could have shouted for joy. Great stones lay in equal profusion on bed and banks. I lifted one of the heaviest in both hands. I staggered with it to the wall. I came back for another; for some twenty minutes I was so employed; my ultimate reward a fine heap of boulders against the wall.
Then I began to build; then mounted my pile, clawing the wall to keep my balance. My fingers were still many inches from the coping. I jumped down and gave another ten minutes to the back-breaking work of carrying
on, said my landlady; but nobody would have thought it was so near.
“T’squire was to be away to-day,” observed the woman, with the broad vowel sound which I shall not attempt to reproduce in print. “He was going to Lancaster, I believe.”
“So I understood,” said I. “I didn’t think of troubling him,