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diff --git a/7415.txt b/7415.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..fd8e7f0 --- /dev/null +++ b/7415.txt @@ -0,0 +1,8265 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of A Shepherd's Life, by W. H. Hudson + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most +other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions +whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of +the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at +www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have +to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook. + +Title: A Shepherd's Life + +Author: W. H. Hudson + +Posting Date: February 12, 2015 [EBook #7415] +Release Date: February, 2005 +First Posted: April 26, 2003 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A SHEPHERD'S LIFE *** + + + + +Produced by Eric Eldred, David Garcia, Charles Franks, and +the Online Distributed Proofreading Team + + + + + + + + + + + +A SHEPHERD'S LIFE + +IMPRESSIONS OF THE SOUTH WILTSHIRE DOWNS + +BY W. H. HUDSON + + + + + + + +NOTE + +I an obliged to Messrs. Longmans, Green, & Co. for permission to make +use of an article entitled "A Shepherd of the Downs," which appeared in +the October and November numbers of _Longmans' Magazine_ in 1902. +With the exception of that article, portions of which I have +incorporated in different chapters, the whole of the matter contained in +this work now appears for the first time. + + + + + + +CONTENTS + +Chapter. + + I. SALISBURY PLAIN + + II. SALISBURY AS I SEE IT + + III. WINTERBOURNE BISHOP + + IV. A SHEPHERD OF THE DOWNS + + V. EARLY MEMORIES + + VI. SHEPHERD ISAAC BAWCOMBE + + VII. THE DEER-STEALERS + + VIII. SHEPHERDS AND POACHING + + IX. THE SHEPHERD ON FOXES + + X. BIRD LIFE ON THE DOWNS + + XI. STARLINGS AND SHEEP-BELLS + + XII. THE SHEPHERD AND THE BIBLE + + XIII. VALE OF THE WYLYE + + XIV. A SHEEP-DOG'S LIFE + + XV. THE ELLERBYS OF DOVETON + + XVI. OLD WILTSHIRE DAYS + + XVII. OLD WILTSHIRE DAYS (_continued_) + + XVIII. THE SHEPHERD'S RETURN + + XIX. THE DARK PEOPLE OF THE VILLAGE + + XX. SOME SHEEP-DOGS + + XXI. THE SHEPHERD AS NATURALIST + + XXII. THE MASTER OF THE VILLAGE + + XXIII. ISAAC'S CHILDREN + + XXIV. LIVING IN THE PAST + + + + + + + +A SHEPHERD'S LIFE + +SALISBURY PLAIN + +CHAPTER I + + Introductory remarks--Wiltshire little favoured by tourists--Aspect of + the downs--Bad weather--Desolate aspect--The bird-scarer--Fascination + of the downs--The larger Salisbury Plain--Effect of the military + occupation--A century's changes--Birds--Old Wiltshire sheep--Sheep-horns + in a well--Changes wrought by cultivation--Rabbit-warrens on the + downs--Barrows obliterated by the plough and by rabbits + + +Wiltshire looks large on the map of England, a great green county, yet +it never appears to be a favourite one to those who go on rambles in the +land. At all events I am unable to bring to mind an instance of a lover +of Wiltshire who was not a native or a resident, or had not been to +Marlborough and loved the country on account of early associations. Nor +can I regard myself as an exception, since, owing to a certain kind of +adaptiveness in me, a sense of being at home wherever grass grows, I am +in a way a native too. Again, listen to any half-dozen of your friends +discussing the places they have visited, or intend visiting, comparing +notes about the counties, towns, churches, castles, scenery--all that +draws them and satisfies their nature, and the chances are that they +will not even mention Wiltshire. They all know it "in a way"; they have +seen Salisbury Cathedral and Stonehenge, which everybody must go to look +at once in his life; and they have also viewed the country from the +windows of a railroad carriage as they passed through on their flight to +Bath and to Wales with its mountains, and to the west country, which +many of us love best of all--Somerset, Devon, and Cornwall. For there is +nothing striking in Wiltshire, at all events to those who love nature +first; nor mountains, nor sea, nor anything to compare with the places +they are hastening to, west or north. The downs! Yes, the downs are +there, full in sight of your window, in their flowing forms resembling +vast, pale green waves, wave beyond wave, "in fluctuation fixed"; a fine +country to walk on in fine weather for all those who regard the mere +exercise of walking as sufficient pleasure. But to those who wish for +something more, these downs may be neglected, since, if downs are +wanted, there is the higher, nobler Sussex range within an hour of +London. There are others on whom the naked aspect of the downs has a +repelling effect. Like Gilpin they love not an undecorated earth; and +false and ridiculous as Gilpin's taste may seem to me and to all those +who love the chalk, which "spoils everything" as Gilpin said, he +certainly expresses a feeling common to those who are unaccustomed to +the emptiness and silence of these great spaces. + +As to walking on the downs, one remembers that the fine days are not so +many, even in the season when they are looked for--they have certainly +been few during this wet and discomfortable one of 1909. It is indeed +only on the chalk hills that I ever feel disposed to quarrel with this +English climate, for all weathers are good to those who love the open +air, and have their special attractions. What a pleasure it is to be out +in rough weather in October when the equinoctial gales are on, "the wind +Euroclydon," to listen to its roaring in the bending trees, to watch the +dead leaves flying, the pestilence-stricken multitudes, yellow and black +and red, whirled away in flight on flight before the volleying blast, +and to hear and see and feel the tempests of rain, the big silver-grey +drops that smite you like hail! And what pleasure too, in the still grey +November weather, the time of suspense and melancholy before winter, a +strange quietude, like a sense of apprehension in nature! And so on +through the revolving year, in all places in all weathers, there is +pleasure in the open air, except on these chalk hills because of their +bleak nakedness. There the wind and driving rain are not for but against +you, and may overcome you with misery. One feels their loneliness, +monotony, and desolation on many days, sometimes even when it is not +wet, and I here recall an amusing encounter with a bird-scarer during +one of these dreary spells. + +It was in March, bitterly cold, with an east wind which had been blowing +many days, and overhead the sky was of a hard, steely grey. I was +cycling along the valley of the Ebble, and finally leaving it pushed up +a long steep slope and set off over the high plain by a dusty road with +the wind hard against me. A more desolate scene than the one before me +it would be hard to imagine, for the land was all ploughed and stretched +away before me, an endless succession of vast grey fields, divided by +wire fences. On all that space there was but one living thing in sight, +a human form, a boy, far away on the left side, standing in the middle +of a big field with something which looked like a gun in his hand. +Immediately after I saw him he, too, appeared to have caught sight of +me, for turning he set off running as fast as he could over the ploughed +ground towards the road, as if intending to speak to me. The distance he +would have to run was about a quarter of a mile and I doubted that he +would be there in time to catch me, but he ran fast and the wind was +against me, and he arrived at the road just as I got to that point. +There by the side of the fence he stood, panting from his race, his +handsome face glowing with colour, a boy about twelve or thirteen, with +a fine strong figure, remarkably well dressed for a bird-scarer. For +that was what he was, and he carried a queer, heavy-looking old gun. I +got off my wheel and waited for him to speak, but he was silent, and +continued regarding me with the smiling countenance of one well pleased +with himself. "Well?" I said, but there was no answer; he only kept on +smiling. + +"What did you want?" I demanded impatiently. + +"I didn't want anything." + +"But you started running here as fast as you could the moment you caught +sight of me." + +"Yes, I did." + +"Well, what did you do it for--what was your object in running here?" + +"Just to see you pass," he answered. + +It was a little ridiculous and vexed me at first, but by and by when I +left him, after some more conversation, I felt rather pleased; for it +was a new and somewhat flattering experience to have any person run a +long distance over a ploughed field, burdened with a heavy gun, "just to +see me pass." + +But it was not strange in the circumstances; his hours in that grey, +windy desolation must have seemed like days, and it was a break in the +monotony, a little joyful excitement in getting to the road in time to +see a passer-by more closely, and for a few moments gave him a sense of +human companionship. I began even to feel a little sorry for him, alone +there in his high, dreary world, but presently thought he was better off +and better employed than most of his fellows poring over miserable books +in school, and I wished we had a more rational system of education for +the agricultural districts, one which would not keep the children shut +up in a room during all the best hours of the day, when to be out of +doors, seeing, hearing, and doing, would fit them so much better for the +life-work before them. Squeers' method was a wiser one. We think less of +it than of the delightful caricature, which makes Squeers "a joy for +ever," as Mr. Lang has said of Pecksniff. But Dickens was a Londoner, +and incapable of looking at this or any other question from any other +than the Londoner's standpoint. Can you have a better system for the +children of all England than this one which will turn out the most +perfect draper's assistant in Oxford Street, or, to go higher, the most +efficient Mr. Guppy in a solicitor's office? It is true that we have +Nature's unconscious intelligence against us; that by and by, when at +the age of fourteen the boy is finally released, she will set to work to +undo the wrong by discharging from his mind its accumulations of useless +knowledge as soon as he begins the work of life. But what a waste of +time and energy and money! One can only hope that the slow intellect of +the country will wake to this question some day, that the countryman +will say to the townsman, Go on making your laws and systems of +education for your own children, who will live as you do indoors; while +I shall devise a different one for mine, one which will give them hard +muscles and teach them to raise the mutton and pork and cultivate the +potatoes and cabbages on which we all feed. + +To return to the downs. Their very emptiness and desolation, which +frightens the stranger from them, only serves to make them more +fascinating to those who are intimate with and have learned to love +them. That dreary aspect brings to mind the other one, when, on waking +with the early sunlight in the room, you look out on a blue sky, +cloudless or with white clouds. It may be fancy, or the effect of +contrast, but it has always seemed to me that just as the air is purer +and fresher on these chalk heights than on the earth below, and as the +water is of a more crystal purity, and the sky perhaps bluer, so do all +colours and all sounds have a purity and vividness and intensity beyond +that of other places. I see it in the yellows of hawkweed, rock-rose, +and birds'-foot-trefoil, in the innumerable specks of brilliant +colour--blue and white and rose--of milk-wort and squinancy-wort, and in +the large flowers of the dwarf thistle, glowing purple in its green +setting; and I hear it in every bird-sound, in the trivial songs of +yellow-hammer and corn-bunting, and of dunnock and wren and whitethroat. + +The pleasure of walking on the downs is not, however, a subject which +concerns me now; it is one I have written about in a former work, +"Nature in Downland," descriptive of the South Downs. The theme of the +present work is the life, human and other, of the South Wiltshire Downs, +or of Salisbury Plain. It is the part of Wiltshire which has most +attracted me. Most persons would say that the Marlborough Downs are +greater, more like the great Sussex range as it appears from the Weald: +but chance brought me farther south, and the character and life of the +village people when I came to know them made this appear the best place +to be in. + +The Plain itself is not a precisely denned area, and may be made to +include as much or little as will suit the writer's purpose. If you want +a continuous plain, with no dividing valley cutting through it, you must +place it between the Avon and Wylye Rivers, a distance about fifteen +miles broad and as many long, with the village of Tilshead in its +centure; or, if you don't mind the valleys, you can say it extends from +Downton and Tollard Royal south of Salisbury to the Pewsey vale in the +north, and from the Hampshire border on the east side to Dorset and +Somerset on the west, about twenty-five to thirty miles each way. My own +range is over this larger Salisbury Plain, which includes the River +Ebble, or Ebele, with its numerous interesting villages, from Odstock +and Combe Bisset, near Salisbury and "the Chalks," to pretty Alvediston +near the Dorset line, and all those in the Nadder valley, and westward +to White Sheet Hill above Mere. You can picture this high chalk country +as an open hand, the left hand, with Salisbury in the hollow of the +palm, placed nearest the wrist, and the five valleys which cut through +it as the five spread fingers, from the Bourne (the little finger) +succeeded by Avon, Wylye, and Nadder, to the Ebble, which comes in lower +down as the thumb and has its junction with the main stream below +Salisbury. + +A very large portion of this high country is now in a transitional +state, that was once a sheep-walk and is now a training ground for the +army. Where the sheep are taken away the turf loses the smooth, elastic +character which makes it better to walk on than the most perfect lawn. +The sheep fed closely, and everything that grew on the down--grasses, +clovers, and numerous small creeping herbs--had acquired the habit of +growing and flowering close to the ground, every species and each +individual plant striving, with the unconscious intelligence that is in +all growing things, to hide its leaves and pushing sprays under the +others, to escape the nibbling teeth by keeping closer to the surface. +There are grasses and some herbs, the plantain among them, which keep +down very close but must throw up a tall stem to flower and seed. Look +at the plantain when its flowering time comes; each particular plant +growing with its leaves so close down on the surface as to be safe from +the busy, searching mouths, then all at once throwing up tall, straight +stems to flower and ripen its seeds quickly. Watch a flock at this time, +and you will see a sheep walking about, rapidly plucking the flowering +spikes, cutting them from the stalk with a sharp snap, taking them off +at the rate of a dozen or so in twenty seconds. But the sheep cannot be +all over the downs at the same time, and the time is short, myriads of +plants throwing up their stems at once, so that many escape, and it has +besides a deep perennial root so that the plant keeps its own life +though it may be unable to sow any seeds for many seasons. So with other +species which must send up a tall flower stem; and by and by, the +flowering over and the seeds ripened or lost, the dead, scattered stems +remain like long hairs growing out of a close fur. The turf remains +unchanged; but take the sheep away and it is like the removal of a +pressure, or a danger: the plant recovers liberty and confidence and +casts off the old habit; it springs and presses up to get the better of +its fellows--to get all the dew and rain and sunshine that it can--and +the result is a rough surface. + +Another effect of the military occupation is the destruction of the wild +life of the Plain, but that is a matter I have written about in my last +book, "Afoot in England," in a chapter on Stonehenge, and need not dwell +on here. To the lover of Salisbury Plain as it was, the sight of +military camps, with white tents or zinc houses, and of bodies of men in +khaki marching and drilling, and the sound of guns, now informs him that +he is in a district which has lost its attraction, where nature has been +dispossessed. + +Meanwhile, there is a corresponding change going on in the human life of +the district. Let anyone describe it as he thinks best, as an +improvement or a deterioration, it is a great change nevertheless, which +in my case and probably that of many others is as disagreeable to +contemplate as that which we are beginning to see in the down, which was +once a sheep-walk and is so no longer. On this account I have ceased to +frequent that portion of the Plain where the War Office is in possession +of the land, and to keep to the southern side in my rambles, out of +sight and hearing of the "white-tented camps" and mimic warfare. Here is +Salisbury Plain as it has been these thousand years past, or ever since +sheep were pastured here more than in any other district in England, and +that may well date even more than ten centuries back. + +Undoubtedly changes have taken place even here, some very great, chiefly +during the last, or from the late eighteenth century. Changes both in +the land and the animal life, wild and domestic. Of the losses in wild +bird life there will be something to say in another chapter; they relate +chiefly to the extermination of the finest species, the big bird, +especially the soaring bird, which is now gone out of all this wide +Wiltshire sky. As a naturalist I must also lament the loss of the old +Wiltshire breed of sheep, although so long gone. Once it was the only +breed known in Wilts, and extended over the entire county; it was a big +animal, the largest of the fine-woolled sheep in England, but for looks +it certainly compared badly with modern downland breeds and possessed, +it was said, all the points which the breeder, or improver, was against. +Thus, its head was big and clumsy, with a round nose, its legs were long +and thick, its belly without wool, and both sexes were horned. Horns, +even in a ram, are an abomination to the modern sheep-farmer in Southern +England. Finally, it was hard to fatten. On the other hand it was a +sheep which had been from of old on the bare open downs and was modified +to suit the conditions, the scanty feed, the bleak, bare country, and +the long distances it had to travel to and from the pasture ground. It +was a strong, healthy, intelligent animal, in appearance and character +like the old original breed of sheep on the pampas of South America, +which I knew as a boy, a coarse-woolled sheep with naked belly, tall and +hardy, a greatly modified variety of the sheep introduced by the Spanish +colonist three centuries ago. At all events the old Wiltshire sheep had +its merits, and when the Southdown breed was introduced during the late +eighteenth century the farmer viewed it with disfavour; they liked their +old native animal, and did not want to lose it. But it had to go in +time, just as in later times the Southdown had to go when the Hampshire +Down took its place--the breed which is now universal, in South Wilts at +all events. + +A solitary flock of the pure-bred old Wiltshire sheep existed in the +county as late as 1840, but the breed has now so entirely disappeared +from the country that you find many shepherds who have never even heard +of it. Not many days ago I met with a curious instance of this ignorance +of the past. I was talking to a shepherd, a fine intelligent fellow, +keenly interested in the subjects of sheep and sheep-dogs, on the high +down above the village of Broad Chalk on the Ebble, and he told me that +his dog was of mixed breed, but on its mother's side came from a Welsh +sheep-dog, that his father had always had the Welsh dog, once common in +Wiltshire, and he wondered why it had gone out as it was so good an +animal. This led me to say something about the old sheep having gone out +too, and as he had never heard of the old breed I described the animal +to him. + +What I told him, he said, explained something which had been a puzzle to +him for some years. There was a deep hollow in the down near the spot +where we were standing, and at the bottom he said there was an old well +which had been used in former times to water the sheep, but masses of +earth had fallen down from the sides, and in that condition it had +remained for no one knew how long--perhaps fifty, perhaps a hundred +years. Some years ago it came into his master's head to have this old +well cleaned out, and this was done with a good deal of labour, the +sides having first been boarded over to make it safe for the workmen +below. At the bottom of the well a vast store of rams' horns was +discovered and brought out; and it was a mystery to the fanner and the +men how so large a number of sheep's horns had been got together; for +rams are few and do not die often, and here there were hundreds of +horns. He understood it now, for if all the sheep, ewes as well as rams, +were horned in the old breed, a collection like this might easily have +been made. + +The greatest change of the last hundred years is no doubt that which the +plough has wrought in the aspect of the downs. There is a certain +pleasure to the eye in the wide fields of golden corn, especially of +wheat, in July and August; but a ploughed down is a down made ugly, and +it strikes one as a mistake, even from a purely economic point of view, +that this old rich turf, the slow product of centuries, should be ruined +for ever as sheep-pasture when so great an extent of uncultivated land +exists elsewhere, especially the heavy clays of the Midlands, better +suited for corn. The effect of breaking up the turf on the high downs is +often disastrous; the thin soil which was preserved by the close, hard +turf is blown or washed away, and the soil becomes poorer year by year, +in spite of dressing, until it is hardly worth cultivating. Clover may +be grown on it but it continues to deteriorate; or the tenant or +landlord may turn it into a rabbit-warren, the most fatal policy of all. +How hideous they are--those great stretches of downland, enclosed in big +wire fences and rabbit netting, with little but wiry weeds, moss, and +lichen growing on them, the earth dug up everywhere by the disorderly +little beasts! For a while there is a profit--"it will serve me my +time," the owner says--but the end is utter barrenness. + +One must lament, too, the destruction of the ancient earth-works, +especially of the barrows, which is going on all over the downs, most +rapidly where the land is broken up by the plough. One wonders if the +ever-increasing curiosity of our day with regard to the history of the +human race in the land continues to grow, what our descendants of the +next half of the century, to go no farther, will say of us and our +incredible carelessness in the matter! So small a matter to us, but one +which will, perhaps, be immensely important to them! It is, perhaps, +better for our peace that we do not know; it would not be pleasant to +have our children's and children's children's contemptuous expressions +sounding in our prophetic ears. Perhaps we have no right to complain of +the obliteration of these memorials of antiquity by the plough; the +living are more than the dead, and in this case it may be said that we +are only following the Artemisian example in consuming (in our daily +bread) minute portions of the ashes of our old relations, albeit +untearfully, with a cheerful countenance. Still one cannot but +experience a shock on seeing the plough driven through an ancient, +smooth turf, curiously marked with barrows, lynchetts, and other +mysterious mounds and depressions, where sheep have been pastured for a +thousand years, without obscuring these chance hieroglyphs scored by men +on the surface of the hills. + +It is not, however, only on the cultivated ground that the destruction +is going on; the rabbit, too, is an active agent in demolishing the +barrows and other earth-works. He burrows into the mound and throws out +bushels of chalk and clay, which is soon washed down by the rains; he +tunnels it through and through and sometimes makes it his village; then +one day the farmer or keeper, who is not an archaeologist, comes along +and puts his ferrets into the holes, and one of them, after drinking his +fill of blood, falls asleep by the side of his victim, and the keeper +sets to work with pick and shovel to dig him out, and demolishes half +the barrow to recover his vile little beast. + + + + +CHAPTER II + +SALISBURY AS I SEE IT + + The Salisbury of the villager--The cathedral from the meadows--Walks to + Wilton and Old Sarum--The spire and a rainbow--Charm of Old Sarum--The + devastation--Salisbury from Old Sarum--Leland's description--Salisbury + and the village mind--Market-day--The infirmary--The cathedral--The + lesson of a child's desire--In the streets again--An Apollo of the downs + + +To the dwellers on the Plain, Salisbury itself is an exceedingly +important place--the most important in the world. For if they have seen +a greater--London, let us say--it has left but a confused, a +phantasmagoric image on the mind, an impression of endless thoroughfares +and of innumerable people all apparently in a desperate hurry to do +something, yet doing nothing; a labyrinth of streets and wilderness of +houses, swarming with beings who have no definite object and no more to +do with realities than so many lunatics, and are unconfined because they +are so numerous that all the asylums in the world could not contain +them. But of Salisbury they have a very clear image: inexpressibly rich +as it is in sights, in wonders, full of people--hundreds of people in +the streets and market-place--they can take it all in and know its +meaning. Every man and woman, of all classes, in all that concourse, is +there for some definite purpose which they can guess and understand; and +the busy street and market, and red houses and soaring spire, are all +one, and part and parcel too of their own lives in their own distant +little village by the Avon or Wylye, or anywhere on the Plain. And that +soaring spire which, rising so high above the red town, first catches +the eye, the one object which gives unity and distinction to the whole +picture, is not more distinct in the mind than the entire Salisbury with +its manifold interests and activities. + +There is nothing in the architecture of England more beautiful than that +same spire. I have seen it many times, far and near, from all points of +view, and am never in or near the place but I go to some spot where I +look at and enjoy the sight; but I will speak here of the two best +points of view. + +The nearest, which is the artist's favourite point, is from the meadows; +there, from the waterside, you have the cathedral not too far away nor +too near for a picture, whether on canvas or in the mind, standing +amidst its great old trees, with nothing but the moist green meadows and +the river between. One evening, during the late summer of this wettest +season, when the rain was beginning to cease, I went out this way for my +stroll, the pleasantest if not the only "walk" there is in Salisbury. It +is true, there are two others: one to Wilton by its long, shady avenue; +the other to Old Sarum; but these are now motor-roads, and until the +loathed hooting and dusting engines are thrust away into roads of their +own there is little pleasure in them for the man on foot. The rain +ceased, but the sky was still stormy, with a great blackness beyond the +cathedral and still other black clouds coming up from the west behind +me. Then the sun, near its setting, broke out, sending a flame of orange +colour through the dark masses around it, and at the same time flinging +a magnificent rainbow on that black cloud against which the immense +spire stood wet with rain and flushed with light, so that it looked like +a spire built of a stone impregnated with silver. Never had Nature so +glorified man's work! It was indeed a marvellous thing to see, an effect +so rare that in all the years I had known Salisbury, and the many times +I had taken that stroll in all weathers, it was my first experience of +such a thing. How lucky, then, was Constable to have seen it, when he +set himself to paint his famous picture! And how brave he was and even +wise to have attempted such a subject, one which, I am informed by +artists with the brush, only a madman would undertake, however great a +genius he might be. It was impossible, we know, even to a Constable, but +we admire his failure nevertheless, even as we admire Turner's many +failures; but when we go back to Nature we are only too glad to forget +all about the picture. + +The view from the meadows will not, in the future, I fear, seem so +interesting to me; I shall miss the rainbow, and shall never see again +except in that treasured image the great spire as Constable saw and +tried to paint it. In like manner, though for a different reason, my +future visits to Old Sarum will no longer give me the same pleasure +experienced on former occasions. + +Old Sarum stands over the Avon, a mile and a half from Salisbury; a +round chalk hill about 300 feet high, in its round shape and isolation +resembling a stupendous tumulus in which the giants of antiquity were +buried, its steeply sloping, green sides ringed about with vast, +concentric earth-works and ditches, the work of the "old people," as +they say on the Plain, when referring to the ancient Britons, but how +ancient, whether invading Celts or Aborigines--the true Britons, who +possessed the land from neolithic times--even the anthropologists, the +wise men of to-day, are unable to tell us. Later, it was a Roman +station, one of the most important, and in after ages a great Norman +castle and cathedral city, until early in the thirteenth century, when +the old church was pulled down and a new and better one to last for ever +was built in the green plain by many running waters. Church and people +gone, the castle fell into ruin, though some believe it existed down to +the fifteenth century; but from that time onwards the site has been a +place of historical memories and a wilderness. Nature had made it a +sweet and beautiful spot; the earth over the old buried ruins was +covered with an elastic turf, jewelled with the bright little flowers of +the chalk, the ramparts and ditches being all overgrown with a dense +thicket of thorn, holly, elder, bramble, and ash, tangled up with ivy, +briony, and traveller's-joy. Once only during the last five or six +centuries some slight excavations were made when, in 1834, as the result +of an excessively dry summer, the lines of the cathedral foundations +were discernible on the surface. But it will no longer be the place it +was, the Society of Antiquaries having received permission from the Dean +and Chapter of Salisbury to work their sweet will on the site. That +ancient, beautiful carcass, which had long made their mouths water, on +which they have now fallen like a pack of hungry hyenas to tear off the +old hide of green turf and burrow down to open to the light or drag out +the deep, stony framework. The beautiful surrounding thickets, too, must +go, they tell me, since you cannot turn the hill inside out without +destroying the trees and bushes that crown it. What person who has known +it and has often sought that spot for the sake of its ancient +associations, and of the sweet solace they have found in the solitude, +or for the noble view of the sacred city from its summit, will not +deplore this fatal amiability of the authorities, this weak desire to +please every one and inability to say no to such a proposal! + +But let me now return to the object which brings me to this spot; it was +not to lament the loss of the beautiful, which cannot be preserved in +our age--even this best one of all which Salisbury possessed cannot be +preserved--but to look at Salisbury from this point of view. It is not +as from "the meadows" a view of the cathedral only, but of the whole +town, amidst its circle of vast green downs. It has a beautiful aspect +from that point: a red-brick and red-tiled town, set low on that +circumscribed space, whose soft, brilliant green is in lovely contrast +with the paler hue of the downs beyond, the perennial moist green of its +water-meadows. For many swift, clear currents flow around and through +Salisbury, and doubtless in former days there were many more channels in +the town itself. Leland's description is worth quoting: "There be many +fair streates in the Cite Saresbyri, and especially the High Streate and +Castle Streate.... Al the Streates in a maner, in New Saresbyri, hath +little streamlettes and arms derivyd out of Avon that runneth through +them. The site of the very town of Saresbyri and much ground thereabout +is playne and low, and as a pan or receyvor of most part of the waters +of Wiltshire." + +On this scene, this red town with the great spire, set down among +water-meadows, encircled by paler green chalk hills, I look from the top +of the inner and highest rampart or earth-work; or going a little +distance down sit at ease on the turf to gaze at it by the hour. Nor +could a sweeter resting-place be found, especially at the time of ripe +elder-berries, when the thickets are purple with their clusters and the +starlings come in flocks to feed on them, and feeding keep up a +perpetual, low musical jangle about me. + +It is not, however, of "New Saresbyri" as seen by the tourist, with a +mind full of history, archaeology, and the aesthetic delight in +cathedrals, that I desire to write, but of Salisbury as it appears to +the dweller on the Plain. For Salisbury is the capital of the Plain, the +head and heart of all those villages, too many to count, scattered far +and wide over the surrounding country. It is the villager's own peculiar +city, and even as the spot it stands upon is the "pan or receyvor of +most part of the waters of Wiltshire," so is it the receyvor of all he +accomplishes in his laborious life, and thitherward flow all his +thoughts and ambitions. Perhaps it is not so difficult for me as it +would be for most persons who are not natives to identify myself with +him and see it as he sees it. That greater place we have been in, that +mighty, monstrous London, is ever present to the mind and is like a mist +before the sight when we look at other places; but for me there is no +such mist, no image so immense and persistent as to cover and obscure +all others, and no such mental habit as that of regarding people as a +mere crowd, a mass, a monstrous organism, in and on which each +individual is but a cell, a scale. This feeling troubles and confuses my +mind when I am in London, where we live "too thick"; but quitting it I +am absolutely free; it has not entered my soul and coloured me with its +colour or shut me out from those who have never known it, even of the +simplest dwellers on the soil who, to our sophisticated minds, may seem +like beings of another species. This is my happiness--to feel, in all +places, that I am one with them. To say, for instance, that I am going +to Salisbury to-morrow, and catch the gleam in the children's eye and +watch them, furtively watching me, whisper to one another that there +will be something for them, too, on the morrow. To set out betimes and +overtake the early carriers' carts on the road, each with its little +cargo of packages and women with baskets and an old man or two, to +recognize acquaintances among those who sit in front, and as I go on +overtaking and passing carriers and the half-gipsy, little "general +dealer" in his dirty, ramshackle, little cart drawn by a rough, +fast-trotting pony, all of us intent on business and pleasure, bound for +Salisbury--the great market and emporium and place of all delights for +all the great Plain. I remember that on my very last expedition, when I +had come twelve miles in the rain and was standing at a street corner, +wet to the skin, waiting for my carrier, a man in a hurry said to me, "I +say, just keep an eye on my cart for a minute or two while I run round +to see somebody. I've got some fowls in it, and if you see anyone come +poking round just ask them what they want--you can't trust every one. +I'll be back in a minute." And he was gone, and I was very pleased to +watch his cart and fowls till he came back. + +Business is business and must be attended to, in fair or foul weather, +but for business with pleasure we prefer it fine on market-day. The one +great and chief pleasure, in which all participate, is just to be there, +to be in the crowd--a joyful occasion which gives a festive look to +every face. The mere sight of it exhilarates like wine. The numbers--the +people and the animals! The carriers' carts drawn up in rows on +rows--carriers from a hundred little villages on the Bourne, the Avon, +the Wylye, the Nadder, the Ebble, and from all over the Plain, each +bringing its little contingent. Hundreds and hundreds more coming by +train; you see them pouring down Fisherton Street in a continuous +procession, all hurrying market-wards. And what a lively scene the +market presents now, full of cattle and sheep and pigs and crowds of +people standing round the shouting auctioneers! And horses, too, the +beribboned hacks, and ponderous draught horses with manes and tails +decorated with golden straw, thundering over the stone pavement as they +are trotted up and down! And what a profusion of fruit and vegetables, +fish and meat, and all kinds of provisions on the stalls, where women +with baskets on their arms are jostling and bargaining! The Corn +Exchange is like a huge beehive, humming with the noise of talk, full of +brown-faced farmers in their riding and driving clothes and leggings, +standing in knots or thrusting their hands into sacks of oats and +barley. You would think that all the farmers from all the Plain were +congregated there. There is a joyful contagion in it all. Even the +depressed young lover, the forlornest of beings, repairs his wasted +spirits and takes heart again. Why, if I've seen a girl with a pretty +face to-day I've seen a hundred--and more. And she thinks they be so few +she can treat me like that and barely give me a pleasant word in a +month! Let her come to Salisbury and see how many there be! + +And so with every one in that vast assemblage--vast to the dweller in +the Plain. Each one is present as it were in two places, since each has +in his or her heart the constant image of home--the little, peaceful +village in the remote valley; of father and mother and neighbours and +children, in school just now, or at play, or home to dinner--home cares +and concerns and the business in Salisbury. The selling and buying; +friends and relations to visit or to meet in the market-place, and--how +often!