at concert-pitch, while sheep after sheep will be shorn with a precision and celerity almost magical to the unprofessional observer.
The reader may here be informed that speed and completeness of denudation are the grand desiderata in shearing. The employer thinks principally of the latter, the shearer of the former. To adjust the proportion equitably is one of the incomplete aspirations which torment humanity. Hence the contest—old as human society—between labour and capital.
This is the first day. According to old-established custom, a kind of truce obtains. It is before the battle—the salut, when no hasty word or too demonstrative action can be suffered by the canons of good taste. Red Bill, Flash Jack, Jem the Scooper, and other roaring blades, more famous for expedition than faithful manipulation, are shearing to-day with a painstaking precision, as of men to whom character is everything. Mr. Gordon marches softly up and down, regarding the shearers with a paternal and gratified expression, occasionally hinting at slight improvements of style, or expressing unqualified approval, as a sheep is turned out shaven rather than shorn. All goes on well. Nothing is heard but expressions of good-will and enthusiasm for the general welfare. It is a triumph of the dignity of labour.
One o'clock. Mr. Gordon moved to the bell and sounded it. At the first stroke several men on their way to the pens stopped abruptly, and began to put on their coats. One fellow of an alert nature had just finished his sheep and was sharpening his shears, when his eye caught Mr. Gordon's form in close proximity to the final bell. With a bound like a wild-cat, he reached the pen and drew out his sheep a bare second before the first stroke, amidst the laughter and congratulations of his comrades. Another man had his hand on the pen-gate at the same instant, but by the Median law was compelled to return sheepless. He was cheered, but ironically. Those whose sheep were in an unfinished stage quietly completed them, the others moving off to the dinner, where the board literally smoked with abundance. An hour passed. The meal was concluded; the smoke was over; and the more careful men were back in the shed sharpening their shears by two o'clock. Punctually at that hour the bell repeated its summons da
