The two men were Attorney Case and the butcher. The butcher was feeling whether the lamb was fat.
Susan sat down upon the bank in silent sorrow. Her little brothers ran up to the butcher and asked whether he was going to do any harm to the lamb. The butcher did not answer, but the Attorney replied, "It is not your sister's lamb any longer; it's mine."
"Yours!" cried the children with terror; "and will you kill it?"
"No, that is what the butcher will do."
The little boys now burst into loud cries. They pushed away the butcher's hand; they threw their arms round the neck of the lamb; they kissed its forehead. It bleated. "It will not bleat to-morrow!" said William, and he wept bitterly.
The butcher looked aside, and hastily rubbed his eyes with the corner of his blue apron. The Attorney stood unmoved; he pulled up the head of the lamb, which had just stooped to crop a mouthful of clover. "I have no time to waste," he said. "Butcher, I leave it to you. If it's fat—the sooner the better. I've nothing more to say." And he walked off, deaf to the prayers of the poor children. As soon as the Attorney was out of sight, Susan rose from the bank where she was seated, came up to her lamb, and stooped to gather some of the fresh dewy clover, that she might feed her pet for the last time. Poor Daisy licked the well-known hand.
"Now, let us go," said Susan.
"I'll wait as long as you please," said the butcher.
Susan thanked him, but walked away quickly, without looking back. Her little brothers begged the man to stay a few minutes, for they had gathered a handful of blue speedwell and yellow crowsfoot, and they were decking the poor animal. As it followed the boys through the village, the children looked after them as they passed, and the butcher's own son was among the number. The boy remembered Susan's firmness about the shilling, for it had saved him a beating. He went at once to his father to beg him to spare the lamb.