It was a pretty sight, and a much easier way, Isobel thought, of earning your living than venturing out with nets and lines; and she resolved to tell the Sea Urchins about it, so that they might make a small balk for themselves on their desert island, if the colonel would allow them. She and her mother wandered round the old abbey, while Mr. Binks was engaged in giving some directions to Bob; but there was nothing to be seen except a few tumble-down walls and a fragment of what might once have been part of an east window. They were lifting away the thick ivy which had covered a corner stone, when, looking up, Isobel suddenly caught sight of a familiar figure coming towards them across the rough broken flags of the transept.
"O mother," she whispered, "it's Colonel Smith!" and advancing rather shyly a step or two, she met him with a beaming face.
"Why, it's my little friend again!" cried the colonel. "Hunting for more antiquities? I wish you would find them. This is surely your mother" (raising his hat).--"Your daughter will, no doubt, have told you, madam, what an interesting discovery she made on my island. I feel I am very much indebted to her."
"She was equally delighted," replied Mrs. Stewart. "She has talked continually about this wonderful stone and its runic inscription. I am hoping to be able to take a sketch of it before we leave. I hear there is carving on the lower portion, as well as the runes."
"So there is, but it's half hidden by the soil. I'm taking some of my men to-morrow to dig it out of the ground and raise it up, and am sending for a photographer to take several views of it. It is of special value to me, owing to the particular Norse dialect employed, which is similar to that on several monuments in the Isle of Man, and shows that the same race of invaders must have swept across the north, and probably penetrated as far as Ireland."
"I have seen runic crosses in Ireland," said Mrs. Stewart. "There's a beautifully ornamented one near Ballymoran, though the carving is more like Celtic than Teutonic work--those strange interlacing animals which you find in ancient Erse manuscripts. I am very interested in old Celtic remains, and have a good many sketches of them at home."