"Now, there was a good deal of talk one way and another about Alf; and at last it seemed to be pretty clearly made out that he had been seen for the last time on _this_ side of the ledge, and not on the other. Well, you remember the road over the ledge--the old road? "Of late, Big Lazy-bones had got quite a great man, and he owned both houses and land. Then, too, he had taken to being religious; and that, everybody knew, he didn't take to for nothing--nobody does. People began to whisper about these things. "Just at this time the road over the ledge had to be altered. Folks in bygone days had a great fancy for going straight onwards; and so the old road ran straight over the ledge; but now-a-days we like to have things smooth and easy; and so the new road was made to run down along the river. While they were making it, there was digging and mining enough to bring down the whole mountain about their ears; and the magistrates and all the officers who have to do with that sort of thing were there. One day while the men were digging deep in the stony ground, one of them took up something which he thought was a stone; but it turned out to be the bones of a man's hand instead; and a wonderfully strong hand it seemed to be, for the man who got it fell flat down directly. That man was Big Lazy-bones. The magistrate was just strolling about round there, and they fetched him to the place; and then all the bones belonging to a whole man were dug out. The Doctor, too, was fetched; and he put them all together so cleverly that nothing was wanting but the flesh. And then it struck some of the people that the skeleton was just about the same size and make as Alf, the pedlar. 'I'll call again,' Alf used to say.