boy passed near him he
ventured to say, pointing to the neat piles of wood:

"What be yon?"

The boy stared.

"Yon?" he repeated; "why, yon be legs and rungs of cheers--that's what
we make 'em fur."

"Where be the cheers?" pursued Frank.

"We send all yon down to Wickham, to the cheer factory," answered the
boy; "we don't fit 'em together here."

He seated himself at Frank's side as he spoke, and poked at the fire
with a long pointed stick.

"How do they get 'em down to Wickham?" asked Frank, bent on getting as
much information as possible.

The boy pointed to a broad cart-track, which descended abruptly from one
side of the clearing.

"They fetch a cart up yonder, and take 'em down into the high-road."

"And how fur is it?"

"A matter of two miles, and then three miles further to the factory, and
there they make 'em up into cheers, and then they send 'em up to Lunnon
Town by the rail."

Frank remembered the great cart-loads of chairs that he had seen passing
through Danecross, but what chiefly struck him in his companion's answer
were the two words "Lunnon Town." They fell on his ear with a new
meaning. He had read of Lunnon Town, and heard schoolmaster talk of it,
but had never imagined it as a place he could see, any more than
America. Now, suddenly, an idea of such vast enterprise seized on his
mind, that it stunned him into silence. He would go to Lunnon Town!
Everyone became rich there. He would become rich too; then he would go
back to Green Highlands, and give all his money to mother; there would
be no need for any more field-work, and they would all be happy. At the
thought of mother his eyes filled with tears, for he knew how unhappy
she would be when he did not come back, and how she would stand at the
door and look out for him. He longed to set about making this great
fortune at once, it seemed a waste of time to sit idle; but he knew he
must rest that night, for his legs felt stiff and aching; besides he had
to work out his meal.

In half an hour the deaf man's lathe was hard at work again, and the two
boys busily employed near. Frank's new friend showed him how to arrange
the pieces of wood neatly in piles when they were turned and smoothed.
He hummed a tune in the intervals of conversation and presently asked:

"Can yer sing?"

Frank _could_ sing--very well. He was one of the best singers in
Danecross choir, and Mrs Darvell held her head very high when she heard
her boy's vo