36 CHRONICLES OF A CLAY FARM. 



" I 've been a-draining this forty year and more 

 I ought to know summut about it ! " 



Here was a staggerer. Among all my -calcula- 

 tions to think that I should never have calculated 

 on this ! I had seen the commander of a noble 

 Bteamer, with one parenthetical-looking point of his 

 forefinger, (caught in an instant by the helmsman,) 

 veer round a ship of a thousand tons burthen ; I 

 had seen the mill-owner, with half a nod to his 

 foreman, stop in an instant the hurly-burly of a 

 thousand wheels while he explained to me, in com- 

 parative quiet, some little matter of new invention 

 in the carding of the rough wool, or the rounding 

 and hardening of the finished Twist. I had seen 

 enough of the empire of Mind over Matter in many 

 forms and shapes, by sea and land, to make me the 

 devoutest of believers in modern miracle. Under 

 the quiet seductive brightness of the midnight lamp, 

 I had reveled in the mysteries of Number and of 

 Form ; and in the working realities of daylight, I 

 had seen and stood witness to the application of 

 those apparent mysteries to the most beautifully 

 simple processes in the production of ordinary and 

 universal articles of human want. It had furnished 

 me no new or difficult gratification to level and cal- 

 culate to an inch, the amount of Fall to be obtained 



