20 OUR ROCK-GARDEN 



enthusiasm conveys home for some two miles the 

 noble stone that he has rescued from the bottom of 

 some ditch or the surface of some suburban road 

 being made up), or else he must put himself into 

 the hands of some contractor or general dealer. A 

 singular property of these casual blocks that we 

 may encounter and appropriate is the startling way 

 they appear to increase in bulk and weight. When 

 we first hustle one from amongst the stinging 

 nettles, to the great disgust of the various beetles, 

 wood-lice, centipedes, and other small creatures that 

 have found welcome shelter beneath it, it can be 

 carried quite easily, but in ten minutes its weight 

 has apparently nearly doubled, and it is found to be 

 liberally possessed of uncomfortable protuberances 

 or knife-edged angularities that we had no suspicion 

 of at first. Henceforth its bulk increases in appalling 

 ratio, and we are only saved from throwing it down 

 in disgust from the reflection that if we do so all 

 the Herculean labour we have thus far expended 

 on it will have been absolutely wasted. 



From time to time we may see a notice 

 intimating that Mr. So-and-so, purveyor of coals, 

 coke, slates, gravel, stone, &c., may be dealt with 

 within the dreary area enclosed by his rickety 

 palings, and on entering we find in some corner 

 the very material we are in need of, in which case 

 he is ordinarily willing to let one have it at a not 

 too inordinately grasping rate, since such stones as 



