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Nor did much light come from the open door, for there was no window on the walled stair to which it opened; only opposite the door a few steps led up into another garret, larger, but with a lower roof, unceiled, and perforated with two or three holes, the panes of glass filling which were no larger than the small blue slates which covered the roof: from these panes a little dim brown light tumbled into the room where the boy sat on the floor, with his head almost between his knees, thinking.
Instruction rarely extended beyond the three R's; but occasionally a newcomer who had somewhere picked up a smattering of algebra, Latin, or astronomy stirred the wonder, if not also the suspicion, of the neighborhood. Schoolbooks were few and costly; crude slates were made from pieces of shale; pencils were fashioned from varicolored soapstone found in the beds of small streams.
Huge cracks had riven the walls of the main body of the house built round three sides of a square. Evidently the place was allowed to fall to ruin; there were holes in the roof, broken slates and tiles lay about below.
Tin is also found, as at Eurieowie, in dykes, composed of quartz crystals and large scales of white mica, traversing the older slates. A similar occurrence takes place at Mount Shoobridge and at Bynoe Harbour, in the Northern Territory of South Australia; indeed, one could not readily separate the stone from these three places if it were mixed.
"Very well, dictator!" said Ben, contemptuously. "But that isn't a good word: he didn't tell them to write on slates." "Come, come, Ben, you are not so ignorant as that," said Mrs. Garth, carefully serious. "Hark, there is a knock at the door! Run, Letty, and open it."
Charles Spooner, affords sufficient proof that narrow gauge railways are not only of great utility, but may be also very remunerative. In Wales the first narrow gauge railway dates from 1832. It was constructed merely for the carriage of slates from Festiniog to Port-Madoc, and some years later another was built from the slate quarries at Penrhyn to the port of Bangor.
It has been common to lay the slates dry, or on moss only, but they are much better when laid with plaster. When they are to be plastered to the pin, then about the first quantity of lime and sand will be sufficient for the purpose, when well mixed and blended together, by properly working them.
He was wrapped in furs, and he roared all day about the garden, and blew the chimney-pots down. "This is a delightful spot," he said, "we must ask the Hail on a visit." So the Hail came. Every day for three hours he rattled on the roof of the castle till he broke most of the slates, and then he ran round and round the garden as fast as he could go.
The boys laughed. "It is better," said the teacher, "when numbers are acting under the direction of one, that they should all act exactly together. In this way we advance much faster than we otherwise should. Be careful, therefore, to do exactly what I command, and nothing more. "Provide a place on your slates large enough to write a single line," added the teacher, in a distinct voice.
There were large and small, fair and dark lads among them, but not one with whom he could not have coped. To this point his scrutiny was first directed. At last he turned his attention to the game. Many of the stones, that had been thrown, struck the slates on the roof; not one had passed over the church.
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