Читать книгу In Lakeland Dells and Fells - William T. Palmer - Страница 4

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A voluntary exile from the land of the fells is an old-time shepherd. Instead of among heathery wastes or rocky scaurs, he lives between dismal gray grass-slopes where the Pennine divides Lancashire and Yorkshire. Probably the heart beating within that stout framework which defied the mountain storms of fifty years ago oft turns from the new pursuits to the old. I met him on a cobbled road—what an abomination these inhospitable stones must be to one whose foot for long fell soft and silent on the grass of the uplands!—a weathered, well-made man, with hair and whiskers turning tardily from brown to gray.

Shortly he detected that I knew and loved his own native land of the fells, and then, after rapidly reviewing scenes from many a lovely lake and valley there, our talk lighted upon some phase of shepherdry; and then his eye kindled, and I knew him for what he truly was—a shepherd.

‘You know that dale, eh? I well remember the time when all the high fells you can see from it were open and common to its farmers. Now they are cut up according to the size of the holdings.

‘Before that happened the shepherd’s work was much more difficult. Sheep-smits were a real thing then; you had to know the mark of every farm for miles round, for, unhindered by fences, strays were always coming and going. Lambing-time was often late in May, and a hard time it was. The shepherd had to remain night and day with his flock, oft in a far-off mountain basin, where for a fortnight on end he might never meet a single person. If the weather came stormy, the labour and anxiety was trebled; the ewes and lambs had to be seen to at all cost. One time I was four days and five nights without rest, for first a great blizzard and then a wild rain-storm raged. In my flock alone forty ewes died in those four days; the total loss of lambs was impossible to reckon, for the whole lambing was spoiled. And I was in a sheltered position, too. At such times, and when we worked the highest grass at midsummer, our food had to be brought up to some pre-arranged spot—a rough hut made with turf and a few spruce branches, partially sheltering under some big rock. Often for two or three summer nights, when it was fine, we lay out on the open moor. If a spell of really wet weather set in, of course we came down nearer to the dales. During a thunder-storm we frequently were in danger. I have seen a score sheep struck with lightning—what a horrid smell is that of burning flesh and wool!

‘At all times, fair weather or foul, our work was greatly lightened by our dogs. It is a pleasure for a shepherd to train them for his own use. You can’t buy a first-rate sheep-dog with gold. When I began shepherding, sheep were much wilder than now, less in size, carrying but poor wool, thriving badly. Cross-breeding with the Scotch sheep has imparted a good deal of vigour to the mountain flocks, and the blood of Southern breeds shows in increased size and choicer wool. Often when wandering along the fellsides we shepherds used to sight one another, but, seeing that each had a flock of about four thousand, it wasn’t likely that we could feed our sheep together. If we did come close, our flocks quickly got mixed, and there was half a day’s work sorting them again. In those days, too, as wool fetched a better price on the market by about double what it does now, shepherding was the best-paying farm work. So there were plenty of good fellsmen to be got—men that could clip [shear] and wash and doctor with the best there is to-day.

‘How did we manage to divide the fell up without fences? As I have said, every farm had the right to send a number of sheep to graze on the fell in those days, as they have a claim on so many acres of pasture now. The owners of adjoining smaller farms combined to employ a shepherd among them. Of course, the bigger halls kept shepherds of their own. For farms on the right-side of the valley the shepherd claimed the land from their outermost wall up to the top of the watershed for width, and for length as far as the lowland extended. A shepherd might thus drive over a moor four miles long and six miles wide, with perhaps occasional excursions some eight or more miles.

‘A shepherd’s first job in the spring was to collect the sheep, and to get to know their marks. Then he drove the mass to where there was enough grass for pasturing. When you were walking among the fells’—addressing me more pointedly—‘you would likely notice a great number of sheepfolds. These formerly marked the end of the “heafs,” or pasturages. The shepherd’s work was to drive his flock daily from one set of folds to the other. But, seeing that grass is sparse on these uplands—many an acre is occupied with cliffs and beds of rock and scree—the shepherd had constantly to vary the level of his route.

‘Soon after the flock were on the fell-grass lambing commenced, when the more weakly of his command needed close attention. The sheep didn’t make things any easier by wandering to as remote positions as possible. Lambing-time lasted four weeks as a rule, and after that the summer grass had fully come. As the days began to be hot, we used to let our sheep wander into the deep dark ghylls and the narrow shadows of the boulders while we took a nap. Sometimes, instead of sleeping, we passed the time in trying to avenge ourselves of our natural foes. The raven and the fox particularly had levied toll of the weakest of our flocks at lambing-time, and now we had a chance.

