“Yes, it’s full of it,” said the squire; “that’s one reason why the wood has kept without rotting. Here you two boys may as well do something for your bread and butter.”
Dick said something to himself answering to nineteenth-century Bother! and awaited his father’s orders.
“You can drag that root up to the yard. Get a rope round it and haul. Humph, no! it will be too heavy for you alone. Leave it.”
“Yes, father,” said Dick with a sigh of relief, for it was more pleasant to stand watching the men cutting the peat and the birds flying over, or to idle about the place, than to be dragging along a great sodden mass of pine-root.
“Stop!” cried the squire. “I don’t want the men to leave their work. Go and fetch the ass, and harness him to it. You three donkeys can drag it up between you.”
The boys laughed.
“I’m going up the river bank. Get it done before I get back.”
“Yes, father,” cried Dick. “Come along, Tom.”
The task was now undertaken with alacrity, for there was somehow a suggestion to both of the lads of something in the nature of fun, in connection with getting the ass to drag that great root.
The companions ran along by the boggy field toward the farm buildings on the Toft, to seek out the old grey donkey, who was at that moment contemplatively munching some hay in a corner of the big yard, in whose stone walls, were traces of carving and pillar with groin and arch.