It was my doing bringing it indoors, for I never _could_ find it in my heart to leave a lamb out on the hills if we came across a dead ewe with her baby bleating desolately and running round her body.

F---- always said, "You cannot rear a merino lamb indoors; the poor little thing will only die all the same in a day or two;" and then I am sorry to say he added in an unfeeling manner, "They are not worth much now," as if that could make any difference! I had brought this, as I had brought scores of others, home in my arms from a long distance off; fed it out of a baby's bottle, rubbed it dry, and put it to sleep in a warm bed of hay at the bottom of this very box.

They had all died quietly, after a day or two, in spite of my devotion and nursing, but this little foundling kicked herself out of the world with as much noise as would have sufficed to summon a garrison to surrender.

It is all very well to laugh at it now, but we were, five valiant souls in all, as thoroughly frightened at the time as we could well be.
The only real harm a swagger did me was to carry off one of my best maidservants as his wife, but as he had 300 pounds in the bank at Christchurch, and was only travelling about looking for work, and they have lived in great peace and prosperity ever since, I suppose I ought not to complain.

This swagger was employed in deepening our well, and Mary was always going to see how he was getting on, so he used to make love to her, looking up from the bottom of a deep shaft, and shouting compliments to her from a depth of sixty feet.