A second man joined the waller later that morning. It looked like drizzly weather had settled in for the day. They worked opposite each other repairing the wall for a long time until the first one spoke up .
"I'm going crazy."
"Yes I know that ." said the other in a Cumbrian drawl.
"No seriously Mitch. Just before you came, I went and found that triangle-shaped stone" he said, pointing to Myron " because I was sure I heard that square stone over there describe where it was. "
"We're you looking for a triangle shape?" asked the second waller.
"No, in fact I needed a couple of flat stones at the time."
"Well what good is that then? If the stones are going to speak to you they might as well be telling you something useful."
The Squire had an idea. "So, where do you think Michael and Hannah are?" he asked winking at the other two stones.
"The pair of flat stones got tossed into that big pile of hearting, I think. " said Myron in a loud voice.
The waller looked up. "Did you hear that?" He got up and began walking over to the pile without waiting for an answer.
"Hear what? You know, I think building dry stone walls on these hills, year after bloody year has finally gotten to you, Andy."
The Squire leaned over and shouted. "I see them - the two grayish stones over near your tools."
Andy searched and found the pair and carried Michael and Hannah over to the others and then looked quizzically at the five of them.
"What's going on now?" asked Mitch. "Did the rocks tell you where to find the flat stones you were looking for?"
"These rocks are alive! They are speaking to me, Mitch."
Andy stood up quickly and walked around in a circle. Then he sat down on a bucket by the wall and ran his hands through his mop of dark brown hair. "This is crazy, crazy!"
He looked at the pinched finger. The blister had popped. He grabbed his gloves from off the wall, put them on and stared at Mitch.
He composed himself and took a deep breath. "You're right. This job is getting to me."
"Thanks for saving us" said Michael to the other stones, "we would have been broken up into rubble for sure if we had been left there.
"We didn't save you. All we did was discuss the fact that you'd ended up in the hearting pile." answered Rhonda
"You mean none of you 'humanipulated' the waller to come over and find us?"
They all three rocked sideways, " No."
"That human seems to have actually overheard us and went looking for you. " said Rhonda.
"Here he comes now."
Andy very methodically walked over and picked up the cube-shaped stone, looked it square in the face and said to it, "So, tell me, very square-shaped stone, if you can, tell me how you became so square."
"I was shaped this way by a prisoner along with a lot of other granite in Dartmoor over a 200 years ago." The Squire answered excitedly.
The waller waited a long time. He sighed and then gently put the stone down, and walked away.
"So what did it say?"
"Nothing. I heard nothing."
The two humans went back to walling. They worked silently in the drizzling rain for the rest of the afternoon. The Squire and the four other stones watched as Andy did his magic putting stones in the wall, listening to each stone, but not the way he had that morning, when he had clearly heard their voices, or so everyone thought.
Just before it started to get dark, Andy took his gloves off, put them on the wall to dry, and headed back to the pub with Mitch.
