* EARTH '-STOPPING. 43 



Euclid, and then to go and dream the realization of 

 your symmetrical example-farm, the wonder and 

 delight of ardent agriculturists : but what a change 

 comes over the spirit of the dream, when you mizzle 

 out o' doors in the foggy November morning, and 

 come to a dead stand-still at the tangled side of a 

 fence (Bless me ! why it looked nothing on paper /) 

 which has furnished the talk of many a Hunt-dinner 

 for some centuries past, for the splendid leaps and 

 the splendid * purls ' it has given rise or given fall 

 to. Its height its enormous width its insur- 

 mountable impracticable look altogether, require an 

 eye quite as steady and a heart quite as firm as the 

 hunter's, to take it. 



It seemed like sacrilege, indeed I felt self- 

 convicted, at the first daring onslaught upon these 

 giants of the olden time. I was obliged to ' take a 

 run at it ' mentally, as it were, as many a man and 

 horse had before done bodily and in the flesh ; and 

 stuff my ears against the covered reproaches of the 

 workmen. 



' Famous bank for rabbits, this here, sir ? I've 

 know'd twenty couple killed in a day out of it, in my 

 time, when Squire ' 



* Ah ! well never mind ' quoth I, sorely and 



