Afoot in England: Chapter 16

Chapter 16

In Praise of the Cow

In spite of discontents I might have remained to this day by
the Otter, in the daily and hourly expectation of seeing some
new and wonderful thing in Nature in that place where a
crimson-eyed carrion-crow had been revealed to me, had not a
storm of thunder and rain broken over the country to shake me
out of a growing disinclination to move. We are, body and
mind, very responsive to atmospheric changes; for every storm
in Nature there is a storm in us--a change physical and
mental. We make our own conditions, it is true, and these
react and have a deadening effect on us in the long run, but
we are never wholly deadened by them--if we be not indeed
dead, if the life we live can be called life. We are told
that there are rainless zones on the earth and regions of
everlasting summer: it is hard to believe that the dwellers in
such places can ever think a new thought or do a new thing.
The morning rain did not last very long, and before it had
quite ceased I took up my knapsack and set off towards the
sea, determined on this occasion to make my escape.

Three or four miles from Ottery St. Mary I overtook a cowman
driving nine milch cows along a deep lane and inquired my way
of him. He gave me many and minute directions, after which we
got into conversation, and I walked some distance with him.
The cows he was driving were all pure Devons, perfect beauties
in their bright red coats in that greenest place where every
rain-wet leaf sparkled in the new sunlight. Naturally we
talked about the cows, and I soon found that they were his own
and the pride and joy of his life. We walked leisurely, and
as the animals went on, first one, then another would stay for
a mouthful of grass, or to pull down half a yard of green
drapery from the hedge. It was so lavishly decorated that the
damage they did to it was not noticeable. By and by we went
on ahead of the cows, then, if one stayed too long or strayed
into some inviting side-lane, he would turn and utter a long,
soft call, whereupon the straggler would leave her browsing
and hasten after the others.

He was a big, strongly built man, a little past middle life
and grey-haired, with rough-hewn face--unprepossessing one
would have pronounced him until the intelligent, kindly
expression of the eyes was seen and the agreeable voice was
heard. As our talk progressed and we found how much in
sympathy we were on the subject, I was reminded of that
Biblical expression about the shining of a man's face: "Wine
that maketh glad the heart of man"--I hope the total
abstainers will pardon me--"and oil that maketh his face to
shine," we have in one passage. This rather goes against our
British ideas, since we rub no oil or unguents on our skin,
but only soap which deprives it of its natural oil and too
often imparts a dry and hard texture. Yet in that, to us,
disagreeable aspect of the skin caused by foreign fats, there
is a resemblance to the sudden brightening and glory of the
countenance in moments of blissful emotion or exaltation. No
doubt the effect is produced by the eyes, which are the
mirrors of the mind, and as they are turned full upon us they
produce an illusion, seeming to make the whole face shine.

In our talk I told him of long rambles on the Mendips, along
the valley of the Somerset Axe, where I had lately been, and
where of all places, in this island, the cow should be most
esteemed and loved by man. Yet even there, where, standing on
some elevation, cows beyond one's power to number could be
seen scattered far and wide in the green vales beneath, it had
saddened me to find them so silent. It is not natural for
them to be dumb; they have great emotions and mighty voices
--the cattle on a thousand hills. Their morning and evening
lowing is more to me than any other natural sound--the melody
of birds, the springs and dying gales of the pines, the wash
of waves on the long shingled beach. The hills and valleys of
that pastoral country flowing with milk and honey should be
vocal with it, echoing and re-echoing the long call made
musical by distance. The cattle are comparatively silent in
that beautiful district, and indeed everywhere in England,
because men have made them so. They have, when deprived of
their calves, no motive for the exercise of their voices. For
two or three days after their new-born calves have been taken
from them they call loudly and incessantly, day and night,
like Rachel weeping for her children and refusing to be
comforted; grief and anxiety inspires that cry--they grow
hoarse with crying; it is a powerful, harsh, discordant sound,
unlike the long musical call of the cow that has a calf, and
remembering it, and leaving the pasture, goes lowing to give
it suck.

I also told him of the cows of a distant country where I had
lived, that had the maternal instinct so strong that they
refused to yield their milk when deprived of their young.
They "held it back," as the saying is, and were in a sullen
rage, and in a few days their fountains dried up, and there
was no more milk until calving-time came round once more.

