Harrow and Lune set the Survey House’s first footing at the stake, and they argued about where it should go for the better part of a morning.
Lune wanted it on the ridge. The rod showed that the ground stood highest there, at the crest of the ridge’s shoulder, a little above the flood-line that the wardens had cut into the stake’s post. A footing on high ground does not drown, Lune said, and a house that does not drown is a house that can be counted in the same place from one season to the next, which is the only kind of house a Survey can be proud of.
Harrow wanted it in the wet. He wanted it at the foot of the stake, in the soft marsh ground that sucked at the boots and gave off a smell of old reeds. Stone on a ridge, Harrow said, is cut by the wind, because the wind has nothing else to do up there but work at it. Stone in the wet holds its shape, because the wet pushes on it from every side at once and nothing can push it out of true.
“The ridge is two point nine leagues from the Keystone,” said Lune. “I measured it on the third day from the stake’s own post. The wet is the same distance by the same rod.”
