Before leaving Yorkshire, I stole one more day from the Sheldon business, in order to loiter just a few hours longer in that northern Arcadia called Newhall farm. What assurance have I that I shall ever re-enter that pleasant dwelling? What hold have I, a wanderer and vagabond, on the future which respectable people map out for themselves with such mathematical precision? And even the respectable people are sometimes out in their reckoning. To snatch the joys of to-day must always be the policy of the adventurer. So I took one more happy afternoon at Newhall. Nor was the afternoon entirely wasted; for, in the course of my farewell visit, I heard more of poor Susan Meynell's history from honest uncle Joseph. He told me the story during an after-dinner walk, in which he took me the round of his pig-styes and cattle-sheds for the last time, as if he would fain have had them leave their impress on my heart.
"You may see plenty of cattle in Yorkshire," he remarked, complacently, "but you won't see many beasts to beat that."
He pointed to a brown and mountainous mass of inert matter, which he gave me to understand was something in the way of cattle.
"Would you like to see him standing?" he asked, giving the mass a prod with the handle of his walking-stick, which to my cockney mind seemed rather cruel, but which, taken from an agricultural point of view, was no doubt the correct thing. "He can stand. Coom up, Brownie!"
I humbly entreated that the ill-used mass might be allowed to sprawl in undisturbed misery.
"Thorley!" exclaimed Mr. Mercer, laying his finger significantly against the side of his unpretending nose.
I had not the faintest comprehension of my revered uncle-in-law's meaning; but I said, "O, indeed!" with the accents of admiration.
"Thorley's Condiment," said my uncle. "You'll see some fine animate at the Cattle-show; but if you see a two-year-old ox to beat him, my name is not Joe Mercer."
After this I had to pay my respects to numerous specimens of the bovine race, all more or less prostrate under the burden of superabundant flesh, all seeming to cry aloud for the treatment of some Banting of the agricultural world.
After we had "done" the cattle-sheds, with heroic resignation on my part, and with enthusiasm on the part of Mr. Mercer, we went a long way to see some rarities in the way of mutton, which commodity was to be found cropping the short grass on a distant upland.