He replied that cows of that temper were not unknown in South
Devon. Very proudly he pointed to one of the small herd that
followed us as an example. In most cases, he said, the calf
was left from two or three days to a week, or longer, with the
mother to get strong, and then taken away. This plan could
not be always followed; some cows were so greatly distressed
at losing the young they had once suckled that precautions had
to be taken and the calf smuggled away as quietly as possible
when dropped--if possible before the mother had seen it. Then
there were the extreme cases in which the cow refused to be
cheated. She knew that a calf had been born; she had felt it
within her, and had suffered pangs in bringing it forth; if it
appeared not on the grass or straw at her side then it must
have been snatched away by the human creatures that hovered
about her, like crows and ravens round a ewe in travail on
some lonely mountain side.

That was the character of the cow he had pointed out; even
when she had not seen the calf of which she had been deprived
she made so great an outcry and was thrown into such a rage
and fever, refusing to be milked that, finally, to save her,
it was thought necessary to give her back the calf. Now, he
concluded, it was not attempted to take it away: twice a day
she was allowed to have it with her and suckle it, and she was
a very happy animal.

I was glad to think that there was at least one completely
happy cow in Devonshire.

After leaving the cowkeeper I had that feeling of revulsion
very strongly which all who know and love cows occasionally
experience at the very thought of beef. I was for the moment
more than tolerant of vegetarianism, and devoutly hoped that
for many days to come I should not be sickened with the sight
of a sirloin on some hateful board, cold, or smoking hot,
bleeding its red juices into the dish when gashed with a
knife, as if undergoing a second death. We do not eat
negroes, although their pigmented skins, flat feet, and woolly
heads proclaim them a different species; even monkey's flesh
is abhorrent to us, merely because we fancy that that creature
in its ugliness resembles some old men and some women and
children that we know. But the gentle large-brained social
cow that caresses our hands and faces with her rough blue
tongue, and is more like man's sister than any other non-human
being--the majestic, beautiful creature with the juno eyes,
sweeter of breath than the rosiest virgin--we slaughter and
feed on her flesh--monsters and cannibals that we are!

But though cannibals, it is very pleasant to find that many
cowmen love their cows. Walking one afternoon by a high
unkept hedge near Southampton Water, I heard loud shouts at
intervals issuing from a point some distance ahead, and on
arriving at the spot found an old man leaning idly over a
gate, apparently concerned about nothing. "What are you
shouting about?" I demanded. "Cows," he answered, with a
glance across the wide green field dotted with a few big furze
and bramble bushes. On its far side half a dozen cows were,
quietly grazing. "They came fast enough when I was a-feeding
of 'em," he presently added; "but now they has to find for
theirselves they don't care how long they keeps me." I was
going to suggest that it would be a considerable saving of
time if he went for them, but his air of lazy contentment as
he leant on the gate showed that time was of no importance to
him. He was a curious-looking old man, in old frayed clothes,
broken boots, and a cap too small for him. He had short legs,
broad chest, and long arms, and a very big head, long and
horselike, with a large shapeless nose and grizzled beard and
moustache. His ears, too, were enormous, and stood out from
the head like the handles of a rudely shaped terra-cotta vase
or jar. The colour of his face, the ears included, suggested
burnt clay. But though Nature had made him ugly, he had an
agreeable expression, a sweet benign look in his large dark
eyes, which attracted me, and I stayed to talk with him.

It has frequently been said that those who are much with cows,
and have an affection for them, appear to catch something of
their expression--to look like cows; just as persons of
sympathetic or responsive nature, and great mobility of face,
grow to be like those they live and are in sympathy with.
The cowman who looks like a cow may be more bovine than his
fellows in his heavier motions and slower apprehensions, but
he also exhibits some of the better qualities--the repose and
placidity of the animal.

He said that he was over seventy, and had spent the whole of
his life in the neighbourhood, mostly with cows, and had never
been more than a dozen miles from the spot where we were
standing. At intervals while we talked he paused to utter one
of his long shouts, to which the cows paid no attention. At
length one of the beasts raised her head and had a long look,
then slowly crossed the field to us, the others following at
some distance. They were shorthorns, all but the leader, a
beautiful young Devon, of a uniform rich glossy red; but the
silky hair on the distended udder was of an intense chestnut,
and all the parts that were not clothed were red too--the
teats, the skin round the eyes, the moist embossed nose; while
the hoofs were like polished red pebbles, and even the shapely
horns were tinged with that colour. Walking straight up to
the old man, she began deliberately licking one of his ears
with her big rough tongue, and in doing so knocked off his old
rakish cap. Picking it up he laughed like a child, and
remarked, "She knows me, this one does--and she loikes me."

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