The actual speaking took place at the extreme northern end of the hill, where there was a singular and convenient feature, lending itself to such assemblies, in the formation of the ground. This was the grassy outline, still emphasizing quite distinctly its ancient form, of the military Roman amphitheatre attached to the camp. Locally the place was known as “the Frying-pan”, from its marked and grotesque resemblance to that utensil; but no base culinary appellation, issue of Anglo-Saxon unimaginativeness, could conceal the formidable classic moulding of its well-known shape--the shape of the imperial colisseum. Between the Frying-pan and the southern side of the hill, where the bulk of the quarries were, rose a solitary stone building. One hardly expected the presence of such a building in such a place, for it was a considerable-sized inn; but the suitableness of the grassy expanses of the ancient camp for all manner of tourist-jaunts accounted for its erection; and doubtless it served a good purpose in softening with interludes of refreshment the labours of the quarry-men. It was the presence of this admirable tavern so near the voice of the orator, that led Mr. Romer, himself, to stroll, on that Saturday, in the direction of his rival’s demonstration. Though the more considerable of his quarries were at the southern end of the hill, certain new excavations, in the success of which he took exceptional interest, had been latterly made in its very centre, and within a stone’s throw of the tavern-door. The great cranes, used in this new invasion, stood out against the sky from the highest part of the hill, and assumed, especially at sunset, when their shape was rendered most emphatic, the form of enormous compasses, planted there by some gigantic architectural hand. It was in relation to these new works that Mr. Romer, towards the close of the afternoon, found himself advancing along the narrow path that led, between clumps of bracken and furze-bushes, from the most westward of his woods to the hill’s base. Mr. Lickwit had informed him that there was talk, among some of the more intransigent of the Yeoborough socialists, about destroying these cranes. Objections had been brought against them, in recent newspaper articles, on purely æsthetic grounds. It was said they disfigured the classic outline of the hill, and interfered with a landmark which had been a delight to every eye for unnumbered ages.