108 IDLEHURST : 



may still be seen, chiefly in the more sequestered 

 parts of the Downs ; but practically the plough-bullock 

 is extinct. " Tis a pity," Avery thinks ; " there's 

 never such beef as they bullocks made when they'd 

 been worked and then fatted. They was goin' out ; 

 but I think as how it was the cattle-plague as made 

 people give 'em up, mostly. I rec'lect when that 

 first come ; we'd only horses then, an' it took them. 

 When I brought 'em in one night, Master 'e says, 

 * You've got to be a bit more careful with the whip, 

 my lad ; you've been hittin' this one in the eye,' he 

 says. Well, I'd laid the whip on a lump o' dirt 

 when we first went out, and never touched it all day. 

 When we got the horses into the stable, my mate says, 

 ' Hold on,' he says ; * here's the other eye wrong ! ' 

 And so it was. And the same night I was goin' 

 acrost the meada and I fell over a cow and kicked 

 her ; but she never got up ; so I says, ' Bring a 

 lantern, Jimmy/ I says ; ' there's something wrong 

 with one of the cows.' He got a light, and sure 

 enough she was dead. They all had it after that. 

 We went over to Tisfield for the farrier, but we only 

 lost that cow, and none of the horses. Seemed as 

 though the hard stuff in the roof of their mouths 

 came off, and then they got better." 



Nowadays we have the Agricultural Depression with 



