A CONVERT, AND A HERETIC. 21 



from a drain eighteen or twenty inches deep under the 

 furrow which was still retained, was so manifest and 

 immediate, that the very improvement itself prevented 

 further improvement. A man who had shallow-drained 

 one field, and found that even this did good, imagined 

 himself furnished with a practical argument against 

 deep draining though he had never tried it; like those 

 who condemn books they have never read, on the 

 authority of opposite-thinking Reviews which they 

 have read. 



This was precisely the sort of reasoning that lay fast 

 and strong in the skull of my old waster-drainer ; for 

 master I saw he was determined to be. The evidence of 

 a hundred Spirit-levels would have been no answer to 

 ' forty years' experience ' in draining and ditching. Of 

 this I was quite sure : so we were at a dead pass. One 

 or the other must give way ' and be for ever fallen.' 

 It was easy to wish him forty years' more experience 

 elsewhere and ' good morning ;' but this would be 

 only cutting the knot, and probably entailing another 

 in succession. Nee deus inter sit nisi dignus vindicc 

 nodus ! He was a good workman, and his authority 

 over his men not a thing that it would be wise to 

 shake, even had that been possible. A thought oc- 

 curred to me, a very bold thought, all things consi- 



