64: CHRONICLES OF A CLAY FARM. 



undreamt of in the hardest book of Euclid, and 

 then to go and dream the realization of your syin 

 metrical example-farm, the wonder and delight of 

 ardent agriculturists; but what a change comes over 

 the spirit of the dream, when you mizzle out o' doors 

 in the foggy ^November morning, and come to a 

 dead stand-still at the tangled side of* a fence (Bless 

 me ! why it looked nothing on paper /) which has 

 furnished the talk of many a Hunt-dinner for some 

 centuries past, for the splendid leaps and the splen- 

 did "purls," it has given rise or given fall to. 

 Its height its enormous width its insurmount- 

 able, impracticable look altogether, require an eye 

 quite as steady, and a heart quite as firm as the 

 hunter's, to take it. 



It seemed like sacrilege, indeed, I felt self- 

 convicted, at the first daring onslaught upon these 

 giants of the olden time. I was obliged to " take 

 a run at it" mentally, as it were, as many a man 

 and horse had before done boldly and in the flesh ; 

 and stuff my ears against the covered reproaches 

 of the workmen. 



"Famous bank for rabbits, this here, sir! I've 

 know'd twenty couple killed in a day out of it, in 

 my time, when Squire " 



"Ah! well never mind," quoth I, sorely and 



