Page 79 (1/2)

A load of oak ti to a builder

whose works were in a town many miles off The proud trunks were taken

up fros and

sheddings of their growth for the foregoing hundred years; chained down

like slaves to a heavy tie with enormous red wheels, and

four of the most powerful of Melbury's horses were harnessed in front

to draw them

The horses wore their bells that day There were sixteen to the team,

carried on a frame above each animal's shoulders, and tuned to scale,

so as to forht

or off-side of the leader to the lowest on the left or near-side of the

shaft-horse Melbury was ahborhood; for, living at Little Hintock, where the lanes yet

remained as narrow as before the days of turnpike roads, these

sound-signals were still as useful to hihbors as they had

ever been in for was saved in the course of a

year by the warning notes they cast ahead;known to the carters of each, they

could tell a long way off on a dark night whether they were about to

encounter friends or strangers