54 THE DAILY LIFE OF OUR FARM. 



can have happened ? We call the bailiff. He looketh, 

 and is of a surety surprised ; he kneeleth, and from 

 hollowed palm behold he drinketh ! (Thank you, that'll 

 do — don't pass it on, please) ; and his decision, after the 

 fair test, not simply of a gulp down, but after a deli- 

 berate rinsing of his mouth (most audibly expressive), 

 he pranounceth gravely, " Well, sir, I've drank worse. 

 There's many a time I'd have been glad of that, plough- 

 ing." " All right, but it won't suit me, and if you go to 

 the glass you'll see your palate now is as dark as a 

 Dandy Dinmont's; and your missus will think you've 

 been chewing her black-currant jam on the sly." Well, 

 but to be serious, this won't do. We must find out the 

 reason. By steps we trace the mischief to an illegal 

 overflow of the foldyard, owing to that above-mentioned 

 incursion of the spring. It has clearly something to do 

 with the bark that was deposited from the tan-yard as 

 an absorbent substratum for the muck-juice. Well, 

 then, we must be cautious lest there be poison in this 

 liquor. There is nothing for it, but we must let off the 

 pool — oh ! and that too which it has taken so many 

 months to fill, and at a season when the rainfall is due 

 to decline. I mount my hack, and hurry to the tanyard, 

 where I am informed that there is luckily nothing 

 poisonous in the drink, but that the fluid now is a deep 

 and permanent dye — that some lime must have got to 

 the tannic acid. At once the whole process is intel- 

 ligible ; for one feeder of the pool is the wash of a 

 neighbouring road that is repaired with limestone. 

 What a wretched bit of superfluous trouble do we owe to 

 this meeting of the waters ! But I can stand it no 

 longer, and, despite the malt-tax, must drown my care ; 

 for w as it not my favourite resort at sunset to watch the 



