"But he couldn't take the house, nor yet look after it, vor us wasn't going to have him back again after the way he'd used us, and us wasn't going to have 'en letting or selling the place neither, and making money out of our misfortunes," said the Wallower in Wealth. "He tried to ruin us all, he ha' brought the Mudges to awful poverty, and he ha' pretty near drove the Dyers into the asylum, and he stole a musical box what ha' been in my family vor generations out o' mind. It wur a fine house, sure enough, but 'tis all gone now. There's nought left but foundations, and there's not much o' them, and you can't see 'em, vor they'm covered wi' grass. The trees be all cut down, and the shrubs ha' got moved, and the garden wall ain't there no longer. The house warn't there one day, and gone the next, as some volk say. It seemed to go so gradual that no one noticed it really was a leaving us. Us all knew why it wur going, and how it wur going; but us didn't talk about it much, vor what be everybody's business ain't nobody's business." "The youngsters started it," said Squinting Jack. "They smashed the windows and got inside. They sort o' took possession of the place and played there every day. They played at soldiers mostly. One lot o' children climbed up into the roof, and defended themselves wi' tiles and laths, while another lot attacked 'em wi' doors and window frames. And when they'd finished play, they took home all the broken stuff vor firewood. That wur the beginning, but in an amazing short time the house began to alter; it wur never the same place after the children got playing in it. When an old woman wanted wood vor the fire, she just went vor it; and when any one wanted a new door or window, they knew where one wur handy. Then one or two started building a cottage, and as the cottages went up Windward House come down. Some mornings us missed a bit o' wall what seemed to ha' fallen in the night, but nobody asked questions, vor us all had a hand in it, but there's no evidence to prove it. You won't find anything worth taking away now, not if you was to search wi' a miscroscope. The house didn't vanish away suddenly, not by no manner of means." "It seemed to me," said the Gentle Shepherd, "as if it melted." "It vanished in small pieces," added the Dumpy Philosopher. The Wallower in Wealth had nothing more to say. The giant tortoise had transferred itself to his garden, having apparently engaged a wheelbarrow for that purpose. Either it was anxious to adopt the Wallower in Wealth, or he desired to study its habits in order that he too might attain eternal life. Or possibly he was determined to obtain some compensation for the lost musical box, through the possession of a genuine antique, which might with some propriety be styled the sole remaining item of the Captain's furniture.