Poor Jack My friend R., who lives very much in
his past now, was telling me of the labourers he knew in the days when the lakes that are our water supply were being transformed into
reservoirs. Me an' Jack Rugby,' he said, pointing out in an aside that the man's name was not Rugby but that he came from that plea, ' Me an' Jack Rugby wass fireman an' engineer on the little train that ran up in them hills. Old Jack said one day it wass goin' to be hard to get up on account of frost, an' it wass. It wass. We slipped an' had to jump. They had a check point that threw the train off the line so it wouldn't go
crashin' down into the valley an' kill some- body, see ? I jumped into mud. They had to bring up a horse to pull me out. Poor Jack broke his arm. He jumped the other way. He wass alright after until one day he was ." spraggin' " a truck. The iron caught somehow an' pitched him up in the air. I see him turn three somersaults before he come down on his head. He wass never the same again, old Jack Rugby. Ncvcr quite in his 'right senses, if you know what I mean.'
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