170 CHRONICLES OF A CLAY FARM. 



Turnip or Barley, since the Flood which, in fact, 

 it has never recovered, I suppose, till the draining- 

 tools have bled it in this way. How little one can 

 say what a soil is, till it is drained ! ' 



* It does one's heart good to look at it now, how- 

 ever,' replied Mr. Greening ; ' doesn't it make you 

 happy-like to see this sort of change, and feel that 

 you have done it ? it does me.' 



* So happy, that at the end of a winter's day of 

 draining-work I have spent hours of delicious idle 

 reverie, with the Lamp wasting beside me as I sat 

 alone, dreaming the day's work over again ; seeing, 

 with closed eyes, the long-pent-up poison oozing 

 away down its narrow channels, poison no longer ! 

 and thinking of the future showers that will perco- 

 late and filter through the loosened soil and subsoil 

 three or four feet deep, like some freed and glad- 

 dened thing, doing its generous Maker's bidding. I 

 hardly know how to describe the sense of high 

 privilege the thought brings with it of being al- 

 lowed humbly to aid, as it were, in Nature's glorious 

 development. I know of no pleasure that surpasses 

 it or should surpass it except one except one 

 except ONE ! ' 



' Goodness help us ! why that's three I And 



