all about it; 'tis she that has the learning," he added proudly, and hurried home to show the cross to his wife. There was a happy ending to Kathleen's hard day's work in the bog, when, sitting among the flowers of the old rath, with the soft wind blowing through the trees over their heads, Bee told them about the time when the men of Ireland were famous workers in metal. "In the National Museum at Dublin there are many of the most precious bits of handiwork to be found in all Europe," she said. "No doubt they would be glad to have this cross in one of their glass cases." But Danny leaned over and put it into Kathleen's hand. "Those that are slow at knitting stockings are oftentimes quickest at catching turfs," he said. "You may have the cross to wear, mavourneen, if you like."