At length there was pen-room; and sorely were Mr. Bovington’s feelings tried. When his little flock were got into the market, they met, and were mixed with, the sold flocks that were going out. Confusion was now worse confounded. The beating, the goading, the bustling, the shouting; the bleating of the sheep; the short, sharp, snarling of the dogs; above all, the stentorian oaths and imprecations of the drovers,—no human imagination, unaided by the reality, could conceive. Several flocks were intermixed, in a manner that made correct separation seem impossible; but while Mr. Bovington shuddered at all this cruelty and wickedness—SOLELY PRODUCED BY WANT OF SPACE, AND BY THE PREVIOUS DRIVING THROUGH THE STREETS—he could not help admiring the instinct of the dogs, and the ingenuity of the men, in lessening the confusion—the former watching intently their masters’ faces for orders, and flying over the backs of the moving floor of wool, to execute them. “Go for ’em, Bob!” Like lightning the dog belonging to the drover of Bovington’s sheep, dashed over their backs, and he beheld the ear of a favourite wether between its teeth. By some magic, however, this significant style of ear-wigging directed the sheep into the alley that led to the empty pens; and the others were pushed, punched, goaded, and thrashed, till each score was jammed into the small enclosures, as tight as figs in a drum. “They seem a nice lot,” said Mr. Brumpton, who had followed the new seller; “but how is it possible for the best butcher in London to tell what they are, in a wedge like this. Can he know how they will cut up, after the punishment they have had? Impossible: and what’s the consequence? Why, he will deduct ten or fifteen per cent. from your price for bruised meat. It is the same with bullocks.” Mr. Bovington, at this hint, reverted to his herd of cattle with a fresh pang. Crammed, rammed, and jammed as they were between raw-boned Lincolnshires and half-fed Herefords—a narrow bristling grove of gaunt shoeing-horns—how could his customers see and appreciate the fine ‘points’ of his fancy stock? He had worked for Fame; yet, however loud her blast, who could hear it above the crushing din of Smithfield? Mr. Bovington, having returned to the rendezvous, leaned against a cutler’s door-post—where there was an old grindstone outside (which the market-people, by much sharpening of their knives upon it, had worn away, like an old cheese)—in profound rumination. He was at a dead lock. He could not sell all his stock, and he could not withdraw it; for it was so fearfully deteriorated from the treatment it had got, that he felt sure the recovery of many of his sheep and oxen would be very doubtful. The best thing he could wish for them was speedy death; and, for himself, sales at any price.