“Squire, I’m not going to flatter you. You know you don’t.”
“Well, my worthy secretary,” said the Squire, “I’m glad you speak so plainly. I can always come to you for advice when—”
“When you want to,” said Walton, laughing. “All right, mind you do. I’m proud to be your factor, as well as tutor to your boys. Now what about that Chillingham bull? You won’t turn him into the west field?”
“Why not? The field is well fenced. All our picturesque beasts are there. He is only a show animal, and he is really only a baby.”
“True, the bull is not much more than a baby, but—”
The baby in question was the gift of a noble friend to Squire Broadbent; and so beautiful and picturesque did he consider him, that he would have permitted him to roam about the lawns, if there did not exist the considerable probability that he would play battledore and shuttlecock with the visitors, and perhaps toss old Kate herself over the garden wall.
So he was relegated to the west field. This really was a park to all appearance. A few pet cattle grazed in it, a flock of sheep, and a little herd of deer. They all lived amicably together, and sought shelter under the same spreading trees from the summer’s sun. The cattle were often changed, so were the sheep, but the deer were as much fixtures as the trees themselves.
The changing of sheep or cattle meant fine fun for Archie. He would be there in all his glory, doing the work that was properly that of herdsmen and collie dogs. There really was not a great deal of need for collies when Archie was there, mounted on his wild Shetland pony, his darling “Eider Duck” Scallowa; and it was admittedly a fine sight to see the pair of them—they seemed made for each other—feathering away across the field, heading and turning the drove. At such times he would be armed with a long whip, and occasionally a beast more rampageous than the rest would separate itself from the herd, and, with tail erect and head down, dash madly over the grass. This would be just the test for Archie’s skill that he longed for. Away he would go at a glorious gallop; sometimes riding neck and neck with the runaway and plying the whip, at other times getting round and well ahead across the beast’s bows with shout and yell, but taking care to manoeuvre so as to steer clear of an ugly rush.
In this field always dwelt one particular sheep. It had, like the pony, been a birthday present, and, like the pony, it hailed from the Ultima Thule of the British North. If ever there was a demon sheep in existence, surely this was the identical quadruped. Tall and lank, and daft-looking, it possessed almost the speed of a red deer, and was as full of mischief as ever sheep could be. The worst of the beast was, that he led all the other woolly-backs into mischief; and whether it proposed a stampede round the park, ending with a charge through the ranks of the deer, or a well-planned attempt at escape from the field altogether, the other sheep were always willing to join, and sometimes the deer themselves.
Archie loved that sheep next to the pony, and there were times when he held a meet of his own. Mousa, as he called him, would be carted, after the fashion of the Queen’s deer, to a part of the estate, miles from home; but it was always for home that Mousa headed, though not in a true line. No, this wonderful sheep would take to the woods as often as not, and scamper over the hills and far away, so that Archie had many a fine run; and the only wonder is that Scallowa and he did not break their necks.