Sharpening Stones
Bob, who knows the hills well, having worked in remote places first as a shepherd boy and then on water schemes, told me about a place where I could find sharpening stone. The slabs of stone had once been quarried from the cliff. On the ground in that particular place, he said, I would find 06ome of the best stones one could wish for when setting a razor. I promised to bring one back for him. The journey meant a walk of more than three hours, but I had a motive for going. My creel was on my shoulder. Up in the quiet corner of the hills I found the stones. They seemed admirably suitable for sharpening a blade. 1 stood looking at the debris on the ground and wondering about the donkey teams with laden baskets that, according to Bob, had once carried the stone along the mountain track and down to the village in the valley. All this was in the distant past. The men who worked the stone are no more and their tools are lost in rust and rubble. 1 picked up a piece of stone intending to let Bob have it when I got back, but by accident it slipped from my pocket somewhere along the track and now he must wait until I go that way again.
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