Its rim was cracked, but not badly.

A long ladder reached up into the gloom.
"What's the beam like ?" the Squire called up to someone aloft.
"Sound as a bell," answered a voice.
"I said so.

We'll have en hoisted by Sunday, I'll send a waggon over to Wheel Gooniver for a tackle and winch.

Damme, up there! Don't keep sheddin' such a muck o' dust on your betters!" "I can't help no other, Squire!" said the voice overhead; "such a cauch o' pilm an' twigs, an' birds' droppins'! If I sneeze I'm a lost man." Taffy, staring up as well as he could for the falling rubbish, could just spy a white smock above the beam, and a glint of daylight on the toe-scutes of two dangling boots.
"I'll dam soon make you help it.

_Is_ the beam sound ?" "Ha'n't I told 'ee so ?" said the voice querulously.
"Then come down off the ladder, you son of a--" "Gently, Squire!" put in Mr.Raymond.
The Squire groaned.