“It can't be a branch”, said Hogarth; “too heavy—more like a piece of old iron”.
“Well, slip into it. A strapping fellow like you ought to be able to do that bit”.
“But suppose it's valuable?”
“I make you a present of it, as you are so hard up”.
Now Hogarth, by tilting the barrow, with strong effort of four limbs, got the meteorite lodged, while Frankl, his smile lifting the wrinkles above his thick moustache, watched the strain: then, with arms behind, went his contemplative way.
Hogarth rolled the barrow toward Thring.
XXV. — CHURCH ARCHITECTURE
It was already eleven o'clock, the sun shining in a bright sky, under which the country round the Waveney lay broad to the hills of mist which seemed to encompass the valley; yet, when one came to them no hills were there, but were still beyond. When Hogarth came out from the wood upon a footbridge, to his right a hand-sower was sowing broadcast, with a two-handed rhythm, taking seed, as he strode, from his scrip; and to the left ran a path between fields to an eminence with a little church on it; straight northward some Thring houses visible, and north-east, near the river, Lagden Dip orchard. Only two stooping women in fields near Thring could Hogarth see; also, still further, a gig-and-horse whose remote motion was imperceptible; also the trudging two-handed process of the sower nourishing the furrows. But for these, England, supposed to be “overcrowded”, seemed a land once inhabited, but abandoned.