494 Chronicles of a Clay Farm. [November, 



the "Report of a Committee," the last tautology of admitted facts 

 that men endure, and having consigned to the charnel-house of the 

 Blue Books, inscribe its epitaph in an Act of Parliament. 



CHAPTER V. — COMBINATION AND COMMINUTION. 



There are some incidental points of practice attendant upon the 

 drainage of a field, which give very little uneasiness to a beginner, 

 but which, like many of the other realities of life, gain force with 

 further experience. A blessed thing in its way is the untamed bold- 

 ness of youth. It gets done many things in this cautious, calculat- 

 ing Old world, which, if not done then, would never be done at all, 

 and which, whether useful for their striking goodness, or useful for 

 their striking badness, afford equally profitable employment to that 

 lar"-e and self-respected portion of the community whose business 

 and pleasure lies in contentedly criticising the errors that others 

 have made, in the charitable spirit of 



" the fieud that never spoke before, 

 But cries 'I warned you,' when the deed is o'er." 



One of the points referred to, first presented itself to the notice 

 of the Chronicler, in this wise. 



" A queer lot this. Sir !" 



" "Well it is queer'' replied I, as the drainer threw out first a lump 

 of blue clay, then a lump of red, then a horrible spadeful of white, 

 then a dripping mass of yellow sand, then a kind of grey, gravely 

 conglomerate, that had puzzled the very pickaxe whose delicate style 

 of dissection had been brought to bear upon it, then a few spadefuls 

 of beautifully-veined red marl, and then broke into a carboniferous- 

 looking bed of black peat — and then — but let the old drainer chris- 

 ten it, for my heterology is exhausted. 



" A Queer Lot, this. Sir ! What shall I do with it?" 



I stood for a moment melo-dramatically silent, working up my 

 courage to a great eff"ort. Out it came at last. 



" Let it he spread over the land .'" 



He was just raising his face to look up in mine. I knew what 

 was coming ; I caught one side of his mouth screwing into an agony 

 of contortion, as the idea loomed painfully, by degrees, upon his 

 perceptions. I waited for no more, but turned quietly round, trying 

 to stifle a fit of inward laughter — not at my own words, but at the 

 effect I knew they were producing — and walked away. I turned 

 once only, and saw him leaning on his spade, and looking after me. 



