“He is safe enough there, among the osiers,” said the father. “He has lost his heart outright to the osiers. However, I mean to drain and fill up this pit, when I find a good out-fall; and then we will have all high and dry, and safe for the children. I don’t care so much for the pit as for the ditches there. Don’t you notice the bad smell?” “Yes, indeed, that struck me the first night.” “I have been inquiring to-day, and I find there is one acre in twenty hereabouts occupied with foul ditches like that. And then the overflow from them and the pits, spoils many an acre more. There is a stretch of water-flags and bulrushes, and nasty coarse grass and rushes, nothing but a swamp, where the ground is naturally as good as this; and, look here! Fleming was rather out, I tell him, when he wrote that I might graze a pony on the pasture below, whenever I have a market-cart. I ask him if he expects me to water it here.” So saying, Woodruffe led the way to one of the ditches which, instead of fences, bounded his land; and, moving the mass of weed with a stick, showed the water beneath, covered with a whitish bubbling scum, the smell of which was insufferable. “There is plenty of manure there,” said Woodruffe; “that is the only thing that can be said for it. We’ll make manure of it, and sweep out the ditch, and deepen it, and narrow it, and not use up so many feet of good ground for a ditch that does nothing but poison us. A fence is better than a ditch any day. I’ll have a fence, and still save ten feet of ground, the whole way down.” “There is a great deal to do here,” observed the wife. “And good reward when it is done,” Woodruffe replied. “If I can fall in with a stout laborer, he and Allan and I can get our spring crops prepared for; and I expect they will prove the goodness of the soil. There is Fleming. Supper is ready, I suppose.” The children were called, but both were so wet and dirty that it took twice as long as usual to make them fit to sit at table; and apologies were made for keeping supper waiting. The grave half-hour before Moss’s bed-time was occupied with the most solemn piece of instruction he had ever had in his life. His father carried him up to the railway, and made him understand the danger of playing there. He was never to play there. His father would go up with him once a day, and let him see a train pass; and this was the only time he was ever to mount the steps, except by express leave. Moss was put to bed in silence, with his father’s deep, grave voice, sounding in his ears. “He will not forget it,” declared his father. “He will give us no trouble about the railway. The next thing is the pit. Allan, I expect you to see that he does not fall into the pit. In time, we shall teach him to take care of himself; but you must remember, meanwhile, that the pit is six feet deep--deeper than I am high; and that the edge is the same clay that you slipped on so often this morning.”