--the sick one to be seen at the Infirmary. This home of the +injured and ailing, which is in the mind of so many of the people +gathered together, is indeed the cord that draws and binds the city and +the village closest together and makes the two like one. + +That great, comely building of warm, red brick in Fisherton Street, set +well back so that you can see it as a whole, behind its cedar and +beech-trees--how familiar it is to the villagers! In numberless humble +homes, in hundreds of villages of the Plain, and all over the +surrounding country, the "Infirmary" is a name of the deepest meaning, +and a place of many gad and tender and beautiful associations. I heard +it spoken of in a manner which surprised me at first, for I know some of +the London poor and am accustomed to their attitude towards the +metropolitan hospitals. The Londoner uses them very freely; they have +come to be as necessary to him as the grocer's shop and the +public-house, but for all the benefits he receives from them he has no +faintest sense of gratitude, and it is my experience that if you speak +to him of this he is roused to anger and demands, "What are they for?" +So far is he from having any thankful thoughts for all that has been +given him for nothing and done for him and for his, if he has anything +to say at all on the matter it is to find fault with the hospitals and +cast blame on them for not having healed him more quickly or thoroughly. + +This country town hospital and infirmary is differently regarded by the +villagers of the Plain. It is curious to find how many among them are +personally acquainted with it; perhaps it is not easy for anyone, even +in this most healthy district, to get through life without sickness, and +all are liable to accidents. The injured or afflicted youth, taken +straight from his rough, hard life and poor cottage, wonders at the +place he finds himself in--the wide, clean, airy room and white, easy +bed, the care and skill of the doctors, the tender nursing by women, and +comforts and luxuries, all without payment, but given as it seems to him +out of pure divine love and compassion--all this comes to him as +something strange, almost incredible. He suffers much perhaps, but can +bear pain stoically and forget it when it is past, but the loving +kindness he has experienced is remembered. + +That is one of the very great things Salisbury has for the villagers, +and there are many more which may not be spoken of, since we do not want +to lose sight of the wood on account of the trees; only one must be +mentioned for a special reason, and that is the cathedral. The villager +is extremely familiar with it as he sees it from the market and the +street and from a distance, from all the roads which lead him to +Salisbury. Seeing it he sees everything beneath it--all the familiar +places and objects, all the streets--High and Castle and Crane Streets, +and many others, including Endless Street, which reminds one of Sydney +Smith's last flicker of fun before that candle went out; and the "White +Hart" and the "Angel" and "Old George," and the humbler "Goat" and +"Green Man" and "Shoulder of Mutton," with many besides; and the great, +red building with its cedar-tree, and the knot of men and boys standing +on the bridge gazing down on the trout in the swift river below; and the +market-place and its busy crowds--all the familiar sights and scenes +that come under the spire like a flock of sheep on a burning day in +summer, grouped about a great tree growing in the pasture-land. But he +is not familiar with the interior of the great fane; it fails to draw +him, doubtless because he has no time in his busy, practical life for +the cultivation of the aesthetic faculties. There is a crust over that +part of his mind; but it need not always and ever be so; the crust is +not on the mind of the child. + +Before a stall in the market-place a child is standing with her +mother--a commonplace-looking, little girl of about twelve, blue-eyed, +light-haired, with thin arms and legs, dressed, poorly enough, for her +holiday. The mother, stoutish, in her best but much-worn black gown and +a brown straw, out-of-shape hat, decorated with bits of ribbon and a few +soiled and frayed artificial flowers. Probably she is the wife of a +labourer who works hard to keep himself and family on fourteen shillings +a week; and she, too, shows, in her hard hands and sunburnt face, with +little wrinkles appearing, that she is a hard worker; but she is very +jolly, for she is in Salisbury on market-day, in fine weather, with +several shillings in her purse--a shilling for the fares, and perhaps +eightpence for refreshments, and the rest to be expended in necessaries +for the house. And now to increase the pleasure of the day she has +unexpectedly run against a friend! There they stand, the two friends, +basket on arm, right in the midst of the jostling crowd, talking in +their loud, tinny voices at a tremendous rate; while the girl, with a +half-eager, half-listless expression, stands by with her hand on her +mother's dress, and every time there is a second's pause in the eager +talk she gives a little tug at the gown and ejaculates "Mother!" The +woman impatiently shakes off the hand and says sharply, "What now, +Marty! Can't 'ee let me say just a word without bothering!" and on the +talk runs again; then another tug and "Mother!" and then, "You promised, +mother," and by and by, "Mother, you said you'd take me to the cathedral +next time." + +Having heard so much I wanted to hear more, and addressing the woman I +asked her why her child wanted to go. She answered me with a +good-humoured laugh, "'Tis all because she heard 'em talking about it +last winter, and she'd never been, and I says to her, 'Never you mind, +Marty, I'll take you there the next time I go to Salisbury.'" + +"And she's never forgot it," said the other woman. + +"Not she--Marty ain't one to forget." + +"And you been four times, mother," put in the girl. + +"Have I now! Well, 'tis too late now--half-past two, and we must be't' +Goat' at four." + +"Oh, mother, you promised!" + +"Well, then, come along, you worriting child, and let's have it over or +you'll give me no peace"; and away they went. And I would have followed +to know the result if it had been in my power to look into that young +brain and see the thoughts and feelings there as the crystal-gazer sees +things in a crystal. In a vague way, with some very early memories to +help me, I can imagine it--the shock of pleased wonder at the sight of +that immense interior, that far-extending nave with pillars that stand +like the tall trunks of pines and beeches, and at the end the light +screen which allows the eye to travel on through the rich choir, to see, +with fresh wonder and delight, high up and far off, that glory of +coloured glass as of a window half-open to an unimaginable place +beyond--a heavenly cathedral to which all this is but a dim porch or +passage! + +We do not properly appreciate the educational value of such early +experiences; and I use that dismal word not because it is perfectly +right or for want of a better one, but because it is in everybody's +mouth and understood by all. For all I know to the contrary, village +schools may be bundled in and out of the cathedral from time to time, +but that is not the right way, seeing that the child's mind is not the +crowd-of-children's mind. But I can imagine that when we have a wiser, +better system of education in the villages, in which books will not be +everything, and to be shut up six or seven hours every day to prevent +the children from learning the things that matter most--I can imagine at +such a time that the schoolmaster or mistress will say to the village +woman, "I hear you are going to Salisbury to-morrow, or next Tuesday, +and I want you to take Janie or little Dan or Peter, and leave him for +an hour to play about on the cathedral green and watch the daws flying +round the spire, and take a peep inside while you are doing your +marketing." + +Back from the cathedral once more, from the infirmary, and from shops +and refreshment-houses, out in the sun among the busy people, let us +delay a little longer for the sake of our last scene. + +It was past noon on a hot, brilliant day in August, and that splendid +weather had brought in more people than I had ever before seen +congregated in Salisbury, and never had the people seemed so talkative +and merry and full of life as on that day. I was standing at a busy spot +by a row of carriers' carts drawn up at the side of the pavement, just +where there are three public-houses close together, when I caught sight +of a young man of about twenty-two or twenty-three, a shepherd in a grey +suit and thick, iron-shod, old boots and brown leggings, with a soft +felt hat thrust jauntily on the back of his head, coming along towards +me with that half-slouching, half-swinging gait peculiar to the men of +the downs, especially when they are in the town on pleasure bent. +Decidedly he was there on pleasure and had been indulging in a glass or +two of beer (perhaps three) and was very happy, trolling out a song in a +pleasant, musical voice as he swung along, taking no notice of the +people stopping and turning round to stare after him, or of those of his +own party who were following and trying to keep up with him, calling to +him all the time to stop, to wait, to go slow, and give them a chance. +There were seven following him: a stout, middle-aged woman, then a +grey-haired old woman and two girls, and last a youngish, married woman +with a small boy by the hand; and the stout woman, with a red, laughing +face, cried out, "Oh, Dave, do stop, can't 'ee! Where be going so fast, +man--don't 'ee see we can't keep up with 'ee?" But he would not stop nor +listen. It was his day out, his great day in Salisbury, a very rare +occasion, and he was very happy. Then she would turn back to the others +and cry, "'Tisn't no use, he won't bide for us--did 'ee ever see such a +boy!" and laughing and perspiring she would start on after him again. + +Now this incident would have been too trivial to relate had it not been +for the appearance of the man himself--his powerful and perfect physique +and marvellously handsome face--such a face as the old Greek sculptors +have left to the world to be universally regarded and admired for all +time as the most perfect. I do not think that this was my feeling only; +I imagine that the others in that street who were standing still and +staring after him had something of the same sense of surprise and +admiration he excited in me. Just then it happened that there was a +great commotion outside one of the public-houses, where a considerable +party of gipsies in their little carts had drawn up, and were all +engaged in a violent, confused altercation. Probably they, or one of +them, had just disposed of a couple of stolen ducks, or a sheepskin, or +a few rabbits, and they were quarrelling over the division of the spoil. +At all events they were violently excited, scowling at each other and +one or two in a dancing rage, and had collected a crowd of amused +lookers-on; but when the young man came singing by they all turned to +stare at him. + +As he came on I placed myself directly in his path and stared straight +into his eyes--grey eyes and very beautiful; but he refused to see me; +he stared through me like an animal when you try to catch its eyes, and +went by still trolling out his song, with all the others streaming after +him. + + + + +CHAPTER III + +WINTERBOURNE BISHOP + + A favourite village--Isolated situation--Appearance of the + village--Hedge-fruit--The winterbourne--Human interest--The home + feeling--Man in harmony with nature--Human bones thrown out by a + rabbit--A spot unspoiled and unchanged + + +Of the few widely separated villages, hidden away among the lonely downs +in the large, blank spaces between the rivers, the one I love best is +Winterbourne Bishop. Yet of the entire number--I know them all +intimately--I daresay it would be pronounced by most persons the least +attractive. It has less shade from trees in summer and is more exposed +in winter to the bleak winds of this high country, from whichever +quarter they may blow. Placed high itself on a wide, unwooded valley or +depression, with the low, sloping downs at some distance away, the +village is about as cold a place to pass a winter in as one could find +in this district. And, it may be added, the most inconvenient to live in +at any time, the nearest town, or the easiest to get to, being +Salisbury, twelve miles distant by a hilly road. The only means of +getting to that great centre of life which the inhabitants possess is by +the carrier's cart, which makes the weary four-hours' journey once a +week, on market-day. Naturally, not many of them see that place of +delights oftener than once a year, and some but once in five or more +years. + +Then, as to the village itself, when you have got down into its one +long, rather winding street, or road. This has a green bank, five or +six feet high, on either side, on which stand the cottages, mostly +facing the road. Real houses there are none--buildings worthy of +being called houses in these great days--unless the three small +farm-houses are considered better than cottages, and the rather +mean-looking rectory--the rector, poor man, is very poor. Just in +the middle part, where the church stands in its green churchyard, +the shadiest spot in the village, a few of the cottages are close +together, almost touching, then farther apart, twenty yards or so, +then farther still, forty or fifty yards. They are small, old cottages; +a few have seventeenth-century dates cut on stone tablets on their +fronts, but the undated ones look equally old; some thatched, +others tiled, but none particularly attractive. Certainly they are +without the added charm of a green drapery--creeper or ivy rose, +clematis, and honeysuckle; and they are also mostly without the +cottage-garden flowers, unprofitably gay like the blossoming furze, +but dear to the soul: the flowers we find in so many of the villages +along the rivers, especially in those of the Wylye valley to be +described in a later chapter. + +The trees, I have said, are few, though the churchyard is shady, where +you can refresh yourself beneath its ancient beeches and its one +wide-branching yew, or sit on a tomb in the sun when you wish for warmth +and brightness. The trees growing by or near the street are mostly ash +or beech, with a pine or two, old but not large; and there are small or +dwarf yew-, holly-, and thorn-trees. Very little fruit is grown; two or +three to half a dozen apple- and damson-trees are called an orchard, and +one is sorry for the children. But in late summer and autumn they get +their fruit from the hedges. These run up towards the downs on either +side of the village, at right angles with its street; long, unkept +hedges, beautiful with scarlet haws and traveller's-joy, rich in bramble +and elder berries and purple sloes and nuts--a thousand times more nuts +than the little dormice require for their own modest wants. + +Finally, to go back to its disadvantages, the village is waterless; at +all events in summer, when water is most wanted. Water is such a +blessing and joy in a village--a joy for ever when it flows throughout +the year, as at Nether Stowey and Winsford and Bourton-on-the-Water, to +mention but three of all those happy villages in the land which are +known to most of us! What man on coming to such places and watching the +rushing, sparkling, foaming torrent by day and listening to its +splashing, gurgling sounds by night, does not resolve that he will live +in no village that has not a perennial stream in it! This unblessed, +high and dry village has nothing but the winter bourne which gives it +its name; a sort of surname common to a score or two of villages in +Wiltshire, Dorset, Somerset, and Hants. Here the bed of the stream lies +by the bank on one side of the village street, and when the autumn and +early winter rains have fallen abundantly, the hidden reservoirs within +the chalk hills are filled to overflowing; then the water finds its way +out and fills the dry old channel and sometimes turns the whole street +into a rushing river, to the immense joy of the village children. They +are like ducks, hatched and reared at some upland farm where there was +not even a muddy pool to dibble in. For a season (the wet one) the +village women have water at their own doors and can go out and dip pails +in it as often as they want. When spring comes it is still flowing +merrily, trying to make you believe that it is going to flow for ever; +beautiful, green water-loving plants and grasses spring up and flourish +along the roadside, and you may see comfrey and water forget-me-not in +flower. Pools, too, have been formed in some deep, hollow places; they +are fringed with tall grasses, whitened over with bloom of +water-crowfoot, and poa grass grows up from the bottom to spread its +green tresses over the surface. Better still, by and by a couple of +stray moorhens make their appearance in the pool--strange birds, +coloured glossy olive-brown, slashed with white, with splendid scarlet +and yellow beaks! If by some strange chance a shining blue kingfisher +were to appear it could not create a greater excitement. So much +attention do they receive that the poor strangers have no peace of their +lives. It is a happy time for the children, and a good time for the busy +housewife, who has all the water she wants for cooking and washing and +cleaning--she may now dash as many pailfuls over her brick floors as she +likes. Then the clear, swift current begins to diminish, and scarcely +have you had time to notice the change than it is altogether gone! The +women must go back to the well and let the bucket down, and laboriously +turn and turn the handle of the windlass till it mounts to the top +again. The pretty moist, green herbage, the graceful grasses, quickly +wither away; dust and straws and rubbish from the road lie in the dry +channel, and by and by it is filled with a summer growth of dock and +loveless nettles which no child may touch with impunity. + +No, I cannot think that any person for whom it had no association, no +secret interest, would, after looking at this village with its dried-up +winterbourne, care to make his home in it. And no person, I imagine, +wants to see it; for it has no special attraction and is away from any +road, at a distance from everywhere. I knew a great many villages in +Salisbury Plain, and was always adding to their number, but there was no +intention of visiting this one. Perhaps there is not a village on the +Plain, or anywhere in Wiltshire for that matter, which sees fewer +strangers. Then I fell in with the old shepherd whose life will be +related in the succeeding chapters, and who, away from his native place, +had no story about his past life and the lives of those he had known--no +thought in his mind, I might almost say, which was not connected with +the village of Winterbourne Bishop. And many of his anecdotes and +reflections proved so interesting that I fell into the habit of putting +them down in my notebook; until in the end the place itself, where he +had followed his "homely trade" so long, seeing and feeling so much, +drew me to it. I knew there was "nothing to see" in it, that it was +without the usual attractions; that there was, in fact, nothing but the +human interest, but that was enough. So I came to it to satisfy an idle +curiosity--just to see how it would accord with the mental picture +produced by his description of it. I came, I may say, prepared to like +the place for the sole but sufficient reason that it had been his home. +Had it not been for this feeling he had produced in me I should not, I +imagine, have cared to stay long in it. As it was, I did stay, then came +again and found that it was growing on me. I wondered why; for the mere +interest in the old shepherd's life memories did not seem enough to +account for this deepening attachment. It began to seem to me that I +liked it more and more because of its very barrenness--the entire +absence of all the features which make a place attractive, noble +scenery, woods, and waters; deer parks and old houses, Tudor, +Elizabethan, Jacobean, stately and beautiful, full of art treasures; +ancient monuments and historical associations. There were none of these +things; there was nothing here but that wide, vacant expanse, very +thinly populated with humble, rural folk--farmers, shepherds, +labourers--living in very humble houses. England is so full of riches in +ancient monuments and grand and interesting and lovely buildings and +objects and scenes, that it is perhaps too rich. For we may get into the +habit of looking for such things, expecting them at every turn, every +mile of the way. + +I found it a relief, at Winterbourne Bishop, to be in a country which +had nothing to draw a man out of a town. A wide, empty land, with +nothing on it to look at but a furze-bush; or when I had gained the +summit of the down, and to get a little higher still stood on the top of +one of its many barrows, a sight of the distant village, its low, grey +or reddish-brown cottages half hidden among its few trees, the square, +stone tower of its little church looking at a distance no taller than a +milestone. That emptiness seemed good for both mind and body: I could +spend long hours idly sauntering or sitting or lying on the turf, +thinking of nothing, or only of one thing--that it was a relief to have +no thought about anything. + +But no, something was secretly saying to me all the time, that it was +more than what I have said which continued to draw me to this vacant +place--more than the mere relief experienced on coming back to nature +and solitude, and the freedom of a wide earth and sky. I was not fully +conscious of what the something more was until after repeated visits. On +each occasion it was a pleasure to leave Salisbury behind and set out on +that long, hilly road, and the feeling would keep with me all the +journey, even in bad weather, sultry or cold, or with the wind hard +against me, blowing the white chalk dust into my eyes. From the time I +left the turnpike to go the last two and a half to three miles by the +side-road I would gaze eagerly ahead for a sight of my destination long +before it could possibly be seen; until, on gaining the summit of a low, +intervening down, the wished scene would be disclosed--the vale-like, +wide depression, with its line of trees, blue-green in the distance, +flecks of red and grey colour of the houses among them--and at that +sight there would come a sense of elation, like that of coming home. + +This in fact was the secret! This empty place was, in its aspect, +despite the difference in configuration between down and undulating +plain, more like the home of my early years than any other place known +to me in the country. I can note many differences, but they do not +deprive me of this home feeling; it is the likenesses that hold me, the +spirit of the place, one which is not a desert with the desert's +melancholy or sense of desolation, but inhabited, although thinly and by +humble-minded men whose work and dwellings are unobtrusive. The final +effect of this wide, green space with signs of human life and labour on +it, and sight of animals--sheep and cattle--at various distances, is +that we are not aliens here, intruders or invaders on the earth, living +in it but apart, perhaps hating and spoiling it, but with the other +animals are children of Nature, like them living and seeking our +subsistence under her sky, familiar with her sun and wind and rain. + +If some ostentatious person had come to this strangely quiet spot and +raised a staring, big house, the sight of it in the landscape would have +made it impossible to have such a feeling as I have described--this +sense of man's harmony and oneness with nature. From how much of England +has this expression which nature has for the spirit, which is so much +more to us than beauty of scenery, been blotted out! This quiet spot in +Wiltshire has been inhabited from of old, how far back in time the +barrows raised by an ancient, barbarous people are there to tell us, and +to show us how long it is possible for the race of men, in all stages of +culture, to exist on the earth without spoiling it. + +One afternoon when walking on Bishop Down I noticed at a distance of a +hundred yards or more that a rabbit had started making a burrow in a new +place and had thrown out a vast quantity of earth. Going to the spot to +see what kind of chalk or soil he was digging so deeply in, I found that +he had thrown out a human thigh-bone and a rib or two. They were of a +reddish-white colour and had been embedded in a hard mixture of chalk +and red earth. The following day I went again, and there were more +bones, and every day after that the number increased until it seemed to +me that he had brought out the entire skeleton, minus the skull, which I +had been curious to see. Then the bones disappeared. The man who looked +after the game had seen them, and recognizing that they were human +remains had judiciously taken them away to destroy or stow them away in +some safe place. For if the village constable had discovered them, or +heard of their presence, he would perhaps have made a fuss and even +thought it necessary to communicate with the coroner of the district. +Such things occasionally happen, even in Wiltshire where the chalk hills +are full of the bones of dead men, and a solemn Crowner's quest is held +on the remains of a Saxon or Dane or an ancient Briton. When some +important person--a Sir Richard Colt Hoare, for example, who dug up 379 +barrows in Wiltshire, or a General Pitt Rivers throws out human remains +nobody minds, but if an unauthorized rabbit kicks out a lot of bones the +matter should be inquired into. + +But the man whose bones had been thus thrown out into the sunlight after +lying so long at that spot, which commanded a view of the distant, +little village looking so small in that immense, green space--who and +what was he, and how long ago did he live on the earth--at Winterbourne +Bishop, let us say? There were two barrows in that part of the down, but +quite a stone's-throw away from the spot where the rabbit was working, +so that he may not have been one of the people of that period. Still, it +is probable that he was buried a very long time ago, centuries back, +perhaps a thousand years, perhaps longer, and by chance there was a +slope there which prevented the water from percolating, and the soil in +which he had been deposited, under that close-knit turf which looked as +if it had never been disturbed, was one in which bones might keep +uncrumbled for ever. + +The thought that occurred to me at the time was that if the man himself +had come back to life after so long a period, to stand once more on that +down surveying the scene, he would have noticed little change in it, +certainly nothing of a startling description. The village itself, +looking so small at that distance, in the centre of the vast depression, +would probably not be strange to him. It was doubtless there as far back +as history goes and probably still farther back in time. For at that +point, just where the winterbourne gushes out from the low hills, is the +spot man would naturally select to make his home. And he would see no +mansion or big building, no puff of white steam and sight of a long, +black train creeping over the earth, nor any other strange thing. It +would appear to him even as he knew it before he fell asleep--the same +familiar scene, with furze and bramble and bracken on the slope, the +wide expanse with sheep and cattle grazing in the distance, and the dark +green of trees in the hollows, and fold on fold of the low down beyond, +stretching away to the dim, farthest horizon. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +A SHEPHERD OF THE DOWNS + + Caleb Bawcombe--An old shepherd's love of his home--Fifty years' + shepherding--Bawcombe's singular appearance--A tale of a titlark--Caleb + Bawcombe's father--Father and son--A grateful sportsman and Isaac + Bawcombe's pension--Death following death in old married couples--In a + village churchyard--A farm-labourer's gravestone and his story + + +It is now several years since I first met Caleb Bawcombe, a shepherd of +the South Wiltshire Downs, but already old and infirm and past work. I +met him at a distance from his native village, and it was only after I +had known him a long time and had spent many afternoons and evenings in +his company, listening to his anecdotes of his shepherding days, that I +went to see his own old home for myself--the village of Winterbourne +Bishop already described, to find it a place after my own heart. But as +I have said, if I had never known Caleb and heard so much from him about +his own life and the lives of many of his fellow-villagers, I should +probably never have seen this village. + +One of his memories was of an old shepherd named John, whose +acquaintance he made when a very young man--John being at that time +seventy-eight years old--on the Winterbourne Bishop farm, where he had +served for an unbroken period of close on sixty years. Though so aged he +was still head shepherd, and he continued to hold that place seven years +longer--until his master, who had taken over old John with the place, +finally gave up the farm and farming at the same time. He, too, was +getting past work and wished to spend his declining years in his native +village in an adjoining parish, where he owned some house and cottage +property. And now what was to become of the old shepherd, since the new +tenant had brought his own men with him?--and he, moreover, considered +that John, at eighty-five, was too old to tend a flock on the hills, +even of tegs. His old master, anxious to help him, tried to get him some +employment in the village where he wished to stay; and failing in this, +he at last offered him a cottage rent free in the village where he was +going to live himself, and, in addition, twelve shillings a week for the +rest of his life. It was in those days an exceedingly generous offer, +but John refused it. "Master," he said, "I be going to stay in my own +native village, and if I can't make a living the parish'll have to keep +I; but keep or not keep, here I be and here I be going to stay, where I +were borned." + +From this position the stubborn old man refused to be moved, and there +at Winterbourne Bishop his master had to leave him, although not without +having first made him a sufficient provision. + +The way in which my old friend, Caleb Bawcombe, told the story plainly +revealed his own feeling in the matter. He understood and had the +keenest sympathy with old John, dead now over half a century; or rather, +let us say, resting very peacefully in that green spot under the old +grey tower of Winterbourne Bishop church where as a small boy he had +played among the old gravestones as far back in time as the middle of +the eighteenth century. But old John had long survived wife and +children, and having no one but himself to think of was at liberty to +end his days where he pleased. Not so with Caleb, for, although his +undying passion for home and his love of the shepherd's calling were as +great as John's, he was not so free, and he was compelled at last to +leave his native downs, which he may never see again, to settle for the +remainder of his days in another part of the country. + +Early in life he "caught a chill" through long exposure to wet and cold +in winter; this brought on rheumatic fever and a malady of the thigh, +which finally affected the whole limb and made him lame for life. Thus +handicapped he had continued as shepherd for close on fifty years, +during which time his sons and daughters had grown up, married, and gone +away, mostly to a considerable distance, leaving their aged parents +alone once more. Then the wife, who was a strong woman and of an +enterprising temper, found an opening for herself at a distance from +home where she could start a little business. Caleb indignantly refused +to give up shepherding in his place to take part in so unheard-of an +adventure; but after a year or more of life in his lonely hut among the +hills and cold, empty cottage in the village, he at length tore himself +away from that beloved spot and set forth on the longest journey of his +life--about forty-five miles--to join her and help in the work of her +new home. Here a few years later I found him, aged seventy-two, but +owing to his increasing infirmities looking considerably more. When he +considered that his father, a shepherd before him on those same +Wiltshire Downs, lived to eighty-six, and his mother to eighty-four, and +that both were vigorous and led active lives almost to the end, he +thought it strange that his own work should be so soon done. For in +heart and mind he was still young; he did not want to rest yet. + +Since that first meeting nine years have passed, and as he is actually +better in health to-day than he was then, there is good reason to hope +that his staying power will equal that of his father. + +I was at first struck with the singularity of Caleb's appearance, and +later by the expression of his eyes. A very tall, big-boned, lean, +round-shouldered man, he was uncouth almost to the verge of +grotesqueness, and walked painfully with the aid of a stick, dragging +his shrunken and shortened bad leg. His head was long and narrow, and +his high forehead, long nose, long chin, and long, coarse, grey +whiskers, worn like a beard on his throat, produced a goat-like effect. +This was heightened by the ears and eyes. The big ears stood out from +his head, and owing to a peculiar bend or curl in the membrane at the +top they looked at certain angles almost pointed. The hazel eyes were +wonderfully clear, but that quality was less remarkable than the unhuman +intelligence in them--fawn-like eyes that gazed steadily at you as one +may gaze through the window, open back and front, of a house at the +landscape beyond. This peculiarity was a little disconcerting at first, +when, after making his acquaintance out of doors, I went in uninvited +and sat down with him at his own fireside. The busy old wife talked of +this and that, and hinted as politely as she knew how that I was in her +way. To her practical, peasant mind there was no sense in my being +there. "He be a stranger to we, and we be strangers to he." Caleb was +silent, and his clear eyes showed neither annoyance nor pleasure but +only their native, wild alertness, but the caste feeling is always less +strong in the hill shepherd than in other men who are on the land; in +some cases it will vanish at a touch, and it was so in this one. A +canary in a cage hanging in the kitchen served to introduce the subject +of birds captive and birds free. I said that I liked the little yellow +bird, and was not vexed to see him in a cage, since he was cage-born; +but I considered that those who caught wild birds and kept them +prisoners did not properly understand things. This happened to be +Caleb's view. He had a curiously tender feeling about the little wild +birds, and one amusing incident of his boyhood which he remembered came +out during our talk. He was out on the down one summer day in charge of +his father's flock, when two boys of the village on a ramble in the +hills came and sat down on the turf by his side. One of them had a +titlark, or meadow pipit, which he had just caught, in his hand, and +there was a hot argument as to which of the two was the lawful owner of +the poor little captive. The facts were as follows. One of the boys +having found the nest became possessed with the desire to get the bird. +His companion at once offered to catch it for him, and together they +withdrew to a distance and sat down and waited until the bird returned +to sit on the eggs. Then the young birdcatcher returned to the spot, and +creeping quietly up to within five or six feet of the nest threw his hat +so that it fell over the sitting titlark; but after having thus secured +it he refused to give it up. The dispute waxed hotter as they sat there, +and at last when it got to the point of threats of cuffs on the ear and +slaps on the face they agreed to fight it out, the victor to have the +titlark. The bird was then put under a hat for safety on the smooth turf +a few feet away, and the boys proceeded to take off their jackets and +roll up their shirt-sleeves, after which they faced one another, and +were just about to begin when Caleb, thrusting out his crook, turned the +hat over and away flew the titlark. + +The boys, deprived of their bird and of an excuse for a fight, would +gladly have discharged their fury on Caleb, but they durst not, seeing +that his dog was lying at his side; they could only threaten and abuse +him, call him bad names, and finally put on their coats and walk off. + +That pretty little tale of a titlark was but the first of a long +succession of memories of his early years, with half a century of +shepherding life on the downs, which came out during our talks on many +autumn and winter evenings as we sat by his kitchen fire. The earlier of +these memories were always the best to me, because they took one back +sixty years or more, to