A GARDEN DIARY 99 
stepped into the paddock or the farmyard. In 
reading lately Mr. Rider Haggard’s Farmer's 
Year, | found my pleasure a good deal interfered 
with by the eternal and the detestable apparition 
of the butcher! Whenever the small lambs, that 
frisked so delicately, were beginning to grow 
plump; whenever certain Irish bullocks, whose 
vicissitudes one followed, were pronounced to be 
not improving as they ought ; even when the old 
milch cow, who had given so much good milk, 
and had brought so many calves into the world, 
began to flag—always there was that abominable 
apparition in a smeared apron waiting for them 
close at hand, or peering in sinister fashion from 
round a corner. No, whatever other functionary 
I might be willing to share my pursuits with, 
assuredly I could never consent to share them 
with Mr. Bones! The objection may be merely 
sentimental, but so are most of our likings and 
dislikings merely sentimental. As for these green 
clients of ours, it is true that they do die pretty 
‘frequently upon our hands, and the fact is, no 
doubt, very distressing, the more so as in nine 
cases out of ten we are aware that it is entirely 
our own fault. In their case there are at least no 
heartrending cries or groans, heard or unheard. 
They go to their own place in peace, wafted as it 
were by slow music towards the gentlest of dis- 
solutions. While as for ourselves, if we are their 
murderers, well, we manage to hold up our heads, 
