and the pride of Calenzana: for, to begin with, it was a wild ram;
and in addition to this it was tame; and, to cap all, it wasn't a bit
like a ram. And yet it was a wild ram--a wild Corsican ram.

"Being an active sort of man in his way, though well over fifty, and
given to wandering on the mountains above Calenzana, he had come one
day upon a wild sheep with a lamb running at her heels. He let fly a
shot (for your Corsican, Master Prosper, always carries a gun) and
ran forward. The mother made off, but the lamb sat and squatted like
a hare; and so Antonio took him up and carried him home.

"By the time we came to Calenzana the brute had grown to full size,
with horns almost two feet long. As we should reckon, they were
twisted the wrong way for a ram's, and for fleece he had a coat like
a Gossmoor pony's, brown and hairy. But a ram he was; and, the first
night, when Mr. Badcock obliged us with a tune on the flute, he came
forward and stared at him for a time and then butted him in the
stomach.

"We had to carry the poor man to bed. We slept, all four of us, in a
loft, which could only be reached by a ladder; and a ram, as you
know, can't climb a ladder. It's out of nature. Yet the brute tried
its best, having taken such a fancy to Badcock, and wouldn't be
denied till his master beat him out of doors with a fire-shovel and
penned him up for the night.

"The next morning, being loosed, he came in to breakfast with the
family, and butted a crock of milk all over the kitchen hearth, but
otherwise bore himself like a repentant sinner; the only difference
being that from breakfast onward he turned away from his master and
took to following Mr. Fett, who didn't like the attention at all.
Badcock kept to his bed; and Mr. Fett too, who could only manage to
limp a little, climbed up to the loft soon after midday and lay down
for a rest.

"Sir John and I, left alone downstairs, took what we called a siesta,
each in his chair, and Sir John's chair by the shaded window.
For my part, I was glad enough for forty winks, and could have
enlisted among the Seven Sleepers after those cruel four days in the
mountains. So, with Sir John's permission, I dozed off; and sat up,
by-and-by--awake all of a sudden at the sound of my master's
stirring--to see him at the window with his gun half-lifted to his
shoulder, and away up the road a squad of Genoese soldiers marching
down to relieve guard.

"With that there came a yell f