And as they were growing fagged and faint, and were forced to fall back upon their hard-earned savings, the Crimean war began, and the cry was for meat to send out to the land of strife and famine. The nation which had bled the farmers had now to bleed for them, and to buy their sheep or oxen at fabulous prices.
Thus the Emperor of Russia saved half the English farmers from ruin.
As we have already signified, Jamblin was a farmer of the old school, whose favourite maxim was—
He who by the plough would thrive,
Must himself either hold or drive.
He acted throughout his life in accordance with this precept.
He chose for his wife a farmer’s daughter—one of the old-fashioned sort—an adept in the economies of the stables and pig-sty, and a perfect genius among the milk-pails.
Having presented him with a son and a daughter, she expired in the act of lifting a large brewing-tub, which was out of its place in the back kitchen.
Although his wife had perished a victim to her love for ne plus ultra housewifery, Jamblin reared up his son and daughter in the same line of education which proved so beneficial to himself.
And sometimes he would recite this old adage in a kind of chant, beating time with his fingers on the kitchen dresser: