168 CHRONICLES OF A CLAY FARM. 



Avhich this field has suffered in the aggregate? 

 Query would it be as stiff a soil as it has now the 

 reputation of, if it had not always been parting with 

 its sand by this continual process of superficial 

 scraping ? ' When I came to drain it, I found that 

 my suspicion was correct. Every here and there 

 the subsoil was chequered by little * pots ' of pure 

 sand, embedded in red clay, and so full of water that 

 the drainer was obliged to tap them carefully to pre- 

 vent large masses breaking off and rushing down 

 with the fluid that burst out of them when the sides 

 were cut through. The effect of the drainage was 

 already most remarkable. The workmen called it 

 ' beautiful;' and though nothing can present a more 

 dreary look than a fresh drained field with all the 

 cold varieties of subsoil lying exposed along the lines 

 of the drains, I could not help feeling the truth of 

 the expression applied as it was prospectively rather 

 than to the actual scene before the eye. It was ' beau- 

 tiful' in the same sense that many a rough-fooAzw*? 

 act, and many a painful soul-subduing thought, and 

 many a rainy day of life's adversities, is ' beautiful ' 

 by its consequences : and I always liked the word, 

 so pregnant with faith in what is unseen except by 

 the mental eye that * views the Future in the In- 