‘I have heard people say that the raven does no harm to the flock, but amply eats up any dead bodies that may be lying on the fells. I have seen, and at that time knew many men who had seen the same thing, ravens descend from the great crags and attack newborn lambs. I say this while believing that hawks, magpies, and carrion crows do not do a fraction of harm to living sheep or lambs. But to talk about any or all of them clearing dead bodies away—it’s sheer nonsense. In three days the mountain beetles, tiny though they be, will clear every particle of flesh from a dead sheep, leaving merely a skeleton of bones and a few patches of wool. The raven is very plucky in defence of its nest, and more than once I have heard of men being attacked by them when after their nests. It’s exciting work clambering about the crags on the end of a thin rope. You will maybe have seen near fox tracks and earths short walls, and perhaps even loop-holed huts built of boulders. So rough are these that few save dalesfolk notice them. They are shelters for shooting from. At dawn and nightfall shepherds lie in wait in these places, and fire upon the foxes as they pass. Few of the shots are successful, owing to the poor light prevailing. The other ways of killing foxes include poison, traps, and digging them out of borrans. Many a score of fox-cubs are taken by the shepherds; they are worth ten shillings apiece to masters of foxhounds in the low country. I have downed many a fox by finding its benk (or place where it lies out in summer), and then getting the sheepdogs to chase it into the open past me.

‘The next job in our summer, of course, was washing and shearing, but it wasn’t often that I had much to do with either of these. A good many sheep were drafted off about this time and sold. Big flocks were sent into Scotland, and I generally got some droving. It was in the days before railways came into this part of the world. Sheep were then sent between buyer and seller by road. I remember, perhaps, best my first journey. I was then with a farmer not so far from Shap Fells—in fact, our sheep grazed on a corner of that big common. Our master and his neighbours sold altogether five thousand sheep to go to a farm which was being newly stocked near John o’ Groats—right away up in the North of Scotland. John Todd and myself were picked out to drive them, and one Friday morning we were to start. With our dogs at heel, we walked down to the lowermost farm in the dale which was sending sheep. It was a bonny morning. Skylarks, though the stars were hardly gone, were whirling up, singing as only wild birds can. The beck rattled down among the rocks and gurgled into the dubs. There had been rain in the night, and when the sun got up every grass-blade shone with wee drops. To a stranger, maybe, our dale looks wild and desolate, but to me it was home. We passed the school where I learnt my few lessons, and stopped at the next farm—old Donald Morris had it then.

‘“Come in—come in, John!” called the old farmer, as our clog-irons rang on the paved fold. “What, Jimmy! is thoo gaen [going] with t’ sheep?”

‘“Ay!” I said.

‘“Well, come on and have some breakfast wi’ us; we’re just sitting down.”

‘But I was glad John Todd said nay, for the word “breakfast” put me by it [made me disinclined]. You’ll understand what it is for a lad leaving his home-dale for the first time. We shepherds think a lot of home, though it means cold flagged floors, rough-beamed dark rooms, and leaking roofs, with whitewashed cottage walls, and maybe a straggly stick-heap outside.

‘Donald came with us, and showed us the batch of his sheep we were to take.

‘“They’ll be a bit bad to manage, maybe, till you get out of the sound of the lambs,” said he. “Here, Toss, Nell, get away by” [pass beyond the sheep].

‘In a minute the dogs had driven the tiny flock out upon the dale-road, and there they were restlessly moving back and forward, waiting for us to commence our long drive.

‘“Noo, Jimmy,” said the old man, pressing the first crown piece of my own I had ever possessed into my hand, “mind thoo does as John bids thee. I remember thy father’s first droving; it was frae here into Scotland. It’s a lang while sen.”

‘John called “How-up!” at this juncture; the sheep started forward, and away we went. From the farmfold of Donald Morris I could see a little white cottage perched high up the brae—my home—and my heart grew sick for it. But as we began to push up the dale our flock of ewes—many of them leaving lambs on the hillsides around—began to show spirit. Every gateway they tried to rush; at a leaning or lower piece of wall one or two surely attempted to scale it. Once or twice sheep wriggled through small gaps into the fields around, and had to be hounded back to the road. All the time a babel of bleatings filled the air, our crowd replying with guttural voices to the thin wailings of the lambs.

