“‘Hard at it, Uncle Bill?’ says I.
“‘Well, no, Tumm,’ says he; ‘not hard. Back give warnin’ a couple o’ year ago,’ says he, ‘an’ I been sort o’ easin’ off for fear o’ accident. I’ve quit the Far Away grounds,’ says he, ‘but I been doin’ very fair on Widows’ Shoal. They’s on’y one o’ them fishin’ there nowadays, ah’ she ’lowed she didn’t care.’
“‘An’ when,’ says I, ‘is you ’lowin’ t’ knock off?’
“‘Jus’ as soon as I gets through, Tumm,’ says he. ‘I won’t be a minute longer.’
“Then along come the lean-cheeked, pig-eyed, scrawny-whiskered son of a squid which owned the bit o’ prope’ty that Bill Hulk had coveted for thirty year. Man o’ the name o’ Tom Budge; but as he seldom done it, they called un Neverbudge; an’ Gingerbread Cove is full o’ Never-budges t’ this day. Bill ’lowed I might as well go along o’ he an’ Tom t’ overhaul the bit o’ land they was tryin’ t’ trade; so out we put on the inland road—round Burnt Bight, over the crest o’ Knock Hill, an’ along the alder-fringed path. ’Twas in a green, still, soft-breasted little valley—a little pool o’ sunshine an’ grass among the hills—with Ragged Ridge t’ break the winds from the sea, an’ the wooded slope o’ the Hog’s Back t’ stop the nor’westerly gales. ’Twas a lovely spot, sir, believe me, an’ a gentle-hearted one, too, lyin’ deep in the warmth an’ glory o’ sunshine, where a man might lay his head on the young grass an’ go t’ sleep, not mindin’ about nothin’ no more. Ol’ Bill Hulk liked it wonderful well. Wasn’t no square o’ ground on that coast that he’d rather own, says he, than the little plot in the sou’east corner o’ that graveyard.
“‘Sight rather have that, Tumm,’ says he, ‘than a half-acre farm.’
“’Twas so soft an’ snug an’ sleepy an’ still in that little graveyard that I couldn’t blame un for wantin’ t’ stretch out somewheres an’ stay there forever.
“‘Ay,’ says he, ‘an’ a thirty-foot potato-patch throwed in!’
“‘‘’Tis yours at the price,’ says Tom Neverbudge.
“‘If,’ says Bill Hulk, ‘’twasn’t a second-handed plot. See them graves in the sou’west corner, Tumm?’