erywhere if you dig deep enough, ain't there? But
what I said about the springs put her out o' conceit o' diggin'
haw-haws, an' she took an' built a white tile dairy instead. But when I
sent in my last bill for the stables, the gentleman he paid it 'thout
even lookin' at it, and I hadn't forgotten nothin', I do assure you.
More than that, he slips two five-pound notes into my hand in the
library, an' "Ralph," he says--he allers called me by name--"Ralph," he
says, "you've saved me a heap of expense an' trouble this autumn." I
didn't say nothin', o' course. I knowed he didn't want any haw-haws
digged acrost his park no more'n _I_ did, but I never said nothing. No
more he didn't say nothing about my blue-brick stables, which was really
the best an' honestest piece o' work I'd done in quite a while. He give
me ten pounds for savin' him a hem of a deal o' trouble at home. I
reckon things are pretty much alike, all times, in all places.'

Hal and he laughed together. Dan couldn't quite understand what they
thought so funny, and went on with his work for some time without
speaking.

When he looked up, Mr. Springett, alone, was wiping his eyes with his
green and yellow pocket-handkerchief.

'Bless me, Mus' Dan, I've been asleep,' he said. 'An' I've dreamed a
dream which has made me laugh--laugh as I ain't laughed in a long day.
I can't remember what 'twas all about, but they do say that when old men
take to laughin' in their sleep, they're middlin' ripe for the next
world. Have you been workin' honest, Mus' Dan?'

'Ra-ather,' said Dan, unclamping the schooner from the vice. 'And look
how I've cut myself with the small gouge.'

'Ye-es. You want a lump o' cobwebs to that,' said Mr. Springett. 'Oh, I
see you've put it on already. That's right, Mus' Dan.'

KING HENRY VII. AND THE SHIPWRIGHTS

Harry our King in England, from London town is gone,
And comen to Hamull on the Hoke in the countie of Suthampton.
For there lay _The Mary of the Tower_, his ship of war so strong,
And he would discover, certaynely, if his shipwrights did him wrong.

He told not none of his setting forth, nor yet where he would go,
(But only my Lord of Arundel,) and meanly did he show,
In an old jerkin and patched hose that no man might him mark;
With his frieze hood and cloak about, he looked like any clerk.

He was at Hamull on the Hoke about the hour of the tide,
And saw the _Mary_ haled into dock, the winter to abide,