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Muck, however small, has yet others smaller about it, one of which has only ground sufficient to afford pasture for three wethers. At Dunvegan I had tasted lotus, and was in danger of forgetting that I was ever to depart, till Mr. Boswell sagely reproached me with my sluggishness and softness. I had no very forcible defence to make; and we agreed to pursue our journey.
On this occasion his usual good fortune attended him for it was the opinion of every one there, that he had got the best bargain disposed of during the day a lot of twenty-five wethers in prime condition.
At least, I should say, it freed those sheep which had travelled down to the vallies, driven before the first pitiless gusts, but we knew that many hundreds, if not thousands, of wethers must have been surprised and imprisoned far back among the hills. Such knowledge could not be acted upon, however, for no human being could hope to plunge through the drifts around us.
We must put some sheep that are wiser than the rest in every flock that they may lead the stupid ones. I dinna ken where they'd be if we didn't. We take as leaders sheep that are 'flock-wise' by that I mean old ewes or wethers that have long been in the herds and know the ways. Sometimes, also, we put in a goat or two, for a goat has the wit to find water and food for himself. Not so the sheep!
Lee's to send yearly to Christchurch a flock of fat wethers for sale, and as I wished to proceed there on the business I referred to, I was to be entrusted with the charge of them, in company with a Scottish shepherd, by name Campbell, who was a new arrival in the country.
As motive power for the churn and separator, a two-sheep-power treadmill has proved entirely satisfactory. It is worked by two sturdy wethers who are harbored in a pleasant house and run, close to the power-house, and who pay for their food by the sweat of their brows and the wool from their backs.
Now it came to pass that once in a small lot of thirty or forty wethers which the farmer had bought at a sheep-fair and brought home it was discovered that one was a ewe a ewe that would perhaps at some future day have a lamb! Liddy was greatly excited at the discovery; he went to Caleb and told him about it, almost crying at the thought that his master would get rid of it.
This said, they made ready supper, and, of extraordinary besides his daily fare, were roasted sixteen oxen, three heifers, two and thirty calves, three score and three fat kids, four score and fifteen wethers, three hundred farrow pigs or sheats soused in sweet wine or must, eleven score partridges, seven hundred snipes and woodcocks, four hundred Loudun and Cornwall capons, six thousand pullets, and as many pigeons, six hundred crammed hens, fourteen hundred leverets, or young hares and rabbits, three hundred and three buzzards, and one thousand and seven hundred cockerels.
He also took an intense interest in his wethers, and almost every day he would go to Caleb, tending his flock on the down, to sit by him and ask a hundred questions about sheep and their management. He looked on Caleb, as head-shepherd on a good-sized farm, as the most important and most fortunate person he knew, and was very proud to have him as guide, philosopher, and friend.
The cows and sheep were quietly browsing near him, and he watched them earnestly for a time, listening to the singing of the birds, and the gentle tinkling of the bells upon the wethers, and the faraway songs of the reapers that the breeze brought to his ears.
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