‘Every minute the row [tumult of sound] grew wilder and our sheep moved with more difficulty. Farm after farm was called at, or their shepherds joined their quota on to ours from the fields. At each place a billet of numbers and markings was given us, that we might prove our claim to any that might stray or be stolen during our journey. By about nine o’clock we reached the coach-road which leads across Shap Fell, and soon after this the flock seemed to accept the inevitable, and quietened down beautifully. Not for long, however, for immediately we came on to enclosed roads they became very lively, especially when, with a wild blare on the horn, a mail-coach passed us just above Brougham Castle. They were scared without doubt, and it took us all our time to keep up with them. Will you believe it, that by eight o’clock at night we were past Carlisle? We had travelled, mainly at a run, over forty miles, and, sheep, dogs, and men alike, we were dead tired. The sheep were very hungry, too, for after leaving the open fell-road they hadn’t stopped to nibble a single mouthful of grass. Next day we crossed the Border. We perhaps did not get quite so many miles done, for once our flock took a wrong road, in spite of all our dogs could do; but, all the same, it was a hard, fast day—— What did you say?‘

‘Oh, I merely asked if you saw Gretna Green, where there used to be so many runaway weddings?’

‘Oh ay! But there was no blacksmith’s shop at the bridge end, as folk nowadays say there was. There were three or four postillions at the next public-house, laughing of how they’d driven post-haste from Penrith that morning, with two couple of gentlefolks. No doubt the gentlefolks themselves were in the house, but we didn’t see them.

‘After four days of hard travelling we had crossed the mountains behind Moffatt, and were getting near to Stirling. John Todd had again and again said this pace could not last, and now the sheep began to get more into command. Every day saw a mile or two less than the one before, till we got down to a steady twenty-one miles per day. The sheep were many of them quite footsore, and our dogs could hardly raise a run. I remember quite well Stirling, with its great castle pitched on top of a tall crag, and with the beck in the valley below. Now we began to rest our flock every third day, and so crossed the lowlands and approached the mountains. Folks began to stare at the English shepherds, and wherever we stopped there was a crowd to ask us questions. The country began to look different. To Perth every field was cultivated; they grew the same crops as on the lower land in Westmorland, and a fair good yield there seemed to be. So far we had been easily able to get a lodging each night, and a field to put the sheep in, but now there came to be fewer and fewer houses by the roadsides, and even inns were scarce.

‘At this lapse of time I remember but few names of places; you see, the country folks pronounced them so much different to what they look in writing. One morning we left a village; almost immediately the road began to climb into the middle of the great Grampian Mountains. Our sheep moved but lamely and slowly. At mid-day, however, we had come on to a wide moorland, the road over which was overgrown with grass from scant use. In time we came to where the stump of a guide-post marked a parting of ways, and near this stood a Highlander in kilt and tartan. He looked at our flock as it filed past, then spoke to us a bit excitedly.

‘My companion knew Lowland Scotch well, and had picked up a bit of Gaelic about Perth on other journeys, but this man spoke a thick dialect which completely baffled him.

‘“Are we right for Inverness?” John asked again and again, but the man’s reply, though long and earnest, contained not a word we could make out. Even the name Inverness was strange to the man, and, alas! we knew not any near village. The Highlander seemed, by his signs, to wish to tell us either something about the weather or the late hour for driving, for he swung his arms again and again in the direction of the drooping sun. For some minutes we tried in vain to understand him; then John Todd said:

‘“Well, Jimmy, he seemingly thinks we’re on the road to somewhere, for he doesn’t try to stop us. So, seeing it’s getting a bit late, we must be pushing on.”

‘And on we went. A last backward glance showed us that the Scot had set off along the opposite route. Now hill after hill was passed; never a house in sight, only a wearying succession of gray, bare braes, with a sky growing dark. At nine o’clock we toiled up a long slope, fording a stream at its foot—just the same desolate scene. Night was fast falling, when John said:

‘“Jimmy, it seems to me that that Scottie wanted to tell us it was far to the next village; but whatever it was, this is certain—we’ll have to sleep out to-night. Canst thou see a hut or shelter handy for us and the dogs? The sheep won’t stray far; they’re overtired.”

