CUTTINGS DOWN". 385 



farmer. The supplies of old pensioners dwindled till they 

 died. The kitchen range became of course proportionately 

 contracted, the jack was rarely heard, and as for the cricket, 

 that was never heard or seen at all never since that fatal 

 evening ; he was departed dead, or, if of mould immortal, 

 mortally offended. 



In a language of signs too significant to be mistaken was 

 thus revealed the purport of that chilly greeting which had 

 met my uncle upon Christmas morning ; the announcement, 

 for it was none other, of his banker's total failure, involving 

 the loss of his whole fortune, except the slender income de- 

 rived from his very small, poor, and lowly-tithed parish. On 

 this he might have lived still in tolerable comfort, but he had 

 always been lavishly generous lavish also in the gratification 

 of his personal tastes ; amongst others, that for costly and 

 expensive books, those especially on the science of his fancy, 

 and herein of his pride. In his shallowed resources he now 

 found himself deep in debt ; and through deeps and shallows 

 he knew not how to steer. 



Even the cuttings off above described were made with tardy 

 hand, because my poor uncle, in his feebleness of moral pur- 

 pose, was quite unequal to imitation of the bee or caterpillar, 

 which with instinctive decision are always found to accommo- 

 date their operations, forthwith, to straitened circumstances. 

 Every one who has studied bees and reared caterpillars will 

 know we do them only justice. 