a time when there was more wildness in the earth +than now, and a nobler wild animal life. Even more interesting were some +of the memories of his father, Isaac Bawcombe, whose time went back to +the early years of the nineteenth century. Caleb cherished an admiration +and reverence for his father's memory which were almost a worship, and +he loved to describe him as he appeared in his old age, when upwards of +eighty. He was erect and tall, standing six feet two in height, well +proportioned, with a clean-shaved, florid face, clear, dark eyes, and +silver-white hair; and at this later period of his life he always wore +the dress of an old order of pensioners to which he had been admitted--a +soft, broad, white felt hat, thick boots and brown leather leggings, and +a long, grey cloth overcoat with red collar and brass buttons. + +According to Caleb, he must have been an exceedingly fine specimen of a +man, both physically and morally. Born in 1800, he began following a +flock as a boy, and continued as shepherd on the same farm until he was +sixty, never rising to more than seven shillings a week and nothing +found, since he lived in the cottage where he was born and which he +inherited from his father. That a man of his fine powers, a +head-shepherd on a large hill-farm, should have had no better pay than +that down to the year 1860, after nearly half a century of work in one +place, seems almost incredible. Even his sons, as they grew up to man's +estate, advised him to ask for an increase, but he would not. Seven +shillings a week he had always had; and that small sum, with something +his wife earned by making highly finished smock-frocks, had been +sufficient to keep them all in a decent way; and his sons were now all +earning their own living. But Caleb got married, and resolved to leave +the old farm at Bishop to take a better place at a distance from home, +at Warminster, which had been offered him. He would there have a cottage +to live in, nine shillings a week, and a sack of barley for his dog. At +that time the shepherd had to keep his own dog--no small expense to him +when his wages were no more than six to eight shillings a week. But +Caleb was his father's favourite son, and the old man could not endure +the thought of losing sight of him; and at last, finding that he could +not persuade him not to leave the old home, he became angry, and told +him that if he went away to Warminster for the sake of the higher wages +and barley for the dog he would disown him! This was a serious matter to +Caleb, in spite of the fact that a shepherd has no money to leave to his +children when he passes away. He went nevertheless, for, though he loved +and reverenced his father, he had a young wife who pulled the other way; +and he was absent for years, and when he returned the old man's heart +had softened, so that he was glad to welcome him back to the old home. + +Meanwhile at that humble cottage at Winterbourne Bishop great things had +happened; old Isaac was no longer shepherding on the downs, but living +very comfortably in his own cottage in the village. The change came +about in this way. + +The downland shepherds, Caleb said, were as a rule clever poachers; and +it is really not surprising, when one considers the temptation to a man +with a wife and several hungry children, besides himself and a dog, to +feed out of about seven shillings a week. But old Bawcombe was an +exception: he would take no game, furred or feathered, nor, if he could +prevent it, allow another to take anything from the land fed by his +flock. Caleb and his brothers, when as boys and youths they began their +shepherding, sometimes caught a rabbit, or their dog caught and killed +one without their encouragement; but, however the thing came into their +hands, they could not take it home on account of their father. Now it +happened that an elderly gentleman who had the shooting was a keen +sportsman, and that in several successive years he found a wonderful +difference in the amount of game at one spot among the hills and in all +the rest of his hill property. The only explanation the keeper could +give was that Isaac Bawcombe tended his flock on that down where +rabbits, hares, and partridges were so plentiful. One autumn day the +gentleman was shooting over that down, and seeing a big man in a +smock-frock standing motionless, crook in hand, regarding him, he called +out to his keeper, who was with him, "Who is that big man?" and was told +that it was Shepherd Bawcombe. The old gentleman pulled some money out +of his pocket and said, "Give him this half-crown, and thank him for the +good sport I've had to-day." But after the coin had been given the giver +still remained standing there, thinking, perhaps, that he had not yet +sufficiently rewarded the man; and at last, before turning away, he +shouted, "Bawcombe, that's not all. You'll get something more by and +by." + +Isaac had not long to wait for the something more, and it turned out not +to be the hare or brace of birds he had half expected. It happened that +the sportsman was one of the trustees of an ancient charity which +provided for six of the most deserving old men of the parish of Bishop; +now, one of the six had recently died, and on this gentleman's +recommendation Bawcombe had been elected to fill the vacant place. The +letter from Salisbury informing him of his election and commanding his +presence in that city filled him with astonishment; for, though he was +sixty years old and the father of three sons now out in the world, he +could not yet regard himself as an old man, for he had never known a +day's illness, nor an ache, and was famed in all that neighbourhood for +his great physical strength and endurance. And now, with his own cottage +to live in, eight shillings a week, and his pensioners' garments, with +certain other benefits, and a shilling a day besides which his old +master paid him for some services at the farm-house in the village, +Isaac found himself very well off indeed, and he enjoyed his prosperous +state for twenty-six years. Then, in 1886, his old wife fell ill and +died, and no sooner was she in her grave than he, too, began to droop; +and soon, before the year was out, he followed her, because, as the +neighbours said, they had always been a loving pair and one could not +'bide without the other. + +This chapter has already had its proper ending and there was no +intention of adding to it, but now for a special reason, which I trust +the reader will pardon when he hears it, I must go on to say something +about that strange phenomenon of death succeeding death in old married +couples, one dying for no other reason than that the other has died. For +it is our instinct to hold fast to life, and the older a man gets if he +be sane the more he becomes like a newborn child in the impulse to grip +tightly. A strange and a rare thing among people generally (the people +we know), it is nevertheless quite common among persons of the labouring +class in the rural districts. I have sometimes marvelled at the number +of such cases to be met with in the villages; but when one comes to +think about it one ceases to wonder that it should be so. For the +labourer on the land goes on from boyhood to the end of life in the same +everlasting round, the changes from task to task, according to the +seasons, being no greater than in the case of the animals that alter +their actions and habits to suit the varying conditions of the year. +March and August and December, and every month, will bring about the +changes in the atmosphere and earth and vegetation and in the animals, +which have been from of old, which he knows how to meet, and the old, +familiar task, lambing-time, shearing-time, root and seed crops hoeing, +haymaking, harvesting. It is a life of the extremest simplicity, without +all those interests outside the home and the daily task, the innumerable +distractions, common to all persons in other classes and to the workmen +in towns as well. Incidentally it may be said that it is also the +healthiest, that, speaking generally, the agricultural labourer is the +healthiest and sanest man in the land, if not also the happiest, as some +believe. + +It is this life of simple, unchanging actions and of habits that are +like instincts, of hard labour in sun and wind and rain from day to day, +with its weekly break and rest, and of but few comforts and no luxuries, +which serves to bind man and wife so closely. And the longer their life +goes on together the closer and more unbreakable the union grows. They +are growing old: old friends and companions have died or left them; +their children have married and gone away and have their own families +and affairs, so that the old folks at home are little remembered, and to +all others they have become of little consequence in the world. But they +do not know it, for they are together, cherishing the same memories, +speaking of the same old, familiar things, and their lost friends and +companions, their absent, perhaps estranged, children, are with them +still in mind as in the old days. The past is with them more than the +present, to give an undying interest to life; for they share it, and it +is only when one goes, when the old wife gets the tea ready and goes +mechanically to the door to gaze out, knowing that her tired man will +come in no more to take his customary place and listen to all the things +she has stored up in her mind during the day to tell him; and when the +tired labourer comes in at dusk to find no old wife waiting to give him +his tea and talk to him while he refreshes himself, he all at once +realizes his position; he finds himself cut off from the entire world, +from all of his kind. Where are they all? The enduring sympathy of that +one soul that was with him till now had kept him in touch with life, had +made it seem unchanged and unchangeable, and with that soul has vanished +the old, sweet illusion as well as all ties, all common, human +affection. He is desolate, indeed, alone in a desert world, and it is +not strange that in many and many a case, even in that of a man still +strong, untouched by disease and good for another decade or two, the +loss, the awful solitude, has proved too much for him. + +Such cases, I have said, are common, but they are not recorded, though +it is possible with labour to pick them out in the church registers; but +in the churchyards you do not find them, since the farm-labourer has +only a green mound to mark the spot where he lies. Nevertheless, he is +sometimes honoured with a gravestone, and last August I came by chance +on one on which was recorded a case like that of Isaac Bawcombe and his +life-mate. + +The churchyard is in one of the prettiest and most secluded villages in +the downland country described in this book. The church is ancient and +beautiful and interesting in many ways, and the churchyard, too, is one +of the most interesting I know, a beautiful, green, tree-shaded spot, +with an extraordinary number of tombs and gravestones, many of them +dated in the eighteenth and seventeenth centuries, inscribed with names +of families which have long died out. + +I went on that afternoon to pass an hour in the churchyard, and finding +an old man in labourer's clothes resting on a tomb, I sat down and +entered into conversation with him. He was seventy-nine, he told me, and +past work, and he had three shillings a week from the parish; but he was +very deaf and it fatigued me to talk to him, and seeing the church open +I went in. On previous visits I had had a good deal of trouble to get +the key, and to find it open now was a pleasant surprise. An old woman +was there dusting the seats, and by and by, while I was talking with +her, the old labourer came stumping in with his ponderous, iron-shod +boots and without taking off his old, rusty hat, and began shouting at +the church-cleaner about a pair of trousers he had given her to mend, +which he wanted badly. Leaving them to their arguing I went out and +began studying the inscriptions on the stones, so hard to make out in +some instances; the old man followed and went his way; then the +church-cleaner came out to where I was standing. "A tiresome old man!" +she said. "He's that deaf he has to shout to hear himself speak, then +you've got to shout back--and all about his old trousers!" + +"I suppose he wants them," I returned, "and you promised to do them, so +he has some reason for going at you about it." + +"Oh no, he hasn't," she replied. "The girl brought them for me to mend, +and I said, 'Leave them and I'll do them when I've time'--how did I know +he wanted them in a hurry? A troublesome old man!" + +By and by, taking a pair of spectacles out of her pocket, she put them +on, and going down on her knees she began industriously picking the old, +brown, dead moss out of the lettering on one side of the tomb. "I'd like +to know what it says on this stone," she said. + +"Well, you can read it for yourself, now you've got your glasses on." + +"I can't read. You see, I'm old--seventy-six years, and when I were +little we were very poor and I couldn't get no schooling. I've got these +glasses to do my sewing, and only put them on to get this stuff out so's +you could read it. I'd like to hear you read it." + +I began to get interested in the old dame who talked to me so freely. +She was small and weak-looking, and appeared very thin in her limp, old, +faded gown; she had a meek, patient expression on her face, and her +voice, too, like her face, expressed weariness and resignation. + +"But if you have always lived here you must know what is said on this +stone?" + +"No, I don't; nobody never read it to me, and I couldn't read it because +I wasn't taught to read. But I'd like to hear you read it." + +It was a long inscription to a person named Ash, gentleman, of this +parish, who departed this life over a century ago, and was a man of a +noble and generous disposition, good as a husband, a father, a friend, +and charitable to the poor. Under all were some lines of verse, scarcely +legible in spite of the trouble she had taken to remove the old moss +from the letters. + +She listened with profound interest, then said, "I never heard all that +before; I didn't know the name, though I've known this stone since I was +a child. I used to climb on to it then. Can you read me another?" + +I read her another and several more, then came to one which she said she +knew--every word of it, for this was the grave of the sweetest, kindest +woman that ever lived. Oh, how good this dear woman had been to her in +her young married life more'n fifty years ago! If that dear lady had +only lived it would not have been so hard for her when her trouble come! + +"And what was your trouble?" + +"It was the loss of my poor man. He was such a good man, a thatcher; and +he fell from a rick and injured his spine, and he died, poor fellow, and +left me with our five little children." Then, having told me her own +tragedy, to my surprise she brightened up and begged me to read other +inscriptions to her. + +I went on reading, and presently she said, "No, that's wrong. There +wasn't ever a Lampard in this parish. That I know." + +"You don't know! There certainly was a Lampard or it would not be stated +here, cut in deep letters on this stone." + +"No, there wasn't a Lampard. I've never known such a name and I've lived +here all my life." + +"But there were people living here before you came on the scene. He died +a long time ago, this Lampard--in 1714, it says. And you are only +seventy-six, you tell me; that is to say, you were born in 1835, and +that would be one hundred and twenty-one years after he died." + +"That's a long time! It must be very old, this stone. And the church +too. I've heard say it was once a Roman Catholic church. Is that true?" + +"Why, of course it's true--all the old churches were, and we were all of +that faith until a King of England had a quarrel with the Pope and +determined he would be Pope himself as well as king in his own country. +So he turned all the priests and monks out, and took their property and +churches and had his own men put in. That was Henry VIII." + +"I've heard something about that king and his wives. But about Lampard, +it do seem strange I've never heard that name before." + +"Not strange at all; it was a common name in this part of Wiltshire in +former days; you find it in dozens of churchyards, but you'll find very +few Lampards living in the villages. Why, I could tell you a dozen or +twenty surnames, some queer, funny names, that were common in these +parts not more than a century ago which seem to have quite died out." + +"I should like to hear some of them if you'll tell me." + +"Let me think a moment: there was Thorr, Pizzie, Gee, Every, Pottle, +Kiddle, Toomer, Shergold, and--" + +Here she interrupted to say that she knew three of the names I had +mentioned. Then, pointing to a small, upright gravestone about twenty +feet away, she added, "And there's one." + +"Very well," I said, "but don't keep putting me out--I've got more names +in my mind to tell you. Maidment, Marchmont, Velvin, Burpitt, Winzur, +Rideout, Cullurne." + +Of these she only knew one--Rideout. + +Then I went over to the stone she had pointed to and read the +inscription to John Toomer and his wife Rebecca. She died first, in +March 1877, aged 72; he in July the same year, aged 75. + +"You knew them, I suppose?" + +"Yes, they belonged here, both of them." + +"Tell me about them." + +"There's nothing to tell; he was only a labourer and worked on the same +farm all his life." + +"Who put a stone over them--their children?" + +"No, they're all poor and live away. I think it was a lady who lived +here; she'd been good to them, and she came and stood here when they put +old John in the ground." + +"But I want to hear more." + +"There's no more, I've said; he was a labourer, and after she died he +died." + +"Yes? go on." + +"How can I go on? There's no more. I knew them so well; they lived in +the little thatched cottage over there, where the Millards live now." + +"Did they fall ill at the same time?" + +"Oh no, he was as well as could be, still at work, till she died, then +he went on in a strange way. He would come in of an evening and call his +wife. 'Mother! Mother, where are you?' you'd hear him call, 'Mother, be +you upstairs? Mother, ain't you coming down for a bit of bread and +cheese before you go to bed?' And then in a little while he just died." + +"And you said there was nothing to tell!" + +"No, there wasn't anything. He was just one of us, a labourer on the +farm." + +I then gave her something, and to my surprise after taking it she made +me an elaborate curtsy. It rather upset me, for I had thought we had got +on very well together and were quite free and easy in our talk, very +much on a level. But she was not done with me yet. She followed to the +gate, and holding out her open hand with that small gift in it, she said +in a pathetic voice, "Did you think, sir, I was expecting this? I had no +such thought and didn't want it." + +And I had no thought of saying or writing a word about her. But since +that day she has haunted me--she and her old John Toomer, and it has +just now occurred to me that by putting her in my book I may be able to +get her out of my mind. + + + + +CHAPTER V + +EARLY MEMORIES + + A child shepherd--Isaac and his children--Shepherding in boyhood--Two + notable sheep-dogs--Jack, the adder-killer--Sitting on an adder--Rough + and the drovers--The Salisbury coach--A sheep-dog suckling a lamb + + +Caleb's shepherding began in childhood; at all events he had his first +experience of it at that time. Many an old shepherd, whose father was +shepherd before him, has told me that he began to go with the flock very +early in life, when he was no more than ten to twelve years of age. +Caleb remembered being put in charge of his father's flock at the tender +age of six. It was a new and wonderful experience, and made so vivid and +lasting an impression on his mind that now, when he is past eighty, he +speaks of it very feelingly as of something which happened yesterday. + +It was harvesting time, and Isaac, who was a good reaper, was wanted in +the field, but he could find no one, not even a boy, to take charge of +his flock in the meantime, and so to be able to reap and keep an eye on +the flock at the same time he brought his sheep down to the part of the +down adjoining the field. It was on his "liberty," or that part of the +down where he was entitled to have his flock. He then took his very +small boy, Caleb, and placing him with the sheep told him they were now +in his charge; that he was not to lose sight of them, and at the same +time not to run about among the furze-bushes for fear of treading on an +adder. By and by the sheep began straying off among the furze-bushes, +and no sooner would they disappear from sight than he imagined they were +lost for ever, or would be unless he quickly found them, and to find +them he had to run about among the bushes with the terror of adders in +his mind, and the two troubles together kept him crying with misery all +the time. Then, at intervals, Isaac would leave his reaping and come to +see how he was getting on, and the tears would vanish from his eyes, and +he would feel very brave again, and to his father's question he would +reply that he was getting on very well. + +Finally his father came and took him to the field, to his great relief; +but he did not carry him in his arms; he strode along at his usual pace +and let the little fellow run after him, stumbling and falling and +picking himself up again and running on. And by and by one of the women +in the field cried out, "Be you not ashamed, Isaac, to go that pace and +not bide for the little child! I do b'lieve he's no more'n seven +year--poor mite!" + +"No more'n six," answered Isaac proudly, with a laugh. + +But though not soft or tender with his children he was very fond of +them, and when he came home early in the evening he would get them round +him and talk to them, and sing old songs and ballads he had learnt in +his young years--"Down in the Village," "The Days of Queen Elizabeth," +"The Blacksmith," "The Gown of Green," "The Dawning of the Day," and +many others, which Caleb in the end got by heart and used to sing, too, +when he was grown up. + +Caleb was about nine when he began to help regularly with the flock; +that was in the summer-time, when the flock was put every day on the +down and when Isaac's services were required for the haymaking and later +for harvesting and other work. His best memories of this period relate +to his mother and to two sheepdogs, Jack at first and afterwards Rough, +both animals of original character. Jack was a great favourite of his +master, who considered him a "tarrable good dog." He was rather +short-haired, like the old Welsh sheepdog once common in Wiltshire, but +entirely black instead of the usual colour--blue with a sprinkling of +black spots. This dog had an intense hatred of adders and never failed +to kill every one he discovered. At the same time he knew that they were +dangerous enemies to tackle, and on catching sight of one his hair would +instantly bristle up, and he would stand as if paralysed for some +moments, glaring at it and gnashing his teeth, then springing like a cat +upon it he would seize it in his mouth, only to hurl it from him to a +distance. This action he would repeat until the adder was dead, and +Isaac would then put it under a furze-bush to take it home and hang it +on a certain gate. The farmer, too, like the dog, hated adders, and paid +his shepherd sixpence for every one his dog killed. + +One day Caleb, with one of his brothers, was out with the flock, amusing +themselves in their usual way on the turf with nine morris-men and the +shepherd's puzzle, when all at once their mother appeared unexpectedly +on the scene. It was her custom, when the boys were sent out with the +flock, to make expeditions to the down just to see what they were up to; +and hiding her approach by keeping to a hedge-side or by means of the +furze-bushes, she would sometimes come upon them with disconcerting +suddenness. On this occasion just where the boys had been playing there +was a low, stout furze-bush, so dense and flat-topped that one could use +it as a seat, and his mother taking off and folding her shawl placed it +on the bush, and sat down on it to rest herself after her long walk. "I +can see her now," said Caleb, "sitting on that furze-bush, in her smock +and leggings, with a big hat like a man's on her head--for that's how +she dressed." But in a few moments she jumped up, crying out that she +felt a snake under her, and snatched off the shawl, and there, sure +enough, out of the middle of the flat bush-top appeared the head of an +adder, flicking out its tongue. The dog, too, saw it, dashed at the +bush, forcing his muzzle and head into the middle of it, seized the +serpent by its body and plucked it out and threw it from him, only to +follow it up and kill it in the usual way. + +Rough was a large, shaggy, grey-blue bobtail bitch with a white collar. +She was a clever, good all-round dog, but had originally been trained +for the road, and one of the shepherd's stories about her relates of her +intelligence in her own special line--the driving of sheep. + +One day he and his smaller brother were in charge of the flock on the +down, and were on the side where it dips down to the turnpike-road about +a mile and a half from the village, where a large flock, driven by two +men and two dogs, came by. They were going to the Britford sheep-fair +and were behind time; Isaac had started at daylight that morning with +sheep for the same fair, and that was the reason of the boys being with +the flock. As the flock on the down was feeding quietly the boys +determined to go to the road to watch the sheep and men pass, and +arriving at the roadside they saw that the dogs were too tired to work +and the men were getting on with great difficulty. One of them, looking +intently at Rough, asked if she would work. "Oh, yes, she'll work," said +the boy proudly, and calling Rough he pointed to the flock moving very +slowly along the road and over the turf on either side of it. Rough knew +what was wanted; she had been looking on and had taken the situation in +with her professional eye; away she dashed, and running up and down, +first on one side then on the other, quickly put the whole flock, +numbering 800, into the road and gave them a good start. + +"Why, she be a road dog!" exclaimed the drover delightedly. "She's +better for me on the road than for you on the down; I'll buy her of +you." + +"No, I mustn't sell her," said Caleb. + +"Look here, boy," said the other, "I'll give 'ee a sovran and this young +dog, an' he'll be a good one with a little more training." + +"No, I mustn't," said Caleb, distressed at the other's persistence. + +"Well, will you come a little way on the road with us?" asked the +drover. + +This the boys agreed to and went on for about a quarter of a mile, when +all at once the Salisbury coach appeared on the road, coming to meet +them. This new trouble was pointed out to Rough, and at once when her +little master had given the order she dashed barking into the midst of +the mass of sheep and drove them furiously to the side from end to end +of the extended flock, making a clear passage for the coach, which was +not delayed a minute. And no sooner was the coach gone than the sheep +were put back into the road. + +Then the drover pulled out his sovereign once more and tried to make the +boy take it. + +"I mustn't," he repeated, almost in tears. "What would father say?" + +"Say! He won't say nothing. He'll think you've done well." + +But Caleb thought that perhaps his father would say something, and when +he remembered certain whippings he had experienced in the past he had an +uncomfortable sensation about his back. "No, I mustn't," was all he +could say, and then the drovers with a laugh went on with their sheep. + +When Isaac came home and the adventure was told to him he laughed and +said that he meant to sell Rough some day. He used to say this +occasionally to tease his wife because of the dog's intense devotion to +her; and she, being without a sense of humour and half thinking that he +meant it, would get up out of her seat and solemnly declare that if he +ever sold Rough she would never again go out to the down to see what the +boys were up to. + +One day she visited the boys when they had the flock near the turnpike, +and seating herself on the turf a few yards from the road got out her +work and began sewing. Presently they spied a big, singular-looking man +coming at a swinging pace along the road. He was in shirt-sleeves, +barefooted, and wore a straw hat without a rim. Rough eyed the strange +being's approach with suspicion, and going to her mistress placed +herself at her side. The man came up and sat down at a distance of three +or four yards from the group, and Rough, looking dangerous, started up +and put her forepaws on her mistress's lap and began uttering a low +growl. + +"Will that dog bite, missus?" said the man. + +"Maybe he will," said she. "I won't answer for he if you come any +nearer." + +The two boys had been occupied cutting a faggot from a furze-bush with a +bill-hook, and now held a whispered consultation as to what they would +do if the man tried to "hurt mother," and agreed that as soon as Rough +had got her teeth in his leg they would attack him about the head with +the bill-hook. They were not required to go into action; the stranger +could not long endure Rough's savage aspect, and very soon he got up and +resumed his travels. + +The shepherd remembered another curious incident in Rough's career. At +one time when she had a litter of pups at home she was yet compelled to +be a great part of the day with the flock of ewes as they could not do +without her. The boys just then were bringing up a motherless lamb by +hand and they would put it with the sheep, and to feed it during the day +were obliged to catch a ewe with milk. The lamb trotted at Caleb's heels +like a dog, and one day when it was hungry and crying to be fed, when +Rough happened to be sitting on her haunches close by, it occurred to +him that Rough's milk might serve as well as a sheep's. The lamb was put +to her and took very kindly to its canine foster-mother, wriggling its +tail and pushing vigorously with its nose. Rough submitted patiently to +the trial, and the result was that the lamb adopted the sheep-dog as its +mother and sucked her milk several times every day, to the great +admiration of all who witnessed it. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +SHEPHERD ISAAC BAWCOMBE + + A noble shepherd--A fighting village blacksmith--Old Joe the collier--A + story of his strength--Donkeys poisoned by yew--The shepherd without his + sheep--How the shepherd killed a deer + + +To me the most interesting of Caleb's old memories were those relating +to his father, partly on account of the man's fine character, and partly +because they went so far back, beginning in the early years of the last +century. + +Altogether he must have been a very fine specimen of a man, both +physically and morally. In Caleb's mind he was undoubtedly the first +among men morally, but there were two other men supposed to be his +equals in bodily strength, one a native of the village, the other a +periodical visitor. The first was Jarvis the blacksmith, a man of an +immense chest and big arms, one of Isaac's greatest friends, and very +good-tempered except when in his cups, for he did occasionally get +drunk, and then he quarrelled with anyone and every one. + +One afternoon he had made himself quite tipsy at the inn, and when going +home, swaying about and walking all over the road, he all at once caught +sight of the big shepherd coming soberly on behind. No sooner did he see +him than it occurred to his wild and muddled mind that he had a quarrel +with this very man, Shepherd Isaac, a quarrel of so pressing a nature +that there was nothing to do but to fight it out there and then. He +planted himself before the shepherd and challenged him to fight. Isaac +smiled and said nothing. + +"I'll fight thee about this," he repeated, and began tugging at his +coat, and after getting it off again made up to Isaac, who still smiled +and said no word. Then he pulled his waistcoat off, and finally his +shirt, and with nothing but his boots and breeches on once more squared +up to Isaac and threw himself into his best fighting attitude. + +"I doan't want to fight thee," said Isaac at length, "but I be thinking +'twould be best to take thee home." And suddenly dashing in he seized +Jarvis round the waist with one arm, grasped him round the legs with the +other, and flung the big man across his shoulder, and carried him off, +struggling and shouting, to his cottage. There at the door, pale and +distressed, stood the poor wife waiting for her lord, when Isaac +arrived, and going straight in dropped the smith down on his own floor, +and with the remark, "Here be your man," walked off to his cottage and +his tea. + +The other powerful man was Old Joe the collier, who flourished and was +known in every village in the Salisbury Plain district during the first +thirty-five years of the last century. I first heard of this once famous +man from Caleb, whose boyish imagination had been affected by his +gigantic figure, mighty voice, and his wandering life over all that wide +world of Salisbury Plain. Afterwards when I became acquainted with a +good many old men, aged from 75 to 90 and upwards, I found that Old +Joe's memory is still green in a good many villages of the district, +from the upper waters of the Avon to the borders of Dorset. But it is +only these ancients who knew him that keep it green; by and by when they +are gone Old Joe and his neddies will be remembered no more. + +In those days--down to about 1840, it was customary to burn peat in the +cottages, the first cost of which was about four and sixpence the +wagon-load--as much as I should require to keep me warm for a month in +winter; but the cost of its conveyance to the villages of the Plain was +about five to six shillings per load, as it came from a considerable +distance, mostly from the New Forest. How the labourers at that time, +when they were paid seven or eight shillings a week, could afford to buy +fuel at such prices to bake their rye bread and keep the frost out of +their bones is a marvel to us. Isaac was a good deal better off than +most of the villagers in this respect, as his master--for he never had +but one--allowed him the use of a wagon and the driver's services for +the conveyance of one load of peat each year. The wagon-load of peat and +another of faggots lasted him the year with the furze obtained from his +"liberty" on the down. Coal at that time was only used by the +blacksmiths in the villages, and was conveyed in sacks on ponies or +donkeys, and of those who were engaged in this business the best known +was Old Joe. He appeared periodically in the villages with his eight +donkeys, or neddies as he called them, with jingling bells on their +headstalls and their burdens of two sacks of small coal on each. In +stature he was a giant of about six feet three, very broad-chested, and +invariably wore a broad-brimmed hat, a slate-coloured smock-frock, and +blue worsted stockings to his knees. He walked behind the donkeys, a +very long staff in his hand, shouting at them from time to time, and +occasionally swinging his long staff and bringing it down on the back of +a donkey who was not keeping up the pace. In this way he wandered from +village to village from end to end of the Plain, getting rid of his +small coal and loading his animals with scrap iron which the blacksmiths +would keep for him, and as he continued his rounds for nearly forty +years he was a familiar figure to every inhabitant throughout the +district. + +There are some stories still told of his great strength, one of which is +worth giving. He was a man of iron constitution and gave himself a hard +life, and he was hard on his neddies, but he had to feed them well, and +this he often contrived to do at some one else's expense. One night at a +village on the Wylye it was discovered that he had put his eight donkeys +in a meadow in which the grass was just ripe for mowing. The enraged +farmer took them to the village pound and locked them up, but in the +morning the donkeys and Joe with them had vanished and the whole village +wondered how he had done it. The stone wall of the pound was four feet +and a half high and the iron gate was locked, yet he had lifted the +donkeys up and put them over and had loaded them and gone before anyone +was up. + +Once Joe met with a very great misfortune. He arrived late at a village, +and finding there was good feed in the churchyard and that everybody was +in bed, he put his donkeys in and stretched himself out among the +gravestones to sleep. He had no nerves and no imagination; and was +tired, and slept very soundly until it was light and time to put his +neddies out before any person came by and discovered that he had been +making free with the rector's grass. Glancing round he could see no +donkeys, and only when he stood up he found they had not made their +escape but were there all about him, lying among the gravestones, stone +dead every one! He had forgotten that a churchyard was a dangerous place +to put hungry animals in. They had browsed on the luxuriant yew that +grew there, and this was the result. + +In time he recovered from his loss and replaced his dead neddies with +others, and continued for many years longer on his rounds. + +To return to Isaac Bawcombe. He was born, we have seen, in 1800, and +began following a flock as a boy and continued as shepherd on the same +farm for a period of fifty-five years. The care of sheep was the one +all-absorbing occupation of his life, and how much it was to him appears +in this anecdote of his state of mind when he was deprived of it for a +time. The flock was sold and Isaac was left without sheep, and with +little to do except to wait from Michaelmas to Candlemas, when there +would be sheep again at the farm. It was a long time to Isaac, and he +found his enforced holiday so tedious that he made himself a nuisance to +his wife in the house. Forty times a day he would throw off his hat and +sit down, resolved to be happy at his own fireside, but after a few +minutes the desire to be up and doing would return, and up he would get +and out he would go again. One dark cloudy evening a man from the farm +put his head in at the door. "Isaac," he said, "there be sheep for 'ee +up't the farm--two hunderd ewes and a hunderd more to come in dree days. +Master, he sent I to say you be wanted." And away the man went. + +Isaac jumped up and hurried forth without taking his crook from the +corner and actually without putting on his hat! His wife called out +after him, and getting no response sent the boy with his hat to overtake +him. But the little fellow soon returned with the hat--he could not +overtake his father! + +He was away three or four hours at the farm, then returned, his hair +very wet, his face beaming, and sat down with a great sigh of pleasure. +"Two hunderd ewes," he said, "and a hunderd more to come--what d'you +think of that?" + +"Well, Isaac," said she, "I hope thee'll be happy now and let I alone." + +After all that had been told to me about the elder Bawcombe's life and +character, it came somewhat as a shock to learn that at one period +during his early manhood he had indulged in one form of poaching--a +sport which had a marvellous fascination for the people of England in +former times, but was pretty well extinguished during the first quarter +of the last century. Deer he had taken; and the whole tale of the +deer-stealing, which was a common offence in that part of Wiltshire down +to about 1834, sounds strange at the present day. + +Large herds of deer were kept at that time at an estate a few miles from +Winterbourne Bishop, and it often happened that many of the animals +broke bounds and roamed singly and in small bands over the hills. When +deer were observed in the open, certain of the villagers would settle on +some plan of action; watchers would be sent out not only to keep an eye +on the deer but on the keepers too. Much depended on the state of the +weather and the moon, as some light was necessary; then, when the +conditions were favourable and the keepers had been watched to their +cottages, the gang would go out for a night's hunting. But it was a +dangerous sport, as the keepers also knew that deer were out of bounds, +and they would form some counter-plan, and one peculiarly nasty plan +they had was to go out about three or four o'clock in the morning and +secrete themselves somewhere close to the village to intercept the +poachers on their return. + +Bawcombe, who never in his life associated with the village idlers and +frequenters of the alehouse, had no connexion with these men. His +expeditions were made alone on some dark, unpromising night, when the +regular poachers were in bed and asleep. He would steal away after +bedtime, or would go out ostensibly to look after the sheep, and, if +fortunate, would return in the small hours with a deer on his back. +Then, helped by his mother, with whom he lived (for this was when he was +a young unmarried man, about 1820), he would quickly skin and cut up the +carcass, stow the meat away in some secret place, and bury the head, +hide, and offal deep in the earth; and when morning came it would find +Isaac out following his flock as usual, with no trace of guilt or +fatigue in his rosy cheeks and clear, honest eyes. + +This was a very astonishing story to hear from Caleb, but to suspect him +of inventing or of exaggerating was impossible to anyone who knew him. +And we have seen that Isaac Bawcombe was an exceptional man--physically +a kind of Alexander Selkirk of the Wiltshire Downs. And he, moreover, +had a dog to help him--one as superior in speed and strength to the +ordinary sheep-dog as he himself was to the rack of his fellow-men. It +was only after much questioning on my part that Caleb brought himself to +tell me of these ancient adventures, and finally to give a detailed +account of how his father came to take his first deer. It was in the +depth of winter--bitterly cold, with a strong north wind blowing on the +snow-covered downs--when one evening Isaac caught sight of two deer out +on his sheep-walk. In that part of Wiltshire there is a famous monument +of antiquity, a vast mound-like wall, with a deep depression or fosse +running at its side. Now it happened that on the highest part of the +down, where the wall or mound was most exposed to the blast, the snow +had been blown clean off the top, and the deer were feeding here on the +short turf, keeping to the ridge, so that, outlined against the sky, +they had become visible to Isaac at a great distance. + +He saw and pondered. These deer, just now, while out of bounds, were no +man's property, and it would be no sin to kill and eat one--if he could +catch it!