Eastwood Ellah’s appearance was extraordinary. He was hatless and unbraced, and his feet were bare and cut and covered with blood. His face was crimson, and his prominent glassy eyes stared unnaturally before him. From out of his pocket peeped his brass ear-trumpet. He perspired violently; the whole of his scalp twitched with the corrugation of his brows. One hand was outstretched to balance his painful steps; and in the other he bore that of which Arthur Monjoy, at the meeting of the Executive, had refused to speak--(for the methodical Matthew, who scoffed at ballads, would have ranked this as mere full-moon madness)--the fork of green hazel, the _virgula divina_, the rod that will curl and turn in a man’s hands and drip out its sap over the spot where silver lies. All at once Ellah gave an inarticulate cry, shrill as the crying of the wheeling pewits, and shouted hoarsely: “I can’t--I can’t--I tell ye I can’t bide it!” “Can’t bide what?” Monjoy demanded, turning in an ill humour. “The sight o’ my own blood. I say I can’t--’twill madden me----” Monjoy led him to a grey boulder, bade him turn his face away, and made such a cleansing of his wounded feet as he was able with a handkerchief. Ellah moaned miserably the while. Monjoy drew on his stockings for him and flung him his boots; then he began to stride frowning up and down on the harshly grating stones. Presently he returned, plucked the trumpet from Ellah’s pocket, and thrust it into his hand. “I’ll not quarrel,” he shouted curtly, “but the Lord made a womanish piece when He made you!” Ellah, the trumpet at his ear, chewed at his lip and whimpered: “You know I ha’ my iggs--you ought to pity me, same as others; the sight of my own blood’s like a flame i’ my brain----” “Pity you!” Monjoy said contemptuously; “you’d have more pity from me if your iggs didn’t always suit your own ends so pat. I know your head-knocking on walls; how much of it do you do when there’s nobody watching you? It goes down with women and fools that Ellah’s iggs must be humoured, but in two words, Ellah, my man, you’re a lazy devil, and if you can contrive it to live without working you will. I know your iggs; you’re the sort that shapes to drown themselves and puts their hands in the water first.” Ellah, crouched on the boulder, looked stupidly at the stones at his feet. Saliva bubbled at his lips. “The rod turned my stomach an’ all,” he complained. “Would I ask you to do it if I could do it myself? Didn’t it twist nearly out of your hands over Holdsworth Head?” “That was me--I made it,” Ellah moaned. “You’re a liar, and you lie now. Will you tell me you vomited on purpose?--(That’s it, clutch at your face and make as if you were mad!)--Here are hills that ring with metal to your tread, riddled with old workings, chambers and veins and galleries of it, and only a lazy rogue that’s trying to make himself out mad to find it!”