sound, something like the quack of a duck, which, though it was
common enough here about this time, was not common to him.

Looking through the trees Fitzpiers soon perceived the origin of the
noise. The barking season had just commenced, and what he had heard
was the tear of the ripping tool as it ploughed its way along the
sticky parting between the trunk and the rind. Melbury did a large
business in bark, and as he was Grace's father, and possibly might be
found on the spot, Fitzpiers was attracted to the scene even more than
he might have been by its intrinsic interest. When he got nearer he
recognized among the workmen the two Timothys, and Robert Creedle, who
probably had been "lent" by Winterborne; Marty South also assisted.

Each tree doomed to this flaying process was first attacked by Creedle.
With a small billhook he carefully freed the collar of the tree from
twigs and patches of moss which incrusted it to a height of a foot or
two above the ground, an operation comparable to the "little toilet" of
the executioner's victim. After this it was barked in its erect
position to a point as high as a man could reach. If a fine product of
vegetable nature could ever be said to look ridiculous it was the case
now, when the oak stood naked-legged, and as if ashamed, till the
axe-man came and cut a ring round it, and the two Timothys finished the
work with the crosscut-saw.

As soon as it had fallen the barkers attacked it like locusts, and in a
short time not a particle of rind was left on the trunk and larger
limbs. Marty South was an adept at peeling the upper parts, and there
she stood encaged amid the mass of twigs and buds like a great bird,
running her tool into the smallest branches, beyond the farthest points
to which the skill and patience of the men enabled them to
proceed--branches which, in their lifetime, had swayed high above the
bulk of the wood, and caught the latest and earliest rays of the sun
and moon while the lower part of the forest was still in darkness.

"You seem to have a better instrument than they, Marty," said Fitzpiers.

"No, sir," she said, holding up the tool--a horse's leg-bone fitted
into a handle and filed to an edge--"'tis only that they've less
patience with the twigs, because their time is worth more than mine."

A little shed had been constructed on the spot, of thatched hurdles and
boughs, and in front of it was a fire, over which a kettle sung.
Fitzpiers sat down ins