A CONVERT, AND A HERETIC. 21 



retained, was so manifest and immediate, that the 

 very improvement itself prevented further improve- 

 ment. 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 autho- 

 rity 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 intersit nisi dignus vindice 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 occurred to me, a very bold 

 thought, all things considered. I knew he hated the 



