lowering his beams, he contrasted the holy
Sabbath calm with the scene of excitement
into which he was voluntarily plunging
himself. As a kind of salve to his troubled mind,
he determined to pay extra care and attention
to the comfort of his cattle.

His consignment was to remain, till Smithfield
market opened at eleven o'clock on the
Sunday night, at the Islington lairs. Thither
Mr. Bovington repaired—on landing at the
Euston Station—in a very fast cab. On his
way, he calculated what the cost would be
of all the fodder, all the water, and all the
attendance, which his sheep and oxen would
have received during their temporary sojourn.
The first question he put, therefore, to the
drover on arriving at the lairs, was:

"What's to pay?"

"Wot for?"

"Why," replied the amateur grazier, " for
the feed of my sheep since last night!"

"Feed! " repeated the man with staring
wonder, " Who ever heerd of feedin' markit
sheep? Why, they'll be killed on Monday or
Tuesday, won't they?"

"If sold."

"Well they'll never want no more wittles,
will they?"

"But they have had nothing since Saturday!"

"What on it! Sheep as comes to Smithfield
never has no feed, has they?"

"Nor water either?" said Mr. Bovington.

"I should think not!" replied the drover.

As he spoke, he drove the point of his goad
into the backs of each of a shorn flock that
happened to be passing. He had no business
with them, but it was a way he had.

With sorrowful eyes, Mr. Bovington sought
out his own sheep. Poor things! They lay
closely packed, with their tongues out, panting
for suction; for they were too weak to bleat.
He would have given any money to relieve
them; but relief no money could buy.

Mr. Bovington was glad to find his bullocks
in better plight. To them, fodder and drink
had been sparingly supplied, but they were
wedged in so tightly that they had hardly
room to breathe. Their good looks—which had
cost him so much expenditure of oil-cake, and
anxiety, and for which he had expected so
much praise from buyers—would be quite
gone before they got to Smithfield.

"It aint o' no use a fretting," said the
master drover, "your'n aint no worse off nor
t'others. What you've got to do, is, to git to
bed, and meet me in the markit at four."
Naming a certain corner.

"Well," said Mr. Bovington, seeing there
was no help for it, " let it be so; but I trust
you will take care to get my lots driven down
by humane drovers."

Mr. Whelter—that was the master-drover's
name—assented, in a manner that showed he
had not the remotest idea what a humane
driver was, or where the article was to be
found.

Mr. Bovington could get no rest, and went
his way towards the market, long before the
time appointed. Before he came within sight
of Smithfield, a din as of a noisy
Pandemonium filled his ears. The shouting of
some of the drovers, the shrill whistle of
others, the barking of dogs, the bleating of
sheep, and the lowing of cattle, were the
natural expressions of a crowded market;
but, added to these, were other sounds, which
made Mr. Bovington shudder—something
between the pattering of a tremendous
hailstorm, and the noise of ten thousand games of
single stick played, all at once, in sanguinary
earnest.

He was not a particularly nervous man,
and did not shudder without reason. When
he came into the market, he saw at a glance
enough to know that. He stood looking about
him in positive horror.

To get the bullocks into their allotted stands,
an incessant punishing and torturing of the
miserable animals—a sticking of prongs into
the tender part of their feet, and a twisting of
their tails to make the whole spine teem with
pain -- was going on: and this seemed as much
a part of the market, as the stones in its
pavement. Across their horns, across their
hocks, across their haunches, Mr. Bovington
saw the heavy blows rain thick and fast, let
him look where he would. Obdurate heads
of oxen, bent down in mute agony; bellowing
heads of oxen lifted up, snorting out smoke
and slaver; ferocious men, cursing and swearing,
and belabouring oxen; made the place a
panorama of cruelty and suffering. By every
avenue of access to the market, more oxen were
pouring in: bellowing, in the confusion, and
under the falling blows, as if all the church-
organs in the world were wretched instruments
—all there—and all being tuned together.
Mixed up with these oxen, were great flocks of
sheep, whose respective drovers were in agonies
of mind to prevent their being intermingled in
the dire confusion; and who raved, shouted,
screamed, swore, whooped, whistled, danced
like savages; and, brandishing their cudgels,
laid about them most remorselessly. All this
was being done, in a deep red glare of burning
torches, which were in themselves a strong
addition to the horrors of the scene; for the
men who were arranging the sheep and lambs
in their miserably confined pens, and forcing
them to their destination through alleys of
the most preposterously small dimensions,
constantly dropped gouts of the blazing pitch
upon the miserable creatures' backs; and to
smell the singeing and burning, and to see
the poor things shrinking from this roasting,
inspired a sickness, a disgust, a pity and
an indignation, almost insupportable. To
reflect that the gate of St. Bartholomew's
Hospital was in the midst of this devilry,
and that such a monument of years of sympathy
for human pain should stand there,
jostling this disgraceful record of years of
disregard of brute endurance—to look up at the