"Where! why doesn't it see this here tea-kettle, with a mark run from the spout straight, or mayhap a little crooked or so, into west-and-by-southe-half-southe? now I calls this a shift of wind, Squire. Well, do you see this here boar's head that you made for me, alongside of the compass"—
"Ay, ay—Boreas—I see. Why, you've drawn lines from its mouth, extending from one of your marks to the other."
"It's no fault of mine, Squire Dickens; 'tis your d—d climate. The wind has been at all them there marks this very day; and that's all round the compass, except a little matter of an Irishman's hurricane at meridium, which you'll find marked right up and down. Now I've known a sow-wester blow for three weeks, in the Channel, with a clean drizzle in which you might wash your face and hands, without the trouble of hauling in water from alongside."
"Very well, Benjamin," said the Sheriff, writing in his journal; "I believe I have caught the idea. Oh! here's a cloud over the rising sun;—so you had it hazy in the morning?"
"Ay, ay, sir," said Benjamin.
"Ah! it's Sunday, and here are the marks for the length of the sermon—one, two, three, four—What! did Mr. Grant preach forty minutes!"
"Ay, sum'mat like it; it was a good half-hour by my own glass, and then there was the time lost in turning it, and some little allowance for leeway in not being over smart about it."
"But, Benjamin, this is as long as a Presbyterian sermon; you never could have been ten minutes in turning the glass!"
"Why, d'ye see, Squire, the parson was very solemn, and I just closed my eyes in order to think the better with myself, just the same as you'd
