Here jacketed elms made up a stately
colonnade, ready to nod their gay green crests at each stray zephyr's
touch, and throwing broad equidistant bars of shadow across the fresh
turf and the still moist ribbon of metalling beyond. Two piles of stones
lay heaped upon the sward, and, as we drew near, we heard the busy chink
of a stone-breaker's hammer, a melodious sound that fitted both morning
and venue to perfection. Again I fell to thinking on the old coach
road....
The stone-breaker was an old, old man, but the tone in which he gave us
"Good day" was blithe and good to hear, while he looked as fit as a
fiddle.
"You work very fast," said I, as he reached for a mammoth flint.
"Aye," he said. "But it come easy, sir, after so many year."
"Have you always done this?" said Daphne.
The old fellow plucked the gauze from his brow and touched his battered
hat.
"Naught else, m'm. Nine-and-seventy year come Michaelmas I've kep' the
Oxford road. An' me father before me."
"That's a wonderful record," said I amazedly. "And you carry your years
well."
"Thank you, sir. There's a many as tells me that. I'll be ninety-one in
the month o' June. An' can't write me own name, sir."
"That's no shame," said I.
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