" My informant told me that then and there his appetite
completely failed, and, to the dismay of his host he had to relinquish
his knife and fork.
It is always policy to kill a sheep to save its life, as the saying
is, and the way to make the most of it is to send any fat animal,
which is off its feed and looking somewhat thoughtful, to the butcher
at once. He knows quite well whether the sheep is fit for food, and if
he decides against it, all one expects is the value of the skin. But
people are very shy of buying meat about which they have any
misgiving, and my butcher once told me not to send him an "emergency
sheep" _in one of my own carts_, but to ask him to fetch it himself:
"It's like this," he explained, "when a customer comes in for a nice
joint of mutton, if he is a near neighbour, he will perhaps add, 'I
would rather not have a bit of the sheep that came in a day or two ago
in one of Mr. S.'s carts'!"
It was always cheering in February, "fill dyke, be it black or be it
white," on a dark morning, to hear the young lambs and their mothers
calling to each other in the orchards, where there is some grass all
the year round under the shelter of the apple trees; or when a
springlike morning appears, about the time of St. Valentine's Day, and
the thrushes are singing love-songs to their mates, and the first
brimstone butterfly has dared to leave his winter seclusion for the
fickle sunshine, to realize that Spring is coming, and the active work
of the farm is about to recommence.
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