"I stand it, like a donkey eats dachells:[*] I be built to. My family's always had a marvellous power of putting up with hard words from our betters. Not from smaller men, mind you, nor yet from our equals; but what's simple impidence an' sauce not to be borne from the common sort, be just greatness of mind in the bettermost. They don't mean nothing. 'Tis only the haughty blood in 'em." [*] _Dachells_: Thistles. "'Tis just their haughty blood that these here American chaps won't sit down under no more," declared Mr. Beer. "There's no bettermost among them, so I'm told. A man have got to work his way to the top. He can't be born up top; though how it answers to have no gentlefolks, I ban't witty enough to guess." Malherb's great mastiff presently, by skill or accident, discovered the thing that these men sought. Beside Childe's desolated cenotaph the hound stopped, lifted up its head and bayed. Then it began to dig, and the terriers, yelping loudly, rushed to aid it. The men with their shovels made quick work, and the corpse of Jonathan Miller lay revealed. Neither physical agony nor mental grief clouded his features. His eyes were shut; his countenance appeared placid under the gentle snow-slumber that had led him through the Valley of the Shadow. All perceived that they stood before one who had been their superior. Thomas Putt touched his hat to the corpse. Beer dragged a bottle from his pocket, then, appreciating the futility of troubling the dead, prepared to put it away again with a sorrowful oath. But Bickford proposed another course. "He can't drink, poor hero, but us can. If you've brought brandy, gi' me a drop, for I'm in a proper case for it. My feet be just conkerbils of ice beneath me." Therefore they all drank, and Woodman spoke as his turn came for the bottle. "Here's to the gen'leman," said he, "an' may he be out of trouble for evermore." "An' here's to his wife an' family," added Beer, wiping the mouth of the bottle with his sleeve before he put it to his lips. "You may be pretty sartain he's left a wife an' half a dozen, for men in new countries allus get a quiver full, according to the wonnerful wisdom of the Lord." "An' I'll drink to the sexton," said Bickford, "because the ground's froze two feet, an' the digging of this carpse's grave be going to fetch out a proper sweat on some man." "You take his honour's heels, will 'e, Woodman? An' walk first. Me an' Putt will hold each a shoulder. You gather up the tools, Bickford, an' keep back they dogs. Look at thicky baggering hound! He knows he've done a clever thing an' wants the world to know it." So they returned and cast their features into a solemn mould at the direction of Richard Beer. "Us can't be axed to feel no more than the proper sorrow of man for man," he explained, "but death's death; an' it might be you or me as was going feet first an' shoulder high, but for the goodness of God an' us being Englishmen."