‘It’s something of the same sort of thing here. If I had gone a trip with a drover from Tillyfour to London with West Highland cattle, I daresay I should have doubled my appetite and general vitality. There, however, it is not “the thing” to do. Here it is not the best form apparently—but you may carry it off without any accusation of insanity. One thing is certain, I shall never respect good cooking so much again. The cook to cultivate is yourself unquestionably. Guard your appetite, keep it in a state of nature, and the rudest materials, if wholesome, provide us with a daily feast, and a measure of enjoyment of which over-civilised, latter-day men are wholly ignorant and incapable.’
CHAPTER X
The days, after all, passed not so funereally by. The weather was utterly lovely. The wide plain was fanned by delicious wandering breezes. Mr. Neuchamp had ample time for philosophical contemplation, as long as he ‘kept up his side’ of the flock. If he became temporarily abstracted while musing upon the fact that the ancients travelled their stock for change of feed, probably doing a little grass stealing, when the season was dry—
‘Pecusve Calabris ante sidus fervidum
Lucana mutet pascua’—
the dog, Watch, would be sent round by his alert comrade to sweep in the spreading outsiders and warn him of his laches. Just before sundown one day the flocks were converging towards a line of timber suspiciously like a creek. The overseer rode up. He looked with approval upon the well-filled flock, now quietly feeding, and thus addressed Ernest—
‘Well, youngster, and how do you like shepherding?’
‘Pretty well,’ he answered; ‘it’s better than I expected.’
‘You and your mate seem to get on very well; the sheep look first-rate.’
‘Glad you think so. My mate is a person of experience, so is the dog. It isn’t hard to drive a flock of sheep, I find, with two good assistants.’