THE DAILY LIFE OF OUR FAEM. 45 



who is always ready for anything at any time, and a 

 couple of other men, who had scarcely time to drive up 

 the stock on to higher ground, when the river had 

 devoured all in sight for some hundred yards each side. 



But this subject's chilling, and by your leave we'll 

 change it ; for I feel already half " dead of tea-leaves 

 and snow-balls " as the jury found of a teetotaler- 

 suicide. 



Colder yet, one might fancy the young lambs were, 

 this precious keen weather, on the open park, and yet, 

 to see the pack lark in bundles, and squib about 

 beside their grave mammas, it's clearly no such thing. 

 Those that have been left out altogether seem to do 

 better than the lot that has been driven in at night. 

 There is certainly plenty of shelter behind the furze- 

 bushes if they chose ; but I see them now, as though 

 despising it all, gathered for the night in a flock to- 

 gether, just to leeward of a small tree, with nothing to 

 screen their nodding heads from the cutting night-air ; 

 one thoughtful matron did certainly interpose her body 

 between them and the blast, but she had no sooner 

 fallen into her first sleep than a playful youngster per- 

 formed a hornpipe on her head, which had the effect of 

 making her retire to a quieter suburb. 



At what a distance one keeps from one's herd. It is 

 quite dreadful to think of Shorthorns, seeing how re- 

 morselessly this plague pursues its unresisted way. 

 Yet no specific ! Where will the matter end ? The 

 least tear-drop coursing its sad way down a heifer's 

 face, the slightest indication of arched back or dry nose, 

 how anxiously does one contemplate with an apprehen- 

 sion unknown of old ! 



" Why ever you call that stuff a farm diary, I cannot 



