"He did the work which was given him with an intelligence which surprised old Swaffer. By-and-by it was discovered that he could help at the ploughing, could milk the cows, feed the bullocks in the cattle-yard, and was of some use with the sheep. He began to pick up words, too, very fast;and suddenly, one fine morning in spring, he res-cued from an untimely death a grand-child of old Swaffer.
"Swaffer's younger daughter is married to Willcox, a solicitor and the Town Clerk of Cole-brook. Regularly twice a year they come to stay with the old man for a few days. Their only child, a little girl not three years old at the time, ran out of the house alone in her little white pinafore, and, toddling across the grass of a terraced garden, pitched herself over a low wall head first into the horsepond in the yard below.
"Our man was out with the waggoner and the plough in the field nearest to the house, and as he was leading the team round to begin a fresh fur-row, he saw, through the gap of the gate, what for anybody else would have been a mere flutter of something white. But he had straight-glancing, quick, far-reaching eyes, that only seemed to flinch and lose their amazing power before the immensity of the sea. He was barefooted, and looking as out-landish as the heart of Swaffer could desire. Leav-ing the horses on the turn, to the inexpressible dis-ust of the waggoner he bounded off, going over the ploughed ground in long leaps, and suddenly appeared before the mother, thrust the child into her arms, and strode away.