Slowly did I say, sir? Well, you've heard that funny fable Consekint the tortoise and the race it give an 'are? This was curiouser than that! At first I wasn't able Quite to size the memory up that bristled thro' my hair: Suddenly, I'd got it, with a nasty shivery feeling, While she walked and walked and yet was not a bit more near,-- Sir, it was the tread-mill earth beneath her feet a-wheeling Faster than her feet could trot to heaven or anywhere, Earth's revolvin' stair Wheeling, while my wayside clump was kind of anchored there. IV _Tick, tack, tick, tack_, and just a little nearer, Inch and 'arf an inch she went, but never gained a yard: Quiet as a fox I lay; I didn't wish to scare 'er, Watching thro' the ferns, and thinking "What a rum old card!" Both her wrinkled tortoise eyes with yellow resin oozing, Both her poor old bony hands were red and seamed and scarred! Lord, I felt as if myself was in a public boozing, While my own old woman went about and scrubbed and charred! Lord, it seemed so hard! _Tick, tack, tick, tack_, she never gained a yard. V Yus, and there in front of her--I hadn't seen it rightly-- Lurked that little finger-post to point another road, Just a tiny path of poppies twisting infi-nite-ly Through the whispering seas of wheat, a scarlet thread that showed White with ox-eye daisies here and there and chalky cobbles, Blue with waving corn-flowers: far and far away it glowed, Winding into heaven, I thinks; but, Lord, the way she hobbles, Lord, she'll never reach it, for she bears too great a load; Yus, and then I knowed, If she did, she couldn't, for the board was marked _No Road_. VI _Tick, tack, tick, tack_, I couldn't wait no longer! Up I gets and bows polite and pleasant as a toff-- "Arternoon," I says, "I'm glad your boots are going stronger; Only thing I'm dreading is your feet 'ull both come off." _Tick, tack, tick, tack_, she didn't stop to answer, "Arternoon," she says, and sort o' chokes a little cough, "I must get to Piddinghoe to-morrow if I can, sir!" "Demme, my good woman! Haw! Don't think I mean to loff," Says I, like a toff, "Where d'you mean to sleep to-night? God made this grass for go'ff." VII