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It's well known around, in spite of what you say, that Socknersh is valiant with sheep no one can handle 'em as he can; at the shearing Harmer and his men were full of it how the ewes ud keep quiet for him as for nobody else and 'twas the same at the lambing.
"Well, Shepherd Oak, and how's lambing this year, if I mid say it?" inquired Joseph Poorgrass. "Terrible trying," said Oak. "I've been wet through twice a-day, either in snow or rain, this last fortnight. Cainy and I haven't tined our eyes to-night." "A good few twins, too, I hear?" "Too many by half. Yes; 'tis a very queer lambing this year. We shan't have done by Lady Day."
After my return to Clifton, I was kept busy preparing for lambing. This did not turn out very successful. The hot, scorching sun so scalded the backs of the lambs, that the growth of wool was greatly retarded. After a month's hard work, I found myself so weak and depressed from the fever that I decided to return to England. In the meantime, Carruthers had left for his station on the Auburn River.
I had a very bad attack of fever and ague, and managed to ride into Clermont, where I was treated by a chemist named Mackintosh, who kindly allowed me to stay at his house. I shall never forget the kindness of him and his wife in pulling me through. Carruthers in the meantime had taken the sheep back to a creek which is still known as "Corfield's Creek." There the lambing took place.
Wherever...." And she was not slow to see how he was pleased at her surprise, and proud of it, for she said more in the same strain oh, she had never seen the like, and how had he ever managed to find such things! Inger was a blessing, too, in other ways. No clever head nor great in wit, maybe but she had two lambing ewes with some of her kinsfolk, and brought them down.
The lambing season had come and gone, and the flock of sheep had doubled in number. The cattle, too, had greatly increased, and the sheep were nearly ready for shearing. Altogether the value of the stock was over five thousand dollars.
Can one see a field of wheat gathered into sheaves without thinking of the dream of Joseph, or be around a farm at lambing time without smiling to recall the cunning of Jacob? Already were all these things weary and old and romantic when Virgil wrote and admonished the husbandman of times and seasons, of plows and harrows, of mattocks and hurdles, and the mystical winnowing fan of Iacchus.
I am going to give you all the exact dates, for this snow-storm will be a matter of history, during the present generation at all events: there is no tradition among the Maoris of such a severe one ever having occurred; and what made it more fatal in its financial consequences to every one was, that the lambing season had only just commenced or terminated on most of the runs.
Lambing was always late upon the Marsh. The wan film of the winter grasses had faded off the April green before the innings became noisy with bleating, and the new-born lambs could match their whiteness with the first flowering of the blackthorn.
We were going in the next day. We had been camping in an old shepherd's hut and had been pretty jolly all by ourselves. There was first-rate feed for our horses, as the grass was being saved for the lambing season. Jim was in fine spirits, and as we had plenty of good rations and first-rate tobacco we made ourselves pretty comfortable.
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