Book Description:
Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III SHEPHERD. POTE THERE came a day when, face to face, accuser and accused stood up before a bench of magistrates at Moretonhampstead, and John Newcombe by the mouth of Lawyer West set forth his case. Over against him, in the little court house sat Mr. Honeywell. From time to time he spoke with Lawyer Brimpts and nonchalantly twirled the seals of his fob. One witness only attended on behalf of Newcombe, for Mr. West held that the word of Shepherd Pote was all his client's case needed to prove it to the hilt. Thus spake Lawyer West a young man of weak eyes, straw coloured hair, and fluent speech; and we will report him, for Mr. Newcombe's case can hardly be set forth to better advantage than in his words: 'Your Worships, this is a serious matter of sheep and a dog. Mr. John Newcombe, the plaintiff, abides by the eastern branch of the River Dart, near the little hamlet of Postbridge, and his farm is called'Dagger Farm.' Half a mile from the dwelling house there is a field of four or five acres. It is a choice meadow, and the ewes and lambs generally get the first bite of the pasture in spring. Now, on the tenth day of April last, in this year of our Lord eighteen hundred and thirteen, Farmer Newcombe had in this field a flock of sheep and lambs to the number of about a hundred beasts. Upon the eleventh day of last April he himself chanced to be early abroad, and, passing that way, his eye was confronted by a picture of terrible havoc and disaster. Death had been busy in the night, and his poor silly sheep were decimated by a fearful destroyer. To say that they were decimated, indeed, is to tell your Worships less than the truth, for seven ewes and eight lambs had perished, while four other full grown animals were so mangled that they had immediately to be destroyed....
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