By noon a length of unclean jungle had turned itself into a cattle-proof
barrier, tufted here and there with little plumes of the sacred holly
which no woodman touches without orders.

'Now we've a witness-board to go by!' said Jesse at last.

'She won't be as easy as this all along,' Jabez answered. 'She'll need
plenty stakes and binders when we come to the brook.'

'Well, ain't we plenty?' Jesse pointed to the ragged perspective ahead
of them that plunged downhill into the fog. 'I lay there's a cord an' a
half o' firewood, let alone faggots, 'fore we get anywheres anigh
the brook.'

'The brook's got up a piece since morning,' said Jabez. 'Sounds like's
if she was over Wickenden's door-stones.'

Jesse listened, too. There was a growl in the brook's roar as though she
worried something hard.

'Yes. She's over Wickenden's door-stones,' he replied. 'Now she'll flood
acrost Alder Bay an' that'll ease her.'

'She won't ease Jim Wickenden's hay none if she do,' Jabez grunted. 'I
told Jim he'd set that liddle hay-stack o' his too low down in the
medder. I _told_ him so when he was drawin' the bottom for it.'

'I told him so, too,' said Jesse. 'I told him 'fore ever you did. I told
him when the County Council tarred the roads up along.' He pointed