. . . mark of a good shepherd is that he shears his sheep, not flays them alive.
As I listened to the account of shearing by the aid of machines, memory called me back to a more primitive, but perhaps, a more delightful scene. The spot was a large barn, through whose huge folding doors, in the time of our grandfathers, waggon-loads of corn used to pass to discharge the harvest. One set of men spent most of the winter in beating out the corn with flails, while a smaller band of labourers carried the straw to the bullocks in the foldyard. The barn was a genuine architectural relic, having been erected in the days before secular buildings had completely diverged in style from the ecclesiastical. Save for the great doors, light only entered the barn through a row of narrow slits in the brick walls and four dormers in the roof. That roof, with its vast rafters and tie-beams, its sturdy posts and massive rivets, was a marvel of sleeping strength.
On a portion of the oaken floor, partitioned off for a week from the multitudinous sacks of winnowed grain, and already swept clear of all dust and chaff, sheets have been outspread, both for convenience and for cleanliness.
Two or three men are sitting on low broad stools, and each holds an anxious ewe or wether upon his knee, very firmly, yet with the gentleness which befits the condition of the poor quivering beasts: “Wi’ their roun’ zides a-heaven under their wool, To come out all a clippèd to the skin.”