Hairy Hezekiah Read Free Page A

of the camel. He simply smashed his way through them.
    Worse, it was a Sunday, and though farmers work a seven-day week, fifty-two weeks of the
year, they do expect to take things a bit easier on Sundays.

    But after Hezekiah burst out again through the far hedge of the Holsteins’ field, there was chaos in his wake all through that part of the West Country. Everywhere livestock had taken
advantage of the camel’s bulldozing passage. Dairy cows, beef cattle, sheep, horses, and ponies—all found themselves free to leave their pastures and paddocks and go wherever they pleased.
    Farmers can curse as well as most people, but never had there been heard such dreadful cursing as on that Sunday morning. Everyone tried to round up their strays and get them back home and mend the broken gates, the smashed fences, the great camel-sized holes in the hedges.
    Hezekiah’s Holstein friends were a good example of the confusion, for they all went out through the gap that he had made and mingled happily with a neighboring herd of Ayrshire cows in the next field. It took so long for their angry owners to sort them all out that morning milking did not start till the afternoon.
    Hezekiah, meanwhile, made steady, destructive
progress toward his goal, crossing, though he did not know it, from Somerset into the county of Wiltshire. He was filled with curiosity about this strange place called a safari park. What would it be like? At
    last he broke out into a road, a small country lane bordered by trees. Ahead of him was a junction, at which a signpost stood. SHORTSEAT, it said.
    Hezekiah hesitated. “Is that the way to the safari park?” he asked himself, and then he heard in the distance the answer to his question. It was a deep rolling roar that ended in a couple of grunts.

5

    The great country house of Shortseat was the ancestral home of a noble family. The present Earl of Basin had inherited the estate on the death of his father, who had turned his well-wooded lands into a safari park. First he introduced lions. Later he brought in other kinds of interesting and attractive animals that would normally be found behind bars in zoos. But it was the lions of Shortseat that first attracted the public in great numbers.

    As well as coming to see the animals, they came to look around the great house, and on that Sunday afternoon it was filled with people. The present Earl of Basin moved easily among them, chatting with the visitors, most of whom felt honored to be addressed by such a great nobleman.
    This Lord Basin was (like Hezekiah) an extremely hairy person, and he chose to wear very colorful clothes, as though to mark himself out from the common herd.
    On this day he was dressed in sky-blue corduroy trousers, a pink shirt with an emerald-green cravat, and a black velvet jacket lavishly embroidered with gold thread.

    At that moment a servant came up to the Earl. “My
Lord,” he said, “you are wanted on the telephone.”
    â€œWill you forgive me?” said Lord Basin to the visitors (for politeness costs nothing). “I fear I must leave you.”
    â€œOf course,” murmured some, while many others, unsure of how properly to address the nobleman, replied, “Of course, sir” or “Of course, Your Lordship” or “Of course, Your Grace” and one small boy said, “Yes, Your Majesty.”
    The Earl of Basin made his way to his study, where his estate manager was waiting, phone in hand.
    â€œIt’s the police, sir,” he said.
    â€œWhatever do they want?” asked Lord Basin.
    He took the phone.
    â€œHello?” he said.
    â€œLord Basin?” said a voice.

    â€œSpeaking.”
    â€œSorry to bother you, my Lord, but we were wondering if any of your animals had escaped? It would be a large one by the look of things.”
    â€œEscaped?” said the Earl. “Animals don’t escape from Shortseat—they’re too happy here. What animals have