--and it was a season of bitter want. For many many days he had +eaten his barley bread, and on some days barley-flour dumplings, and had +been content with this poor fare; but now the sight of these animals +made him crave for meat with an intolerable craving, and he determined +to do something to satisfy it. + +He went home and had his poor supper, and when it was dark set forth +again with his dog. He found the deer still feeding on the mound. +Stealing softly along among the furze-bushes, he got the black line of +the mound against the starry sky, and by and by, as he moved along, the +black figures of the deer, with their heads down, came into view. He +then doubled back and, proceeding some distance, got down into the fosse +and stole forward to them again under the wall. His idea was that on +taking alarm they would immediately make for the forest which was their +home, and would probably pass near him. They did not hear him until he +was within sixty yards, and then bounded down from the wall, over the +dyke, and away, but in almost opposite directions--one alone making for +the forest; and on this one the dog was set. Out he shot like an arrow +from the bow, and after him ran Isaac "as he had never runned afore in +all his life." For a short space deer and dog in hot pursuit were +visible on the snow, then the darkness swallowed them up as they rushed +down the slope; but in less than half a minute a sound came back to +Isaac, flying, too, down the incline--the long, wailing cry of a deer in +distress. The dog had seized his quarry by one of the front legs, a +little above the hoof, and held it fast, and they were struggling on the +snow when Isaac came up and flung himself upon his victim, then thrust +his knife through its windpipe "to stop its noise." Having killed it, he +threw it on his back and went home, not by the turnpike, nor by any road +or path, but over fields and through copses until he got to the back of +his mother's cottage. There was no door on that side, but there was a +window, and when he had rapped at it and his mother opened it, without +speaking a word he thrust the dead deer through, then made his way round +to the front. + +That was how he killed his first deer. How the others were taken I do +not know; I wish I did, since this one exploit of a Wiltshire shepherd +has more interest for me than I find in fifty narratives of elephants +slaughtered wholesale with explosive bullets, written for the delight +and astonishment of the reading public by our most glorious Nimrods. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +THE DEER-STEALERS + + Deer-stealing on Salisbury Plain--The head-keeper Harbutt--Strange + story of a baby--Found as a surname--John Barter the village + carpenter--How the keeper was fooled--A poaching attack planned--The + fight--Head-keeper and carpenter--The carpenter hides his son--The + arrest--Barter's sons forsake the village + + +There were other memories of deer-taking handed down to Caleb by his +parents, and the one best worth preserving relates to the head-keeper of +the preserves, or chase, and to a great fight in which he was engaged +with two brothers of the girl who was afterwards to be Isaac's wife. + +Here it may be necessary to explain that formerly the owner of +Cranbourne Chase, at that time Lord Rivers, claimed the deer and the +right to preserve and hunt deer over a considerable extent of country +outside of his own lands. On the Wiltshire side these rights extended +from Cranbourne Chase over the South Wiltshire Downs to Salisbury, and +the whole territory, about thirty miles broad, was divided into beats or +walks, six or eight in number, each beat provided with a keeper's lodge. +This state of things continued to the year 1834, when the chase was +"disfranchised" by Act of Parliament. + +The incident I am going to relate occurred about 1815 or perhaps two or +three years later. The border of one of the deer walks was at a spot +known as Three Downs Place, two miles and a half from Winterbourne +Bishop. Here in a hollow of the downs there was an extensive wood, and +just within the wood a large stone house, said to be centuries old but +long pulled down, called Rollston House, in which the head-keeper lived +with two under-keepers. He had a wife but no children, and was a +middle-aged, thick-set, very dark man, powerful and vigilant, a +"tarrable" hater and persecutor of poachers, feared and hated by them in +turn, and his name was Harbutt. + +It happened that one morning, when he had unbarred the front door to go +out, he found a great difficulty in opening it, caused by a heavy object +having been fastened to the door-handle. It proved to be a basket or +box, in which a well-nourished, nice-looking boy baby was sleeping, well +wrapped up and covered with a cloth. On the cloth a scrap of paper was +pinned with the following lines written on it: + + Take me in and treat me well, + For in this house my father dwell. + + +Harbutt read the lines and didn't even smile at the grammar; on the +contrary, he appeared very much upset, and was still standing holding +the paper, staring stupidly at it, when his wife came on the scene. +"What be this?" she exclaimed, and looked first at the paper, then at +him, then at the rosy child fast asleep in its cradle; and instantly, +with a great cry, she fell on it and snatched it up in her arms, and +holding it clasped to her bosom, began lavishing caresses and endearing +expressions on it, tears of rapture in her eyes! Not one word of inquiry +or bitter, jealous reproach--all that part of her was swallowed up and +annihilated in the joy of a woman who had been denied a child of her own +to love and nourish and worship. And now one had come to her and it +mattered little how. Two or three days later the infant was baptized at +the village church with the quaint name of Moses Found. + +Caleb was a little surprised at my thinking it a laughable name. It was +to his mind a singularly appropriate one; he assured me it was not the +only case he knew of in which the surname Found had been bestowed on a +child of unknown parentage, and he told me the story of one of the +Founds who had gone to Salisbury as a boy and worked and saved and +eventually become quite a prosperous and important person. There was +really nothing funny in it. + +The story of Moses Found had been told him by his old mother; she, he +remarked significantly, had good cause to remember it. She was herself a +native of the village, born two or three years later than the mysterious +Moses; her father, John Barter by name was a carpenter and lived in an +old, thatched house which still exists and is very familiar to me. He +had five sons; then, after an interval of some years, a daughter was +born, who in due time was to be Isaac's wife. When she was a little girl +her brothers were all grown up or on the verge of manhood, and Moses, +too, was a young man--"the spit of his father" people said, meaning the +head-keeper--and he was now one of Harbutt's under-keepers. + +About this time some of the more ardent spirits in the village, not +satisfied with an occasional hunt when a deer broke out and roamed over +the downs, took to poaching them in the woods. One night, a hunt having +been arranged, one of the most daring of the men secreted himself close +to the keeper's house, and having watched the keepers go in and the +lights put out, he actually succeeded in fastening up the doors from the +outside with screws and pieces of wood without creating an alarm. He +then met his confederates at an agreed spot and the hunting began, +during which one deer was chased to the house and actually pulled down +and killed on the lawn. + +Meanwhile the inmates were in a state of great excitement; the +under-keepers feared that a force it would be dangerous to oppose had +taken possession of the woods, while Harbutt raved and roared like a +maddened wild beast in a cage, and put forth all his strength to pull +the doors open. Finally he smashed a window and leaped out, gun in hand, +and calling the others to follow rushed into the wood. But he was too +late; the hunt was over and the poachers had made good their escape, +taking the carcasses of two or three deer they had succeeded in killing. + +The keeper was not to be fooled in the same way a second time, and +before very long he had his revenge. A fresh raid was planned, and on +this occasion two of the five brothers were in it, and there were four +more, the blacksmith of Winterbourne Bishop, their best man, two famous +shearers, father and son, from a neighbouring village, and a young farm +labourer. + +They knew very well that with the head-keeper in his present frame of +mind it was a risky affair, and they made a solemn compact that if +caught they would stand by one another to the end. And caught they were, +and on this occasion the keepers were four. + +At the very beginning the blacksmith, their ablest man and virtual +leader, was knocked down senseless with a blow on his head with the butt +end of a gun. Immediately on seeing this the two famous shearers took to +their heels and the young labourer followed their example. The brothers +were left but refused to be taken, although Harbutt roared at them in +his bull's voice that he would shoot them unless they surrendered. They +made light of his threats and fought against the four, and eventually +were separated. By and by the younger of the two was driven into a +brambly thicket where his opponents imagined that it would be impossible +for him to escape. But he was a youth of indomitable spirit, strong and +agile as a wild cat; and returning blow for blow he succeeded in tearing +himself from them, then after a running fight through the darkest part +of the wood for a distance of two or three hundred yards they at length +lost him or gave him up and went back to assist Harbutt and Moses +against the other man. Left to himself he got out of the wood and made +his way back to the village. It was long past midnight when he turned up +at his father's cottage, a pitiable object covered with mud and blood, +hatless, his clothes torn to shreds, his face and whole body covered +with bruises and bleeding wounds. + +The old man was in a great state of distress about his other son, and +early in the morning went to examine the ground where the fight had +been. It was only too easily found; the sod was trampled down and +branches broken as though a score of men had been engaged. Then he found +his eldest son's cap, and a little farther away a sleeve of his coat; +shreds and rags were numerous on the bramble bushes, and by and by he +came on a pool of blood. "They've kill 'n!" he cried in despair, +"they've killed my poor boy!" and straight to Rollston House he went to +inquire, and was met by Harbutt himself, who came out limping, one boot +on, the other foot bound up with rags, one arm in a sling and a cloth +tied round his head. He was told that his son was alive and safe indoors +and that he would be taken to Salisbury later in the day. "His clothes +be all torn to pieces," added the keeper. "You can just go home at once +and git him others before the constable comes to take him." + +"You've tored them to pieces yourself and you can git him others," +retorted the old man in a rage. + +"Very well," said the keeper. "But bide a moment--I've something more +to say to you. When your son comes out of jail in a year or so you tell +him from me that if he'll just step up this way I'll give him five +shillings and as much beer as he likes to drink. I never see'd a better +fighter!" + +It was a great compliment to his son, but the old men was troubled in +his mind. "What dost mean, keeper, by a year or so?" he asked. + +"When I said that," returned the other, with a grin, "I was just +thinking what 'twould be he deserves to git." + +"And you'd agot your deserts, by God," cried the angry father, "if that +boy of mine hadn't a-been left alone to fight ye!" + +Harbutt regarded him with a smile of gratified malice. + +"You can go home now," he said. "If you'd see your son you'll find'n in +Salisbury jail. Maybe you'll be wanting new locks on your doors; you can +git they in Salisbury too--you've no blacksmith in your village now. No, +your boy weren't alone and you know that damned well." + +"I know naught about that," he returned, and started to walk home with a +heavy heart. Until now he had been clinging to the hope that the other +son had not been identified in the dark wood. And now what could he do +to save one of the two from hateful imprisonment? The boy was not in a +fit condition to make his escape; he could hardly get across the room +and could not sit or lie down without groaning. He could only try to +hide him in the cottage and pray that they would not discover him. The +cottage was in the middle of the village and had but little ground to +it, but there was a small, boarded-up cavity or cell at one end of an +attic, and it might be possible to save him by putting him in there. +Here, then, in a bed placed for him on the floor, his bruised son was +obliged to lie, in the close, dark hole, for some days. + +One day, about a week later, when he was recovering from his hurts, he +crawled out of his box and climbed down the narrow stairs to the ground +floor to see the light and breathe a better air for a short time, and +while down he was tempted to take a peep at the street through the +small, latticed window. But he quickly withdrew his head and by and by +said to his father, "I'm feared Moses has seen me. Just now when I was +at the window he came by and looked up and see'd me with my head all +tied up, and I'm feared he knew 'twas I." + +After that they could only wait in fear and trembling, and on the next +day quite early there came a loud rap at the door, and on its being +opened by the old man the constable and two keepers appeared standing +before him. + +"I've come to take your son," said the constable. + +The old man stepped back without a word and took down his gun from its +place on the wall, then spoke: "It you've got a search-warrant you may +come in; if you haven't got 'n I'll blow the brains out of the first man +that puts a foot inside my door." + +They hesitated a few moments then silently withdrew. After consulting +together the constable went off to the nearest magistrate, leaving the +two keepers to keep watch on the house: Moses Found was one of them. +Later in the day the constable returned armed with a warrant and was +thereupon admitted, with the result that the poor youth was soon +discovered in his hiding-place and carried off. And that was the last he +saw of his home, his young sister crying bitterly and his old father +white and trembling with grief and impotent rage. + +A month or two later the two brothers were tried and sentenced each to +six months' imprisonment. They never came home. On their release they +went to Woolwich, where men were wanted and the pay was good. And by and +by the accounts they sent home induced first one then the other brother +to go and join them, and the poor old father, who had been very proud of +his five sons, was left alone with his young daughter--Isaac's destined +wife. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +SHEPHERDS AND POACHING + + General remarks on poaching--Farmer, shepherd, and dog--A sheep-dog + that would not hunt--Taking a partridge from a hawk--Old Gaarge and + Young Gaarge--Partridge-poaching--The shepherd robbed of his + rabbits--Wisdom of Shepherd Gathergood--Hare-trapping on the + down--Hare-taking with a crook + + +When Caleb was at length free from his father's tutelage, and as an +under-shepherd practically independent, he did not follow Isaac's strict +example with regard to wild animals, good for the pot, which came by +chance in his way; he even allowed himself to go a little out of his way +on occasion to get them. + +We know that about this matter the law of the land does not square with +the moral law as it is written in the heart of the peasant. A wounded +partridge or other bird which he finds in his walks abroad or which +comes by chance to him is his by a natural right, and he will take and +eat or dispose of it without scruple. With rabbits he is very free--he +doesn't wait to find a distressed one with a stoat on its track--stoats +are not sufficiently abundant; and a hare, too, may be picked up at any +moment; only in this case he must be very sure that no one is looking. +Knowing the law, and being perhaps a respectable, religious person, he +is anxious to abstain from all appearance of evil. This taking a hare or +rabbit or wounded partridge is in his mind a very different thing from +systematic poaching; but he is aware that to the classes above him it is +not so--the law has made them one. It is a hard, arbitrary, unnatural +law, made by and for them, his betters, and outwardly he must conform to +it. Thus you will find the best of men among the shepherds and labourers +freely helping themselves to any wild creature that falls in their way, +yet sharing the game-preserver's hatred of the real poacher. The village +poacher as a rule is an idle, dissolute fellow, and the sober, +industrious, righteous shepherd or ploughman or carter does not like to +be put on a level with such a person. But there is no escape from the +hard and fast rule in such things, and however open and truthful he may +be in everything else, in this one matter he is obliged to practise a +certain amount of deception. Here is a case to serve as an illustration; +I have only just heard it, after putting together the material I had +collected for this chapter, in conversation with an old shepherd friend +of mine. + +He is a fine old man who has followed a flock these fifty years, and +will, I have no doubt, carry his crook for yet another ten. Not only is +he a "good shepherd," in the sense in which Caleb uses that phrase, with +a more intimate knowledge of sheep and all the ailments they are subject +to than I have found in any other, but he is also a truly religious man, +one that "walks with God." He told me this story of a sheep-dog he owned +when head-shepherd on a large farm on the Dorsetshire border with a +master whose chief delight in life was in coursing hares. They abounded +on his land, and he naturally wanted the men employed on the farm to +regard them as sacred animals. One day he came out to the shepherd to +complain that some one had seen his dog hunting a hare. + +The shepherd indignantly asked who had said such a thing. + +"Never mind about that," said the farmer. "Is it true?" + +"It is a lie," said the shepherd. "My dog never hunts a hare or anything +else. 'Tis my belief the one that said that has got a dog himself that +hunts the hares and he wants to put the blame on some one else." + +"May be so," said the farmer, unconvinced. + +Just then a hare made its appearance, coming across the field directly +towards them, and either because they never moved or it did not smell +them it came on and on, stopping at intervals to sit for a minute or so +on its haunches, then on again until it was within forty yards of where +they were standing. The farmer watched it approach and at the same time +kept an eye on the dog sitting at their feet and watching the hare too, +very steadily. "Now, shepherd," said the farmer, "don't you say one word +to the dog and I'll see for myself." Not a word did he say, and the hare +came and sat for some seconds near them, then limped away out of sight, +and the dog made not the slightest movement. "That's all right," said +the farmer, well pleased. "I know now 'twas a lie I heard about your +dog. I've seen for myself and I'll just keep a sharp eye on the man that +told me." + +My comment on this story was that the farmer had displayed an almost +incredible ignorance of a sheepdog--and a shepherd. "How would it have +been if you had said, 'Catch him, Bob,' or whatever his name was?" I +asked. + +He looked at me with a twinkle in his eye and replied, "I do b'lieve +he'd ha' got 'n, but he'd never move till I told 'n." + +It comes to this: the shepherd refuses to believe that by taking a hare +he is robbing any man of his property, and if he is obliged to tell a +lie to save himself from the consequences he does not consider that it +is a lie. + +When he understood that I was on his side in this question, he told me +about a good sheep-dog he once possessed which he had to get rid of +because he would not take a hare! + +A dog when broken is made to distinguish between the things he must and +must not do. He is "feelingly persuaded" by kind words and caresses in +one case and hard words and hard blows in the other. He learns that if +he hunts hares and rabbits it will be very bad for him, and in due time, +after some suffering, he is able to overcome this strongest instinct of +a dog. He acquires an artificial conscience. Then, when his education is +finished, he must be made to understand that it is not quite finished +after all--that he must partially unlearn one of the saddest of the +lessons instilled in him. He must hunt a hare or rabbit when told by his +master to do so. It is a compact between man and dog. Thus, they have +got a law which the dog has sworn to obey; but the man who made it is +above the law and can when he thinks proper command his servant to break +it. The dog, as a rule, takes it all in very readily and often allows +himself more liberty than his master gives him; the most highly +accomplished animal is one that, like my shepherd's dog in the former +instance, will not stir till he is told. In the other case the poor +brute could not rise to the position; it was too complex for him, and +when ordered to catch a rabbit he could only put his tail between his +legs and look in a puzzled way at his master. "Why do you tell me to do +a thing for which I shall be thrashed?" + +It was only after Caleb had known me some time, when we were fast +friends, that he talked with perfect freedom of these things and told me +of his own small, illicit takings without excuse or explanation. + +One day he saw a sparrowhawk dash down upon a running partridge and +struggle with it on the ground. It was in a grass field, divided from +the one he was walking in by a large, unkept hedge without a gap in it +to let him through. Presently the hawk rose up with the partridge still +violently struggling in its talons, and flew over the hedge to Caleb's +side, but was no sooner over than it came down again and the struggle +went on once more on the ground. On Caleb running to the spot the hawk +flew off, leaving his prey behind. He had grasped it in its sides, +driving his sharp claws well in, and the partridge, though unable to +fly, was still alive. The shepherd killed it and put it in his pocket, +and enjoyed it very much when he came to eat it. + +From this case, a most innocent form of poaching, he went on to relate +how he had once been able to deprive a cunning poacher and bad man, a +human sparrowhawk, of his quarry. + +There were two persons in the village, father and son, he very heartily +detested, known respectively as Old Gaarge and Young Gaarge, inveterate +poachers both. They were worse than the real reprobate who haunted the +public-house and did no work and was not ashamed of his evil ways, for +these two were hypocrites and were outwardly sober, righteous men, who +kept themselves a little apart from their neighbours and were very +severe in their condemnation of other people's faults. + +One Sunday morning Caleb was on his way to his ewes folded at a distance +from the village, walking by a hedgerow at the foot of the down, when he +heard a shot fired some way ahead, and after a minute or two a second +shot. This greatly excited his curiosity and caused him to keep a sharp +look-out in the direction the sounds had come from, and by and by he +caught sight of a man walking towards him. It was Old Gaarge in his long +smock-frock, proceeding in a leisurely way towards the village, but +catching sight of the shepherd he turned aside through a gap in the +hedge and went off in another direction to avoid meeting him. No doubt, +thought Caleb, he has got his gun in two pieces hidden under his smock. +He went on until he came to a small field of oats which had grown badly +and had only been half reaped, and here he discovered that Old Gaarge +had been lying in hiding to shoot at the partridges that came to feed. +He had been screened from the sight of the birds by a couple of hurdles +and some straw, and there were feathers of the birds he had shot +scattered about. He had finished his Sunday morning's sport and was +going back, a little too late on this occasion as it turned out. + +Caleb went on to his flock, but before getting to it his dog discovered +a dead partridge in the hedge; it had flown that far and then dropped, +and there was fresh blood on its feathers. He put it in his pocket and +carried it about most of the day while with his sheep on the down. Late +in the afternoon he spied two magpies pecking at something out in the +middle of a field and went to see what they had found. It was a second +partridge which Old Gaarge had shot in the morning and had lost, the +bird having flown to some distance before dropping. The magpies had +probably found it already dead, as it was cold; they had begun tearing +the skin at the neck and had opened it down to the breast-bone. Caleb +took this bird, too, and by and by, sitting down to examine it, he +thought he would try to mend the torn skin with the needle and thread he +always carried inside his cap. He succeeded in stitching it neatly up, +and putting back the feathers in their place the rent was quite +concealed. That evening he took the two birds to a man in the village +who made a livelihood by collecting bones, rags, and things of that +kind; the man took the birds in his hand, held them up, felt their +weight, examined them carefully, and pronounced them to be two good, fat +birds, and agreed to pay two shillings for them. + +Such a man may be found in most villages; he calls himself a "general +dealer," and keeps a trap and pony--in some cases he keeps the +ale-house--and is a useful member of the small, rural community--a sort +of human carrion-crow. + +The two shillings were very welcome, but more than the money was the +pleasing thought that he had got the bird shot by the hypocritical old +poacher for his own profit. Caleb had good cause to hate him. He, Caleb, +was one of the shepherds who had his master's permission to take rabbits +on the land, and having found his snares broken on many occasions he +came to the conclusion that they were visited in the night time by some +very cunning person who kept a watch on his movements. One evening he +set five snares in a turnip field and went just before daylight next +morning in a dense fog to visit them. Every one was broken! He had just +started on his way back, feeling angry and much puzzled at such a thing, +when the fog all at once passed away and revealed the figures of two men +walking hurriedly off over the down. They were at a considerable +distance, but the light was now strong enough to enable him to identify +Old Gaarge and Young Gaarge. In a few moments they vanished over the +brow. Caleb was mad at being deprived of his rabbits in this mean way, +but pleased at the same time in having discovered who the culprits were; +but what to do about it he did not know. + +On the following day he was with his flock on the down and found himself +near another shepherd, also with his sheep, one he knew very well, a +quiet but knowing old man named Joseph Gathergood. He was known to be a +skilful rabbit-catcher, and Caleb thought he would go over to him and +tell him about how he was being tricked by the two Gaarges and ask him +what to do in the matter. + +The old man was very friendly and at once told him what to do. "Don't +you set no more snares by the hedges and in the turmots," he said. "Set +them out on the open down where no one would go after rabbits and +they'll not find the snares." And this was how it had to be done. First +he was to scrape the ground with the heel of his boot until the fresh +earth could be seen through the broken turf; then he was to sprinkle a +little rabbit scent on the scraped spot, and plant his snare. The scent +and smell of the fresh earth combined would draw the rabbits to the +spot; they would go there to scratch and would inevitably get caught if +the snare was properly placed. + +Caleb tried this plan with one snare, and on the following morning found +that he had a rabbit. He set it again that evening, then again, until he +had caught five rabbits on five consecutive nights, all with the same +snare. That convinced him that he had been taught a valuable lesson and +that old Gathergood was a very wise man about rabbits; and he was very +happy to think that he had got the better of his two sneaking enemies. + +But Shepherd Gathergood was just as wise about hares, and, as in the +other case, he took them out on the down in the most open places. His +success was due to his knowledge of the hare's taste for blackthorn +twigs. He would take a good, strong blackthorn stem or shoot with twigs +on it, and stick it firmly down in the middle of a large grass field or +on the open down, and place the steel trap tied to the stick at a +distance of a foot or so from it, the trap concealed under grass or moss +and dead leaves. The smell of the blackthorn would draw the hare to the +spot, and he would move round and round nibbling the twigs until caught. + +Caleb never tried this plan, but was convinced that Gathergood was right +about it. + +He told me of another shepherd who was clever at taking hares in another +way, and who was often chaffed by his acquaintances on account of the +extraordinary length of his shepherd's crook. It was like a lance or +pole, being twice the usual length. But he had a use for it. This +shepherd used to make hares' forms on the downs in all suitable places, +forming them so cunningly that no one seeing them by chance would have +believed they were the work of human hands. The hares certainly made use +of them. When out with his flock he would visit these forms, walking +quietly past them at a distance of twenty to thirty feet, his dog +following at his heels. On catching sight of a hare crouching in a form +he would drop a word, and the dog would instantly stand still and remain +fixed and motionless, while the shepherd went on but in a circle so as +gradually to approach the form. Meanwhile the hare would keep his eyes +fixed on the dog, paying no attention to the man, until by and by the +long staff would be swung round and a blow descend on the poor, silly +head from the opposite side, and if the blow was not powerful enough to +stun or disable the hare, the dog would have it before it got many yards +from the cosy nest prepared for its destruction. