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For a long time he stood staring at the railings, and then he thought, "I'll just walk round; perhaps I'll come across a stile; if the worst comes to the worst, I'll climb over." The sun was setting; he walked along the shore, at the foot of the mountain, and the railings were high above him; he could hear the sound of music and singing.
My days were more than ever dedicated to roaming over the country; and in the evening I used to love to scull my skiff far up the stream, and then float quietly down while I watched the sun setting, and the luxurious yet modest forget-me-not, on the banks; then leave my boat to sit motionless on a retired stile, and listen to "the still small voice" of the mysterious bat, or the drowsy soothing hum of the beetle.
Small boys leave their games and mud-pies, and gather round in silence; they have seen me get off a hundred times, but their interest in the matter seems always new. Not unfrequently an idle cobbler, in red night-cap and leathern apron, leans on a broken stile, and honours my proceedings with his attention. I shoot off, and the human knot dissolves.
"Yes," said Anne; "but Aunt Alice is so finikin and fidgety; she never wets her feet, and can't get over a stile, and is afraid of a cow; and he wants us all to be like her." "And he makes Papa and Mamma mind things that they don't mind by nature," said Susan. "Mamma always tells us to be good, and never play at hockey in the house when he's there," said Anne.
So she said: "Rope! rope! hang butcher; butcher won't kill ox; ox won't drink water; water won't quench fire; fire won't burn stick; stick won't beat dog; dog won't bite pig; piggy won't get over the stile; and I sha'n't get home to-night." But the rope wouldn't hang the butcher. A little further on she met a rat.
But we have no such design of imposing on our reader; and therefore those who object to the heathen theology, may, if they please, change our goddess into the above-mentioned basket-woman. Our intention, in short, is to introduce our heroine with the utmost solemnity in our power, with an elevation of stile, and all other circumstances proper to raise the veneration of our reader.
He immediately admitted that he had passed through the field. But in contradiction to the farm-bailiff, he declared that he had looked at his watch at the moment before he crossed the stile, and that the time by it was exactly a quarter past eight.
Some time in the course of that afternoon, two working men met with friendly greeting at the stile so often named. One was a thorough specimen of a Manchester man; born of factory workers, and himself bred up in youth, and living in manhood, among the mills.
His face was white white as I had seen it in my dream. "Hullo!" I said, and stared. "Why aren't you in London?" "It's all up," he said.... "Adjudicated?" "No!" I stared at him for a moment, and then got off the stile. We stood swaying and then came forward with a weak motion of his arms like a man who cannot see distinctly, and caught at and leant upon the stile.
There was no organ to play "off," but the bells were an excellent substitute, and it was these that presently melted the heart of Gertie. When the Major had disappeared, limping, the two climbed over the stile and sat down with their bundles under the hedge, but they presently found that they had chosen something of a thoroughfare.
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