146 A FARMER'S YEAR 



boldly. The mare thrust out her head and sniffed, then she 

 literally seemed 'to smile all over,' as the Americans say, and 

 made no further attempt to interfere with him, even when he 

 caught hold of the foal and dragged it on to its legs. Two or 

 three years ago a change of the stockman's clothes resulted in a 

 tragedy in this neighbourhood. My friend Mr. Henry Smith, the 

 squire of Ellingham, had a bailiff named Bensely. Also he had a 

 very savage bull. This bull was turned out on a marsh, where it 

 could injure no one, but Bensely, unhappily for himself, went to 

 look at it after church or chapel, dressed in his Sunday best. 

 The bull did not know its attendant in this attire, and attacked him 

 so that the poor man was found dead in a dyke. His actual death, 

 however, was, I believe, due not to his injuries, but to terror acting 

 on a diseased heart. 



New-born Pride, our oldest, and once our best, cow — she is 

 about twenty — also calved last night, for the animals seem to be 

 taking the opportunity of Hood's indisposition to hurry their 

 offspring into the world at as inconvenient a time as possible. I 

 am glad to say that her calf is a heifer, the second only out of all 

 the number that she has given us. She is so old that probably 

 she will be sold out before she calves again, so I want to keep as 

 much of her stock as possible, for she is a magnificent stamp of 

 cow, long and broad and low, possessing that size which many 

 red-polls lack. Her other heifer calf is now a member of the 

 herd, with a calf of her own, and promises very well. 



To-day, as I was walking by, I noticed great flocks of sparrows 

 and starlings on the three-acre pasture. Doubtless they are busy 

 devouring as much of the clover seed sown yesterday as they can 

 find, but I hope that enough will escape them to serve our 

 purpose. 



April 13. — This has been a sad day for the lambs, for on it 

 they have made their first accjuaintance with the terrors of exist- 

 ence under our present dire carnivorous system, wanting which, by 

 the way, they would never have lived at all. About breakfast 