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +THE SHEPHERD ON FOXES + + A fox-trapping shepherd--Gamekeepers and foxes--Fox and stoat--A + gamekeeper off his guard--Pheasants and foxes--Caleb kills a fox--A + fox-hunting sheep-dog--Two varieties of foxes--Rabbits playing with + little foxes--How to expel foxes--A playful spirit in the + fox--Fox-hunting a danger to sheep + + +Caleb related that his friend Shepherd Gathergood was a great fox-killer +and, as with hares, he took them in a way of his own. He said that the +fox will always go to a heap of ashes in any open place, and his plan +was to place a steel trap concealed among the ashes, made fast to a +stick about three feet high, firmly planted in the middle of the heap, +with a piece of strong-smelling cheese tied to the top. The two +attractions of an ash-heap and the smell of strong cheese was more than +any fox could resist. When he caught a fox he killed and buried it on +the down and said "nothing to nobody" about it. He killed them to +protect himself from their depredations; foxes, like Old Gaarge and his +son in Caleb's case, went round at night to rob him of the rabbits he +took in his snares. + +Caleb never blamed him for this; on the contrary, he greatly admired him +for his courage, seeing that if it had been found out he would have been +a marked man. It was perhaps intelligence or cunning rather than +courage; he did not believe that he would be found out, and he never +was; he told Caleb of these things because he was sure of his man. Those +who were interested in the hunt never suspected him, and as to +gamekeepers, they hardly counted. He was helping them; no one hates a +fox more than they do. The farmer gets compensation for damage, and the +hen-wife is paid for her stolen chickens by the hunt, The keeper is +required to look after the game, and at the same time to spare his chief +enemy, the fox. Indeed, the keeper's state of mind with regard to foxes +has always been a source of amusement to me, and by long practice I am +able to talk to him on that delicate subject in a way to make him +uncomfortable and self-contradictory. There are various, quite innocent +questions which the student of wild life may put to a keeper about foxes +which have a disturbing effect on his brain. How to expel foxes from a +covert, for example; and here is another: Is it true that the fox +listens for the distressed cries of a rabbit pursued by a stoat and that +he will deprive the stoat of his captive? Perhaps; Yes; No, I don't +think so, because one hunts by night, the other by day, he will answer, +but you see that the question troubles him. One keeper, off his guard, +promptly answered, "I've no doubt of it; I can always bring a fox to me +by imitating the cry of a rabbit hunted by a stoat." But he did not say +what his object was in attracting the fox. + +I say that the keeper was off his guard in this instance, because the +fiction that foxes were preserved on the estate was kept up, though as a +fact they were systematically destroyed by the keepers. As the +pheasant-breeding craze appears to increase rather than diminish, +notwithstanding the disastrous effect it has had in alienating the +people from their lords and masters, the conflict of interest between +fox-hunter and pheasant-breeder will tend to become more and more acute, +and the probable end will be that fox-hunting will have to go. A +melancholy outlook to those who love the country and old country sports, +and who do not regard pheasant-shooting as now followed as sport at all. +It is a delusion of the landlords that the country people think most +highly of the great pheasant-preserver who has two or three big shoots +in a season, during which vast numbers of birds are slaughtered--every +bird "costing a guinea," as the saying is. It brings money into the +country, he or his apologist tells you, and provides employment for the +village poor in October and November, when there is little doing. He +does not know the truth of the matter. A certain number of the poorer +people of the village are employed as beaters for the big shoots at a +shilling a day or so, and occasionally a labourer, going to or from his +work, finds a pheasant's nest and informs the keeper and receives some +slight reward. If he "keeps his eyes open" and shows himself anxious at +all times to serve the keeper he will sometimes get a rabbit for his +Sunday dinner. + +This is not a sufficient return for the freedom to walk on the land and +in woods, which the villager possessed formerly, even in his worst days +of his oppression, a liberty which has now been taken from him. The +keeper is there now to prevent him; he was there before, and from of +old, but the pheasant was not yet a sacred bird, and it didn't matter +that a man walked on the turf or picked up a few fallen sticks in a +wood. The keeper is there to tell him to keep to the road and sometimes +to ask him, even when he is on the road, what is he looking over the +hedge for. He slinks obediently away; he is only a poor labourer with +his living to get, and he cannot afford to offend the man who stands +between him and the lord and the lord's tenant. And he is inarticulate; +but the insolence and injustice rankle in his heart, for he is not +altogether a helot in soul; and the result is that the sedition-mongers, +the Socialists, the furious denouncers of all landlords, who are now +quartering the country, and whose vans I meet in the remotest villages, +are listened to, and their words--wild and whirling words they may +be--are sinking into the hearts of the agricultural labourers of the new +generation. + +To return to foxes and gamekeepers. There are other estates where the +fiction of fox-preserving is kept up no longer, where it is notorious +that the landlord is devoted exclusively to the gun and to +pheasant-breeding. On one of the big estates I am familiar with in +Wiltshire the keepers openly say they will not suffer a fox, and every +villager knows it and will give information of a fox to the keepers, and +looks to be rewarded with a rabbit. All this is undoubtedly known to the +lord of the manor; his servants are only carrying out his own wishes, +although he still subscribes to the hunt and occasionally attends the +meet. The entire hunt may unite in cursing him, but they must do so +below their breath; it would have a disastrous effect to spread it +abroad that he is a persecutor of foxes. + +Caleb disliked foxes, too, but not to the extent of killing them. He did +once actually kill one, when a young under-shepherd, but it was accident +rather than intention. + +One day he found a small gap in a hedge, which had been made or was +being used by a hare, and, thinking to take it, he set a trap at the +spot, tying it securely to a root and covering it over with dead leaves. +On going to the place the next morning he could see nothing until his +feet were on the very edge of the ditch, when with startling suddenness +a big dog fox sprang up at him with a savage snarl. It was caught by a +hind-leg, and had been lying concealed among the dead leaves close under +the bank. Caleb, angered at finding a fox when he had looked for a hare, +and at the attack the creature had made on him, dealt it a blow on the +head with his heavy stick--just one blow given on the impulse of the +moment, but it killed the fox! He felt very bad at what he had done and +began to think of consequences. He took it from the trap and hid it away +under the dead leaves beneath the hedge some yards from the gap, and +then went to his work. During the day one of the farm hands went out to +speak to him. He was a small, quiet old man, a discreet friend, and +Caleb confided to him what he had done. "Leave it to me," said his old +friend, and went back to the farm. In the afternoon Caleb was standing +on the top of the down looking towards the village, when he spied at a +great distance the old man coming out to the hills, and by and by he +could make out that he had a sack on his back and a spade in his hand. +When half-way up the side of the hill he put his burden down and set to +work digging a deep pit. Into this he put the dead fox, and threw in and +trod down the earth, then carefully put back the turf in its place, +then, his task done, shouldered the spade and departed. Caleb felt +greatly relieved, for now the fox was buried out on the downs, and no +one would ever know that he had wickedly killed it. + +Subsequently he had other foxes caught in traps set for hares, but was +always able to release them. About one he had the following story. The +dog he had at that time, named Monk, hated foxes as Jack hated adders, +and would hunt them savagely whenever he got a chance. One morning Caleb +visited a trap he had set in a gap in a hedge and found a fox in it. The +fox jumped up, snarling and displaying his teeth, ready to fight for +dear life, and it was hard to restrain Monk from flying at him. So +excited was he that only when his master threatened him with his crook +did he draw back and, sitting on his haunches, left him to deal with the +difficult business in his own way. The difficulty was to open the steel +trap without putting himself in the way of a bite from those "tarrable +sharp teeth." After a good deal of manoeuvring he managed to set the +butt end of his crook on the handle of the gin, and forcing it down +until the iron teeth relaxed their grip, the fox pulled his foot out, +and darting away along the hedge side vanished into the adjoining copse. +Away went Monk after him, in spite of his master's angry commands to him +to come back, and fox and dog disappeared almost together among the +trees. Sounds of yelping and of crashing through the undergrowth came +back fainter and fainter, and then there was silence. Caleb waited at +the spot full twenty minutes before the disobedient dog came back, +looking very pleased. He had probably succeeded in overtaking and +killing his enemy. + +About that same Monk a sad story will have to be told in another +chapter. + +When speaking of foxes Caleb always maintained that in his part of the +country there were two sorts: one small and very red, the larger one of +a lighter colour with some grey in it. And it is possible that the hill +foxes differed somewhat in size and colour from those of the lower +country. He related that one year two vixens littered at one spot, a +deep bottom among the downs, so near together that when the cubs were +big enough to come out they mixed and played in company; the vixens +happened to be of the different sorts, and the difference in colour +appeared in the little ones as well. + +Caleb was so taken with the pretty sight of all these little foxes, +neighbours and playmates, that he went evening after evening to sit for +an hour or longer watching them. One thing he witnessed which will +perhaps be disbelieved by those who have not closely observed animals +for themselves, and who still hold to the fable that all wild creatures +are born with an inherited and instinctive knowledge and dread of their +enemies. Rabbits swarmed at that spot, and he observed that when the old +foxes were not about the young, half-grown rabbits would freely mix and +play with the little foxes. He was so surprised at this, never having +heard of such a thing, that he told his master of it, and the farmer +went with him on a moonlight night and the two sat for a long time +together, and saw rabbits and foxes playing, pursuing one another round +and round, the rabbits when pursued often turning very suddenly and +jumping clean over their pursuer. + +The rabbits at this place belonged to the tenant, and the farmer, after +enjoying the sight of the little ones playing together, determined to +get rid of the foxes in the usual way by exploding a small quantity of +gunpowder in the burrows. Four old foxes with nine cubs were too many +for him to have. The powder was duly burned, and the very next day the +foxes had vanished. + +In Berkshire I once met with that rare being, an intelligent gamekeeper +who took an interest in wild animals and knew from observation a great +deal about their habits. During an after-supper talk, kept up till past +midnight, we discussed the subject of strange, erratic actions in +animals, which in some cases appear contrary to their own natures. He +gave an instance of such behaviour in a fox that had its earth at a spot +on the border of a wood where rabbits were abundant. One evening he was +at this spot, standing among the trees and watching a number of rabbits +feeding and gambolling on the green turf, when the fox came trotting by +and the rabbits paid no attention. Suddenly he stopped and made a dart +at a rabbit; the rabbit ran from him a distance of twenty to thirty +yards, then suddenly turning round went for the fox and chased it back +some distance, after which the fox again chased the rabbit, and so they +went on, turn and turn about, half a dozen times. It was evident, he +said, that the fox had no wish to catch and kill a rabbit, that it was +nothing but play on his part, and that the rabbits responded in the same +spirit, knowing that there was nothing to fear. + +Another instance of this playful spirit of the fox with an enemy, which +I heard recently, is of a gentleman who was out with his dog, a +fox-terrier, for an evening walk in some woods near his house. On his +way back he discovered on coming out of the woods that a fox was +following him, at a distance of about forty yards. When he stood still +the fox sat down and watched the dog. The dog appeared indifferent to +its presence until his master ordered him to go for the fox, whereupon +he charged him and drove him back to the edge of the wood, but at that +point the fox turned and chased the dog right back to its master, then +once more sat down and appeared very much at his ease. Again the dog was +encouraged to go for him and hunted him again back to the wood, and was +then in turn chased back to its master, After several repetitions of +this performance, the gentleman went home, the fox still following, and +on going in closed the gate behind him, leaving the fox outside, sitting +in the road as if waiting for him to come out again to have some more +fun. + +This incident serves to remind me of an experience I had one evening in +King's Copse, an immense wood of oak and pine in the New Forest near +Exbury. It was growing dark when I heard on or close to the ground, some +twenty to thirty yards before me, a low, wailing cry, resembling the +hunger-cry of the young, long-eared owl. I began cautiously advancing, +trying to see it, but as I advanced the cry receded, as if the bird was +flitting from me. Now, just after I had begun following the sound, a fox +uttered his sudden, startlingly loud scream about forty yards away on my +right hand, and the next moment a second fox screamed on my left, and +from that time I was accompanied, or shadowed, by the two foxes, always +keeping abreast of me, always at the same distance, one screaming and +the other replying about every half-minute. The distressful bird-sound +ceased, and I turned and went off in another direction, to get out of +the wood on the side nearest the place where I was staying, the foxes +keeping with me until I was out. + +What moved them to act in such a way is a mystery, but it was perhaps +play to them. + +Another curious instance of foxes playing was related to me by a +gentleman at the little village of Inkpen, near the Beacon, in +Berkshire. He told me that when it happened, a good many years ago, he +sent an account of it to the "Field." His gamekeeper took him one day +"to see a strange thing," to a spot in the woods where a fox had a +litter of four cubs, near a long, smooth, green slope. A little distance +from the edge of the slope three round swedes were lying on the turf. +"How do you think these swedes came here?" said the keeper, and then +proceeded to say that the old fox must have brought them there from the +field a long distance away, for her cubs to play with. He had watched +them of an evening, and wanted his master to come and see too. +Accordingly they went in the evening, and hiding themselves among the +bushes near waited till the young foxes came out and began rolling the +swedes about and jumping at and tumbling over them. By and by one rolled +down the slope, and the young foxes went after it all the way down, and +then, when they had worried it sufficiently, they returned to the top +and played with another swede until that was rolled down, then with the +third one in the same way. Every morning, the keeper said, the swedes +were found back on top of the ground, and he had no doubt that they were +taken up by the old fox again and left there for her cubs to play with. + +Caleb was not so eager after rabbits as Shepherd Gathergood, but he +disliked the fox for another reason. He considered that the hunted fox +was a great danger to sheep when the ewes were heavy with lambs and when +the chase brought the animal near if not right into the flock. He had +one dreadful memory of a hunted fox trying to lose itself in his flock +of heavy-sided ewes and the hounds following it and driving the poor +sheep mad with terror. The result was that a large number of lambs were +cast before their time and many others were poor, sickly things; many of +the sheep also suffered in health. He had no extra money from the lambs +that year. He received but a shilling (half a crown is often paid now) +for every lamb above the number of ewes, and as a rule received from +three to six pounds a year from this source. + + + + +CHAPTER X + +BIRD LIFE ON THE DOWNS + + Great bustard--Stone curlew--Big hawks--Former abundance of the + raven--Dogs fed on carrion--Ravens fighting--Ravens' breeding-places + in Wilts--Great Ridge Wood ravens--Field-fare breeding in + Wilts--Pewit--Mistle-thrush--Magpie and turtledove--Gamekeepers and + magpies--Rooks and farmers--Starling, the shepherd's favourite + bird--Sparrowhawk and "brown thrush" + + +Wiltshire, like other places in England, has long been deprived of its +most interesting birds--the species that were best worth preserving. Its +great bustard, once our greatest bird--even greater than the golden and +sea eagles and the "giant crane" with its "trumpet sound" once heard in +the land--is now but a memory. Or a place name: Bustard Inn, no longer +an inn, is well known to the many thousands who now go to the mimic wars +on Salisbury Plain; and there is a Trappist monastery in a village on +the southernmost border of the county, which was once called, and is +still known to old men as, "Bustard Farm." All that Caleb Bawcombe knew +of this grandest bird is what his father had told him; and Isaac knew of +it only from hearsay, although it was still met with in South Wilts when +he was a young man. + +The stone curlew, our little bustard with the long wings, big, yellow +eyes, and wild voice, still frequents the uncultivated downs, unhappily +in diminishing numbers. For the private collector's desire to possess +British-taken birds' eggs does not diminish; I doubt if more than one +clutch in ten escapes the searching eyes of the poor shepherds and +labourers who are hired to supply the cabinets. One pair haunted a +flinty spot at Winterbourne Bishop until a year or two ago; at other +points a few miles away I watched other pairs during the summer of 1909, +but in every instance their eggs were taken. + +The larger hawks and the raven, which bred in all the woods and forests +of Wiltshire, have, of course, been extirpated by the gamekeepers. The +biggest forest in the county now affords no refuge to any hawk above the +size of a kestrel. Savernake is extensive enough, one would imagine, for +condors to hide in, but it is not so. A few years ago a buzzard made its +appearance there--just a common buzzard, and the entire surrounding +population went mad with excitement about it, and every man who +possessed a gun flew to the forest to join in the hunt until the +wretched bird, after being blazed at for two or three days, was brought +down. I heard of another case at Fonthill Abbey. Nobody could say what +this wandering hawk was--it was very big, blue above with a white breast +barred with black--a "tarrable" fierce-looking bird with fierce, yellow +eyes. All the gamekeepers and several other men with guns were in hot +pursuit of it for several days, until some one fatally wounded it, but +it could not be found where it was supposed to have fallen. A fortnight +later its carcass was discovered by an old shepherd, who told me the +story. It was not in a fit state to be preserved, but he described it to +me, and I have no doubt that it was a goshawk. + +The raven survived longer, and the Shepherd Bawcombe talks about its +abundance when he was a boy, seventy or more years ago. His way of +accounting for its numbers at that time and its subsequent, somewhat +rapid disappearance greatly interested me. + +We have seen his account of deer-stealing, by the villagers in those +brave, old, starvation days when Lord Rivers owned the deer and hunting +rights over a large part of Wiltshire, extending from Cranborne Chase to +Salisbury, and when even so righteous a man as Isaac Bawcombe was +tempted by hunger to take an occasional deer, discovered out of bounds. +At that time, Caleb said, a good many dogs used for hunting the deer +were kept a few miles from Winterbourne Bishop and were fed by the +keepers in a very primitive manner. Old, worn-out horses were bought and +slaughtered for the dogs. A horse would be killed and stripped of his +hide somewhere away in the woods, and left for the hounds to batten on +its flesh, tearing at and fighting over it like so many jackals. When +only partially consumed the carcass would become putrid; then another +horse would be killed and skinned at another spot perhaps a mile away, +and the pack would start feeding afresh there. The result of so much +carrion lying about was that ravens were attracted in numbers to the +place and were so numerous as to be seen in scores together. Later, when +the deer-hunting sport declined in the neighbourhood, and dogs were no +longer fed on carrion, the birds decreased year by year, and when Caleb +was a boy of nine or ten their former great abundance was but a memory. +But he remembers that they were still fairly common, and he had much to +say about the old belief that the raven "smells death," and when seen +hovering over a flock, uttering its croak, it is a sure sign that a +sheep is in a bad way and will shortly die. + +One of his recollections of the bird may be given here. It was one of +those things seen in boyhood which had very deeply impressed him. One +fine day he was on the down with an elder brother, when they heard the +familiar croak and spied three birds at a distance engaged in a fight in +the air. Two of the birds were in pursuit of the third, and rose +alternately to rush upon and strike at their victim from above. They +were coming down from a considerable height, and at last were directly +over the boys, not more than forty or fifty feet from the ground; and +the youngsters were amazed at their fury, the loud, rushing sound of +their wings, as of a torrent, and of their deep, hoarse croaks and +savage, barking cries. Then they began to rise again, the hunted bird +trying to keep above his enemies, they in their turn striving to rise +higher still so as to rush down upon him from overhead; and in this way +they towered higher and higher, their barking cries coming fainter and +fainter back to earth, until the boys, not to lose sight of them, cast +themselves down flat on their backs, and, continuing to gaze up, saw +them at last no bigger than three "leetle blackbirds." Then they +vanished; but the boys, still lying on their backs, kept their eyes +fixed on the same spot, and by and by first one black speck reappeared, +then a second, and they soon saw that two birds were swiftly coming down +to earth. They fell swiftly and silently, and finally pitched upon the +down not more than a couple of hundred yards from the boys. The hunted +bird had evidently succeeded in throwing them off and escaping. Probably +it was one of their own young, for the ravens' habit is when their young +are fully grown to hunt them out of the neighbourhood, or, when they +cannot drive them off, to kill them. + +There is no doubt that the carrion did attract ravens in numbers to this +part of Wiltshire, but it is a fact that up to that date--about +1830--the bird had many well-known, old breeding-places in the county. +The Rev. A. C. Smith, in his "Birds of Wiltshire," names twenty-three +breeding-places, no fewer than nine of them on Salisbury Plain; but at +the date of the publication of his work, 1887, only three of all these +nesting-places were still in use: South Tidworth, Wilton Park, and +Compton Park, Compton Chamberlain. Doubtless there were other ancient +breeding-places which the author had not heard of: one was at the Great +Ridge Wood, overlooking the Wylye valley, where ravens bred down to +about thirty-five or forty years ago. I have found many old men in that +neighbourhood who remember the birds, and they tell that the raven tree +was a great oak which was cut down about sixty years ago, after which +the birds built their nest in another tree not far away. A London friend +of mine, who was born in the neighbourhood of the Great Ridge Wood, +remembers the ravens as one of the common sights of the place when he +was a boy. He tells of an unlucky farmer in those parts whose sheep fell +sick and died in numbers, year after year, bringing him down to the +brink of ruin, and how his old head-shepherd would say, solemnly shaking +his head, "'Tis not strange--master, he shot a raven." + +There was no ravens' breeding-place very near Winterbourne Bishop. Caleb +had "never heared tell of a nestie"; but he had once seen the nest of +another species which is supposed never to breed in this country. He was +a small boy at the time, when one day an old shepherd of the place going +out from the village saw Caleb, and calling to him said, "You're the boy +that likes birds; if you'll come with me, I'll show 'ee what no man ever +seed afore"; and Caleb, fired with curiosity, followed him away to a +distance from home, out from the downs, into the woods and to a place +where he had never been, where there were bracken and heath with birch +and thorn-trees scattered about. On cautiously approaching a clump of +birches they saw a big, thrush-like bird fly out of a large nest about +ten feet from the ground, and settle on a tree close by, where it was +joined by its mate. The old man pointed out that it was a felt or +fieldfare, a thrush nearly as big as the mistle-thrush but different in +colour, and he said that it was a bird that came to England in flocks in +winter from no man knows where, far off in the north, and always went +away before breeding-time. This was the only felt he had ever seen +breeding in this country, and he "didn't believe that no man had ever +seed such a thing before." He would not climb the tree to see the eggs, +or even go very near it, for fear of disturbing the birds. + +This man, Caleb said, was a great one for birds: he knew them all, but +seldom said anything about them; he watched and found out a good deal +about them just for his private pleasure. + +The characteristic species of this part of the down country, comprising +the parish of Winterbourne Bishop, are the pewit, magpie, turtledove, +mistle-thrush, and starling. The pewit is universal on the hills, but +will inevitably be driven away from all that portion of Salisbury Plain +used for military purposes. The mistle-thrush becomes common in summer +after its early breeding season is ended, when the birds in small flocks +resort to the downs, where they continue until cold weather drives them +away to the shelter of the wooded, low country. + +In this neighbourhood there are thickets of thorn, holly, bramble, and +birch growing over hundreds of acres of down, and here the hill-magpie, +as it is called, has its chief breeding-ground, and is so common that +you can always get a sight of at least twenty birds in an afternoon's +walk. Here, too, is the metropolis of the turtledove, and the low sound +of its crooning is heard all day in summer, the other most common sound +being that of magpies--their subdued, conversational chatter and their +solo-singing, the chant or call which a bird will go on repeating for a +hundred times. The wonder is how the doves succeed in such a place in +hatching any couple of chalk-white eggs, placed on a small platform of +sticks, or of rearing any pair of young, conspicuous in their blue skins +and bright yellow down! + +The keepers tell me they get even with these kill-birds later in the +year, when they take to roosting in the woods, a mile away in the +valley. The birds are waited for at some point where they are accustomed +to slip in at dark, and one keeper told me that on one evening alone +assisted by a friend he had succeeded in shooting thirty birds. + +On Winterbourne Bishop Down and round the village the magpies are not +persecuted, probably because the gamekeepers, the professional +bird-killers, have lost heart in this place. It is a curious and rather +pretty story. There is no squire, as we have seen; the farmers have the +rabbits, and for game the shooting is let, or to let, by some one who +claims to be lord of the manor, who lives at a distance or abroad. At +all events he is not known personally to the people, and all they know +about the overlordship is that, whereas in years gone by every villager +had certain rights in the down--to cut furze and keep a cow, or pony, or +donkey, or half a dozen sheep or goats--now they have none; but how and +why and when these rights were lost nobody knows. Naturally there is no +sympathy between the villagers and the keepers sent from a distance to +protect the game, so that the shooting may be let to some other +stranger. On the contrary, they religiously destroy every nest they can +find, with the result that there are too few birds for anyone to take +the shooting, and it remains year after year unlet. + +This unsettled state of things is all to the advantage of the black and +white bird with the ornamental tail, and he flourishes accordingly and +builds his big, thorny nests in the roadside trees about the village. + +The one big bird on these downs, as in so many other places in England, +is the rook, and let us humbly thank the gods who own this green earth +and all the creatures which inhabit it that they have in their goodness +left us this one. For it is something to have a rook, although he is not +a great bird compared with the great ones lost--bustard and kite and +raven and goshawk, and many others. His abundance on the cultivated +downs is rather strange when one remembers the outcry made against him +in some parts on account of his injurious habits; but here it appears +the sentiment in his favour is just as strong in the farmer, or in a +good many farmers, as in the great landlord. The biggest rookery I know +on Salisbury Plain is at a farm-house where the farmer owns the land +himself and cultivates about nine hundred acres. One would imagine that +he would keep his rooks down in these days when a boy cannot be hired to +scare the birds from the crops. + +One day, near West Knoyle, I came upon a vast company of rooks busily +engaged on a ploughed field where everything short of placing a +bird-scarer on the ground had been done to keep the birds off. A score +of rooks had been shot and suspended to long sticks planted about the +field, and there were three formidable-looking men of straw and rags +with hats on their heads and wooden guns under their arms. But the rooks +were there all the same; I counted seven at one spot, prodding the earth +close to the feet of one of the scarecrows. I went into the field to see +what they were doing, and found that it was sown with vetches, just +beginning to come up, and the birds were digging the seed up. + +Three months later, near the same spot, on Mere Down, I found these +birds feasting on the corn, when it had been long cut but could not be +carried on account of the wet weather. It was a large field of fifty to +sixty acres, and as I walked by it the birds came flying leisurely over +my head to settle with loud cawings on the stocks. It was a magnificent +sight--the great, blue-black bird-forms on the golden wheat, an animated +group of three or four to half a dozen on every stock, while others +walked about the ground to pick up the scattered grain, and others were +flying over them, for just then the sun was shining on the field and +beyond it the sky was blue. Never had I witnessed birds so manifestly +rejoicing at their good fortune, with happy, loud caw-caw. Or rather +haw-haw! what a harvest, what abundance! was there ever a more perfect +August and September! Rain, rain, by night and in the morning; then sun +and wind to dry our feathers and make us glad, but never enough to dry +the corn to enable them to carry it and build it up in stacks where it +would be so much harder to get at. Could anything be better! + +But the commonest bird, the one which vastly outnumbers all the others I +have named together, is the starling. It was Caleb Bawcombe's favourite +bird, and I believe it is regarded with peculiar affection by all +shepherds on the downs on account of its constant association with sheep +in the pasture. The dog, the sheep, and the crowd of starlings--these +are the lonely man's companions during his long days on the hills from +April or May to November. And what a wise bird he is, and how well he +knows his friends and his enemies! There was nothing more beautiful to +see, Caleb would say, than the behaviour of a flock of starlings when a +hawk was about. If it was a kestrel they took little or no notice of it, +but if a sparrowhawk made its appearance, instantly the crowd of birds +could be seen flying at furious speed towards the nearest flock of +sheep, and down into the flock they would fall like a shower of stones +and instantly disappear from sight. There they would remain on the +ground, among the legs of the grazing sheep, until the hawk had gone on +his way and passed out of sight. + +The sparrowhawk's victims are mostly made among the young birds that +flock together in summer and live apart from the adults during the +summer months after the breeding season is over. + +When I find a dead starling on the downs ranged over by sparrowhawks, it +is almost always a young bird--a "brown thrush" as it used to be called +by the old naturalists. You may know that the slayer was a sparrowhawk +by the appearance of the bird, its body untouched, but the flesh picked +neatly from the neck and the head gone. That was swallowed whole, after +the beak had been cut off. You will find the beak lying by the side of +the body. In summertime, when birds are most abundant, after the +breeding season, the sparrowhawk is a fastidious feeder. + + + + +CHAPTER XI + +STARLINGS AND SHEEP-BELLS + + Starlings' singing--Native and borrowed sounds--Imitations of + sheep-bells--The shepherd on sheep-bells--The bells for pleasure, + not use--A dog in charge of the flock--Shepherd calling his + sheep--Richard Warner of Bath--Ploughmen singing to their oxen + in Cornwall--A shepherd's loud singing + + +The subject of starlings associating with sheep has served to remind me +of something I have often thought when listening to their music. It +happens that I am writing this chapter in a small village on Salisbury +Plain, the time being mid-September 1909, and that just outside my door +there is a group of old elder-bushes laden just now with clusters of +ripe berries on which the starlings come to feed, filling the room all +day with that never-ending medley of sounds which is their song. They +sing in this way not only when they sing--that is to say, when they make +a serious business of it, standing motionless and a-shiver on the tiles, +wings drooping and open beak pointing upwards, but also when they are +feasting on fruit--singing and talking and swallowing elderberries +between whiles to wet their whistles. If the weather is not too cold you +will hear this music daily, wet or dry, all the year round. We may say +that of all singing birds they are most vocal, yet have no set song. I +doubt if they have more than half a dozen to a dozen sounds or notes +which are the same in every individual and their very own. One of them +is a clear, soft, musical whistle, slightly inflected; another a kissing +sound, usually repeated two or three times or oftener, a somewhat +percussive smack; still another, a sharp, prolonged hissing or sibilant +but at the same time metallic note, compared by some one to the sound +produced by milking a cow into a tin pail--a very good description. +There are other lesser notes: a musical, thrush-like chirp, repeated +slowly, and sometimes rapidly till it runs to a bubbling sound; also +there is a horny sound, which is perhaps produced by striking upon the +edges of the lower mandible with those of the upper. But it is quite +unlike the loud, hard noise made by the stork; the poor stork being a +dumb bird has made a sort of policeman's rattle of his huge beak. These +sounds do not follow each other; they come from time to time, the +intervals being filled up with others in such endless variety, each bird +producing its own notes, that one can but suppose that they are +imitations. We know, in fact, that the starling is our greatest mimic, +and that he often succeeds in recognizable reproductions of single +notes, of phrases, and occasionally of entire songs, as, for instance, +that of the blackbird. But in listening to him we are conscious of his +imitations; even when at his best he amuses rather than delights--he is +not like the mocking-bird. His common starling pipe cannot produce +sounds of pure and beautiful quality, like the blackbird's "oboe-voice," +to quote Davidson's apt phrase: he emits this song in a strangely +subdued tone, producing the effect of a blackbird heard singing at a +considerable distance. And so with innumerable other notes, calls, and +songs--they are often to their originals what a man's voice heard on a +telephone is to his natural voice. He succeeds best, as a rule, in +imitations of the coarser, metallic sounds, and as his medley abounds in +a variety of little, measured, tinkling, and clinking notes, as of +tappings on a metal plate, it has struck me at times that these are +probably borrowed from the sheep-bells of which the bird hears so much +in his feeding-grounds. It is, however, not necessary to suppose that +every starling gets these sounds directly from the bells; the birds +undoubtedly mimic one another, as is the case with mocking-birds, and +the young might easily acquire this part of their song language from the +old birds without visiting the flocks in the pastures. + +The sheep-bell, in its half-muffled strokes, as of a small hammer +tapping on an iron or copper plate, is, one would imagine, a sound well +within the starling's range, easily imitated, therefore specially +attractive to him. + +But--to pass to another subject--what does the shepherd himself think or +feel about it; and why does he have bells on his sheep? + +He thinks a great deal of his bells. He pipes not like the shepherd of +fable or of the pastoral poets, nor plays upon any musical instrument, +and seldom sings, or even whistles--that sorry substitute for song; he +loves music nevertheless, and gets it in his sheep-bells; and he likes +it in quantity. "How many bells have you got on your sheep--it sounds as +if you had a great many?" I asked of a shepherd the other day, feeding +his flock near Old Sarum, and he replied, "Just forty, and I wish there +were eighty." Twenty-five or thirty is a more usual number, but only +because of their cost, for the shepherd has very little money for bells +or anything else. Another told me that he had "only thirty," but he +intended getting more. The sound cheers him; it is not exactly +monotonous, owing to the bells being of various sizes and also greatly +varying in thickness, so that they produce different tones, from the +sharp tinkle-tinkle of the smallest to the sonorous klonk-klonk of the +big, copper bell. Then, too, they are differently agitated, some quietly +when the sheep are grazing with heads down, others rapidly as the animal +walks or trots on; and there are little bursts or peals when a sheep +shakes its head, all together producing a kind of rude harmony--a music +which, like that of bagpipes or of chiming church-bells, heard from a +distance, is akin to natural music and accords with rural scenes. + +As to use, there is little or none. A shepherd will sometimes