he might be able every two hours to yoke two fresh horses, and so be
enabled to drive them the faster.

John was now insatiable in ploughing. Every morning he was out before
sunrise, and many a time he ploughed on till after midnight. Summer and
winter it was plough, plough with him ever-more, except when the ground
was frozen as hard as a stone. He always ploughed by himself, and never
suffered any one to go out with him, or to come to him when he was at
work, for John understood too well the nature of his crop to let people
see for what it was he ploughed so constantly.

However, it fared far worse with him than with his horses, who ate good
oats, and were regularly changed and relieved, for he grew pale and
meagre by reason of his continual working and toiling. His wife and
children had no longer any comfort for him. He never went to the
ale-house or to the club. He withdrew himself from every one, and
scarcely ever spoke a single word, but went about silent and wrapped up
in his own thoughts. All the day long he toiled for his ducats, and at
night he had to count them, and to plan and meditate how he might find
out a still swifter kind of plough.

His wife and the neighbours lamented over his strange conduct, his
dulness and melancholy, and began to think he was grown foolish.
Everybody pitied his wife and children, for they imagined the numerous
horses that he kept in his stable, and the preposterous mode of
agriculture he pursued, with his unnecessary and superfluous ploughing,
must soon leave him without house or land.

Their anticipations, however, were not fulfilled. True it is, the poor
man never enjoyed a happy or contented hour since he began to plough the