and then he fell to with his shovel and dug, while I ran
with my little spud to help.

"Plaise keep out of way, miss; I be afeard of knocking you. Not but what
you works very brave indeed, miss."

Knowing what men are concerning "female efforts," I got out of the
strong man's way, although there was plenty of room for me. What he
wanted to do was plain enough--to dig a trench down the empty bed of the
Moon River, deep enough to drain that pit before the stream came down
again.

"Never thought to run a race against my own old dam," he said, as he
stopped for a moment to recover breath. "Us never knows what us may have
to do. Old dam must be a'most busting now. But her's sound enough, till
her beginneth to run over."

I did not say a word, because it might have done some mischief, but I
could not help looking rather anxiously up stream, for fear of the water
coming down with a rush, as it very soon must do. Master Withypool had
been working, not as I myself would have done, from the lips of the dark
pit downward, but from a steep run some twenty yards below, where there
was almost a little cascade when the river was full flowing; from this
he had made his channel upward, cutting deeper as he came along, till
now, at the brink of the obstinate pool, his trench was two feet deep
almost. I had no idea that any man could work so with a shovel, which
seems such a clumsy tool compared with a spade: but a gentleman who
knows the country and the people told me that, with their native weapon,
Moonites will do as much digging in an hour as other folk get through in
an hour and a half with a spade. But this may be only, perhaps, because
they are working harder.

"Now," said Master Withypool at last, standing up, with a very red face,
and desiring to keep all that unheeded--"now, miss, to you it belongeth
to tap this here little cornder, if desirable. Plaise to excoose of me
going up of bank to tell 'e when the wet cometh down again."

"Please to do nothing of the sort," I answered, knowing that he offered
to stand out of sight from a delicate dread of intrusion. "Please to tap
the pool yourself, and stay here, as a witness of what we find in it."

"As you plaise, miss, as you plaise. Not a moment for to lose in
arguing. Harken now, the water is atopping of our dam. Her will be here
in five minutes."

With three or four rapid turns of his shovel, which he spun almost
as fast as a house-maid spins a mop, he fetched out the pl