He had cut down a wagon load of prickly trees, and wanted to get all this mass of _noli me tangere_ on to that wretched little cart, but had not rope enough to keep it together.

She gave him plenty of new line, and partly by fastening a small rope to the big rope and so making the big rope a receptacle, partly by artful tying, they dragged home an incredible load.
To be sure some of it draggled half along the ground, and came after like a peacock's tail.
He made six trips, and then the sun was low; so he began to build.

He raised a rampart of these prickly trees, a rampart three feet wide and eight feet high; but it only went round two sides and a half of the bower.

So then he said he had failed again; and lay down worn out by fatigue.
Helen Rolleston, though dejected herself, could not help pitying him for his exhaustion in her service, and for his bleeding hands.

She undertook the cooking, and urged him kindly to eat of every dish; and, when he rose to go, she thanked him with as much feeling as modesty for the great pains he had taken to lessen those fears of hers which she saw he did not share.
These kind words more than repaid him.