436 Chronicles of a Clay Farm. [October 



TALPA CHRONICLES OF A CLAY FARM. 



CHAPTEK II.— THE «' DEVIL ON THREE-STICKS.' 



(Continued from pnge 395.) 



There is an old saying that "Fools build houses for wise men to 

 live in;" — a proverb which, whether applicable or not to farms as 

 well as houses, probably receives about as fair an average of direct 

 verification in the course of each man's individual experience as 

 any other of those mysterious morsels of traditional truth which 

 are handed down from each generation to its successor (like faery 

 money, gold in the giver's, dust in the receiver's hand.) The young 

 experimentalist in brick-and-morter, with a shake of the head not 

 unworthy of the Elizabethan statesman (whose posthumous fame 

 has owed so much to that outward symptom of plethoric wisdom), 

 admits the general and antecedent truth of the motto which might 

 be scrolled up over so many a splendid doorway ; he does not doubt 

 or deny it, not he ! It is not to disprove its general, but to parry 

 its par/tV;/?«j' application that he purposes ; it is not to invalidate 

 the truth of the rule as against man, but to prove it by an exception, 

 in the case of one individual of (lie sj)ecies he knoics of. And the 

 clear rectangular pencil-work, and the softening shades of the brush 

 of the accomplished artist-architect do their woi-k upon his eyes, 

 like vanity reflected in a mirror, as he beholds (on pastepoard), the 

 " Splendid Elevation," and then reads with delight in one corner of 

 the sketch, beautifully printed in Indian ink, the "exceedingly 

 moderate estimate." (Such is " the taper that has lighted fools" 

 each on his solitary track out of the beaten high-road of old ex- 

 perience, leading them on by the marsh-light hope of individual 

 exemption from the common lot. And old men shake their heads, 

 and only smile at the sallies of youthful arrogance that rise and 

 break in succession upon the shore of life, and need no reproach 

 but that which their own sure ebb will bring with it.) 



And so they felt, and so they looked on me, in the autumn of 



no, I dare not say how long ago ! — when the arrival of 



load after load of draining-tiles gave parish notice of the attempt to 

 drain what antiquity had pronounced undrainable since the deluge. 



" But why can't it be drained ? " asked Greenhorns. 



"Because there's no fall .'" replied collective Wisdom.. 



"Has it ever been tried with a Spirit-level?" 



/ 



