Page:The Chronicle of Clemendy.pdf/92

 river's bank, not far from the bridge itself. As for his name it was Griffith, and he was called Griffith the Delver, and sometimes Twrch Ddær which is in the letter Earth-Hog and in the spirit Mole; hence we see how poetical and florid is the language of the Welsh. This Griffith was in fact one of those that are eternally digging, who dig early and late and leave no rest for our old Mother Earth, who must surely be more patient than most ladies, since they heartily dislike being scratched. It is true that a girl does not object to being tickled, if you do it nicely, and choose the right places; but there can be no resemblance between a lover's finger-tips "desipientes in loco" and the rough blows of spade, mattock, and pick-axe striking here, there, and everywhere, turning everything upside down. And of all diggers and delvers Griffith was the most sempiternal, for he dug deep, turning the clods well over, and never left off. And yet he was not a common spade-man, and never thought of planting anything in the bares he made, and indeed his operations were in no way agricultural; since in place of putting seeds into the ground, his aim was to draw something out of it. He was in fine a treasure monger, having been bitten with this madness when a boy, and when he was a good many years better than three-score, was not yet cured. His malady was caused by his overhearing two monks talking together of the enormous treasure that the old Romans and the British Kings had concealed; and as these two ecclesiastics were very great liars and engaged at that time in compiling a