at the ploughing, could milk the cows, feed the bullocks in the
cattle-yard, and was of some use with the sheep. He began to pick up
words, too, very fast; and suddenly, one fine morning in spring, he
rescued from an untimely death a grand-child of old Swaffer.

"Swaffer's younger daughter is married to Willcox, a solicitor and the
Town Clerk of Colebrook. Regularly twice a year they come to stay with
the old man for a few days. Their only child, a little girl not three
years old at the time, ran out of the house alone in her little white
pinafore, and, toddling across the grass of a terraced garden, pitched
herself over a low wall head first into the horse-pond in the yard below.

"Our man was out with the waggoner and the plough in the field nearest
to the house, and as he was leading the team round to begin a fresh
furrow, he saw, through the gap of the gate, what for anybody else
would have been a mere flutter of something white. But he had
straight-glancing, quick, far-reaching eyes, that only seemed to flinch
and lose their amazing power before the immensity of the sea. He was
barefooted, and looking as outlandish as the heart of Swaffer could
desire. Leaving the horses on the turn, to the inexpressible disgust
of the waggoner he bounded off, going over the ploughed ground in long
leaps, and suddenly appeared before the mother, thrust the child into
her arms, and strode away.

"The pond was not very deep; but still, if he had not had such good
eyes, the child would have perished--miserably suffocated in the foot or
so of sticky mud at the bottom. Old Swaffer walked out slowly into the
field, waited till the plough came over to his side, had a good look
at him, and without saying a word went back to the house. But from that
time they laid out his meals on the kitchen table; and at first, Miss