A Riverside Tragedy
When I was some distance away, I took the object to be a white duck sitting in at the side of the bank, but as I drew near I saw it was a lamb. As far as I could tell it had been born on the previous day. It was standing on a ledge, and the water flowed gently about its back and head_ Without wasting a minute I caught hold of it and laid it on the grass, out of danger. At first it seemed to be near death, but slowly it recovered, and raised its head. I carried it near a ewe that already had one lamb, and was pleased to see it get to its feet and wobble slowly to her. The ewe rejected the half-drowned lamb, but when 1 left I felt sure it would soon find its mother. A companion who had been fishing lower down joined me, and remarked that he had just taken a lamb from a pool. We went back, and the lamb was once again in the river. While getting it out for the third time, we saw the reason for the poor creature's attempts at suicide. Its mother was in the water. Her body had drifted close to some bushes on the far bank. The tragedy made me wonder how it had come about, and I concluded that the lamb had been born near the water's edge and had rolled over the bank. The ewe had tried to reach its offspring to lick its body, and had herself fallen in. The marks on the bank indicated such an accident. We took the lamb and placed it safely behind some wire-netting. It was late. The farm was across the water. We had no means of getting there without walking many miles in the dark. Like the lambs that would be born that night, it had to take its chance. It pained me to think about it, in spite of the knowledge that these things happen every day.
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