"Is not that stonework? If not, it is very like it."
"Nonsense," I said again, but we clambered down to the spot, and got
between the upturned roots and the bank.
"Well?" he said.
But I did not answer this time. I only whistled. For there, laid bare by
the removal of the earth, was an undoubted facing of solid stone laid in
large blocks and bound together with brown cement, so hard that I could
make no impression on it with the file in my shooting-knife. Nor was
this all; seeing something projecting through the soil at the bottom of
the bared patch of walling, I removed the loose earth with my hands, and
revealed a huge stone ring, a foot or more in diameter, and about three
inches thick. This fairly staggered me.
"Looks rather like a wharf where good-sized vessels have been moored,
does it not, Uncle Horace?" said Leo, with an excited grin.
I tried to say "Nonsense" again, but the word stuck in my throat--the
ring spoke for itself. In some past age vessels _had_ been moored there,
and this stone wall was undoubtedly the remnant of a solidly constructed
wharf.
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