ey Farm the land was
equal to the stock it had to bear, whether of trees, or corn, or cattle,
hogs, or mushrooms, or mankind. The farm was not so large or rambling
as to tire the mind or foot, yet wide enough and full of change--rich
pasture, hazel copse, green valleys, fallows brown, and golden
breast-lands pillowing into nooks of fern, clumps of shade for horse
or heifer, and for rabbits sandy warren, furzy cleve for hare and
partridge, not without a little mere for willows and for wild-ducks. And
the whole of the land, with a general slope of liveliness and rejoicing,
spread itself well to the sun, with a strong inclination toward the
morning, to catch the cheery import of his voyage across the sea.

The pleasure of this situation was the more desirable because of all
the parts above it being bleak and dreary. Round the shoulders of the
upland, like the arch of a great arm-chair, ran a barren scraggy ridge,
whereupon no tree could stand upright, no cow be certain of her own
tail, and scarcely a crow breast the violent air by stooping ragged
pinions, so furious was the rush of wind when any power awoke the
clouds; or sometimes, when the air was jaded with continual conflict, a
heavy settlement of brackish cloud lay upon a waste of chalky flint.

By dint of persevering work there are many changes for the better now,
more shelter and more root-hold; but still it is a battle-ground of
winds, which rarely change their habits, for this is the chump of the
spine of the Wolds, which hulks up at last into Flamborough Head.

Flamborough Head, the furthest forefront of a bare and jagged coast,
stretches boldly off to eastward--a strong and rugged barrier. Away
to the north the land falls back, with coving bends, and some straight
lines of precipice and shingle, to which the German Ocean sweeps, seldom
free from sullen swell in the very best of weather. But to the southward
of the Head a different spirit seems to move upon the face of every
thing. For here is spread a peaceful bay, and plains of brighter sea
more gently furrowed by the wind, and cliffs that have no cause to be so
steep, and bathing-places, and scarcely freckled sands, where towns
may lay their drain-pipes undisturbed. In short, to have rounded that
headland from the north is as good as to turn the corner of a garden
wall in March, and pass from a buffeted back, and bare shivers, to a
sunny front of hope all as busy as a bee, with pears spurring forward
into cr