TAKING REINS IN HAND. 75 



of guidance. They may have carried a bit of Caven- 

 dish twist in their waistcoat pockets ; they certainly 

 did not waste tune at lavations ; but as farm workers 

 they had rare aptitude ; no tool came amiss to them ; 

 they cradled ; they churned, if need were ; they 

 chopped and piled their three cords of wood between 

 sun and sun. With bare feet, and a keen- whetted 

 six-pound Blanchard, they laid such clean and broad 

 swaths through the fields of dewy herdsgrass, 

 as made " old-country-men " stare. By a kind of 

 intuition, they knew the locality of every tree, and 

 of every medicinal herb that greAv in the woods. 

 Rarest of all which they possessed, was an acuteness 

 of understanding, which enabled them to comprehend 

 an order before it was half uttered, and to meet occa- 

 sional and unforeseen difficulties, with a steady assur- 

 ance, as if they had been an accepted part of the 

 problem. It was possible to send such a man into a 

 wood with his team, to select a stick of timber, of 

 chestnut or oak, that should measure a given amount ; 

 he could be trusted to find such, to cut it, to score it, 

 to load it ; if the gearing broke, he could be trusted 

 to mend it ; if the tree lodged, he could be trusted to 

 devise some artifice for bringing it down ; and finally, 

 for its sure and prompt delivery at the point indi- 

 cated. Your Irishman, on the other hand, balks at 

 the first turn ; he must have a multitude of chains ; 



