But instead of flowing over the land, it
sank into the great mass of soft bog below, and forced its way
underground, till it reached the lake--there by that old beech.'
'The clay into which the roots of the trees had fastened themselves
was quite solid, and was held fast in the thick tangle of roots. So
for many years you could hear the river floween beneath the ground
with a subdued gurgleen sound. Hunters avoided the wood, for some
careless persons had come here and fallen through the holes into the
rusheen tide. Their bodies were afterwards found floateen in Silent
Lake. One day my grandfather and two of his men came to see the
treacherous underground river; and they moved cautiously down the
stream till they came where it sank into a hole in the ground, that
looked like a huge sluice-way.
'My grandfather looked at the strange sight for a time, and then at
the great bridge of trees and boulders that lay across the original
course of the river. They wondered why he gazed at all so earnestly;
and why his eyes grew so bright. Then he slapped the capteen, who was
yet a boy, upon the back, and said:
'"Just the very place we want.
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