Still retaining his Zimmerman and his senses, he looked down and beheld the corniferous quadruped gamboling playfully round his singular asylum.
"Very pleasant!" exclaimed he; "I suppose, old fellow you want to have a game at toss!—if so, try it on with your equals, for you must see, if you have any gumption, that Watty Williams is above you. Aye, you may roar!—but if I sit here till Aurora appears in the east, you won't catch me winking. What a pity it is you cannot reflect as well as ruminate; you would spare yourself a great deal of trouble, and me a little fright and inconvenience."
The animal disdainfully tossed his head, and ran at the tree—and
"Away flew the light bark!"
in splinters, but the trunk remained unmoved.
"Shoo! shoo!" cried Watty, contemptuously; but he found that shoo'ing horns was useless; the beast still butted furiously against the harmless pollard.
"Hallo!" cried he to a dirty boy peeping at a distance—"Hallo!" but the lad only looked round, and vanished in an instant.
"The little fool's alarmed, I do believe!" said he; "He's only a cow-boy, I dare say!" And with this sapient, but unsatisfactory conclusion, he opened his book, and read aloud, to keep up his courage.
The bull hearing his voice, looked up with a most melancholy leer, the corners of his mouth drawn down with an expression of pathetic gravity.
Luckily for Watty, the little boy had given information of his dilemma, and the farmer to whom the bull belonged came with some of his men, and rescued him from his perilous situation.