chords, as a
bird without song?

* * *

Genius is oftentimes but a poor fool, who, clinging to a thing that
belongs to no age, Truth, does oftentimes live on a pittance and die in
a hospital; but whosoever has the gift to measure aright their
generation is invincible--living, they shall enjoy all the vices
undetected; and dead, on their tombstones they shall possess all the
virtues.

* * *

Cant, naked, is honoured throughout England. Cant, clothed in gold, is a
king never in England resisted.

* * *

"Ben Dare, he be dead?" he asked suddenly. "They telled me so by
Darron's side."[A]

[A] The river Derwent.

Ambrose bent his head, silently.

"When wur't?"

"Last simmar-time, i' th' aftermath."

"It were a ston' as killed him?"

"Ay," said Ambrose, softly shading his eyes with his hand from the sun
that streamed through the aisles of pine.

"How wur't?"

"They was a blastin'. He'd allus thoct as he'd dee that way, you know.
They pit mair pooder i' quarry than common; and the ston' it split, and
roared, and crackit, wi' a noise like tha crack o' doom. And one bit on
't, big as ox, were shot i' th' air, an' fell, unlookit for like, and
dang him tew the groun', and crushit him,--a-lyin' richt athwart his
brist."

"An' they couldna stir it?"

"They couldna. I heerd tha other min screech richt tew here, an' I knew
what it wur, tha shrill screech comin' jist i' top o' tha blastin' roar;
an' I ran, an' ran--na gaze-hound fleeter. An' we couldna raise it--me
an' Tam, an' Job, an' Gideon o' the Mere, an' Moses Legh o' Wissen Edge,
a' strong min and i' our prime. We couldna stir it, till Moses o' Wissen
Edge he thoct o' pittin' fir-poles underneath--poles as was sharp an'
slim i' thur ends, an' stout an' hard further down. Whin tha poles was
weel thrust under we heaved, an' heaved, an' heaved, and got it slanted
o' one side, and drawed him out; an' thin it were too late, too late! A'
tha brist was crushit in--frushed flesh and bone together. He jist
muttered i' his throat, 'Tha little lass, tha little lass!' and then he
turned him on his side, and hid his face upo' the sod. When we raised
him he wur dead."

The voice of Ambrose sank very low; and where he leaned over his smithy
door the tears fell slowly down his sun-bronzed cheeks.

"Alack a day!" sighed Daffe, softly. "Sure a better un niver drew breath
i' the varsal world!"

"An' that's trew,