“I had taken down the rope, tied one end tightly about the mouth of the bag, thrown the other across the limb and hauled him up about five feet from the ground.  Fastening the other end of the rope also about the mouth of the sack, I had the satisfaction to see my uncle converted into a large, fine pendulum.  I must add that he was not himself entirely aware of the nature of the change that he had undergone in his relation to the exterior world, though in justice to a good man’s memory I ought to say that I do not think he would in any case have wasted much of my time in vain remonstrance.

“Uncle William had a ram that was famous in all that region as a fighter.  It was in a state of chronic constitutional indignation.  Some deep disappointment in early life had soured its disposition and it had declared war upon the whole world.  To say that it would butt anything accessible is but faintly to express the nature and scope of its military activity:  the universe was its antagonist; its methods that of a projectile.  It fought like the angels and devils, in mid-air, cleaving the atmosphere like a bird, describing a parabolic curve and descending upon its victim at just the exact angle of incidence to make the most of its velocity and weight.  Its momentum, calculated in foot-tons, was something incredible.  It had been seen to destroy a four year old bull by a single impact upon that animal’s gnarly forehead.  No stone wall had ever been known to resist its downward swoop; there were no trees tough enough to stay it; it would splinter them into matchwood and defile their leafy honors in the dust.  This irascible and implacable brute—­this incarnate thunderbolt—­this monster of the upper deep, I had seen reposing in the shade of an adjacent tree, dreaming dreams of conquest and glory.  It was with a view to summoning it forth to the field of honor that I suspended its master in the manner described.

“Having completed my preparations, I imparted to the avuncular pendulum a gentle oscillation, and retiring to cover behind a contiguous rock, lifted up my voice in a long rasping cry whose diminishing final note was drowned in a noise like that of a swearing cat, which emanated from the sack.  Instantly that formidable sheep was upon its feet and had taken in the military situation at a glance.  In a few moments it had approached, stamping, to within fifty yards of the swinging foeman, who, now retreating and anon advancing, seemed to invite the fray.  Suddenly I saw the beast’s head drop earthward as if depressed by the weight of its enormous horns; then a dim, white, wavy streak of sheep prolonged itself from that spot in a generally horizontal direction to within about four yards of a point immediately beneath the enemy.  There it struck sharply upward, and before it had faded from my gaze at the place whence it had set out I heard a horrid thump and a piercing scream, and my poor uncle shot forward, with a slack rope higher than the limb to which he was attached.