132 CHRONICLES OF A CLAY FARM. 



architect who plans a building. The Landlord, the 

 Tenant, the Bricklayer, the Carpenter, the Work- 

 man, and last not least the gaping Neighbour each 

 has his opinion, and gives it freely enough. The 

 result is generally a mongrel compromise between 

 them all. No one voice no one plan is pre- 

 dominant, and by the time the whole outlay is 

 expended, the job is half a job, and the ship is 

 spoilt for a ha'p'orth of tar and an ounce of oakum. 

 The extreme of cold, as well as the extreme of heat, 

 will leave a blister on the fingers. 



Five months had winged away and the glorious 

 spring of that eighteen hundred and thirty odd, 

 afore dated with such edifying minuteness, and now 

 hanging up like a cobweb in some neglected passage 

 of this Chronicle had fallen into something more 

 than summer since the f Wetlandshire Mercury ' 

 had typified to the world at large that a certain farm 

 was to be let, at a certain time. * Fourteen' applica- 

 tions by the first post, duly forwarded by the prompt 

 Firm of Penn and Debbitt (and how many more 

 by the next and the next what boots it to par- 

 ticularize ? ) had been forwarded in vain. For a 

 blight had fallen the strangest of blights ! the 