‘A big boulder of granite stood some fifty yards away, and under it we lay down, wrapped in our top-coats. It was a bright night till midnight; millions of stars glittered above, and a thin horn of a moon shone. Then the weather changed. From leaving Shap Fell to here we had only had one wet day, but now it made up for lost time. The breeze blew strong and cold from the west, and a great pack of cloud flew up into the sky. It began to rain smartly; there was a sudden sharp gust of wind, and everything was blotted out in blinding mist. My! it was cold waiting up there for the dawning—colder far than a wet autumn morning on Shap Fell. I couldn’t sleep, nor could the dogs, but John and our flock seemed to take the occurrence as a matter of course. The wind veered round about five o’clock, just as we were ranging up and counting the sheep—a difficult job in the half-darkness—and in ten minutes the last shred of damp cloud was torn from the ridges around and the whole moorland was ablaze with day. Perhaps the outlook at sunset had been wild and gray, but everything now was fresh and green. Cheerfulness in life seemed to be renewed everywhere; our sheep walked less tiredlike; our dogs frisked about merrily. At mid-day we reached a small inn. There was no occupant within, all being, probably, haymaking in some invisible field, so we foraged for ourselves: a brown loaf and some cheese made an excellent repast after a fast of over thirty-six hours. Then, leaving money on the table to appease our unwitting host, we pushed on, hoping to reach some village ere sundown, which we did. We saw our sheep safely into a field and went to bed.

‘We had intended to stay two days in this place to rest our sheep, but on our very first turn-out John and I were collared and handcuffed by a couple of broad policemen. We asked again and again what we had done, but they only grunted out some words we could not understand. After ten minutes, in which a lively debate went on between the policemen, we were jerked along between them right through the village, stopping at last at a big house. A few words passed between our captors and the servant, and then the four of us were shown into a big room. Presently a big soldierly man came in; he walked with a limp, but he seemed to be a real gentleman.

‘He spoke a minute with the two constables, then turned to us, and said in English:

‘“Well, what have you to say?”

‘“Will you first tell us what about, sir?” said John. “What’s to do that we’re brought here?”

‘He looked a bit surprised at John’s quiet way, and said:

‘“You’re brought here for sheep-stealing. The police tell me you have brought a lot of sheep from the moors to this village. What have you to say?”

‘John laughed, and I laughed too.

‘“Well if ever! Why, we’ve driven the sheep from Shap Fell, in Westmorland! I’ll show ye my proofs.” And John turned a whole pile of papers out of his pocket, which the magistrate read slowly and carefully.

‘“Do you know Captain ——?” he said a moment later, naming a man well known in our district.

‘“Of course I do! My father used to work for him, and so I did myself. My brother is in his regiment, sir.”

‘“What is your brother like, and what is his name?”

‘John of course gave these details without a bit of trouble, after which the magistrate got up and shook hands with us both, gentleman though he was.

‘“Your brother is in my regiment, too,” he said; “or, at least, it was my regiment till——” and he stopped short and pointed downwards. He had but one foot; that was why he limped. “Now go back to your inn; I’ll settle with the police.”

‘When we got past the mountains and through Inverness, we were met by two shepherds, sent from John o’ Groats to meet us. Our flock by this time were a straggling lot. Instead of moving in one compact mass, they now generally covered some two miles of road, the parties going at speeds according to their strength. One of us with a dog had to walk in front to find the right road; the other kept the sheep behind on the move. But these two shepherds helped us gloriously, and thirty-six days after we left home we finally delivered our flock to the man who had bought it.

‘How did we get home again? John Todd was a wonderful fast walker, and we made fifty miles a day from John o’ Groats down to Carlisle.’

The foregoing remarkable journey was but one of many the old shepherd had made. He had driven sheep to Fortwilliam, at the foot of the Caledonian Canal; had, when Barrow, now a great industrial centre, was a mere village, driven sheep to meet a brig which then plied between Peel Castle and the Isle of Man. The voyage took three days owing to contrary winds, and the poor animals ate every scrap of hay and straw on board the vessel. The shepherd had travelled South as well as North, and knew some of the walks of North and Central Wales well.

Many other stories of his life did he regale me with, but nothing, perhaps, which interested me more than the following curious statement:

‘Sheep possess a strong homing instinct on occasion. In the old days, before steam was used for transport, time and again they used to leave the intakes they were bought for and travel many a mile back home again. This was, perhaps, the most remarkable case I ever met with. In the early days of cross-breeding a farmer bought a score of Cheviot tups at one of the Scottish Border towns. A day or two after reaching the farm, they, having been smitted, were put upon the open fell, where they seemed to be quite at home; but before the week-end the shepherd reported every one of the new-comers missing. Every flock ranging the common was searched without success, and the farmer was beginning to fear they had been stolen, when a letter came from the Scottish sheep-walk saying the tups had returned. How they had managed to win home again across the width of three counties, and presumably along the great “drove road,” is beyond my comprehension. No doubt this tale is beyond your belief, but I have seen many similar instances. A wandering “stray” is no marvel in a land of shepherds; but a body of sheep moving in one direction, influenced by a common impulse, which carries them over some sixty miles of intersecting road and through terrifying difficulties (to a sheep), cannot be anything but wonderful