He drew plans, he found them masons. Stone was not far to seek for quarrying; but, to be of service, the bridge must cover broad lands as well as common current. “Twenty-nine arches!” cried William Harpur. “The cost will be enormous. It will swallow up your whole possessions! You must be mad; and the prior is worse to sanction such a sacrifice.” “The sacrifice was made when the river robbed us of our dearest treasures. We must save others a like sacrifice at any cost,” said Avice, now as bold as her sister. The work began and went on steadily. Honest labour was paid for, and churls, who had lived half on doles and housed like dogs, were paid a penny[5] a day or a peck of meal, and took heart to work with a will. There were always loose stones and wood about, and no one said nay when they began to repair and improve their own dwellings. And so industry came to Swarkstone with the building of the bridge. Heaven, too, seemed to smile upon the undertaking, for never a disaster occurred to mar it. But, as Squire Harpur had prophesied, the cost was enormous. It was the work of years. Woods were cut down to supply timber for scaffolding; then lands were mortgaged or sold, and who but William Harpur was chief buyer? But still the work proceeded. “Travellers who can cross the river dry-shod will gladly pay a small toll for the privilege,” said the sisters, as the last of their possessions, the old hall, passed into their cousin’s hands, and they took refuge in a small house in a bye-way, which goes by the name of “No Man’s-Lane” to this day. It was a glad day for travellers on horse or foot when Swarkstone Bridge, of twenty-nine arches, was declared free for traffic, a bridge which spanned the Trent and its low meads for three-quarters of a mile, and the good Ladies Bellamont, who built it, had a right to expect those who could thus travel safely and dry-shod at all seasons to be grateful for the inestimable boon. They had no charter to exact a toll to repay the moneys they had expended; but there was at the Swarkstone end a small chapel erected and dedicated to St. James, in which it was fondly hoped the users of the bridge would pause to thank God and drop their small thank-offerings in a box set there to receive them. At first, when they began to build, people about called the sisters “the twin angels;” but by the time the bridge was built it had ceased to be a new thing. It was used as a matter of course; but the thank-offerings grew fewer and fewer as people ceased to remember the danger and discomfort of the passage by the ford.