“I make it forty-eight.”

She shook her head and laughed.

“That would be four missing, and we should have to hunt for them.  But they are all there.  Try again.”  He tried—­and made it fifty-six.

“Didn’t I tell you that I was an idiot!” he said, in despair.

“Oh, you can’t expect to learn the first time,” she said, consolingly.  “It was weeks before I could do it; and I almost cried the first few times I tried:  they would move just as I was finishing.”

“Oh, well, then I can hope to get it in time,” he said.  “Did it ever strike you that though we think ourselves jolly clever, that there are heaps of things which a workingman—­the men we look down upon—­can do which we couldn’t accomplish if it were to save our lives.  For instance, I couldn’t make a horseshoe if my existence depended upon it, and yet it looks as easy as—­”

—­“Counting sheep,” she finished, with a twinkle in her grey-blue eyes.

“Just so,” he said, with a laugh.  “Shall I have another try?”

“Oh, no; you’d be here all day; and we’ve got to see if the others are all right; but first I think we’d better go and look at the weir; Jason says that a stone has got washed down, and that means that when the autumn rains come the meadows would be flooded.”

“All right:  I’m ready,” he said, with bright alacrity.  “I’m enjoying this.  I know now why you look so happy and contented.  You’re of some use in the world, and I—­the rest of us—­That’s the weir?” he broke off to enquire, as they came in sight of a rude barrier of stones which partially checked the stream.

“That is it,” she said.  “And Jason is right.  Some of the big stones have been washed down.  What a nuisance!  We shall have to get some men from Bryndermere to put them up again.”

Stafford rode up to the weir and looked at it critically.

“Thank Heaven I haven’t got to count the stones!” he said.  “If you’ll kindly hold my horse—­he’s not so well trained as yours, and would bolt, I’m afraid.”  He slipped from the saddle as he spoke, and she caught the reins.

“What are you going to do? she asked.

“I don’t know yet,” Stafford called back, as he waded into the river.

She held the horse and sat reposeful in the saddle and watched him with a smile upon her face.  But it grew suddenly grave as she saw Stafford stoop and put his arms round one of the fallen stones; and she cried to him: 

“Oh, you can’t lift them; it’s no use trying!”

Stafford apparently did not hear her, for, exerting all his strength, he lifted the big stone and gradually slid and hoisted it into its place.  Then he attacked the other two, and with a still greater effort raised them into a line with their fellows.

Ida watched him as—­well, as one watches some “strong man” going through his performance.

It was a well-nigh incredible feat, and she held her breath as one stone followed the other.  It seemed to her incredible and impossible, because Stafford’s figure was slight and graceful, and he performed the feat with the apparent ease which he had learnt in the ’varsity athletic sports.