A JOURNAL KEPT IN THE COUNTRY. 



THE JOURNAL. 



February 2^th. Yesterday was so fair a day for 

 February, that I left my gardening half-way through 

 the morning, and went down to the village, taking a 

 sort of small holiday I keep for such occasions. The 

 forenoon was almost too beautiful for the season, 

 bringing up something of an old schoolboy appre- 

 hension of make-weight unhappiness hard at hand. 

 I had worked an hour or so on a south border, where 

 the dry loam, knocked crumbling into the sunshine 

 out of its November ridges, demanded the early pea 

 and the ashleaf ; but the periods of back-straighten- 

 ing, leaning on the hoe, and considering the blue 

 breadths of distance, became more and more neces- 

 sary ; and at last I left the business three-parts done, 

 and decided to walk down the hill to the village. 

 I had an end of reason, if conscience brought up 

 the unfinished border, inasmuch as I wanted to 

 see the Rector in the matter of one Phineas 

 Tomsett, a labourer living near me, whose eighty 



