day decaying: and when we heard that Ley Barton
itself, and all the Manor of Lynton were under a heavy mortgage debt to
John Lovering of Weare-Gifford, there was not much, in our little way,
that we would not gladly do or suffer for the benefit of De Whichehalse.

Meanwhile the work of the farm was toward, and every day gave us
more ado to dispose of what itself was doing. For after the long dry
skeltering wind of March and part of April, there had been a fortnight
of soft wet; and when the sun came forth again, hill and valley, wood
and meadow, could not make enough of him. Many a spring have I seen
since then, but never yet two springs alike, and never one so beautiful.
Or was it that my love came forth and touched the world with beauty?

The spring was in our valley now; creeping first for shelter shyly in
the pause of the blustering wind. There the lambs came bleating to her,
and the orchis lifted up, and the thin dead leaves of clover lay for the
new ones to spring through. There the stiffest things that sleep, the
stubby oak, and the saplin'd beech, dropped their brown defiance to her,
and prepared for a soft reply.

While her over-eager children (who had started forth to meet her,
through the frost and shower of sleet), catkin'd hazel, gold-gloved
withy, youthful elder, and old woodbine, with all the tribe of good
hedge-climbers (who must hasten while haste they may)--was there one of
them that did not claim the merit of coming first?

There she stayed and held her revel, as soon as the fear of frost was
gone; all the air was a fount of freshness, and the earth of gladness,
and the laughing waters prattled of the kindness of the sun.

But all this made it much harder for us, plying the hoe and rake, to
keep the fields with room upon them for the corn to tiller. The winter
wheat was well enough, being sturdy and strong-sided; but the spring
wheat and the barley and the oats were overrun by ill weeds growing
faster. Therefore, as the old saying is,--

Farmer, that thy wife may thrive, Let not burr and burdock wive; And if
thou wouldst keep thy son, See that bine and gith have none.

So we were compelled to go down the field and up it, striking in and out
with care where the green blades hung together, so that each had space
to move in and to spread its roots abroad. And I do assure you now,
though you may not believe me, it was harder work to keep John Fry, Bill
Dadds, and Jem Slocomb all in a line and all m