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Just as he had done before, he drove in his flocks, barred the entrance, milked the goats and ewes, and made his meal of two more hapless men, while their fellows looked on with burning eyes.
As soon as the breast of the animal was empty, with a lash of its tail it recovered the deep water, and swam round and round in small circles, near to the spot. "We always leave one breast for the calf," observed my host; "when they are all milked, I shall open the pen and let the mothers in." "What are those enormous whales which are playing at a distance?"
Instead of four or five cows, known by such names as Brindle, Bess, and Sukey, milked by rosy-cheeked maidens, we have now droves of fifty or a hundred, milked by men, who know them only as "good" or "poor milkers."
The cattle had come home, but Crom Duv was not with them. Morag milked the cows and brought all the milk within, leaving no milk for the cats to drink outside. Six came into the kitchen to get their supper there. One after another they sprang up on the table, one more proud and overbearing than the other. Each cat ate without condescending to make a single mew.
She milked them morning and evening, and, when the days were longest, at noon too; and though her mother prepared the dishes for the milk and skimmed the cream, Shenac always made the butter, because churning needed strength as well as skill; and oftener than otherwise it was done before she called her brothers in the morning.
At last the dog tired of the fun and trotted off to join Jack, who was disappearing over the hill. I then tried to round up the cows and get them out of the pasture. But the brutes were wet with sweat and as wild as deer. I saw that they could not be milked in that condition and felt that Jack's conduct was outrageous. He had not only made trouble for me; he had injured the hotel keeper.
Bossie, Bonnie Bee, Lilian and Daisy, the cows, were standing around waiting to be milked, switching their tails and moo-oo-ing now and then; some would wander over to the wide horse trough, over which the water spilled, and bend their heads until their mouths touched the water, when they would drink in great gulps, then turn away with dripping chins.
The lantern threw a dim red light on the harness and on the rumps of the cattle, but left mysterious shadows in the corners. I could hear the mice rustling in the straw of the roof, and from the farther end of the dimly-lighted shed came the regular strim-stram of the streams of milk falling into the bottom of a tin pail as the hired hand milked the big roan cow.
They did so, found nine of the gentle creatures there, saw them get a bath of Lake Michigan water from a hose-pipe, which they were told was given them three times daily. Then they were harnessed to their sledges and driven around the park, just as they are driven in their own country. After that they ran races, then they were fed and milked.
Many ranged through the woods and it was so difficult to get them up that sometimes they would not be milked for two or three days. Often they gave no more than a quart of milk a day and were probably no better in appearance than the historian Lecky tells us were the wretched beasts then to be found in the Scottish Highlands.
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