O’er hills and dales I cross’d;
And that one short of my account,
I then gave up for lost.
[61] It is nothing particular for ewes, at their yeaning time, to stray: some have been known to travel an hundred miles to their native place to yean. The author remembers a ewe which had with others been sold to the southward, and was kept on the Haughs of the Humber, from which she strayed, and reaching Makendon, on the borders of Scotland, she travelling about twenty yards within her original pasture, there squatted and yeaned in half an hour. The owner of the ewe that travelled so far to yean upon her pristine spot, went the year following to buy another lot of the same sort, was asked how the last year’s stock proved, answered, extraordinary well, excepting one that disappeared, which he supposed to be stole. The stocksman said he was sorry for his loss, which however, he said, he would make good if they bargained for the present parcel. The bargain was made, and the seller turned an ewe and lamb, gratis, into the drove, explained the fact, and the poor ewe had to retread the ground she had twice before travelled over.
SONG.
By J.C.—July 5th, 1810.
A fair reformation would render this nation,
The richest isle under the sun;