say, when +questioned on the subject, that the bells tell him just where the flock +is or in which direction they are travelling; but he knows better. The +one who is not afraid to confess the simple truth of the matter to a +stranger will tell you that he does not need the bells to tell him where +the sheep are or in which direction they are grazing. His eyes are good +enough for that. The bells are for his solace or pleasure alone. It may +be that the sheep like the tinkling too--it is his belief that they do +like it. A shepherd said to me a few days ago: "It is lonesome with the +flock on the downs; more so in cold, wet weather, when you perhaps don't +see a person all day--on some days not even at a distance, much less to +speak to. The bells keep us from feeling it too much. We know what we +have them for, and the more we have the better we like it. They are +company to us." + +Even in fair weather he seldom has anyone to speak to. A visit from an +idle man who will sit down and have a pipe and talk with him is a day to +be long remembered and even to date events from. "'Twas the month--May, +June, or October--when the stranger came out to the down and talked to I." + +One day, in September, when sauntering over Mere Down, one of the most +extensive and loneliest-looking sheep-walks in South Wilts--a vast, +elevated plain or table-land, a portion of which is known as White Sheet +Hill--I passed three flocks of sheep, all with many bells, and noticed +that each flock produced a distinctly different sound or effect, owing +doubtless to a different number of big and little bells in each; and it +struck me that any shepherd on a dark night, or if taken blindfolded +over the downs, would be able to identify his own flock by the sound. At +the last of the three flocks a curious thing occurred. There was no +shepherd with it or anywhere in sight, but a dog was in charge; I found +him lying apparently asleep in a hollow, by the side of a stick and an +old sack. I called to him, but instead of jumping up and coming to me, +as he would have done if his master had been there, he only raised his +head, looked at me, then put his nose down on his paws again. I am on +duty--in sole charge--and you must not speak to me, was what he said. +After walking a little distance on, I spied the shepherd with a second +dog at his heels, coming over the down straight to the flock, and I +stayed to watch. When still over a hundred yards from the hollow the dog +flew ahead, and the other jumping up ran to meet him, and they stood +together, wagging their tails as if conversing. When the shepherd had +got up to them he stood and began uttering a curious call, a somewhat +musical cry in two notes, and instantly the sheep, now at a considerable +distance, stopped feeding and turned, then all together began running +towards him, and when within thirty yards stood still, massed together, +and all gazing at him. He then uttered a different call, and turning +walked away, the dogs keeping with him and the sheep closely following. +It was late in the day, and he was going to fold them down at the foot +of the slope in some fields half a mile away. + +As the scene I had witnessed appeared unusual I related it to the very +next shepherd I talked with. + +"Oh, there was nothing in that," he said. "Of course the dog was behind +the flock." + +I said, "No, the peculiar thing was that both dogs were with their +master, and the flock followed." + +"Well, my sheep would do the same," he returned. "That is, they'll do it +if they know there's something good for them--something they like in the +fold. They are very knowing." And other shepherds to whom I related the +incident said pretty much the same, but they apparently did not quite +like to hear that any shepherd could control his sheep with his voice +alone; their way of receiving the story confirmed me in the belief that +I had witnessed something unusual. + +Before concluding this short chapter I will leave the subject of the +Wiltshire shepherd and his sheep to quote a remarkable passage about men +singing to their cattle in Cornwall, from a work on that county by +Richard Warner of Bath, once a well-known and prolific writer of +topographical and other books. They are little known now, I fancy, but +he was great in his day, which lasted from about the middle of the +eighteenth to about the middle of the nineteenth century--at all events, +he died in 1857, aged ninety-four. But he was not great at first, and +finding when nearing middle age that he was not prospering, he took to +the Church and had several livings, some of them running concurrently, +as was the fashion in those dark days. His topographical work included +Walks in Wales, in Somerset, in Devon, Walks in many places, usually +taken in a stage-coach or on horseback, containing nothing worth +remembering except perhaps the one passage I have mentioned, which is as +follows:-- + +"We had scarcely entered Cornwall before our attention was agreeably +arrested by a practice connected with the agriculture of the people, +which to us was entirely novel. The farmers judiciously employ the fine +oxen of the country in ploughing, and other processes of husbandry, to +which the strength of this useful animal can be employed"--the Rev. +Richard Warner is tedious, but let us be patient and see what +follows--"to which the strength of this useful animal can be employed; +and while the hinds are thus driving their patient slaves along the +furrows, they continually cheer them with conversation, denoting +approbation and pleasure. This encouragement is conveyed to them in a +sort of chaunt, of very agreeable modulation, which, floating through +the air from different distances, produces a striking effect both on the +ear and imagination. The notes are few and simple, and when delivered by +a clear, melodious voice, have something expressive of that tenderness +and affection which man naturally entertains for the companions of his +labours, in a _pastoral state_ of society, when, feeling more +forcibly his dependence upon domesticated animals for support, he gladly +reciprocates with them kindness and protection for comfort and +subsistence. This wild melody was to me, I confess, peculiarly +affecting. It seemed to draw more closely the link of friendship between +man and the humbler tribes of _fellow mortals_. It solaced my heart +with the appearance of humanity, in a world of violence and in times of +universal hostile rage; and it gladdened my fancy with the contemplation +of those days of heavenly harmony, promised in the predictions of +eternal truth, when man, freed at length from prejudice and passion, +shall seek his happiness in cultivating the mild, the benevolent, and +the merciful sensibilities of his nature; and when the animal world, +catching the virtues of its lord and master, shall soften into +gentleness and love; when the wolf".... + +And so on, clause after clause, with others to be added, until the whole +sentence becomes as long as a fishing-rod. But apart from the +fiddlededee, is the thing he states believable? It is a charming +picture, and one would like to know more about that "chaunt," that "wild +melody." The passage aroused my curiosity when in Cornwall, as it had +appeared to me that in no part of England are the domestic animals so +little considered by their masters. The R.S.P.C.A. is practically +unknown there, and when watching the doings of shepherds or drovers with +their sheep the question has occurred to me, What would my Wiltshire +shepherd friends say of such a scene if they had witnessed it? There is +nothing in print which I can find to confirm Warner's observations, and +if you inquire of very old men who have been all their lives on the soil +they will tell you that there has never been such a custom in their +time, nor have they ever heard of it as existing formerly. Warner's Tour +through Cornwall is dated 1808. + +I take it that he described a scene he actually witnessed, and that he +jumped to the conclusion that it was a common custom for the ploughman +to sing to his oxen. It is not unusual to find a man anywhere singing to +his oxen, or horses, or sheep, if he has a voice and is fond of +exercising it. I remember that in a former book--"Nature in Downland"--I +described the sweet singing of a cow-boy when tending his cows on a +heath near Trotton, in West Sussex; and here in Wiltshire it amused me +to listen, at a vast distance, to the robust singing of a shepherd while +following his flock on the great lonely downs above Chitterne. He was a +sort of Tamagno of the downs, with a tremendous voice audible a mile +away. + + + + +CHAPTER XII + +THE SHEPHERD AND THE BIBLE + + Dan'l Burdon, the treasure-seeker--The shepherd's feeling for the + Bible--Effect of the pastoral life--The shepherd's story of Isaac's + boyhood--The village on the Wylye + + +One of the shepherd's early memories was of Dan'l Burdon, a labourer on +the farm where Isaac Bawcombe was head-shepherd. He retained a vivid +recollection of this person, who had a profound gravity and was the most +silent man in the parish. He was always thinking about hidden treasure, +and all his spare time was spent in seeking for it. On a Sunday morning, +or in the evening after working hours, he would take a spade or pick and +go away over the hills on his endless search after "something he could +not find." He opened some of the largest barrows, making trenches six to +ten feet deep through them, but found nothing to reward him. One day he +took Caleb with him, and they went to a part of the down where there +were certain depressions in the turf of a circular form and six to seven +feet in circumference. Burdon had observed these basin-like depressions +and had thought it possible they marked the place where things of value +had been buried in long-past ages. To begin he cut the turf all round +and carefully removed it, then dug and found a thick layer of flints. +These removed, he came upon a deposit of ashes and charred wood. And +that was all. Burdon without a word set to work to put it all back in +its place again--ashes and wood, and earth and flints--and having trod +it firmly down he carefully replaced the turf, then leaning on his spade +gazed silently at the spot for a space of several minutes. At last he +spoke. "Maybe, Caleb, you've beared tell about what the Bible says of +burnt sacrifice. Well now, I be of opinion that it were here. They +people the Bible says about, they come up here to sacrifice on White +Bustard Down, and these be the places where they made their fires." + +Then he shouldered his spade and started home, the boy following. +Caleb's comment was: "I didn't say nothing to un because I were only a +leetel boy and he were a old man; but I knowed better than that all the +time, because them people in the Bible they was never in England at all, +so how could they sacrifice on White Bustard Down in Wiltsheer?" + +It was no idle boast on his part. Caleb and his brothers had been taught +their letters when small, and the Bible was their one book, which they +read not only in the evenings at home but out on the downs during the +day when they were with the flock. His extreme familiarity with the +whole Scripture narrative was a marvel to me; it was also strange, +considering how intelligent a man he was, that his lifelong reading of +that one book had made no change in his rude "Wiltsheer" speech. + +Apart from the feeling which old, religious country people, who know +nothing about the Higher Criticism, have for the Bible, taken literally +as the Word of God, there is that in the old Scriptures which appeals in +a special way to the solitary man who feeds his flock on the downs. I +remember well in the days of my boyhood and youth, when living in a +purely pastoral country among a semi-civilized and very simple people, +how understandable and eloquent many of the ancient stories were to me. +The life, the outlook, the rude customs, and the vivid faith in the +Unseen, were much the same in that different race in a far-distant age, +in a remote region of the earth, and in the people I mixed with in my +own home. That country has been changed now; it has been improved and +civilized and brought up to the European standard; I remember it when it +was as it had existed for upwards of two centuries before it had caught +the contagion. The people I knew were the descendants of the Spanish +colonists of the seventeenth century, who had taken kindly to the life +of the plains, and had easily shed the traditions and ways of thought of +Europe and of towns. Their philosophy of life, their ideals, their +morality, were the result of the conditions they existed in, and wholly +unlike ours; and the conditions were like those of the ancient people of +which the Bible tells us. Their very phraseology was strongly +reminiscent of that of the sacred writings, and their character in the +best specimens was like that of the men of the far past who lived nearer +to God, as we say, and certainly nearer to nature than it is possible +for us in this artificial state. Among these sometimes grand old men who +were large landowners, rich in flocks and herds, these fine old, +dignified "natives," the substantial and leading men of the district who +could not spell their own names, there were those who reminded you of +Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and Esau and Joseph and his brethren, and +even of David the passionate psalmist, with perhaps a guitar for a harp. + +No doubt the Scripture lessons read in the thousand churches on every +Sunday of the year are practically meaningless to the hearers. These old +men, with their sheep and goats and wives, and their talk about God, are +altogether out of our ways of thought, in fact as far from us--as +incredible or unimaginable, we may say--as the neolithic men or the +inhabitants of another planet. They are of the order of mythical heroes +and the giants of antiquity. To read about them is an ancient custom, +but we do not listen. + +Even to myself the memories of my young days came to be regarded as very +little more than mere imaginations, and I almost ceased to believe in +them until, after years of mixing with modern men, mostly in towns, I +fell in with the downland shepherds, and discovered that even here, in +densely populated and ultra-civilized England, something of the ancient +spirit had survived. In Caleb, and a dozen old men more or less like +him, I seemed to find myself among the people of the past, and sometimes +they were so much like some of the remembered, old, sober, and +slow-minded herders of the plains that I could not help saying to +myself, Why, how this man reminds me of Tio Isidoro, or of Don Pascual +of the "Three Poplar Trees," or of Marcos who would always have three +black sheep in a flock. And just as they reminded me of these men I had +actually known, so did they bring back the older men of the Bible +history--Abraham and Jacob and the rest. + +The point here is that these old Bible stories have a reality and +significance for the shepherd of the down country which they have lost +for modern minds; that they recognize their own spiritual lineaments in +these antique portraits, and that all these strange events might have +happened a few years ago and not far away. + +One day I said to Caleb Bawcombe that his knowledge of the Bible, +especially of the old part, was greater than that of the other shepherds +I knew on the downs, and I would like to hear why it was so. This led to +the telling of a fresh story about his father's boyhood, which he had +heard in later years from his mother. Isaac was an only child and not +the son of a shepherd; his father was a rather worthless if not a wholly +bad man; he was idle and dissolute, and being remarkably dexterous with +his fists he was persuaded by certain sporting persons to make a +business of fighting--quite a common thing in those days. He wanted +nothing better, and spent the greater part of the time in wandering +about the country; the money he made was spent away from home, mostly in +drink, while his wife was left to keep herself and child in the best way +she could at home or in the fields. By and by a poor stranger came to +the village in search of work and was engaged for very little pay by a +small farmer, for the stranger confessed that he was without experience +of farm work of any description. The cheapest lodging he could find was +in the poor woman's cottage, and then Isaac's mother, who pitied him +because he was so poor and a stranger alone in the world, a very silent, +melancholy man, formed the opinion that he had belonged to another rank +in life. His speech and hands and personal habits betrayed it. +Undoubtedly he was a gentleman; and then from something in his manner, +his voice, and his words whenever he addressed her, and his attention to +religion, she further concluded that he had been in the Church; that, +owing to some trouble or disaster, he had abandoned his place in the +world to live away from all who had known him, as a labourer. + +One day he spoke to her about Isaac; he said he had been observing him +and thought it a great pity that such a fine, intelligent boy should be +allowed to grow up without learning his letters. She agreed that it was, +but what could she do? The village school was kept by an old woman, and +though she taught the children very little it had to be paid for, and +she could not afford it. He then offered to teach Isaac himself and she +gladly consented, and from that day he taught Isaac for a couple of +hours every evening until the boy was able to read very well, after +which they read the Bible through together, the poor man explaining +everything, especially the historical parts, so clearly and beautifully, +with such an intimate knowledge of the countries and peoples and customs +of the remote East, that it was all more interesting than a fairy tale. +Finally he gave his copy of the Bible to Isaac, and told him to carry it +in his pocket every day when he went out on the downs, and when he sat +down to take it out and read in it. For by this time Isaac, who was now +ten years old, had been engaged as a shepherd-boy to his great +happiness, for to be a shepherd was his ambition. + +Then one day the stranger rolled up his few belongings in a bundle and +put them on a stick which he placed on his shoulder, said good-bye, and +went away, never to return, taking his sad secret with him. + +Isaac followed the stranger's counsel, and when he had sons of his own +made them do as he had done from early boyhood. Caleb had never gone +with his flock on the down without the book, and had never passed a day +without reading a portion. + +The incidents and observations gathered in many talks with the old +shepherd, which I have woven into the foregoing chapters, relate mainly +to the earlier part of his life, up to the time when, a married man and +father of three small children, he migrated to Warminster. There he was +in, to him, a strange land, far away from friends and home and the old +familiar surroundings, amid new scenes and new people, But the few years +he spent at that place had furnished him with many interesting memories, +some of which will be narrated in the following chapters. + +I have told in the account of Winterbourne Bishop how I first went to +that village just to see his native place, and later I visited Doveton +for no other reason than that he had lived there, to find it one of the +most charming of the numerous pretty villages in the vale. I looked for +the cottage in which he had lived and thought it as perfect a home as a +quiet, contemplative man who loved nature could have had: a small, +thatched cottage, very old looking, perhaps inconvenient to live in, but +situated in the prettiest spot, away from other houses, near and within +sight of the old church with old elms and beech-trees growing close to +it, and the land about it green meadow. The clear river, fringed with a +luxuriant growth of sedges, flag, and reeds, was less than a +stone's-throw away. + +So much did I like the vale of the Wylye when I grew to know it well +that I wish to describe it fully in the chapter that follows. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + +VALE OF THE WYLYE + + Warminster--Vale of the Wylye--Counting the villages--A lost + church--Character of the villages--Tytherington church--Story of the + dog--Lord Lovell--Monuments in churches--Manor-houses--Knook--The + cottages--Yellow stonecrop--Cottage gardens--Marigolds--Golden-rod--Wild + flowers of the water-side--Seeking for the characteristic expression + + +The prettily-named Wylye is a little river not above twenty miles in +length from its rise to Salisbury, where, after mixing with the Nadder +at Wilton, it joins the Avon. At or near its source stands Warminster, a +small, unimportant town with a nobler-sounding name than any other in +Wiltshire. Trowbridge, Devizes, Marlborough, Salisbury, do not stir the +mind in the same degree; and as for Chippenham, Melksham, Mere, Calne, +and Corsham, these all are of no more account than so many villages in +comparison. Yet Warminster has no associations--no place in our mental +geography; at all events one remembers nothing about it. Its name, which +after all may mean nothing more than the monastery on the Were--one of +the three streamlets which flow into the Wylye at its source--is its +only glory. It is not surprising that Caleb Bawcombe invariably speaks +of his migration to, and of the time he passed at Warminster, when, as a +fact, he was not there at all, but at Doveton, a little village on the +Wylye a few miles below the town with the great name. + +It is a green valley--the greenness strikes one sharply on account of +the pale colour of the smooth, high downs on either side--half a mile to +a mile in width, its crystal current showing like a bright serpent for a +brief space in the green, flat meadows, then vanishing again among the +trees. So many are the great shade trees, beeches and ashes and elms, +that from some points the valley has the appearance of a continuous +wood--a contiguity of shade. And the wood hides the villages, at some +points so effectually that looking down from the hills you may not catch +a glimpse of one and imagine it to be a valley where no man dwells. As a +rule you do see something of human occupancy--the red or yellow roofs of +two or three cottages, a half-hidden grey church tower, or column of +blue smoke, but to see the villages you must go down and look closely, +and even so you will find it difficult to count them all. I have tried, +going up and down the valley several times, walking or cycling, and have +never succeeded in getting the same number on two occasions. There are +certainly more then twenty, without counting the hamlets, and the right +number is probably something between twenty-five and thirty, but I do +not want to find out by studying books and maps. I prefer to let the +matter remain unsettled so as to have the pleasure of counting or trying +to count them again at some future time. But I doubt that I shall ever +succeed. On one occasion I caught sight of a quaint, pretty little +church standing by itself in the middle of a green meadow, where it +looked very solitary with no houses in sight and not even a cow grazing +near it. The river was between me and the church, so I went up-stream, a +mile and a half, to cross by the bridge, then doubled back to look for +the church, and couldn't find it! Yet it was no illusory church; I have +seen it again on two occasions, but again from the other side of the +river, and I must certainly go back some day in search of that lost +church, where there may be effigies, brasses, sad, eloquent +inscriptions, and other memorials of ancient tragedies and great +families now extinct in the land. + +This is perhaps one of the principal charms of the Wylye--the sense of +beautiful human things hidden from sight among the masses of foliage. +Yet another lies in the character of the villages. Twenty-five or +twenty-eight of them in a space of twenty miles; yet the impression, +left on the mind is that these small centres of population are really +few and far between. For not only are they small, but of the old, quiet, +now almost obsolete type of village, so unobtrusive as to affect the +mind soothingly, like the sight of trees and flowery banks and grazing +cattle. The churches, too, as is fit, are mostly small and ancient and +beautiful, half-hidden in their tree-shaded churchyards, rich in +associations which go back to a time when history fades into myth and +legend. Not all, however, are of this description; a few are naked, +dreary little buildings, and of these I will mention one which, albeit +ancient, has no monuments and no burial-ground. This is the church of +Tytherington, a small, rustic village, which has for neighbours Codford +St. Peter one one side and Sutton Veny and Norton Bavant on the other. +To get into this church, where there was nothing but naked walls to look +at, I had to procure the key from the clerk, a nearly blind old man of +eighty. He told me that he was shoemaker but could no longer see to make +or mend shoes; that as a boy he was a weak, sickly creature, and his +father, a farm bailiff, made him learn shoemaking because he was unfit +to work out of doors. "I remember this church," he said, "when there was +only one service each quarter," but, strange to say, he forgot to tell +me the story of the dog! "What, didn't he tell you about the dog?" +exclaimed everybody. There was really nothing else to tell. + +It happened about a hundred years ago that once, after the quarterly +service had been held, a dog was missed, a small terrier owned by the +young wife of a farmer of Tytherington named Case. She was fond of her +dog, and lamented its loss for a little while, then forgot all about it. +But after three months, when the key was once more put into the rusty +lock and the door thrown open, there was the dog, a living "skelington" +it was said, dazed by the light of day, but still able to walk! It was +supposed that he had kept himself alive by "licking the moisture from +the walls." The walls, they said, were dripping with wet and covered +with a thick growth of mould. I went back to interrogate the ancient +clerk, and he said that the dog died shortly after its deliverance; Mrs. +Case herself told him all about it. She was an old woman then, but was +always willing to relate the sad story of her pet. + +That picture of the starving dog coming out, a living skeleton, from the +wet, mouldy church, reminds us sharply of the changed times we live in +and of the days when the Church was still sleeping very peacefully, not +yet turning uneasily in its bed before opening its eyes; and when a +comfortable rector of Codford thought it quite enough that the people of +Tytherington, a mile away, should have one service every three months. + +As a fact, the Tytherington dog interested me as much as the story of +the last Lord Lovell's self-incarceration in his own house in the +neighbouring little village of Upton Lovell. He took refuge there from +his enemies who were seeking his life, and concealed himself so +effectually that he was never seen again. Centuries later, when +excavations were made on the site of the ruined mansion, a secret +chamber was discovered, containing a human skeleton seated in a chair at +a table, on which were books and papers crumbling into dust. + +A volume might be filled with such strange and romantic happenings in +the little villages of the Wylye, and for the natural man they have a +lasting fascination; but they invariably relate to great people of their +day--warriors and statesmen and landowners of old and noble lineage, +the smallest and meanest you will find being clothiers, or merchants, +who amassed large fortunes and built mansions for themselves and +almshouses for the aged poor, and, when dead, had memorials placed to +them in the churches. But of the humble cottagers, the true people of +the vale who were rooted in the soil, and nourished and died like trees +in the same place--of these no memory exists. We only know that they +lived and laboured; that when they died, three or four a year, three or +four hundred in a century, they were buried in the little shady +churchyard, each with a green mound over him to mark the spot. But in +time these "mouldering heaps" subsided, the bodies turned to dust, and +another and yet other generations were laid in the same place among the +forgotten dead, to be themselves in turn forgotten. Yet I would rather +know the histories of these humble, unremembered lives than of the great +ones of the vale who have left us a memory. + +It may be for this reason that I was little interested in the +manor-houses of the vale. They are plentiful enough, some gone to decay +or put to various uses; others still the homes of luxury, beauty, +culture: stately rooms, rich fabrics; pictures, books, and manuscripts, +gold and silver ware, china and glass, expensive curios, suits of +armour, ivory and antlers, tiger-skins, stuffed goshawks and peacocks' +feathers. Houses, in some cases built centuries ago, standing +half-hidden in beautiful wooded grounds, isolated from the village; and +even as they thus stand apart, sacred from intrusion, so the life that +is in them does not mix with or form part of the true native life. They +are to the cottagers of to-day what the Roman villas were to the native +population of some eighteen centuries ago. This will seem incredible to +some: to me, an untrammelled person, familiar in both hall and cottage, +the distance between them appears immense. + +A reader well acquainted with the valley will probably laugh to be told +that the manor-house which most interested me was that of Knook, a poor +little village between Heytesbury and Upton Lovell. Its ancient and +towerless little church with rough, grey walls is, if possible, even +more desolate-looking than that of Tytherington. In my hunt for the +key to open it I disturbed a quaint old man, another octogenarian, +picturesque in a vast white beard, who told me he was a thatcher, or had +been one before the evil days came when he could work no more and was +compelled to seek parish relief. "You must go to the manor-house for the +key," he told me. A strange place in which to look for the key, and it +was stranger still to see the house, close to the church, and so like it +that but for the small cross on the roof of the latter one could not +have known which was the sacred building. First a monks' house, it fell +at the Reformation to some greedy gentleman who made it his dwelling, +and doubtless in later times it was used as a farm-house. Now a house +most desolate, dirty, and neglected, with cracks in the walls which +threaten ruin, standing in a wilderness of weeds, tenanted by a poor +working-man whose wages are twelve shillings a week, and his wife and +eight small children. The rent is eighteen-pence a week--probably the +lowest-rented manor-house in England, though it is not very rare to +find such places tenanted by labourers. + +But let us look at the true cottages. There are, I imagine, +few places in England where the humble homes of the people +have so great a charm. Undoubtedly they are darker inside, and not so +convenient to live in as the modern box-shaped, red-brick, slate-roofed +cottages, which have spread a wave of ugliness over the country; +but they do not offend--they please the eye. They are smaller than +the modern-built habitations; they are weathered and coloured by +sun and wind and rain and many lowly vegetable forms to a harmony +with nature. They appear related to the trees amid which they +stand, to the river and meadows, to the sloping downs at the side, +and to the sky and clouds over all. And, most delightful feature, +they stand among, and are wrapped in, flowers as in a garment--rose +and vine and creeper and clematis. They are mostly thatched, but some +have tiled roofs, their deep, dark red clouded and stained with lichen +and moss; and these roofs, too, have their flowers in summer. They are +grown over with yellow stonecrop, that bright cheerful flower that +smiles down at you from the lowly roof above the door, with such an +inviting expression, so delighted to see you no matter how poor and +worthless a person you may be or what mischief you may have been at, +that you begin to understand the significance of a strange vernacular +name of this plant--Welcome-home-husband-though-never-so-drunk. + +But its garden flowers, clustering and nestling round it, amid which its +feet are set--they are to me the best of all flowers. These are the +flowers we know and remember for ever. The old, homely, cottage-garden +blooms, so old that they have entered the soul. The big house garden, or +gardener's garden, with everything growing in it I hate, but these I +love--fragrant gillyflower and pink and clove-smelling carnation; +wallflower, abundant periwinkle, sweet-william, larkspur, +love-in-a-mist, and love-lies-bleeding, old-woman's-nightcap, and +kiss-me-John-at-the-garden-gate, some times called pansy. And best of +all and in greatest profusion, that flower of flowers, the marigold. + +How the townsman, town born and bred, regards this flower, I do not +know. He is, in spite of all the time I have spent in his company, a +comparative stranger to me--the one living creature on the earth who +does not greatly interest me. Some over-populated planet in our system +discovered a way to relieve itself by discharging its superfluous +millions on our globe--a pale people with hurrying feet and eager, +restless minds, who live apart in monstrous, crowded camps, like wood +ants that go not out to forage for themselves--six millions of them +crowded together in one camp alone! I have lived in these colonies, +years and years, never losing the sense of captivity, of exile, ever +conscious of my burden, taking no interest in the doings of that +innumerable multitude, its manifold interests, its ideals and +philosophy, its arts and pleasures. What, then, does it matter how they +regard this common orange-coloured flower with a strong smell? For me it +has an atmosphere, a sense or suggestion of something immeasurably +remote and very beautiful--an event, a place, a dream perhaps, which has +left no distinct image, but only this feeling unlike all others, +imperishable, and not to be described except by the one word Marigold. + +But when my sight wanders away from the flower to others blooming with +it--to all those which I have named and to the taller ones, so tall that +they reach half-way up, and some even quite up, to the eaves of the +lowly houses they stand against--hollyhocks and peonies and crystalline +white lilies with powdery gold inside, and the common sunflower--I begin +to perceive that they all possess something of that same magical +quality. + +These taller blooms remind me that the evening primrose, long +naturalized in our hearts, is another common and very delightful +cottage-garden flower; also that here, on the Wylye, there is yet +another stranger from the same western world which is fast winning our +affections. This is the golden-rod, grandly beautiful in its great, +yellow, plume-like tufts. But it is not quite right to call the tufts +yellow: they are green, thickly powdered with the minute golden florets. +There is no flower in England like it, and it is a happiness to know +that it promises to establish itself with us as a wild flower. + +Where the village lies low in the valley and the cottage is near the +water, there are wild blooms, too, which almost rival those of the +garden in beauty--water agrimony and comfrey with ivory-white and dim +purple blossoms, purple and yellow loosestrife and gem-like, water +forget-me-not; all these mixed with reeds and sedges and water-grasses, +forming a fringe or border to the potato or cabbage patch, dividing it +from the stream. + +But now I have exhausted the subject of the flowers, and enumerated and +dwelt upon the various other components of the scene, it comes to me +that I have not yet said the right thing and given the Wylye its +characteristic expression. In considering the flowers we lose sight of +the downs, and so in occupying ourselves with the details we miss the +general effect. Let me then, once more, before concluding this chapter, +try to capture the secret of this little river. + +There are other chalk streams in Wiltshire and Hampshire and +Dorset--swift crystal currents that play all summer long with the +floating poa grass fast held in their pebbly beds, flowing through +smooth downs, with small ancient churches in their green villages, and +pretty thatched cottages smothered in flowers--which yet do not produce +the same effect as the Wylye. Not Avon for all its beauty, nor Itchen, +nor Test. Wherein, then, does the "Wylye bourne" differ from these +others, and what is its special attraction? It was only when I set +myself to think about it, to analyse the feeling in my own mind, that I +discovered the secret--that is, in my own case, for of its effect on +others I cannot say anything. What I discovered was that the various +elements of interest, all of which may be found in other chalk-stream +valleys, are here concentrated, or comprised in a limited space, and +seen together produce a combined effect on the mind. It is the +narrowness of the valley and the nearness of the high downs standing +over it on either side, with, at some points, the memorials of antiquity +carved on their smooth surfaces, the barrows and lynchetts or terraces, +and the vast green earth-works crowning their summit. Up here on the +turf, even with the lark singing his shrill music in the blue heavens, +you are with the prehistoric dead, yourself for the time one of that +innumerable, unsubstantial multitude, invisible in the sun, so that the +sheep travelling as they graze, and the shepherd following them, pass +through their ranks without suspecting their presence. And from that +elevation you look down upon the life of to-day--the visible life, so +brief in the individual, which, like the swift silver stream beneath, +yet flows on continuously from age to age and for ever. And even as you +look down you hear, at that distance, the bell of the little hidden +church tower telling the hour of noon, and quickly following, a shout of +freedom and joy from many shrill voices of children just released from +school. Woke to life by those sounds, and drawn down by them, you may +sit to rest or sun yourself on the stone table of a tomb overgrown on +its sides with moss, the two-century-old inscription well-nigh +obliterated, in the little grass-grown, flowery churchyard which serves +as village green and playground in that small centre of life, where the +living and the dead exist in a neighbourly way together. For it is not +here as in towns, where the dead are away and out of mind and the past +cut off. And if after basking too long in the sun in that tree-sheltered +spot you go into the little church to cool yourself, you will probably +find in a dim corner not far from the altar a stone effigy of one of an +older time; a knight in armour, perhaps a crusader with legs crossed, +lying on his back, dimly seen in the dim light, with perhaps a coloured +sunbeam on his upturned face. For this little church where the villagers +worship is very old; Norman on Saxon foundations; and before they were +ever laid there may have been a temple to some ancient god at that spot, +or a Roman villa perhaps. For older than Saxon foundations are found in +the vale, and mosaic floors, still beautiful after lying buried so long. + +All this--the far-removed events and periods in time--are not in the +conscious mind when we are in the vale or when we are looking down on it +from above: the mind is occupied with nothing but visible nature. Thus, +when I am sitting on the tomb, listening to the various sounds of life +about me, attentive to the flowers and bees and butterflies, to man or +woman or child taking a short cut through the churchyard, exchanging a +few words with them; or when I am by the water close by, watching a +little company of graylings, their delicately-shaded, silver-grey scales +distinctly seen as they lie in the crystal current watching for flies; +or when I listen to the perpetual musical talk and song combined of a +family of green-finches in the alders or willows, my mind is engaged +with these things. But if one is familiar with the vale; if one has +looked with interest and been deeply impressed with the signs and +memorials of past life and of antiquity everywhere present and forming +part of the scene, something of it and of all that it represents remains +in the subconscious mind to give a significance and feeling to the +scene, which affects us here more than in most places; and that, I take +it, is the special charm of this little valley. