492 Clironiclcs of a Clay Farm. [Xovember, 



he hated the sight of the Level — that curious-looking thing on three 

 sticks — worse than the old gentleman that walks upon two. What 

 if I could reconcile these two great opposing authorities by one timely 

 stroke — make him master-of-arts on the spot, before the eyes of all 

 his men ? Shorter and less earned degrees have been taken in the 

 world. The opportunity was irresistible. I had it brought ; adjust- 

 ed it; and told him to look through it and give me his opinion of 

 the Fall. If you ever saw a dog put his nose to a wasp's nest, you 

 may form some idea of the mistrustful curiosity and hesitating aver- 

 sion with which he brought his face into close contact with his arch- 

 enemy. 



A long, indescribable process ensued ; a most determined effort to 

 close the left eye with the right hand — then the right eye with the left 

 hand — then a dead stillness, and a long, fumbling, breathless view 

 of the world tixrned upside down, and his men standing on their 

 heads for the first time, in spite of the forty years' experience to the 

 contrary : and then — 



" Well I don't know hut what you're right Sir : the fall does want 

 a leetle easing at the bottom T' 



The success was complete. In half an hour every tile was uncov- 

 ered. The men worked as men work who feel proud of their com- 

 mander : he had arrived at the highest summit of his profession. — 

 He returned to them with double authority and importance ; and the 

 drainage of my first field was soon accomplished ; not as deeply, in- 

 deed — as we now call deeply ; but deep enough, after the ridges had 

 been twice cast, to allow Exall and Andrews' subsoiler to follow 

 the cross-plowing a year afterward, and break to pieces as obdurate 

 a hearthpan as ever resisted the root of an oak. 



" After the ridges had been fvsice cast .•" how easy it looks, in print ! 

 "What a pretty little example-farm would England — and what would 

 not Ireland be, — if the Press could thus cultivate and civilize ! — 

 if plows were printers' types and fields were paper — if bogs and 

 fens and marshes could be drained like inkpots, and every drop that 

 falls from Heaven — no ! not one drop — too much or too little — 

 were apportioned to its proper place and task. It falls upon its prop- 

 er place, and under that place lies its task, would but man believe and 

 act upon the hint, and do his part, his gloriously privileged part, in 

 carrying out, for his own benefit, the purposes of perfect wisdom — 

 the indications of an ever-suggestive handy-work. 



" After the ridges had been twice cast !" Why, those seven words 



