f one flinging a stone. "Often, ha, ha!
_So_ high." He spread his hand, palm downward, about five feet from the
ground.

"Well I'm blest!" said the Emigrant softly. They stood now on the green
together, a little apart from the crowd.

"So high, eh? Li'l boy, eh? Fling--me know!" He took the emigrant's
hand again and shook it, smiling and looking him straight in the eyes
with innocent gaiety. "These boys--no good; no good now. Pete, _he_
fling _so_. Li'l boy--quite li'l boy. Me know, eh? Dicky know!"

"Well," repeated the Emigrant; "I'm blest, but this is funny!"

THE LADY OF THE RED ADMIRALS

"_All day within the dreamy house
The doors upon their hinges creak'd,
The blue fly sung in the pane; the mouse
Behind the mouldering wainscot shrieked,
Or from the crevice peer'd about,
Old faces glimmer'd thro' the doors,
Old footsteps trod the upper floors,
Old voices called her from without._"--MARIANA.

My eyes had been occupied with the grey chimneys below, among the
Spanish chestnuts, at the very moment when I slipped on the northern
face of Skirrid and twisted my ankle. This indeed explains the
accident; and the accident explains why my interest in the house with
the grey chimneys suddenly became a personal one. Five miles separated
me from my inn in Aber town. But the white smoke of a goods train went
crawling across the green and cultivated plain at my feet; and I knew,
though I carried no map, that somewhere under the slope to my left must
hide the country station of Llanfihangel. To reach it I must pass the
house, and there, no doubt, would happen on someone to set me on the
shortest way.

So I picked up my walking-stick and hobbled down the hillside, albeit
with pain. Where the descent eased a little I found and followed a
foot-track, which in time turned into a sunk road scored deep with old
cart-ruts, and so brought me to a desolate farmstead, slowly dropping to
ruin there in the perpetual shadow of the mountain. The slates that had
fallen from the roof of byre and stable lay buried already under the
growth of nettle and mallow and wild parsnip; and the yard-wall was down
in a dozen places. I shuffled through one of these gaps, and almost at
once found myself face to face with a park-fence of split oak--in yet
worse repair, if that were possible. It stretched away right and left
with promise of a noble circumference; but no hand had repaired it for
at least twenty years.