80 THE DAILY LIFE OF OUR FARM. 



table, and be content that in the interval he should 

 deem me, as he doubtless will for my pains, a Jeru- 

 salem pony. 



Our hill-side tract it is not all fun to cultivate. 

 Some parts, all rough with boulders of a kind of 

 pudding-stone-^a conglomerate, hard as iron, of semi- 

 opaque pebbles, out of which are wrought the cider- 

 millstones of the country, we resign to the gorse and 

 fern, being thankful for the game they shelter during 

 shooting season. Delightful is it to sit there of a 

 summer evening, cheroot alight, upon one of these 

 blocks — which once formed the bed of the ocean, and 

 are now upheaved to be the highest ridge of the district, 

 commanding a full view of the whole farm — and watch 

 the tints, various as hues of the dying dolphin, reflected 

 upon the level reaches of our lovely Wye. 



Other upland patches afford nice picking for the 

 flock, but not such as one meets with on the wild 

 Welsh hills. It is in the very centre of one of these 

 that there bursts out the eye of a spring (as the 

 Greek aod Welsh so beautifully term it), " clear as 

 crystal and cold as charity." Close beside it is the 

 twisted stem of an antique wild crab-tree, under which 

 we propose to erect shortly a grotto, and just beyond a 

 hazel copse, on which we gathered last season some 

 bushels of the sweetest nuts. 



The spring itself we shall utilize as follows : First 

 and foremost it will deliver its sparkling jet, fresh 

 filtered from the internal cavern of its birth, into a 

 circular basin of rough-hewn forest stone, from which 

 the drinking supply of the house will be fetched. [As 

 regards this, I must record one friend's remark, " Faith, 

 it's a beautiful liquor ; a bottle of it sealed would last 



