THE CHRONICLE OF CLEMENDY
taken Griffith's fancy, perhaps because it was a little out of the common. But if I had been in his place I believe I should have let this dish lie, since the goldsmiths would be very likely to say unkind things about it, as stupid people always do of matters beyond their comprehension. But the young gentleman seeing how Griffith was everlastingly at the bottom of the hollow took his measures, and then sat down to see what would come of them. And of a dark, windy night, with sudden gusts of rain blowing up from Severn Sea; as Griffith the Delver sat in his horrible little den by the riverside his thoughts ran as usual on the buried treasure of Caerleon; and the notion, species and imagination of the wonderful dish pricked him more violently than it had ever done, so that he was forced to take his spade, light his lantern, and sally forth without delay. And as he went over the bridge, the wind gave a howl, and the rain dashed in his face, and he felt the whole scaffold shake and quiver beneath him, as if it desired to sail down the river into the open sea. In fine it was precisely the sort of night to have put out an ordinary lantern in what is sometimes called a brace of shakes, but Griffith's lantern had been made by himself on scientific principles and would have hung from the mast of a ship off Cape Thundertops, without so much as a wink or half a twinkle. It was a glorious lantern, a credit to the town, and had been out in all weathers and at all times of the day and night in search of ideas, conceits, fictions, and all the flowery inventions of the monastic
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