okes of the axe, to find that they were
full of resin, smelling strongly of turpentine.

"Yes, it's full of it," said the squire; "that's one reason why the wood
has kept without rotting. Here you two boys may as well do something
for your bread and butter."

Dick said something to himself answering to nineteenth-century Bother!
and awaited his father's orders.

"You can drag that root up to the yard. Get a rope round it and haul.
Humph, no! it will be too heavy for you alone. Leave it."

"Yes, father," said Dick with a sigh of relief, for it was more pleasant
to stand watching the men cutting the peat and the birds flying over, or
to idle about the place, than to be dragging along a great sodden mass
of pine-root.

"Stop!" cried the squire. "I don't want the men to leave their work.
Go and fetch the ass, and harness him to it. You three donkeys can drag
it up between you."

The boys laughed.

"I'm going up the river bank. Get it done before I get back."

"Yes, father," cried Dick. "Come along, Tom."

The task was now undertaken with alacrity, for there was somehow a
suggestion to both of the lads of something in the nature of fun, in
connection with getting the ass to drag that great root.

The companions ran along by the boggy field toward the farm buildings on
the Toft, to seek out the old grey donkey, who was at that moment
contemplatively munching some hay in a corner of the big yard, in whose
stone walls, were traces of carving and pillar with groin and arch.

Now some people once started the idea that a donkey is a very stupid
animal; and, like many more such theories, that one has been handed down
to posterity, and believed in as a natural history fact, while donkey or
ass has become a term of reproach for those not blessed with too much
brain.

Winthorpe's donkey was by no means a stupid beast, and being thoroughly
imbued with the idea that it was a slave's duty to do as little work as
he possibly could for those who held him in bonds, he made a point of
getting out of the way whenever he scented work upon the wind.

He was a grey old gentleman, whose years were looked upon as tremendous;
and as he stood in the corner of the yard munching hay, he now and then
scratched his head against an elaborately carved stone bracket in the
wall which took the form of a grotesque face.

Then his jaws stopped, and it was evident that he scented something, for
he raised his head slightly. Then he swun