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A planter on the slopes of the Nilgiris gave me a well marked instance of leaf disease being increased from want of digging, when there was a good opportunity of contrasting the dug with the undug soil.
But there were no fresh stains on that wall this morning, and the graves remained undug, though here and there were seen the first marks of spades where the wretched victims had begun to dig. It had been a close call, and Tom involuntarily shuddered. The cool air that he drew into his lungs had never seemed so sweet to him as now.
There are strange powers at work! ... powers of the undug earth and unfathomed sea! ... hark how they tear at the stately foundations of Al-Kyris! ... Flame! flame! it is already kindled! it shall enwrap thee with more closeness than thy coronation robe, O mighty Sovereign! ... with more gloating fondness than the serpent- twining arms of thy beloved! Listen, Zephoranim, listen!"
And since I could not keep myself from telling my companion now and then what I thought of his uncleanly ways, there grew up a certain ill-feeling between us, and I feared we should have to separate before long. As it was, we hardly spoke now beyond what was needed. And there was the well, as undug as ever. Sunday came, and Grindhusen had gone home.
At the end of December he reports to the Treasury a conversation he had had with an assistant-engineer from Roscommon, who told him his belief was, that there were much more provisions in the country than was generally supposed. He had every day, he said, good potatoes at eight shillings a cwt. When the disease appeared, the people who held conacres threw them up, and the potatoes remained undug.
When the small interval still undug was moved, the ditch would be finished from river to ranch, from the Pinas down to Perro. And this was to be the last day of toil! To-day the camps were to hurl themselves at that short remaining strip of earth and tear it out; the furrow so long pressed ahead through the iron ground was to be brought to an end; the enemy, frost, was to be conquered at last.
They were, indeed, the best nathured couple in Europe; they would lend you a spade or a hook in potato time or harvest, out of pure kindness, though their own corn, that was drop-ripe, should be uncut, or their potatoes, that were a tramping every day with their own cows or those of the neighbors, should be undug all for fraid of being thought unneighborly.
Escape from death! ... alas, there is no escape, . . 'tis evident we all must die, . . die, and with dust-quenched eyes unlearn our knowledge of the sun, the stars, the marvels of the universe, for us no more shall the flowers bloom or the sweet birds sing; the poem of the world will write itself anew in every roseate flushing of the dawn, but we, we who have joyed therein, we who have sung the praises of the light, the harmonies of wind and sea, the tunefulness of woods and fields, we whose ambitious thoughts have soared archangel-like through unseen empyreans of space, there to drink in a honeyed hope of Heaven, we shall be but DEAD! ... mute, cold, and stirless as deep, undug stones, . . dead! ... Ah God, thou Utmost Cruelty!" and in a sudden access of grief and passion he raised one hand and shook it aloft with a menacing gesture "Would I might look upon Thee face to face, and rebuke Thee for Thy merciless injustice!"
The crops were deficient, especially the potato crop, much of which was left undug until the ensuing spring, partly on account of the inclement weather, partly because it was not worth the labour. The low grounds were, in many instances, inundated to such a depth that even the potatoes in pits could not be reached.
We found the coffin unmade and the grave undug, and set men vigorously to work at both.
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