THE DAILY LIFE OF OUR FARM. 265 



where I fear they have a pat^ of salmon-spawn, de- 

 scending thence so grandly with the flood, for their 

 afternoon feed upon our bank again ! Where they 

 sleep I don't know : what I do know is that the night 

 has quite suddenly closed upon my task. I can see to 

 pen no more without a candle. But without doors it 

 is delicious ; and you won't be angry, gentle reader, if 

 I hurry forth, having such sympathy with Moore in the 

 verse — 



. " How dear to me the hour when daylight dies, 

 And sunbeams melt along the silent sea ! 

 For then sweet dreams of other days arise. 

 And memory breathes her vesper sigh to thee ! " 



January, 1870. 



A FEARFUL gusty (clearly a feminine) wind blowing ! 

 Went on the river with my youngest born ; glad to get 

 off again. The waves ran half-a-yard high, and the 

 savage tempest blew so lustily ! twice the mast was 

 unshipped, and the little craft heeled over far more 

 than pleased me. By myself I- should have persevered, 

 but I didn't like to risk the life of little Benjamin, who 

 sat wet, but calmly unconscious of danger, with the 

 tiller ropes in his tiny hands, as I attended to the sheet 

 and an occasional oar. Several lots of partridges rose 

 along the bank in places. How odd that they should 

 choose so cold a lair on so boisterous a day ! taking the 

 air, I suppose, as ladies after the season on the Brighton 

 strand ; and the swans, too — four of them — for one 

 has chivalrously detached himself, to engage with a 

 lonely maiden some eight miles lower down the river 

 than this (her former swain was ruthlessly murdered 

 by some boys last year) ; they sailed about our craft so 



