18 Sufferings of Sheep. 



touches like wire — all the sap dried from it, and 

 nothing but fibre left. Beneath the chalk is mois- 

 ture less, and nothing can grow on it. The by-roads 

 and paths made with the chalk or ' rubble ' glare in 

 the sunlight, and the flints scattered so thickly about 

 the ploughed fields seem to radiate heat. All things 

 that should look green are brown and dust}^ ; even 

 the leaves on the elms seem dusty. The wheat only 

 flourishes, tall and strong — deep tinted jellow here, 

 a ruddy, golden bronze j'onder, with ears full and 

 heavy, rich and glorious to gaze upon. Insects 

 multiply and replenish the earth after their fashion 

 exceedingl}' ; the spiders are busy as may be, not 

 only those that watch from their webs 13'ing in wait, 

 but those that chase their prey through the grass as 

 dogs do game. 



But under the beautiful sky and the glorious sun 

 there rises i;p a pitiful cr^^ the livelong da}' : it is the 

 quavering bleat of the sheep as their strength slowly 

 ebbs out of them for the lack of food. Green crops 

 and roots fail, the aftermath in the meadows beneath 

 will not grow, week after week ' keep ' becomes scarcer 

 and more expensive, and there is, in fact, a famine. 

 Of all animals a starved sheep is the most wretched 

 to contemplate, not onl}" because of the angularity of 

 outline, and the cavernous depressions where fat and 

 flesh should be, but becaiise the associations of many 

 generations have given the sheep a peculiar claim 

 upon humanity. They hang entirely on human help. 

 They watch for the shepherd as though he were their 

 father ; and when he comes he can do no good, so 

 that there is no more painful spectacle than a fold 

 during a drought upon the hills. 



