40 THE DAILY LIFE OF OUR FARM. 



the fable of the appeal to Jupiter by the carter with 

 the wheel in a rut ? 



Heigh-ho ! oh, this dreary day ! The rain-clouds 

 sailing overhead with a horrid threatening look, that 

 keeps us ever on the watch ! It is positively as fatiguing 

 as sentinel duty in an Indian forest, where, if you wink 

 a second, you run the chance of being tomahawked ; 

 and if you keep up a sedulous wakefulness, you are no 

 less a victim to exhaustion. It is so wearisome to 

 work ; yet is it worse to idle. What ever shall one do 

 during this damp, wretched time, that is so depressing 

 to the human species — so somnorific to the feline and 

 the canine ? 



But here comes the postman. Hark his wet horn in 

 the distance ! So I must perforce conclude ; and after 

 that — not the deluge, for I don't drink — one hour of 

 unmitigated delightful sleep, for the merits of which 

 see that interesting volume, "Diary of a Lady of 

 Quality," as related with respect to Napoleon, Pitt, 

 Wellington, and others more worthy than your humble 

 correspondent. 



March, 1856. 



What a glorious frosty morning — a right hard black 

 frost, with its determined glittering shell upon the over- 

 flowed pool — a kind of lagoon, as they would term it in 

 Venice ; none of your humbugging white frosts, that 

 pinch the turnips, scour the sheep, and disappear in- 

 gloriously in most despondent rain, but a splendid, in- 

 spiriting, real old-fashioned frost. Long life to your 

 honour, for the ploughed clay-land's sake, not less than 

 that we long to air our skates ! 



