Page:The Children of the New Forest - 1847 - Marryat.djvu/78

 I've observed that cattle are very scared with the smell and sight of blood. I found that out by once or twice seeing them come to where I have cut the throat of a stag, and as soon as they have put their noses down to where the blood was on the ground, they have put their tails up and galloped away bellowing at a terrible rate, Indeed I 've heard say that if a murder has been committed in a wood, and you want to find the body, that a herd of cattle drove into it will serve you better than even a bloodhound."

"Thank you for telling me that Jacob, for I should never have supposed it, and I'll tell you what I'll also do, I'll load the cart with fern litter, and put it at the bottom of the pit, so that if I could get a heifer or calf worth taking, it may not be hurt by fall."

It must brave taken you a long while to dig that pit, Humphrey."

"Yes, it did, and as I got deeper the work was harder, and then I had to carry away all the earth and scatter it about. I was more than a month about it from the time that I began till it was. finished, and I had a ladder to go up and down by at last, and carried the baskets of earth up, for it was too deep to throw it out."

"Nothing like patience and perseverance, Humphrey. more than I have."

"I'm sure he has more than I have, or shall ever have, I'm: afraid," replied Edward.

During this winter, which passed rapidly away, very few circumstances of any consequence occurred. Old Jacob was more: or less confined to the cottage by the rheumatism, and Edward; hunted either by himself or occasionally with Humphrey. Humphrey was fortunate enough to take a bull and cow calf in his pit-fall, both of them about a year or fifteen months old, and by, rude invention of his, by way of windlass, with assistance of Edward, to hoist them uninjured out of the pit.