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + +A SHEEP-DOG'S LIFE + + Watch--His visits to a dew-pond--David and his dog Monk--Watch goes to + David's assistance--Caleb's new master objects to his dog--Watch and the + corn-crake--Watch plays with rabbits and guinea-pigs--Old Nance the + rook-scarer--The lost pair of spectacles--Watch in decline--Grey hairs + in animals--A grey mole--Last days of Watch--A shepherd on old + sheep-dogs + + +Perhaps the most interesting of the many sheep-dog histories the +shepherd related was that of Watch, a dog he had at Winterbourne Bishop +for three years before he migrated to Warminster. Watch, he said, was +more "like a Christian," otherwise a reasonable being, than any other +dog he had owned. He was exceedingly active, and in hot weather suffered +more from heat than most dogs. Now the only accessible water when they +were out on the down was in the mist-pond about a quarter of a mile from +his "liberty," as he called that portion of the down on which he was +entitled to pasture his sheep. When Watch could stand his sufferings no +longer, he would run to his master, and sitting at his feet look up at +his face and emit a low, pleading whine. + +"What be you wanting, Watch--a drink or a swim?" the shepherd would say, +and Watch, cocking up his ears, would repeat the whine. + +"Very well, go to the pond," Bawcombe would say, and off Watch would +rush, never pausing until he got to the water, and dashing in he would +swim round and round, lapping the water as he bathed. + +At the side of the pond there was a large, round sarsen-stone, and +invariably on coming out of his bath Watch would jump upon it, and with +his four feet drawn up close together would turn round and round, +surveying the country from that elevation; then jumping down he would +return in all haste to his duties. + +Another anecdote, which relates to the Winterbourne Bishop period, is a +somewhat painful one, and is partly about Monk, the sheep-dog already +described as a hunter of foxes, and his tragic end. Caleb had worked him +for a time, but when he came into possession of Watch he gave Monk to +his younger brother David, who was under-shepherd on the same farm. + +One morning Caleb was with the ewes in a field, when David, who was in +charge of the lambs two or three fields away, came to him looking very +strange--very much put out. + +"What are you here for--what's wrong with 'ee?" demanded Caleb. + +"Nothing's wrong," returned the other. + +"Where's Monk then?" asked Caleb. + +"Dead," said David. + +"Dead! How's he dead?" + +"I killed'n. He wouldn't mind me and made me mad, and I up with my stick +and gave him one crack on the head and it killed'n." + +"You killed 'n!" exclaimed Caleb. "An' you come here an' tell I +nothing's wrong! Is that a right way to speak of such a thing as that? +What be you thinking of? And what be you going to do with the lambs?" + +"I'm just going back to them--I'm going to do without a dog. I'm going +to put them in the rape and they'll be all right." + +"What! put them in the rape and no dog to help 'ee?" cried the other. +"You are not doing things right, but master mustn't pay for it. Take +Watch to help 'ee--I must do without'n this morning." + +"No, I'll not take'n," he said, for he was angry because he had done an +evil thing and he would have no one, man or dog, to help him. "I'll do +better without a dog," he said, and marched off. + +Caleb cried after him: "If you won't have the dog don't let the lambs +suffer but do as I tell 'ee. Don't you let 'em bide in the rape more 'n +ten minutes; then chase them out, and let 'em stand twenty minutes to +half an hour; then let them in another ten minutes and out again for +twenty minutes, then let them go back and feed in it quietly, for the +danger 'll be over. If you don't do as I tell 'ee you'll have many +blown." + +David listened, then without a word went his way. But Caleb was still +much troubled in his mind. How would he get that flock of hungry lambs +out of the rape without a dog? And presently he determined to send +Watch, or try to send him, to save the situation. David had been gone +half an hour when he called the dog, and pointing in the direction he +had taken he cried, "Dave wants 'ee--go to Dave." + +Watch looked at him and listened, then bounded away, and after running +full speed about fifty yards stopped to look back to make sure he was +doing the right thing. "Go to Dave," shouted Caleb once more; and away +went Watch again, and arriving at a very high gate at the end of the +field dashed at and tried two or three times to get over it, first by +jumping, then by climbing, and falling back each time. But by and by he +managed to force his way through the thick hedge and was gone from +sight. + +When David came back that evening he was in a different mood, and said +that Watch had saved him from a great misfortune: he could never have +got the lambs out by himself, as they were mad for the rape. For some +days after this Watch served two masters. Caleb would take him to his +ewes, and after a while would say, "Go--Dave wants 'ee," and away Watch +would go to the other shepherd and flock. + +When Bawcombe had taken up his new place at Doveton, his master, Mr. +Ellerby, watched him for a while with sharp eyes, but he was soon +convinced that he had not made a mistake in engaging a head-shepherd +twenty-five miles away without making the usual inquiries but merely on +the strength of something heard casually in conversation about this man. +But while more than satisfied with the man he remained suspicious of the +dog. "I'm afraid that dog of yours must hurt the sheep," he would say, +and he even advised him to change him for one that worked in a quieter +manner. Watch was too excitable, too impetuous--he could not go after +the sheep in that violent way and grab them as he did without injuring +them with his teeth. + +"He did never bite a sheep in his life," Bawcombe assured him, and +eventually he was able to convince his master that Watch could make a +great show of biting the sheep without doing them the least hurt--that +it was actually against his nature to bite or injure anything. + +One day in the late summer, when the corn had been cut but not carried, +Bawcombe was with his flock on the edge of a newly reaped cornfield in a +continuous, heavy rain, when he spied his master coming to him. He was +in a very light summer suit and straw hat, and had no umbrella or other +protection from the pouring rain. "What be wrong with master to-day?" +said Bawcombe. "He's tarrably upset to be out like this in such a rain +in a straw hat and no coat." + +Mr. Ellerby had by that time got into the habit when troubled in his +mind of going out to his shepherd to have a long talk with him. Not a +talk about his trouble--that was some secret bitterness in his +heart--but just about the sheep and other ordinary topics, and the talk, +Caleb said, would seem to do him good. But this habit he had got into +was observed by others, and the farm-men would say, "Something's wrong +to-day--the master's gone off to the head-shepherd." + +When he came to where Bawcombe was standing, in a poor shelter by the +side of a fence, he at once started talking on indifferent subjects, +standing there quite unconcerned, as if he didn't even know that it was +raining, though his thin clothes were wet through, and the water coming +through his straw hat was running in streaks down his face. By and by he +became interested in the dog's movements, playing about in the rain +among the stocks. "What has he got in his mouth?" he asked presently. + +"Come here, Watch," the shepherd called, and when Watch came he bent +down and took a corncrake from his mouth. He had found the bird hiding +in one of the stocks and had captured without injuring it. + +"Why, it's alive--the dog hasn't hurt it," said the farmer, taking it in +his hands to examine it. + +"Watch never hurted any creature yet," said Bawcombe. He caught things +just for his own amusement, but never injured them--he always let them +go again. He would hunt mice in the fields, and when he captured one he +would play with it like a cat, tossing it from him, then dashing after +and recapturing it. Finally, he would let it go. He played with rabbits +in the same way, and if you took a rabbit from him and examined it you +would find it quite uninjured. + +The farmer said it was wonderful--he had never heard of a case like it +before; and talking of Watch he succeeded in forgetting the trouble in +his mind which had sent him out in the rain in his thin clothes and +straw hat, and he went away in a cheerful mood. + +Caleb probably forgot to mention during this conversation with his +master that in most cases when Watch captured a rabbit he took it to his +master and gave it into his hands, as much as to say, Here is a very big +sort of field-mouse I have caught, rather difficult to manage--perhaps +_you_ can do something with it? + +The shepherd had many other stories about this curious disposition of +his dog. When he had been some months in his new place his brother David +followed him to the Wylye, having obtained a place as shepherd on a farm +adjoining Mr. Ellerby's. His cottage was a little out of the village and +had some ground to it, with a nice lawn or green patch. David was fond +of keeping animal pets--birds in cages, and rabbits and guinea-pigs in +hutches, the last so tame that he would release them on the grass to see +them play with one another. When Watch first saw these pets he was very +much attracted, and wanted to get to them, and after a good deal of +persuasion on the part of Caleb, David one day consented to take them +out and put them on the grass in the dog's presence. They were a little +alarmed at first, but in a surprisingly short time made the discovery +that this particular dog was not their enemy but a playmate. He rolled +on the grass among them, and chased them round and round, and sometimes +caught and pretended to worry them, and they appeared to think it very +good fun. + +"Watch," said Bawcombe, "in the fifteen years I had 'n, never killed and +never hurt a creature, no, not even a leetel mouse, and when he caught +anything 'twere only to play with it." + +Watch comes into a story of an old woman employed at the farm at this +period. She had been in the Warminster workhouse for a short time, and +had there heard that a daughter of a former mistress in another part of +the county had long been married and was now the mistress of Doveton +Farm, close by. Old Nance thereupon obtained her release and trudged to +Doveton, and one very rough, cold day presented herself at the farm to +beg for something to do which would enable her to keep herself. If there +was nothing for her she must, she said, go back and end her days in the +Warminster workhouse. Mrs. Ellerby remembered and pitied her, and going +in to her husband begged him earnestly to find some place on the farm +for the forlorn old creature. He did not see what could be done for her: +they already had one old woman on their hands, who mended sacks and did +a few other trifling things, but for another old woman there would be +nothing to do. Then he went in and had a good long look at her, +revolving the matter in his mind, anxious to please his wife, and +finally, he asked her if she could scare the crows. He could think of +nothing else. Of course she could scare crows--it was the very thing for +her! Well, he said, she could go and look after the swedes; the rooks +had just taken a liking to them, and even if she was not very active +perhaps she would be able to keep them off. + +Old Nance got up to go and begin her duties at once. Then the farmer, +looking at her clothes, said he would give her something more to protect +her from the weather on such a bleak day. He got her an old felt hat, a +big old frieze overcoat, and a pair of old leather leggings. When she +had put on these somewhat cumbrous things, and had tied her hat firmly +on with a strip of cloth, and fastened the coat at the waist with a +cord, she was told to go to the head-shepherd and ask him to direct her +to the field where the rooks were troublesome. Then when she was setting +out the farmer called her back and gave her an ancient, rusty gun to +scare the birds. "It isn't loaded," he said, with a grim smile. "I don't +allow powder and shot, but if you'll point it at them they'll fly fast +enough." + +Thus arrayed and armed she set forth, and Caleb seeing her approach at a +distance was amazed at her grotesque appearance, and even more amazed +still when she explained who and what she was and asked him to direct +her to the field of swedes. + +Some hours later the farmer came to him and asked him casually if he had +seen an old gallus-crow about. + +"Well," replied the shepherd, "I seen an old woman in man's coat and +things, with an old gun, and I did tell she where to bide." + +"I think it will be rather cold for the old body in that field," said +the farmer. "I'd like you to get a couple of padded hurdles and put them +up for a shelter for her." + +And in the shelter of the padded or thatched hurdles, by the hedge-side, +old Nance spent her days keeping guard over the turnips, and afterwards +something else was found for her to do, and in the meanwhile she lodged +in Caleb's cottage and became like one of the family. She was fond of +the children and of the dog, and Watch became so much attached to her +that had it not been for his duties with the flock he would have +attended her all day in the fields to help her with the crows. + +Old Nance had two possessions she greatly prized--a book and a pair of +spectacles, and it was her custom to spend the day sitting, spectacles +on nose and book in hand, reading among the turnips. Her spectacles were +so "tarrable" good that they suited all old eyes, and when this was +discovered they were in great request in the village, and every person +who wanted to do a bit of fine sewing or anything requiring young vision +in old eyes would borrow them for the purpose. One day the old woman +returned full of trouble from the fields--she had lost her spectacles; +she must, she thought, have lent them to some one in the village on the +previous evening and then forgotten all about it. But no one had them, +and the mysterious loss of the spectacles was discussed and lamented by +everybody. A day or two later Caleb came through the turnips on his way +home, the dog at his heels, and when he got to his cottage Watch came +round and placed himself square before his master and deposited the lost +spectacles at his feet. He had found them in the turnip-field over a +mile from home, and though but a dog he remembered that he had seen them +on people's noses and in their hands, and knew that they must therefore +be valuable--not to himself, but to that larger and more important kind +of dog that goes about on its hind legs. + +There is always a sad chapter in the life-history of a dog; it is the +last one, which tells of his decline; and it is ever saddest in the case +of the sheep-dog, because he has lived closer to man and has served him +every day of his life with all his powers, all his intelligence, in the +one useful and necessary work he is fitted for or which we have found +for him to do. The hunting and the pet, or parasite, dogs--the "dogs for +sport and pleasure"--though one in species with him are not like beings +of the same order; they are like professional athletes and performers, +and smart or fashionable people compared to those who do the work of the +world--who feed us and clothe us. We are accustomed to speak of dogs +generally as the servants and the friends of man; it is only of the +sheep-dog that this can be said with absolute truth. Not only is he the +faithful servant of the solitary man who shepherds his flock, but the +dog's companionship is as much to him as that of a fellow-being would +be. + +Before his long and strenuous life was finished. Watch, originally +jet-black without a spot, became quite grey, the greyness being most +marked on the head, which became at last almost white. + +It is undoubtedly the case that some animals, like men, turn grey with +age, and Watch when fifteen was relatively as old as a man at sixty-five +or seventy. But grey hairs do not invariably come with age, even in our +domestic animals, which are more subject to this change than those in a +state of nature. But we are never so well able to judge of this in the +case of wild animals, as in most cases their lives end prematurely. + +The shepherd related a curious instance in a mole. He once noticed +mole-heaps of a peculiar kind in a field of sainfoin, and it looked to +him as if this mole worked in a way of his own, quite unlike the others. +The hills he threw up were a good distance apart, and so large that you +could fill a bushel measure with the mould from any one of them. He +noticed that this mole went on burrowing every day in the same manner; +every morning there were new chains or ranges of the huge mounds. The +runs were very deep, as he found when setting a mole-trap--over two feet +beneath the surface. He set his trap, filling the deep hole he had made +with sods, and on opening it next day he found his mole and was +astonished at its great size. He took no measurements, but it was +bigger, he affirmed, than he could have believed it possible for a mole +to be. And it was grey instead of black, the grey hairs being so +abundant on the head as to make it almost white, as in the case of old +Watch. He supposed that it was a very old mole, that it was a more +powerful digger than most of its kind, and had perhaps escaped death so +long on account of its strength and of its habit of feeding deeper in +the earth than the others. + +To return to Watch. His hearing and eyesight failed as he grew older +until he was practically blind and too deaf to hear any word given in +the ordinary way. But he continued strong as ever on his legs, and his +mind was not decayed, nor was he in the least tired. On the contrary, he +was always eager to work, and as his blindness and deafness had made him +sharper in other ways he was still able to make himself useful with the +sheep. Whenever the hurdles were shifted to a fresh place and the sheep +had to be kept in a corner of the enclosure until the new place was +ready for them, it was old Watch's duty to keep them from breaking away. +He could not see nor hear, but in some mysterious way he knew when they +tried to get out, even if it was but one. Possibly the slight vibration +of the ground informed him of the movement and the direction as well. He +would make a dash and drive the sheep back, then run up and down before +the flock until all was quiet again. But at last it became painful to +witness his efforts, especially when the sheep were very restless, and +incessantly trying to break away; and Watch finding them so hard to +restrain would grow angry and rush at them with such fury that he would +come violently against the hurdles at one side, then getting up, howling +with pain, he would dash to the other side, when he would strike the +hurdles there and cry out with pain once more. + +It could not be allowed to go on; yet Watch could not endure to be +deprived of his work; if left at home he would spend the time whining +and moaning, praying to be allowed to go to the flock, until at last his +master with a very heavy heart was compelled to have him put to death. + +This is indeed almost invariably the end of a sheepdog; however zealous +and faithful he may have been, and however much valued and loved, he +must at last be put to death. I related the story of this dog to a +shepherd in the very district where Watch had lived and served his +master so well--one who had been head-shepherd for upwards of forty +years at Imber Court, the principal farm at the small downland village +of Imber. He told me that during all his shepherding years he had never +owned a dog which had passed out of his hands to another; every dog had +been acquired as a pup and trained by himself; and he had been very fond +of his dogs, but had always been compelled to have them shot in the end. +Not because he would have found them too great a burden when they had +become too old and their senses decayed, but because it was painful to +see them in their decline, perpetually craving to be at their old work +with the sheep, incapable of doing it any longer, yet miserable if kept +from it. + + + + +CHAPTER XV + +THE ELLERBYS OF DOVETON + + The Bawcombes at Doveton Farm--Caleb finds favour with his master--Mrs. + Ellerby and the shepherd's wife--The passion of a childless wife--The + curse--A story of the "mob"--The attack on the farm--A man transported + for life--The hundred and ninth Psalm--The end of the Ellerbys + + +Caleb and his wife invariably spoke of their time at Doveton Farm in a +way which gave one the idea that they regarded it as the most important +period of their lives. It had deeply impressed them, and doubtless it +was a great change for them to leave their native village for the first +time in their lives and go long miles from home among strangers to serve +a new master. Above everything they felt leaving the old father who was +angry with them, and had gone to the length of disowning them for taking +such a step. But there was something besides all this which had served +to give Doveton an enduring place in their memories, and after many +talks with the old couple about their Warminster days I formed the idea +that it was more to them than any other place where they had lived, +because of a personal feeling they cherished for their master and +mistress there. + +Hitherto Caleb had been in the service of men who were but a little way +removed in thought and feeling from those they employed. They were +mostly small men, born and bred in the parish, some wholly self-made, +with no interest or knowledge of anything outside their own affairs, and +almost as far removed as the labourers themselves from the ranks above. +The Ellerbys were of another stamp, or a different class. If not a +gentleman, Mr. Ellerby was very like one and was accustomed to associate +with gentlemen. He was a farmer, descended from a long line of farmers; +but he owned his own land, and was an educated and travelled man, +considered wealthy for a farmer; at all events he was able to keep his +carriage and riding and hunting horses in his stables, and he was +regarded as the best breeder of sheep in the district. He lived in a +good house, which with its pictures and books and beautiful decorations +and furniture appeared to their simple minds extremely luxurious. This +atmosphere was somewhat disconcerting to them at first, for although he +knew his own value, priding himself on being a "good shepherd," Caleb +had up till now served with farmers who were in a sense on an equality +with him, and they understood him and he them. But in a short time the +feeling of strangeness vanished: personally, as a fellow-man, his master +soon grew to be more to him than any farmer he had yet been with. And he +saw a good deal of his master. Mr. Ellerby cultivated his acquaintance, +and, as we have seen, got into the habit of seeking him out and talking +to him even when he was at a distance out on the down with his flock. +And Caleb could not but see that in this respect he was preferred above +the other men employed on the farm--that he had "found favour" in his +master's eyes. + +When he had told me that story about Watch and the corn-crake, it stuck +in my mind, and on the first opportunity I went back to that subject to +ask what it really was that made his master act in such an extraordinary +manner--to go out on a pouring wet day in a summer suit and straw hat, +and walk a mile or two just to stand there in the rain talking to him +about nothing in particular. What secret trouble had he--was it that his +affairs were in a bad way, or was he quarrelling with his wife? No, +nothing of the kind; it was a long story--this secret trouble of the +Ellerbys, and with his unconquerable reticence in regard to other +people's private affairs he would have passed it off with a few general +remarks. + +But there was his old wife listening to us, and, woman-like, eager to +discuss such a subject, she would not let it pass. She would tell it and +would not be silenced by him: they were all dead and gone--why should I +not be told if I wanted to hear it? And so with a word put in here and +there by him when she talked, and with a good many words interposed by +her when he took up the tale, they unfolded the story, which was very +long as they told it and must be given briefly here. + +It happened that when the Bawcombes settled at Doveton, just as Mr. +Ellerby had taken to the shepherd, making a friend of him, so Mrs. +Ellerby took to the shepherd's wife, and fell into the habit of paying +frequent visits to her in her cottage. She was a very handsome woman, of +a somewhat stately presence, dignified in manner, and she wore her +abundant hair in curls hanging on each side to her shoulders--a fashion +common at that time. From the first she appeared to take a particular +interest in the Bawcombes, and they could not but notice that she was +more gracious and friendly towards them than to the others of their +station on the farm. The Bawcombes had three children then, aged six, +four, and two years respectively, all remarkably healthy, with rosy +cheeks and black eyes, and they were merry-tempered little things. Mrs. +Ellerby appeared much taken with the children; praised their mother for +always keeping them so clean and nicely dressed, and wondered how she +could manage it on their small earnings. The carter and his wife lived +in a cottage close by, and they, too, had three little children, and +next to the carter's was the bailiff's cottage, and he, too, was married +and had children; but Mrs. Ellerby never went into their cottages, and +the shepherd and his wife concluded that it was because in both cases +the children were rather puny, sickly-looking little things and were +never very clean. The carter's wife, too, was a slatternly woman. One +day when Mrs. Ellerby came in to see Mrs. Bawcombe the carter's wife was +just going out of the door, and Mrs. Ellerby appeared displeased, and +before leaving she said, "I hope, Mrs. Bawcombe, you are not going to +mix too freely with your neighbours or let your children go too much +with them and fall into their ways." They also observed that when she +passed their neighbours' children in the lane she spoke no word and +appeared not to see them. Yet she was kind to them too, and whenever she +brought a big parcel of cakes, fruit, and sweets for the children, which +she often did, she would tell the shepherd's wife to divide it into +three lots, one for her own children and the others for those of her two +neighbours. It was clear to see that Mrs. Ellerby had grown fond of her +children, especially of the eldest, the little rosy-cheeked six-year-old +boy. Sitting in the cottage she would call him to her side and would +hold his hand while conversing with his mother; she would also bare the +child's arm just for the pleasure of rubbing it with her hand and +clasping it round with her fingers, and sometimes when caressing the +child in this way she would turn her face aside to hide the tears that +dropped from her eyes. + +She had no child of her own--the one happiness which she and her husband +desired above all things. Six times in their ten married years they had +hoped and rejoiced, although with fear and trembling, that their prayer +would be answered, but in vain--every child born to them came lifeless +into the world. "And so 'twould always be, for sure," said the +villagers, "because of the curse." + +For it was a cause of wonder to the shepherd and his wife that this +couple, so strong and healthy, so noble-looking, so anxious to have +children, should have been so unfortunate, and still the villagers +repeated that it was the curse that was on them. + +This made the shepherd angry. "What be you saying about a curse that is +on them?--a good man and a good woman!" he would exclaim, and taking up +his crook go out and leave them to their gossip. He would not ask them +what they meant; he refused to listen when they tried to tell him; but +in the end he could not help knowing, since the idea had become a fixed +one in the minds of all the villagers, and he could not keep it out. +"Look at them," the gossipers would say, "as fine a couple as you ever +saw, and no child; and look at his two brothers, fine, big, strong, +well-set-up men, both married to fine healthy women, and never a child +living to any of them. And the sisters unmarried! 'Tis the curse and +nothing else." + +The curse had been uttered against Mr. Ellerby's father, who was in his +prime in the year 1831 at the time of the "mob," when the introduction +of labour-saving machinery in agriculture sent the poor farm-labourers +mad all over England. Wheat was at a high price at that time, and the +farmers were exceedingly prosperous, but they paid no more than seven +shillings a week to their miserable labourers. And if they were +half-starved when there was work for all, when the corn was reaped with +sickles, what would their condition be when reaping machines and other +new implements of husbandry came into use? They would not suffer it; +they would gather in bands everywhere and destroy the machinery, and +being united they would be irresistible; and so it came about that there +were risings or "mobs" all over the land. + +Mr. Ellerby, the most prosperous and enterprising farmer in the parish, +had been the first to introduce the new methods. He did not believe that +the people would rise against him, for he well knew that he was regarded +as a just and kind man and was even loved by his own labourers, but even +if it had not been so he would not have hesitated to carry out his +resolution, as he was a high-spirited man. But one day the villagers got +together and came unexpectedly to his barns, where they set to work to +destroy his new thrashing machine. When he was told he rushed out and +went in hot haste to the scene, and as he drew near some person in the +crowd threw a heavy hammer at him, which struck him on the head and +brought him senseless to the ground. + +He was not seriously injured, but when he recovered the work of +destruction had been done and the men had gone back to their homes, and +no one could say who had led them and who had thrown the hammer. But by +and by the police discovered that the hammer was the property of a +shoemaker in the village, and he was arrested and charged with injuring +with intent to murder. Tried with many others from other villages in the +district at the Salisbury Assizes, he was found guilty and sentenced to +transportation for life. Yet the Doveton shoemaker was known to every +one as a quiet, inoffensive young man, and to the last he protested his +innocence, for although he had gone with the others to the farm he had +not taken the hammer and was guiltless of having thrown it. + +Two years after he had been sent away Mr. Ellerby received a letter with +an Australian postmark on it, but on opening it found nothing but a long +denunciatory passage from the Bible enclosed, with no name or address. +Mr. Ellerby was much disturbed in his mind, and instead of burning the +paper and holding his peace, he kept it and spoke about it to this +person and that, and every one went to his Bible to find out what +message the poor shoemaker had sent, for it had been discovered that it +was the one hundred and ninth Psalm, or a great portion of it, and this +is what they read:-- + +"Let the iniquity of his fathers be remembered with the Lord; and let +not the sin of his mother be blotted out. + +"Let them be before the Lord continually, that he may cut off the memory +of them from the earth. + +"Because that he remembered not to show mercy, but persecuted the poor +and needy man, that he might even slay the broken in heart. + +"As he loved cursing, so let it come unto him; as he delighted not in +blessing, so let it be far from him. + +"As he clothed himself with cursing like as with a garment, so let it +come into his bowels like water, and like oil into his bones. + +"Let it be unto him as a garment which covereth him, and for a girdle +wherewith he is girded continually. + +"But do Thou for me, O God the Lord, for Thy name's sake. For I am poor +and needy, and my heart is wounded within me. + +"I am come like the shadow when it declineth: I am tossed up and down as +the locust. + +"My knees are weak through fasting; and my flesh faileth of fatness." + +From that time the hundred and ninth Psalm became familiar to the +villagers, and there were probably not many who did not get it by heart. +There was no doubt in their minds of the poor shoemaker's innocence. +Every one knew that he was incapable of hurting a fly. The crowd had +gone into his shop and swept him away with them--all were in it; and +some person seeing the hammer had taken it to help in smashing the +machinery. And Mr. Ellerby had known in his heart that he was innocent, +and if he had spoken a word for him in court he would have got the +benefit of the doubt and been discharged. But no, he wanted to have his +revenge on some one, and he held his peace and allowed this poor fellow +to be made the victim. Then, when he died, and his eldest son succeeded +him at Doveton Farm, and he and the other sons got married, and there +were no children, or none born alive, they went back to the Psalm again +and read and re-read and quoted the words: "Let his posterity be cut +off; and in the generation following let their name be blotted out." +Undoubtedly the curse was on them! + +Alas! it was; the curse was their belief in the curse, and the dreadful +effect of the knowledge of it on a woman's mind--all the result of Mr. +Ellerby the father's fatal mistake in not having thrown the scrap of +paper that came to him from the other side of the world into the fire. +All the unhappiness of the "generation following" came about in this +way, and the family came to an end; for when the last of the Ellerbys +died at a great age there was not one person of the name left in that +part of Wiltshire. + + + + +CHAPTER XVI + +OLD WILTSHIRE DAYS + + Old memories--Hindon as a borough and as a village--The Lamb Inn and its + birds--The "mob" at Hindon--The blind smuggler--Rawlings of Lower + Pertwood Farm--Reed, the thresher and deer-stealer--He leaves a + fortune--Devotion to work--Old Father Time--Groveley Wood and the + people's rights--Grace Reed and the Earl of Pembroke--An illusion of the + very aged--Sedan-chairs in Bath--Stick-gathering by the + poor--Game-preserving + + +The incident of the unhappy young man who was transported to Australia +or Tasmania, which came out in the shepherd's history of the Ellerby +family, put it in my mind to look up some of the very aged people of the +downland villages, whose memories could go back to the events of eighty +years ago. I found a few, "still lingering here," who were able to +recall that miserable and memorable year of 1830 and had witnessed the +doings of the "mobs." One was a woman, my old friend of Fonthill Bishop, +now aged ninety-four, who was in her teens when the poor labourers, "a +thousand strong," some say, armed with cudgels, hammers, and axes, +visited her village and broke up the thrashing machines they found +there. + +Another person who remembered that time was an old but remarkably +well-preserved man of eighty-nine at Hindon, a village a couple of miles +distant