The floods
washed his drain into a deep gully near his hut, which was sometimes
nearly surrounded with the roaring waters. He then tried to dam the
water back on to my ground, but I made a gap in his dam with a
long-handled shovel, and let the flood go through. Nature and the
shovel were too much for Billy. He came out of his hut, and stood
watching the torrent, holding his dirty old pipe a few inches from
his mouth, and uttered a loud soliloquy:--"Here I am--on a
miserable island--fenced in with water--going to be washed away
--by that Lord Donahoo, son of a barber's clerk--wants to drown me
and my kids--don't he--I'll break his head wi' a paling--blowed
if I don't." He then put his pipe in his mouth, and gazed in silence
on the rushing waters.
I planted my ground with vines of fourteen different varieties, but,
in a few years, finding that the climate was unsuitable for most of
them, I reduced the number to about five. These yielded an unfailing
abundance of grapes every year, and as there was no profitable
market, I made wine. I pruned and disbudded the vines myself, and
also crushed and pressed the grapes. The digging and hoeing of the
ground cost about 10 pounds each year. When the wine had been in the
casks about twelve months I bottled it; in two years more it was fit
for consumption, and I was very proud of the article.
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