At ten o’clock the omnibuses and lorries were still rolling up the drive; trolleys laden with wheelbarrows and tools were being rapidly unloaded at the side of the dump. All southern Sussex worked to cut the dam of the Ravensrill, and the big dump grew smaller and smaller. Presently, as the water rose, it spilled into the bed that it had left for hundreds of years and flowed its irregular course, sweeping aside barns that had been hastily evacuated, lapping the walls of one cottage, the inhabitants of which had been removed in time. Little by little the water in the old bed sank and sank until it was a dark mass of weeds and silvery shapes that leapt up and down in extremis. Water voles, trout, pike were shovelled to the bank, and the bed of the river attacked by men who worked at fever pace, being relieved every half- hour.

“If there is rock there,” said the surveyor, “we are dished! My own belief is that there’s nothing but sand.”

“And shingle?” suggested Puttler.

“No, sir, there’s no shingle. It is a curious fact that we’ve never found shingle in the Ravensrill. They’ve struck the sand now,” he said, looking down into the hole, which the men were shoring with logs of timber. “And I’m glad there is no shingle – sand is much easier to work.”

He had hardly spoken the words before the foreman shouted: “We’ve struck shingle here, governor!”

“Shingle?” The surveyor went down the ladder into the hole.

“It is only a layer,” he said when he came back, “but even that is rather surprising. It opens up all sorts of possibilities.”

Dick did not listen. The value of shingle to a county surveyor was of no more interest to him than the value of sand to a grocer.

The work was now heavier. A derrick and windlass had to be rigged to move the heavy loads from the cutting, and that took a considerable time, during which he paid frequent visits to the “wishing well.”

It was after the shingle had been discovered that Harry’s voice answered him.

“Is that you, Dick? What are you fellows doing up there?”

The voice held all the old irritation and fretfulness. Briefly Dick described what was happening.

“Couldn’t you send me something down so that I could work below?” asked Harry. “I’m perfectly sure I could make it much easier for you.”

To humour him, Dick Alford found a light crowbar and with great difficulty lowered it. Because of its shape and size, the operation was a painfully slow one, and Harry fretted and fumed below.

“Hurry, for heaven’s sake,” he shouted. “You don’t suppose I want to stay down here, do you? I’ve a tremendous lot of work to do – you know that, Dick, very well.”