Page:Walks in the Black Country and its green border-land.pdf/381

Rh it carefully to the shed. Two bullocks of this wild breed were being kept up in a yard, to be slaughtered for a barbecue when the young lord of the estate came of age. At our request the keeper, with a club in his hand, turned them out into the adjoining paddock, so that we could have a full view of them. They sauntered about naturally and did not appear any fiercer than tigers, whose eyes look as mild sometimes as those of purring cats. But one of them seemed to sidle up towards the keeper as if to catch him off his guard, and we all felt inclined to shorten the interview lest it should end in a disagreeable incident. Almost on the opposite side of the road we had visited a farmer's establishment, where we saw a large family of the same genus of animals in the highest state of moral and physical culture, both as to form, dress, disposition, and deportment. Here were thirty-two cows, graded shorthorns, drawn up in two parallel lines facing each other in a large milking shed. Here they stood, with their large, honest eyes so full of peace and contentment that it was good to look at them. The white streams were pattering against the inner sides of the pails all up and down the lines, and the good, kind-spirited creatures seemed happy in making such music for their master's cars. The contrast was very striking. Here were wild Indian squaws on one side, and gentle, graceful