He would begin to discuss my cows, the principles of farming, the sky, the birds of passage, the flowers, the sucking in of the Dutchmanwhich I told him all about before we had gone five milesthe mire-holes in the slews, anything at alland rising from a joke or a flighty notion which he earnestly advocated, he would lower his voice and elevate his language and utter a little gem of an oration.

there he creeps along; his brush he drags, And sweeps the mire impure; from his wide jaws His tongue unmoistened hangs; symptoms too sure Of sudden death.