Page:All the Year Round - Series 2 - Volume 1.djvu/610

 seeing her comfortably hoff, back I went with Tom.

There was more hexcitement than hever. You'll 'ardly believe it—but, in that short time, the bull had killed three more hosses, and hinjured a man—and was raging about the enclosure, shaking the blood in showers from his horns and head. Many of the ladies was half standing, waving their fans, and hurraying like the men. For myself, wexed as I was at the trick Tom had played us, I hown I was not free from the prewailing hexcitement—so, speaking coldly, I says:

"Wotever may be my priwate opinion of your cattle show Mr. Tirritup I consider that, bein' here, it is my dooty to see it hout if honly in the hope that something may occur to halter my present impression."

"All right, old fellow," says Tom. "See!"

Just at that moment, a trumpet sounded, and several of the men with the ribbined spikes ran into the enclosure, and began dancing about the bull, teasing and hirritating him, leaving their spikes fixed in his neck; but halways saving their own skins in a wonderful way.

"They know, you see," says Tom, "by the prick of his ear, which side he's goin' to charge, and sticks him on the t'other."

At last, one man brought a chair, and sat hisself down in it as coolly as if he was goin' to have a quiet chat with the bull. He had in each hand a spike, to which was fastened a sort of cracker. Down goes the bull's tremenjious head, and he rushes at the sitting man. Hup goes the chair, twenty feet in the hair; but the man stands by, laughing, and on each side of the poor beast's head are stuck the spikes, spattering fire! There was more tricks and teasing, such as 'anging their 'ats on the bull's horns, hexcetera, but the hanimal got tired o' fighting nothing, and there was a pause, when the trumpet sounded again, heverybody bolted, and henter the mattydoor, glistening like a 'arlequin. There was a roar of applause.

"'Hel Tato' is deservedly pop'lar," remarked Tom, "'aving polished off his four hundred bulls with only one mistake."

"Hel Tato" walks straight towards the bull, which glares at him a moment with his red eyes, then, using all his remaining strength, makes a furious, stumbling charge. There's the whish of a scarlet mantle—the glitter of a sword—a cloud of dust, and the beast is on his knees and broad forehead, at the feet of "Hel Tato," dead. 'Twas the only manly stroke he had received, and was rewarded with a 'urricane of applause, 'andfuls of money, and cigars enough to fill a barrow to the brim. Three mules then come dashing in at full gallop, was hitched to the bull, and whirled him off, as if he had been made o' pasteboard! Hafter that, the place was put to rights, the ladies ate oranges, and hother bulls was perjuiced. But I had had enough of Rammyres Vermijo, and Tom laughed, and said, so had he.

We walks away silent, when presently Tom—whose cigarette didn't seem to draw kindly—looks sideways at me, and says:

"You're disappinted, Lufkin!"

"Disappinted!" I bust out. "Say, hindignant. Hadd, ashamed! I've given countenance to a hexhibition as hatrocious as it is cowardly. I've dishonoured the name and character of the British farmer. 'Owever I shall 'old up my 'ead again, at the Salutation, I don't know. I shall blush to look my hown bulls in the face—when I think of the hend o' this one! You bring him up, from his free pastures—the brave, hunsuspectin' beast, and the use you make of his might and strength—his noble lines—his splendid dewelopment of limb and muscle—his glorious crest—his more than manly courage is to turn him into a railed prison, theer to be prodded with pikes, scorched with fireworks, bullied, baited, and bewildered, until, blind and weak with loss of blood, he can be safely cut down by that mixture o' the monkey and the murderer you call a 'mattydoor!' Aye, Tom, if the beast could speak, that would be his wersion o' the sport. Hout upon such sport! It hasn't even the merit of being dangerous. Between your harmour, hosses, cloaks, squibs, noise, and numbers, its fifty to one agin the single hanimal, before hever he henters the ring.

"And, if it's cruel to the bulls, it's worse for the hosses. They can't defend theirselves, and their riders, padded as they are, think honly of their own carcases.

"And if it's cruel to the hosses—oh Tom, Tom, it's worst cruelty of all to the women! Yes, them that flutters and fidgets most, in that 'orrible joy, bears deadliest witness against man's misleading. Hour duty is, and ever was, to restrain that spirit, heager, curious, hexcitable, that seems the 'eritage of the weak but dear companion God has given us. Is it in this Christian age and land, that we are found doing our hutmost to encourage it? No, Tom, my boy, instead of fostering in her the savage thirst of blood, show her those inevitable sufferings with which her gentle heart can sympathise, and which her tender hand can soothe. As for your hosses, instead of tearing out their hinsides, fill 'em with 'olesome food. And as for your beef, when it can't fulfil no nobler hend, why, cook it like a man, and hask me to dinner!"