’I found ’n in the airth just below the great stone to the head o’ the Giant’s Table. I found ’n about six foot vour inches below the surfass o’ the ground. There was dree or vour more, all alike, but Loramussy! I didn’t give mun (them) no heed. I thought they warn’t worth nothing, and I gived mun to my little maid to play wi’. But her, I reckon, ha’ lost the lot, all but thicky as I sold to the Reverend Israelite Flamank, and he sed it were an Israelitish shekel. I’ve a-heard the old volks used to call the Giant’s Table a Gilgal, but they don’t do that no more; and I can mind how this were always called Hophir, but the folks as is skollards took to naming ’n Upaver, and that be all I’ve a got to say. I can’t say nothing about Jonadab the son o’ Rechab, as were my great-granfer, cos a died when I was a baby. I’ll thankee to remember a poor man as is nigh vour-score years old, and ’ud die afore he’d let a drop o’ other liker down his throat but pure water, glory rallaluley, harmen.’ And he held out his hand. ’Oh! I beg pardon; didn’t think ’twere the young Squire. No offence.’ ’Cobbledick,’ said Herring, ’have you ever found any more silver shekels about the Table?’ ’No, never; only once for all.’ ’How deep down did you say they were?’ ’What did I say? I found ’n in the airth just below the big stone to the head o’ the Giant’s Table. I found ’n about six foot vour inches below the surfass o’ the ground.’ ’I have heard that already, word for word. Can you give me any idea of the depth, not in words, but by showing me about the depth that you call six foot four inches?’ Cobbledick looked blankly at him. ’What do you take your own height to be?’ Grizzly was posed. ’I suppose it took a deal of sinking to reach the depth where—you found the shekels?’ ’Loramussy, maister!’ exclaimed the old wretch, ’weeks and weeks; that shaft yonder were nothing to it.’ ’That will do, Grizzly.’ Herring was convinced that the old man was repeating by rote a lesson that had been taught him. However much he was questioned and cross-questioned he returned to the same story, in the same words. Herring gave up the hope of getting anything more in this quarter. Cobbledick had degenerated into a beggar—a wretched, canting beggar, accommodating his whine to the craze of the persons who visited Ophir. But Herring was not going to abandon the clue of the shekel because he could find out nothing from Grizzly. He went to the Giant’s Table to catechise Joyce, but she was not there. Joyce was now nearly well. The splints had been taken off her arms, and she could use her hands, and do light work; but the hands were stiff, and long inaction had weakened her arms. Herring could not spare the time to wait for her return; he did not know where she was, and he was due at the Oxenham Arms for the final settlement of the arrangement between Trecarrel and Trampleasure, in which he was a party.