"Blink!" cried Mr. Puddlebox, flat and rolling on the steep pitch of the roof. "Blink! We're killed!" clutched anew at Mr. Wriford, tore him from his moorings, and, knotted with him in panic-stricken embrace, whirled away to take the plunge and then the drop. The strawyard in which the barn stood was fortunately well bedded in straw about the walls of the building. When, with tremendous thump, with the familiar sound of smashing glass and familiar scent of whisky upon the morning air, the two had come to rest and had discovered themselves unbroken--"Why the dickens didn't you let go of me?" Mr. Wriford demanded. "I could have hung on with one hand and held you." Mr. Puddlebox sat up with his jolly smile and glancing at the height of their descent gave with much fervour: "O ye falls of the Lord, bless ye the Lord; praise Him and magnify Him for ever!" Mr. Wriford jumped up and waved his arms and laughed aloud and then cried: "That was all right. Now I'm not caring! Now I'm living!" "Why, look you, my loony," said Mr. Puddlebox, beaming upon him with immense delight, "look you, that was very much all right; and that is why I return praise for it. We might have been killed in falling from there, but most certainly we are not killed; and if we had not fallen we should still be up there, and how I should have found heart to make such a devil of a leap I am not at all aware. Here we are down and nothing the worse save for this disaster that, curse me, my whisky is gone again. Thus there is cause for praise in everything, as I have told you, and in this fall such mighty good cause as I shall challenge you or any man to look at that roof and deny. Now," continued Mr. Puddlebox, getting to his feet, "do you beat your head again, boy, or do we proceed to the farmhouse?" Mr. Wriford said seriously, "No, I'm damned if I beat my head now, because that time I didn't stop and didn't think except just for a second when we were falling, and then I couldn't stop even if I'd wanted to. No, I'm damned if I beat my head this time." "What it is," said Mr. Puddlebox, emptying his tail-pocket of the broken whisky bottle, and proceeding with Mr. Wriford towards the farmhouse, "what it is, is that you are damned if you do beat your head--that is, you are spooked, loony, which is the same thing." Mr. Wriford paid no apparent attention to this, but his glee at believing that, as he had said, he now was not caring and now was living, gave an excited fierceness to his share in their immediate behaviour, which now became very extraordinary. CHAPTER VII PROFOUND ATTACHMENT TO HIS FARM OF A FARMER I