gold
put upon his head, might not be setting privy snares to catch him in his
walks abroad. They had done so when they pursued him up the Dike; and
though he was inclined to doubt the strict legality of that proceeding,
he could not see his way to a fair discussion of it, in case of their
putting a bullet through him. And this consideration made him careful.

The brother and sister went on well by the foot-path over the uplands of
the farm, and crossing the neck of the Flamburn peninsula, tripped away
merrily northward. The wheat looked healthy, and the barley also, and a
four-acre patch of potatoes smelled sweetly (for the breeze of them was
pleasant in their wholesome days), and Willie, having overworked his
brain, according to his own account of it, strode along loftily before
his sister, casting over his shoulder an eddy of some large ideas with
which he had been visited before she interrupted him. But as nothing
ever came of them, they need not here be stated. From a practical point
of view, however, as they both had to live upon the profits of the farm,
it pleased them to observe what a difference there was when they had
surmounted the chine and began to descend toward the north upon other
people's land. Here all was damp and cold and slow; and chalk looked
slimy instead of being clean; and shadowy places had an oozy cast; and
trees (wherever they could stand) were facing the east with wrinkled
visage, and the west with wiry beards. Willie (who had, among other
great inventions, a scheme for improvement of the climate) was reminded
at once of all the things he meant to do in that way; and making, as he
always did, a great point of getting observations first--a point whereon
he stuck fast mainly--without any time for delay he applied himself to a
rapid study of the subject. He found some things just like other things
which he had seen in Scotland, yet differing so as to prove, more
clearly than even their resemblance did, the value of his discovery.

"Look!" he cried; "can anything be clearer? The cause of all these evils
is not (as an ignorant person might suppose) the want of sunshine, or
too much wet, but an inadequate movement of the air--"

"Why, I thought it was always blowing up here. The very last time I
came, my bonnet strings were split."

"You do not understand me; you never do. When I say inadequate, I mean,
of course, incorrect, inaccurate, unequable. Now the air is a fluid; you
may stare as you li