12 



CHRONICLES OF A CLAY FARM. 



that had measured the altitude of your downfall, and 

 caught you all, if not upon one, upon two cross hairs. 

 Old Fish or a New Farm ? Snipes or Swede-tur- 

 nips? Which was it to be? There stood but this 

 question between the will and the way to let the Dry 

 Land appear. And who knows what Saurian mon- 

 strosities of a primeval age might be brought into 

 daylight when this stagnation of waters was let loose, 

 which had dammed up the moisture of so many broad 

 acres from time immemorial ? since, little raised above 

 the high water-mark of this pool, lay the subsoil of 

 the whole farm beyond and around it ; and the lowest 

 point of this meadow was the lowest point of all. 



" Has it ever been tried with a Spirit-level " 



