Gabriel snorted. He released Napoleon, who ran to Galatea for consolation, and got it; and then the court adjourned to the barnyard, where Mrs. Cowslip and Gustavius were still lamenting.
“I suggest,” said the Poet, “that, as the case is tolerably clear against the man with the blue-striped trousers, we excuse these somewhat doubtful witnesses, who seem to have troubles of their own.”
Thereupon all the four-legged members of Bos, Equus and Co. were turned loose, and the two-legged members repaired to the house in search of their belated breakfast.
During the next hour the agony of mind displayed by Mrs. Cowslip and Gustavius was somewhat eased by the fresh flavor of the dew-washed grass with which they set about restoring the rotundity of their sleek bodies. But they grazed always in the direction of the stone fence where the brook ran under it, and ever and anon they lifted up their half-filled mouths and mourned as eloquently as could be expected of a cow and a bull-calf in such circumstances.
William, he of the big horns and whiskers, who was similarly employed,—there being no succulent sheets or pillow-slips left out to bleach at so early an hour,—regarded his melancholy companions with a coldly critical eye. Reginald could be heard grunting thankfully among the artichokes. It was Cleopatra and Clarence who, alone, had sufficient good breeding to accompany their morning repast with amiable conversation.
“Mother,” the colt was saying, “what do you make of the extraordinary conduct of Mrs. Cowslip and her offspring? Is it colic, or is the weather going to change?”
“My son,” replied Cleopatra between nibbles, “when you have lived as long as I have, you will cease all attempts to discover the motives which actuate the cow kind. Beings of that species have no intelligence. They have only a sort of blind instinct and an emotional capacity which stamps them as primitive in the extreme, and therefore unworthy to associate on equal terms with our highly intellectual race.”
Clarence turned this chunk of wisdom over in his mind several times, and, being unable to assimilate it, observed:—
“I overheard Mrs. Cowslip saying something to Gustavius about smelling death in the air this morning. I at once counted noses, and none of the family was missing.”
“That reminds me, my son, that the cow kind have a strange custom which probably dates back to some prehistoric ancestor as superstitious and unphilosophic as themselves. I refer to their custom of holding unseemly ceremonies over their dead. I remember once—”