THE SILVER FOX 101 



duck no longer splashed into wing along 

 the water's surface, and the people scat- 

 tered among the hillsides already counted 

 as their chiefest landmark the red gable of 

 the new railway-station. 



Every morning saw a villageful of men 

 shot into it ; bricklayers working high up 

 in the gable, stone-cutters dressing lime- 

 stone blocks with infinite chip and clink, 

 workmen shovelling gravel, and over all 

 the voice of the ganger arising at intervals 

 in earnest, profuse profanity. The Dublin 

 artisans worked in silence, except w^hen one 

 or other trolled forth one of the ditties of 

 his class — genteel romance, with a waltz 

 refrain, or obscure vulgarity of the three- 

 penny music-hall, yet representing to the 

 singer the songs of Zion in a strange land ; 

 while the local gang used every chance of 

 proximity to carry on a low growl of 

 conversation. Whether it was the party 

 of twenty whose picks and spades were 

 gradually levelling and filling the un- 

 finished platform, or the two whose voices 



