“I have often seen their haunches streaming with blood,” said Mr. Bovington’s companion, “before they could get into the ring. Why, a friend of mine, a tanner at Kenilworth, was actually obliged to leave off buying hides that came out of this market, because they were covered with holes that had been bored in the live animals by the Smithfield drovers. He called these skins Smithfield Cullanders.” “Cruel wretches!” “Well,” said the stranger, thoughtfully, “I can’t blame _them_. I have known them forty years——” “You are a salesman?” “I _was_; but they worried me out of the market, for trying to get it removed, and for giving evidence against it before Parliament.” Mr. Brumpton (that was the name of the ousted salesman) did a little fattening, now, on a few acres near London; and came occasionally to Smithfield to buy and sell in a small way,—just, in fact, as Mr. Bovington had begun to do. “Well,” he continued, “I can’t lay all the blame on the drovers. What can they do? If they have got one hundred beasts to wedge into a space only big enough for seventy, they _must_ be cruel. Even the labour their cruelty costs themselves is terrible. I have often seen drovers’ men lying on the steps of doors, quite exhausted. None of them ever live long.” “How many are there?” “About nine-hundred-and-fifty—licensed.” A deafening hullabaloo arose again. A new ring-drove was being begun, close by. Bovington threw up his hands in horror, when he saw that some of his cherished cattle were to become members of it. The lively West Highlander was struggling fiercely against his fate; but in vain: he was goaded, beaten, and worried with dogs, till forced into the ring. Bovington hastened to the appointed corner, to expostulate with Mr. Whelter. “How can _I_ help it!” was that individual’s consolation. “I spoke for _all_ your beasts; but there was only room for seven on ’em to be tied up; so the rest on ’em is in off-droves. Where else _can_ they be?” “And my sheep?” “Couldn’t get none on ’em in. They’re a waiting in the ‘Ram’ Yard, till the sales empties some of the pens. You’ll find ’em in the first floor.” “What! Up stairs?” “Ah, in the one-pair back.” Mr. Bovington elbowed his way to the Ram Inn, to confirm by his eyes what he could not believe with his ears. Sure enough he found his favourite ‘New Leicesters’ a whole flight of stairs above ground. How they had ever been got up, or how they were ever to be got down, surpassed his ingenuity to conjecture.