His Ears, Too, Were Enormous, And Stood Out From
The Head Like The Handles Of A Rudely Shaped Terra-Cotta Vase
Or Jar.
The colour of his face, the ears included, suggested
burnt clay.
But though Nature had made him ugly, he had an
agreeable expression, a sweet benign look in his large dark
eyes, which attracted me, and I stayed to talk with him.
It has frequently been said that those who are much with cows,
and have an affection for them, appear to catch something of
their expression - to look like cows; just as persons of
sympathetic or responsive nature, and great mobility of face,
grow to be like those they live and are in sympathy with.
The cowman who looks like a cow may be more bovine than his
fellows in his heavier motions and slower apprehensions, but
he also exhibits some of the better qualities - the repose and
placidity of the animal.
He said that he was over seventy, and had spent the whole of
his life in the neighbourhood, mostly with cows, and had never
been more than a dozen miles from the spot where we were
standing. At intervals while we talked he paused to utter one
of his long shouts, to which the cows paid no attention. At
length one of the beasts raised her head and had a long look,
then slowly crossed the field to us, the others following at
some distance. They were shorthorns, all but the leader, a
beautiful young Devon, of a uniform rich glossy red; but the
silky hair on the distended udder was of an intense chestnut,
and all the parts that were not clothed were red too - the
teats, the skin round the eyes, the moist embossed nose; while
the hoofs were like polished red pebbles, and even the shapely
horns were tinged with that colour. Walking straight up to
the old man, she began deliberately licking one of his ears
with her big rough tongue, and in doing so knocked off his old
rakish cap. Picking it up he laughed like a child, and
remarked, "She knows me, this one does - and she loikes me."
Chapter Seventeen: An Old Road Leading Nowhere
So many and minute were the directions I received about the
way from the blessed cowkeeper, and so little attention did I
give them, my mind being occupied with other things, that they
were quickly forgotten. Of half a hundred things I remembered
only that I had to "bear to the left." This I did, although
it seemed useless, seeing that my way was by lanes, across
fields, and through plantations. At length I came to a road,
and as it happened to be on my left hand I followed it. It
was narrow, worn deep by traffic and rains; and grew deeper,
rougher, and more untrodden as I progressed, until it was
like the dry bed of a mountain torrent, and I walked on
boulder-stones between steep banks about fourteen feet high.
Their sides were clothed with ferns, grass and rank moss;
their summits were thickly wooded, and the interlacing
branches of the trees above, mingled with long rope-like
shoots of bramble and briar, formed so close a roof that I
seemed to be walking in a dimly lighted tunnel.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 100 of 157
Words from 51915 to 52465
of 82198
