Page:Pontoppidan - Emanuel, or Children of the Soil (1896).djvu/235

 "the lass there"—he meant the foal—was a direct descendant of "Starkodder II.," who had taken prizes three years running at Roeskildé Horse Show, and could hang more medals and marks of honour on its breast than many a prince.

Emanuel listened attentively to him, and looked with great interest at the various appliances in the stable and in the adjoining barns and threshing sheds. He examined the chaff-cutting and winnowing machines, and asked the use of various screws and cogwheels, and had himself initiated generally into the mysteries of agriculture, of which he had seen nothing since his childhood, when he used to visit an uncle in Jutland. When they entered the cow-byre his attention was caught at once by a bird's nest which was built close up under the rafters, among the cobwebs, and out of which a pair of swallows flew just as they came in.

"Oh! look there!" he said with delight.

Anders Jörgen, who thought that such an enthusiastic exclamation could only refer to the condition of his cattle, let his hand fall heavily on the back of a fat beast, with a delighted smile, and said:

"There's a bit o' flesh for your Reverence!"

The cows were Anders Jörgen's pets, and he had a considerable reputation in the neighbourhood as a breeder and fattener of cattle. He knew exactly how much milk each of his cows had given, and their weights ever since they had