The sudden pain of this causes her to leap out of the rank, up a bank; and seeing a green field beneath, the instinct of nature makes her leap down, and scour away. In a moment, the dog—the fury—is after her. She puts forth all her strength, all her speed—the wind is filled with the horrors of his voice—of the redoubling sound of his feet—he gains upon her—she springs aside—leaps up banks—over hurdles—through hedges—but he is close upon her;—without knowing it, she has made a circle, and is again nearing the flock, which she reaches just as he springs upon her shoulders and tears her again on the head, and his teeth lacerate anew her coagulated ear. She eventually arrives at the railway station, and is crushed into one of the market waggons; and in this state of exhaustion, fever, and burning thirst, remains for several hours, until she arrives in the suburbs of Smithfield. What she suffers in this place has been already narrated, till finally she is sold, and driven off to be slaughtered. The den where this last horror is perpetrated (for in what other terms can we designate all these unnecessary brutalities?) is usually a dark and loathsome cellar. A slanting board is sometimes placed, down which the sheep are forced. But very often there is no such means of descent, and our poor jaded, footsore, wounded sheep—all foul and fevered, and no longer fit food for man—is seized in the half-naked blood-boltered arms of a fellow in a greasy red nightcap, and flung down the cellar, both her fore-legs being broken by the fall. She is instantly clutched by the ruffians below—dragged to a broad and dripping bench—flung upon it, on her back—and then the pallid face and patient eye looks upward!—and is understood. And shall not we also—the denizens of a Christian land—understand it? Shall we not say—“Yes, poor victim of man’s necessities of food, we know that your death is one of the means whereby we continue to exist—one of the means whereby our generations roll onward in their course to some higher states of knowledge and civilisation—one of the means whereby we gain time to fill, to expand, and to refine the soul, and thus to make it more fitting for its future abode. But, knowing this, we yet must recognise in you, a fellow-creature of the earth, dwelling in our sight, and often close at our side, and trusting us—a creature ever harmless, and ever useful to us, both for food and clothing; nor do we deserve the good with which you supply us, nor even the proud name of Man, if we do not, at the same time, recognise your rightful claim to our humane considerations.”