No. 2. 



Ehen Elshender, the Moor Farmer. 



47 



the entire moor brought as an inferior sheep- 

 walk, and that at the end of thirty years it 

 would exceed the original income of the 

 entire possession ; while this attempt at cul- 

 tivation, if successful, would be an example 

 of the utmost value, and might give his vil- 

 lage that neiglibourhood which it so much 

 required. Not only, therelore, was the offer 

 of our friend accepted, but wood for build- 

 ings was voluntarily offered, and a proper 

 allowance for useful and well-con.-tructed 

 drains. 



The villagers were astounded to hear that 

 they were to obtain such a neighbour, but 

 happy even in the hope of it. Enclosed as 

 the place was by banks, which, instead of 

 admitting it to be drained, would, if broken 

 down, inundate it with water, it looked to 

 them like a huge frying-pan, and of course 

 there was no abstaining from some little 

 quiet jokes:" This last was indeed the worst 

 aspect of the affair. There was a fall for 

 draining within the farm, but not without it; 

 there was no final outlet. Still, our friend 

 determined on pursuing his experiment; 

 and, as a first measure, determined to give 

 his possession a good name : he called it 

 Glen-Eden ! 



He next marked off the site for his stead- 

 ing on a very slight but bare and valueless 

 knoll, being desirous at once to sit dry and 

 to spare his good land if there were any. 

 As he felt that nothing would be more apt 

 to encourage him than the comfort of his 

 home, as soon as his turf-cottage was roofed 

 in, he had a floor laid down in one end of it, 

 and raising up slight ribs of wood by the 

 walls, and continuing them overhead, had 

 the whole neatly covered by a thin board- 

 ing, which, with the addition of a little car- 

 pet and a slight curtain festooned over his 

 couch — 



A couch ordained a double debt to pay ; 

 A couch by night, a sofa all the day — 



made his end of the tenement seem a palace, 

 and enabled him to look on the storm or the 

 sunshine with equal consciousness of snug- 

 ness and security to health. Good fires soon 

 made the other end very tolerable to his 

 servants; and being washed with lime, 

 though not plastered, it formed a very 

 cheerful temporary residence. He had the 

 rankest of the'heath pulled and secured for 

 thatch or fuel, intending to burn tlie rest on 

 the ground as soon as the ground should be 

 dry. He next laid out the fields, and or- 

 dered them to be cleared of stones — an ope- 

 ration that covered them in some places to 

 the depth of several feetf and finally, he 



set himself to endeavour to lay the land 

 dry. 



For this last purpose, at the lowest part 

 of the farm, but where the surrounding wall, 

 as it may be termed, was highest, — and this 

 was on the east, — he ordered a bank of moss 

 to be dug out, and placed in a situation con- 

 venient for being dried and burned. In the 

 course of this digging he came upon both 

 stones and clay, treasures of great value in 

 his circumstances; and lest the winter, by 

 filling the pond with water, should render 

 further digging impossible, he pursued his 

 labours with great assiduity. His determi- 

 nation was, that this reservoir should afford 

 him an opportunity of draining the land : 

 and should itv prove unequal to this, that a 

 pump or pumps, to be worked by a small 

 windmill, should raise the water to a height 

 enabling him to send it off his territories. 

 In the mean time he knew what ridicule 

 the suspicion even of such a project would 

 draw upon him, and therefore he gratified 

 inquirers by informing tljem that he waa 

 forming a fish-pond for the residence, and 

 even expected to draw profit from the ice in 

 winter, by letting it out for curling, though 

 the game was not then known in that part 

 of Scotland; and the parties, breathing 

 softly, , turned from him, and gently lifting 

 up their hands and eyes, departed. Mean- 

 time he was intersecting his fields in nume- 

 rous directions by drains, leading them into 

 one another, diverging, branching, and every 

 way varying them according to the inequali- 

 ties of the ground ; and after proving their 

 running, carefully filling theui with the 

 stones taken from the surface, and all tend- 

 ing at last to the general reservoir. Even 

 in winter, therefore, the land became drier 

 and drier, and people now began to see the 

 use of the pond. By the return of spring 

 he had effectually drained a large space in 

 front of his residence, and generally pre- 

 pared it for the operation of the plough. 

 And even in this, by a sort of natural in- 

 stinct, he differed from the accustomed mode. 

 Aware that oxen draw most gently and 

 steadily, he had secured the temporary use 

 of a strong yoke of these, to be tried in all 

 such portions of the soil as seemed likely to 

 be capable of being opened up by the plough. 

 People from the village had been engaged 

 to attend at the same time to complete, with 

 the spade and other implements, what the 

 plough might leave imperfectly done, and 

 give him, if possible, a field; and they had 

 by this time so entered into the spirit of the 

 thing, that the attendance was large, and in 

 many cases gratuitous. He had no lime for 

 the present ; but he had been scavenger to 



