He had gone some distance when a granite roller lying on the ploughed
slope beneath a clump of bushes invited him to rest. Mr. Fogo
accepted the invitation, and seated himself to contemplate the scene.
The bush at his back was comfortable, and by degrees the bright
intoxication of his senses settled to a drowsy content. He pulled
out his pipe and lit it. Through the curls of blue smoke he watched
the glitter on the water below, the prismatic dazzle of the clods
where their glossy surface caught the sun, the lazy flap-flap of a
heron crossing the valley, and he heard along the uplands the voice
(sweetest of rural sounds, and, alas! now obsolete) of a farm-boy
chanting to his team, "Brisk and Speedwell, Goodluck and Lively"--and
so sank by degrees into a soothing sleep.
When he awoke and looked lazily upwards, at first his eyes
encountered gloom. "Have I been sleeping all day?" was his first
thought, not without alarm. But under the darkness a bright ray was
stealing. Mr. Fogo put up his hand and encountered his umbrella,
carefully spread over his face for shade.
This was mysterious; he could swear the umbrella was folded and lying
at his side when he dropped asleep. "It must be Caleb," he thought,
and stared around. No Caleb was in sight, but he noticed that the
sun was dropping towards the west, and noticed also, not fifty yards
to the left, and quietly cropping a tuft of bushes, a red bull.
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