4 CHRONICLES OF A CLAY FARM. 



never, never, never would go again ! And the only 

 wonder was, when or how, or by what bold am- 

 phibious being, the ridges had ever been raised, 

 which it intersected, like a sample series of Dutch 

 canals and embankments. 



This was my farm : 250 statute acres ! 



* Why did you take it ? ' 



I didn't. It took me. That ' mysterious lady' 

 who is painted with a bandage on her eyes (she can 

 see as well as you or I), made it, with a pat on the 

 back, my property, and shortly afterwards, with a 

 slap in the face, my ' occupation.' It had been per- 

 forming for a series of years a sort of ( geometrical 

 progression' downwards. Each incoming tenant 

 took it at about half the previous rent; dabbled 

 about for a year or two like a duck, and retired 

 ' lame,'' It was but a simple equation a very 

 simple one to say when the rent would come to 

 zero. It looked on the Rental-book like an annual 

 sum in Reduction; 'facilis descensus Averm,' literally 

 translated into plain English. What was to be done 

 with it? This brings me to my proposition No. 2 : 

 which is in fact what is commonly called ' No. 1 '- 

 myself. If there was in the catalogue of human 

 pursuits, one which I hated and feared, dreaded and 

 despised, didn't know and didn't wish to know 



