By-and-bye he came to a standstill, looked over the fence, and
listened. Up among the larches a faint chopping sound could just be
heard, irregular but persistent. The man put a hand to his mouth, and
hailed--

"Hi-i-i! Knock off! Stable clock's gone noo-oon!"

Came back no answer. But the chopping ceased at once; and this
apparently satisfied the man, who leaned against the rail and waited,
chewing a spear of brome-grass, and staring steadily, but incuriously,
at his boots. Two minutes passed without stir or sound in this corner
of the land. The human figure was motionless. The birds in the
plantation were taking their noonday siesta. A brown butterfly rested,
with spread wings, on the rail--so quietly, he might have been pinned
there.

A cracked voice was suddenly lifted a dozen yards off, and within the
plantation--

"Such a man as I be to work! Never heard a note o' that blessed clock,
if you'll believe me. Ab-sorbed, I s'pose."

A thin withered man in a smock-frock emerged from among the
cherry-trees with a bill-hook in his hand, and stooped to pass under
the rail.

"Ewgh! The pains I suffer in that old back of mine you'll never
believe, my son, not till the appointed time when you come to suffer
'em yoursel'. Well-a-well! Says I just now, up among the larches,