from Fonthill Bishop. Hindon is a delightful little village, so +rustic and pretty amidst its green, swelling downs, with great woods +crowning the heights beyond, that one can hardly credit the fact that it +was formerly an important market and session town and a Parliamentary +borough returning two members; also that it boasted among other +greatnesses thirteen public-houses. Now it has two, and not flourishing +in these tea- and mineral-water drinking days. Naturally it was an +exceeedingly corrupt little borough, where free beer for all was the +order of the day for a period of four to six weeks before an election, +and where every householder with a vote looked to receive twenty guineas +from the candidate of his choice. It is still remembered that when a +householder in those days was very hard up, owing, perhaps, to his too +frequent visits to the thirteen public-houses, he would go to some +substantial tradesman in the place and pledge his twenty guineas, due at +the next election! In due time, after the Reform Bill, it was deprived +of its glory, and later when the South-Western Railway built their line +from Salisbury to Yeovil and left Hindon some miles away, making their +station at Tisbury, it fell into decay, dwindling to the small village +it now is; and its last state, sober and purified, is very much better +than the old. For although sober, it is contented and even merry, and +exhibits such a sweet friendliness toward the stranger within its gates +as to make him remember it with pleasure and gratitude. + +What a quiet little place Hindon has become, after its old noisy period, +the following little bird story will show. For several weeks during the +spring and summer of 1909 my home was at the Lamb Inn, a famous +posting-house of the great old days, and we had three pairs of +birds--throstle, pied wagtail, and flycatcher--breeding in the ivy +covering the wall facing the village street, just over my window. I +watched them when building, incubating, feeding their young, and +bringing their young off. The villagers, too, were interested in the +sight, and sometimes a dozen or more men and boys would gather and stand +for half an hour watching the birds flying in and out of their nests +when feeding their young. The last to come off were the flycatchers, on +18th June. It was on the morning of the day I left, and one of the +little things flitted into the room where I was having my breakfast. I +succeeded in capturing it before the cats found out, and put it back on +the ivy. There were three young birds; I had watched them from the time +they hatched, and when I returned a fortnight later, there were the +three, still being fed by their parents in the trees and on the roof, +their favourite perching-place being on the swinging sign of the "Lamb." +Whenever an old bird darted at and captured a fly the three young would +flutter round it like three butterflies to get the fly. This continued +until 18th July, after which date I could not detect their feeding the +young, although the hunger-call was occasionally heard. + +If the flycatcher takes a month to teach its young to catch their own +flies, it is not strange that it breeds but once in the year. It is a +delicate art the bird practises and takes long to learn, but how +different with the martin, which dismisses its young in a few days and +begins breeding again, even to the third time! + +These three broods over my window were not the only ones in the place; +there were at least twenty other pairs in the garden and outhouses of +the inn--sparrows, thrushes, blackbirds, dunnocks, wrens, starlings, and +swallows. Yet the inn was in the very centre of the village, and being +an inn was the most frequented and noisiest spot. + +To return to my old friend of eighty-nine. He was but a small boy, +attending the Hindon school, when the rioters appeared on the scene, and +he watched their entry from the schoolhouse window. It was market-day, +and the market was stopped by the invaders, and the agricultural +machines brought for sale and exhibition were broken up. The picture +that remains in his mind is of a great excited crowd in which men and +cattle and sheep were mixed together in the wide street, which was the +market-place, and of shouting and noise of smashing machinery, and +finally of the mob pouring forth over the down on its way to the next +village, he and other little boys following their march. + +The smuggling trade flourished greatly at that period, and there were +receivers and distributors of smuggled wine, spirits, and other +commodities in every town and in very many villages throughout the +county in spite of its distance from the sea-coast. One of his memories +is of a blind man of the village, or town as it was then, who was used +as an assistant in this business. He had lost his sight in childhood, +one eye having been destroyed by a ferret which got into his cradle; +then, when he was about six years old he was running across the room one +day with a fork it his hand when he stumbled, and falling on the floor +had the other eye pierced by the prongs. But in spite of his blindness +he became a good worker, and could make a fence, reap, trim hedges, feed +the animals, and drive a horse as well as any man. His father had a +small farm and was a carrier as well, a quiet, sober, industrious man +who was never suspected by his neighbours of being a smuggler, for he +never left his house and work, but from time to time he had little +consignments of rum and brandy in casks received on a dark night and +carefully stowed away in his manure heap and in a pit under the floor of +his pigsty. Then the blind son would drive his old mother in the +carrier's cart to Bath and call at a dozen or twenty private houses, +leaving parcels which had been already ordered and paid for--a gallon of +brandy at one, two or four gallons of rum at another, and so on, until +all was got rid of, and on the following day they would return with +goods to Hindon. This quiet little business went on satisfactorily for +some years, during which the officers of the excise had stared a +thousand times with their eagle's eyes at the quaint old woman in her +poke bonnet and shawl, driven by a blind man with a vacant face, and had +suspected nothing, when a little mistake was made and a jar of brandy +delivered at a wrong address. The recipient was an honest gentleman, and +in his anxiety to find the rightful owner of the brandy made extensive +inquiries in his neighbourhood, and eventually the excisemen got wind of +the affair, and on the very next visit of the old woman and her son to +Bath they were captured. After an examination before a magistrate the +son was discharged on account of his blindness, but the cart and horses, +as well as the smuggled spirits, were confiscated, and the poor blind +man had to make his way on foot to Hindon. + +Another of his recollections is of a family named Rawlings, tenants of +Lower Pertwood Farm, near Hindon, a lonely, desolate-looking house +hidden away in a deep hollow among the high downs. The Farmer Rawlings +of seventy or eighty years ago was a man of singular ideas, and that he +was permitted to put them in practice shows that severe as was the law +in those days, and dreadful the punishments inflicted on offenders, +there was a kind of liberty which does not exist now--the liberty a man +had of doing just what he thought proper in his own house. This Rawlings +had a numerous family, and some died at home and others lived to grow up +and go out into the world under strange names--Faith, Hope, and Charity +were three of his daughters, and Justice, Morality, and Fortitude three +of his sons. Now, for some reason Rawlings objected to the burial of his +dead in the churchyard of the nearest village--Monkton Deverill, and the +story is that he quarrelled with the rector over the question of the +church bell being tolled for the funeral. He would have no bell tolled, +he swore, and the rector would bury no one without the bell. Thereupon +Rawlings had the coffined corpse deposited on a table in an outhouse and +the door made fast. Later there was another death, then a third, and all +three were kept in the same place for several years, and although it was +known to the whole countryside no action was taken by the local +authorities. + +My old informant says that he was often at the farm when he was a young +man, and he used to steal round to the "Dead House," as it was called, +to peep through a crack in the door and see the three coffins resting on +the table in the dim interior. + +Eventually the dead disappeared a little while before the Rawlings gave +up the farm, and it was supposed that the old farmer had buried them in +the night-time in one of the neighbouring chalk-pits, but the spot has +never been discovered. + +One of the stories of the old Wiltshire days I picked up was from an old +woman, aged eighty-seven, in the Wilton workhouse. She has a vivid +recollection of a labourer named Reed, in Odstock, a village on the +Ebble near Salisbury, a stern, silent man, who was a marvel of strength +and endurance. The work in which he most delighted was precisely that +which most labourers hated, before threshing machines came in despite +the action of the "mobs"--threshing out corn with the flail. From +earliest dawn till after dark he would sit or stand in a dim, dusty +barn, monotonously pounding away, without an interval to rest, and +without dinner, and with no food but a piece of bread and a pinch of +salt. Without the salt he would not eat the bread. An hour after all +others had ceased from work he would put on his coat and trudge home to +his wife and family. + +The woman in the workhouse remembers that once, when Reed was a very old +man past work, he came to their cottage for something, and while he +stood waiting at the entrance, a little boy ran in and asked his mother +for a piece of bread and butter with sugar on it. Old Reed glared at +him, and shaking his big stick, exclaimed, "I'd give you sugar with this +if you were my boy!" and so terrible did he look in his anger at the +luxury of the times, that the little boy burst out crying and ran away! + +What chiefly interested me about this old man was that he was a +deer-stealer of the days when that offence was common in the country. It +was not so great a crime as sheep-stealing, for which men were hanged; +taking a deer was punished with nothing worse than hard labour, as a +rule. But Reed was never caught; he would labour his full time and steal +away after dark over the downs, to return in the small hours with a deer +on his back. It was not for his own consumption; he wanted the money for +which he sold it in Salisbury; and it is probable that he was in league +with other poachers, as it is hard to believe that he could capture the +animals single-handed. + +After his death it was found that old Reed had left a hundred pounds to +each of his two surviving daughters, and it was a wonder to everybody +how he had managed not only to bring up a family and keep himself out of +the workhouse to the end of his long life, but to leave so large a sum +of money. One can only suppose that he was a rigid economist and never +had a week's illness, and that by abstaining from beer and tobacco he +was able to save a couple of shillings each week out of his wages of +seven or eight shillings; this, in forty years, would make the two +hundred pounds with something over. + +It is not a very rare thing to find a farm-labourer like old Reed of +Odstock, with not only a strong preference for a particular kind of +work, but a love of it as compelling as that of an artist for his art. +Some friends of mine whom I went to visit over the border in Dorset told +me of an enthusiast of this description who had recently died in the +village. "What a pity you did not come sooner," they said. Alas! it is +nearly always so; on first coming to stay at a village one is told that +it has but just lost its oldest and most interesting inhabitant--a +relic of the olden time. + +This man had taken to the scythe as Reed had to the flail, and was never +happy unless he had a field to mow. He was a very tall old man, so lean +that he looked like a skeleton, the bones covered with a skin as brown +as old leather, and he wore his thin grey hair and snow-white beard very +long. He rode on a white donkey, and was usually seen mounted galloping +down the village street, hatless, his old brown, bare feet and legs +drawn up to keep them from the ground, his scythe over his shoulder. +"Here comes old Father Time," they would cry, as they called him, and +run to the door to gaze with ever fresh delight at the wonderful old man +as he rushed by, kicking and shouting at his donkey to make him go +faster. He was always in a hurry, hunting for work with furious zeal, +and when he got a field to mow so eager was he that he would not sleep +at home, even if it was close by, but would lie down on the grass at the +side of the field and start working at dawn, between two and three +o'clock, quite three hours before the world woke up to its daily toil. + +The name of Reed, the zealous thresher with the flail, serves to remind +me of yet another Reed, a woman who died a few years ago aged +ninety-four, and whose name should be cherished in one of the downland +villages. She was a native of Barford St. Martin on the Nadder, one of +two villages, the other being Wishford, on the Wylye river, the +inhabitants of which have the right to go into Groveley Wood, an immense +forest on the Wilton estate, to obtain wood for burning, each person +being entitled to take home as much wood as he or she can carry. The +people of Wishford take green wood, but those of Barford only dead, they +having bartered their right at a remote period to cut growing trees for +a yearly sum of five pounds, which the lord of the manor still pays to +the village, and, in addition, the right to take dead wood. + +It will be readily understood that this right possessed by the people of +two villages, both situated within a mile of the forest, has been a +perpetual source of annoyance to the noble owners in modern times, since +the strict preservation of game, especially of pheasants, has grown to +be almost a religion to the landowners. Now it came to pass that about +half a century or longer ago, the Pembroke of that time made the happy +discovery, as he imagined, that there was nothing to show that the +Barford people had any right to the dead wood. They had been graciously +allowed to take it, as was the case all over the country at that time, +and that was all. At once he issued an edict prohibiting the taking of +dead wood from the forest by the villagers, and great as the loss was to +them they acquiesced; not a man of Barford St. Martin dared to disobey +the prohibition or raise his voice against it. Grace Reed then +determined to oppose the mighty earl, and accompanied by four other +women of the village boldly went to the wood and gathered their sticks +and brought them home. They were summoned before the magistrates and +fined, and on their refusal to pay were sent to prison; but the very +next day they were liberated and told that a mistake had been made, that +the matter had been inquired into, and it had been found that the people +of Barford did really have the right they had exercised so long to take +dead wood from the forest. + +As a result of the action of these women the right has not been +challenged since, and on my last visit to Barford, a few days before +writing this chapter, I saw three women coming down from the forest with +as much dead wood as they could carry on their heads and backs. But how +near they came to losing their right! It was a bold, an unheard-of thing +which they did, and if there had not been a poor cottage woman with the +spirit to do it at the proper moment the right could never have been +revived. + +Grace Reed's children's children are living at Barford now; they say +that to the very end of her long life she preserved a very clear memory +of the people and events of the village in the old days early in the +last century. They say, too, that in recalling the far past, the old +people and scenes would present themselves so vividly to her mind that +she would speak of them as of recent things, and would say to some one +fifty years younger than herself, "Can't you remember it? Surely you +haven't forgotten it when 'twas the talk of the village!" + +It is a common illusion of the very aged, and I had an amusing instance +of it in my old Hindon friend when he gave me his first impressions of +Bath as he saw it about the year 1835. What astonished him most were the +sedan-chairs, for he had never even heard of such a conveyance, but here +in this city of wonders you met them in every street. Then he added, +"But you've been to Bath and of course you've seen them, and know all +about it." + +About firewood-gathering by the poor in woods and forests, my old friend +of Fonthill Bishop says that the people of the villages adjacent to the +Fonthill and Great Ridge Woods were allowed to take as much dead wood as +they wanted from those places. She was accustomed to go to the Great +Ridge Wood, which was even wilder and more like a natural forest in +those days than it is now. It was fully two miles from her village, a +longish distance to carry a heavy load, and it was her custom after +getting the wood out to bind it firmly in a large barrel-shaped bundle +or faggot, as in that way she could roll it down the smooth steep slopes +of the down and so get her burden home without so much groaning and +sweating. The great wood was then full of hazel-trees, and produced such +an abundance of nuts that from mid-July to September people flocked to +it for the nutting from all the country round, coming even from Bath and +Bristol to load their carts with nuts in sacks for the market. Later, +when the wood began to be more strictly preserved for sporting purposes, +the rabbits were allowed to increase excessively, and during the hard +winters they attacked the hazel-trees, gnawing off the bark, until this +most useful and profitable wood the forest produced--the scrubby oaks +having little value--was well-nigh extirpated. By and by pheasants as +well as rabbits were strictly preserved, and the firewood-gatherers were +excluded altogether. At present you find dead wood lying about all over +the place, abundantly as in any primitive forest, where trees die of old +age or disease, or are blown down or broken off by the winds and are +left to rot on the ground, overgrown with ivy and brambles. But of all +this dead wood not a stick to boil a kettle may be taken by the +neighbouring poor lest the pheasants should be disturbed or a rabbit be +picked up. + +Some more of the old dame's recollections will be given in the next +chapter, showing what the condition of the people was in this district +about the year 1830, when the poor farm-labourers were driven by hunger +and misery to revolt against their masters--the farmers who were +everywhere breaking up the downs with the plough to sow more and still +more corn, who were growing very fat and paying higher and higher rents +to their fat landlords, while the wretched men that drove the plough had +hardly enough to satisfy their hunger. + + + + +CHAPTER XVII + +OLD WILTSHIRE DAYS--_CONTINUED_ + + An old Wiltshire woman's memories--Her home--Work on a farm--A little + bird-scarer--Housekeeping--The agricultural labourers' rising--Villagers + out of work--Relief work--A game of ball with barley + bannocks--Sheep-stealing--A poor man hanged--Temptations to steal--A + sheep-stealing shepherd--A sheep-stealing farmer--Story of Ebenezer + Garlick--A sheep-stealer at Chitterne--The law and the judges--A "human + devil" in a black cap--How the revolting labourers were punished--A last + scene at Salisbury Court House--Inquest on a murdered man--Policy of the + farmers + + +The story of her early life told by my old friend Joan, aged +ninety-four, will serve to give some idea of the extreme poverty and +hard suffering life of the agricultural labourers during the thirties of +last century, at a time when farmers were exceedingly prosperous and +landlords drawing high rents. + +She was three years old when her mother died, after the birth of a boy, +the last of eleven children. There was a dame's school in their little +village of Fonthill Abbey, but the poverty of the family would have made +it impossible for Joan to attend had it not been for an unselfish person +residing there, a Mr. King, who was anxious that every child should be +taught its letters. He paid for little Joan's schooling from the age of +four to eight; and now, in the evening of her life, when she sits by the +fire with her book, she blesses the memory of the man, dead these +seventy or eighty years, who made this solace possible for her. + +After the age of eight there could be no more school, for now all the +older children had gone out into the world to make their own poor +living, the boys to work on distant farms, the girls to service or to be +wives, and Joan was wanted at home to keep house for her father, to do +the washing, mending, cleaning, cooking, and to be mother to her little +brother as well. + +Her father was a ploughman, at seven shillings a week; but when Joan was +ten he met with a dreadful accident when ploughing with a couple of +young or intractable oxen; in trying to stop them he got entangled in +the ropes and one of his legs badly broken by the plough. As a result it +was six months before he could leave his cottage. The overseer of the +parish, a prosperous farmer who had a large farm a couple of miles away, +came to inquire into the matter and see what was to be done. His +decision was that the man would receive three shillings a week until +able to start work again, and as that would just serve to keep him, the +children must go out to work. Meanwhile, one of the married daughters +had come to look after her father in the cottage, and that set the +little ones free. + +The overseer said he would give them work on his farm and pay them a few +pence apiece and give them their meals; so to his farm they went, +returning each evening home. That was her first place, and from that +time on she was a toiler, indoors and out, but mainly in the fields, +till she was past eighty-five;--seventy-five years of hard work--then +less and less as her wonderful strength diminished, and her sons and +daughters were getting grey, until now at the age of ninety-four she +does very little--practically nothing. + +In that first place she had a very hard master in the farmer and +overseer. He was known in all the neighbourhood as "Devil Turner," and +even at that time, when farmers had their men under their heel as it +were, he was noted for his savage tyrannical disposition; also for a +curious sardonic humour, which displayed itself in the forms of +punishment he inflicted on the workmen who had the ill-luck to offend +him. The man had to take the punishment, however painful or disgraceful, +without a murmur, or go and starve. Every morning thereafter Joan and +her little brother, aged seven, had to be up in time to get to the farm +at five o'clock in the morning, and if it was raining or snowing or +bitterly cold, so much the worse for them, but they had to be there, for +Devil Turner's bad temper was harder to bear than bad weather. Joan was +a girl of all work, in and out of doors, and, in severe weather, when +there was nothing else for her to do, she would be sent into the fields +to gather flints, the coldest of all tasks for her little hands. + +"But what could your little brother, a child of seven, do in such a +place?" I asked. + +She laughed when she told me of her little brother's very first day at +the farm. The farmer was, for a devil, considerate, and gave him +something very light for a beginning, which was to scare the birds from +the ricks. "And if they will come back you must catch them," he said, +and left the little fellow to obey the difficult command as he could. +The birds that worried him most were the fowls, for however often he +hunted them away they would come back again. Eventually, he found some +string, with which he made some little loops fastened to sticks, and +these he arranged on a spot of ground he had cleared, scattering a few +grains of corn on it to attract the "birds." By this means he succeeded +in capturing three of the robbers, and when the farmer came round at +noon to see how he was getting on, the little fellow showed him his +captures. "These are not birds," said the farmer, "they are fowls, and +don't you trouble yourself any more about them, but keep your eye on the +sparrows and little birds and rooks and jackdaws that come to pull the +straws out." + +That was how he started; then from the ricks to bird-scaring in the +fields and to other tasks suited to one of his age, not without much +suffering and many tears. The worst experience was the punishment of +standing motionless for long hours at a time on a chair placed out in +the yard, full in sight of the windows of the house, so that he could be +seen by the inmates; the hardest, the cruellest task that could be +imposed on him would come as a relief after this. Joan suffered no +punishment of that kind; she was very anxious to please her master and +worked hard; but she was an intelligent and spirited child, and as the +sole result of her best efforts was that more and more work was put on +her, she revolted against such injustice, and eventually, tried beyond +endurance, she ran away home and refused to go back to the farm any +more. She found some work in the village; for now her sister had to go +back to her husband, and Joan had to take her place and look after her +father and the house as well as earn something to supplement the three +shillings a week they had to live on. + +After about nine months her father was up and out again and went back to +the plough; for just then a great deal of down was being broken up and +brought under cultivation on account of the high price of wheat and good +ploughmen were in request. He was lame, the injured limb being now +considerably shorter than the other, and when ploughing he could only +manage to keep on his legs by walking with the longer one in the furrow +and the other on the higher ground. But after struggling on for some +months in this way, suffering much pain and his strength declining, he +met with a fresh accident and was laid up once more in his cottage, and +from that time until his death he did no more farm work. Joan and her +little brother lived or slept at home and worked to keep themselves and +him. + +Now in this, her own little story, and in her account of the condition +of the people at that time; also in the histories of other old men and +women whose memories go back as far as hers, supplemented by a little +reading in the newspapers of that day, I can understand how it came +about that these poor labourers, poor, spiritless slaves as they had +been made by long years of extremest poverty and systematic oppression, +rose at last against their hard masters and smashed the agricultural +machines, and burnt ricks and broke into houses to destroy and plunder +their contents. It was a desperate, a mad adventure--these gatherings of +half-starved yokels, armed with sticks and axes, and they were quickly +put down and punished in a way that even William the Bastard would not +have considered as too lenient. But oppression had made them mad; the +introduction of thrashing machines was but the last straw, the +culminating act of the hideous system followed by landlords and their +tenants--the former to get the highest possible rent for his land, the +other to get his labour at the lowest possible rate. It was a compact +between landlord and tenant aimed against the labourer. It was not +merely the fact that the wages of a strong man were only seven shillings +a week at the outside, a sum barely sufficient to keep him and his +family from starvation and rags (as a fact it was not enough, and but +for a little poaching and stealing he could not have lived), but it was +customary, especially on the small farms, to get rid of the men after +the harvest and leave them to exist the best way they could during the +bitter winter months. Thus every village, as a rule, had its dozen or +twenty or more men thrown out each year--good steady men, with families +dependent on them; and besides these there were the aged and weaklings +and the lads who had not yet got a place. The misery of these +out-of-work labourers was extreme. They would go to the woods and gather +faggots of dead wood, which they would try to sell in the villages; but +there were few who could afford to buy of them; and at night they would +skulk about the fields to rob a swede or two to satisfy the cravings of +hunger. + +In some parishes the farmer overseers were allowed to give relief +work--out of the rates, it goes without saying--to these unemployed men +of the village who had been discharged in October or November and would +be wanted again when the winter was over. They would be put to +flint-gathering in the fields, their wages being four shillings a week. +Some of the very old people of Winterbourne Bishop, when speaking of the +principal food of the labourers at that time, the barley bannock and its +exceeding toughness, gave me an amusing account of a game of balls +invented by the flint-gatherers, just for the sake of a little fun +during their long weary day in the fields, especially in cold, frosty +weather. The men would take their dinners with them, consisting of a few +barley balls or cakes, in their coat pockets, and at noon they would +gather at one spot to enjoy their meal, and seat themselves on the +ground in a very wide circle, the men about ten yards apart, then each +one would produce his bannocks and start throwing, aiming at some other +man's face; there were hits and misses and great excitement and hilarity +for twenty or thirty minutes, after which the earth and gravel adhering +to the balls would be wiped off, and they would set themselves to the +hard task of masticating and swallowing the heavy stuff. + +At sunset they would go home to a supper of more barley bannocks, washed +down with hot water flavoured with some aromatic herb or weed, and then +straight to bed to get warm, for there was little firing. + +It was not strange that sheep-stealing was one of the commonest offences +against the law at that time, in spite of the dreadful penalty. Hunger +made the people reckless. My old friend Joan, and other old persons, +have said to me that it appeared in those days that the men were +strangely indifferent and did not seem to care whether they were hanged +or not. It is true they did not hang very many of them--the judge, as a +rule, after putting on his black cap and ordering them to the gallows, +would send in a recommendation to mercy for most of them; but the mercy +of that time was like that of the wicked, exceedingly cruel. Instead of +swinging, it was transportation for life, or for fourteen, and, at the +very least, seven years. Those who have read Clarke's terrible book "For +the Term of His Natural Life" know (in a way) what these poor Wiltshire +labourers, who in most cases were never more heard of by their wives and +children, were sent to endure in Australia and Tasmania. + +And some were hanged; my friend Joan named some people she knows in the +neighbourhood who are the grandchildren of a young man with a wife and +family of small children who was hanged at Salisbury. She had a vivid +recollection of this case because it had seemed so hard, the man having +been maddened by want when he took a sheep; also because when he was +hanged his poor young wife travelled to the place of slaughter to beg +for his body, and had it brought home and buried decently in the village +churchyard. + +How great the temptation to steal sheep must have been, anyone may know +now by merely walking about among the fields in this part of the country +to see how the sheep are folded and left by night unguarded, often at +long distances from the village, in distant fields and on the downs. +Even in the worst times it was never customary, never thought necessary, +to guard the flock by night. Many cases could be given to show how easy +it was to steal sheep. One quite recent, about twenty years ago, is of a +shepherd who was frequently sent with sheep to the fairs, and who on his +way to Wilton fair with a flock one night turned aside to open a fold +and let out nineteen sheep. On arriving at the fair he took out the +stolen sheep and sold them to a butcher of his acquaintance who sent +them up to London. But he had taken too many from one flock; they were +quickly missed, and by some lucky chance it was found out and the +shepherd arrested. He was sentenced to eight months' hard labour, and it +came out during the trial that this poor shepherd, whose wages were +fourteen shillings a week, had a sum of L400 to his credit in a +Salisbury bank! + +Another case which dates far back is that of a farmer named Day, who +employed a shepherd or drover to take sheep to the fairs and markets and +steal sheep for him on the way. It is said that he went on at this game +for years before it was discovered. Eventually master and man quarrelled +and the drover gave information, whereupon Day was arrested and lodged +in Fisherton Jail at Salisbury. Later he was sent to take his trial at +Devizes, on horseback, accompanied by two constables. At the "Druid's +Head," a public-house on the way, the three travellers alighted for +refreshments, and there Day succeeded in giving them the slip, and +jumping on a fast horse, standing ready saddled for him, made his +escape. Farmer Day never returned to the Plain and was never heard of +again. + +There is an element of humour in some of the sheep-stealing stories of +the old days. At one village where I often stayed, I heard about a +certain Ebenezer Garlick, who was commonly called, in allusion no doubt +to his surname, "Sweet Vi'lets." He was a sober, hard-working man, an +example to most, but there was this against him, that he cherished a +very close friendship with a poor, disreputable, drunken loafer +nicknamed "Flittermouse," who spent most of his time hanging about the +old coaching inn at the place for the sake of tips. Sweet Vi'lets was +always giving coppers and sixpences to this man, but one day they fell +out when Flittermouse begged for a shilling. He must, he said, have a +shilling, he couldn't do with less, and when the other refused he +followed him, demanding the money with abusive words, to everybody's +astonishment. Finally Sweet Vi'lets turned on him and told him to go to +the devil. Flittermouse in a rage went straight to the constable and +denounced his patron as a sheep-stealer. He, Flittermouse, had been his +servant and helper, and on the very last occasion of stealing a sheep he +had got rid of the skin and offal by throwing them down an old disused +well at the top of the village street. To the well the constable went +with ropes and hooks, and succeeded in fishing up the remains described, +and he thereupon arrested Garlick and took him before a magistrate, who +committed him for trial. Flittermouse was the only witness for the +prosecution, and the judge in his summing up said that, taking into +consideration Garlick's known character in the village as a sober, +diligent, honest man, it would be a little too much to hang him on the +unsupported testimony of a creature like Flittermouse, who was half fool +and half scoundrel. The jury, pleased and very much surprised at being +directed to let a man off, obediently returned a verdict of Not Guilty, +and Sweet Vi'lets returned from Salisbury triumphant, to be +congratulated on his escape by all the villagers, who, however, slyly +winked and smiled at one another. + +Of sheep-stealing stories I will relate one more--a case which never +came into court and was never discovered. It was related to me by a +middle-aged man, a shepherd of Warminster, who had it from his father, a +shepherd of Chitterne, one of the lonely, isolated villages on Salisbury +Plain, between the Avon and the Wylye. His father had it from the person +who committed the crime and was anxious to tell it to some one, and knew +that the shepherd was his true friend, a silent, safe man. He was a +farm-labourer, named Shergold--one of the South Wiltshire surnames very +common in the early part of last century, which now appear to be dying +out--described as a very big, powerful man, full of life and energy. He +had a wife and several young children to keep, and the time was near +mid-winter; Shergold was out of work, having been discharged from the +farm at the end of the harvest; it was an exceptionally cold season and +there was no food and no firing in the house. + +One evening in late December a drover arrived at Chitterne with a flock +of sheep which he was driving to Tilshead, another downland village +several miles away. He was anxious to get to Tilshead that night and +wanted a man to help him. Shergold was on the spot and undertook to go +with him for the sum of fourpence. They set out when it was getting +dark; the sheep were put on the road, the drover going before the flock +and Shergold following at the tail. It was a cold, cloudy night, +threatening snow, and so dark that he could hardly distinguish the dim +forms of even the hindmost sheep, and by and by the temptation to steal +one assailed him. For how easy it would be for him to do it! With his +tremendous strength he could kill and hide a sheep very quickly without +making any sound whatever to alarm the drover. He was very far ahead; +Shergold could judge the distance by the sound of his voice when he +uttered a call or shout from time to time, and by the barking of the +dog, as he flew up and down, first on one side of the road, then on the +other, to keep the flock well on it. And he thought of what a sheep +would be to him and to his hungry ones at home until the temptation was +too strong, and suddenly lifting his big, heavy stick he brought it down +with such force on the head of a sheep as to drop it with its skull +crushed, dead as a stone. Hastily picking it up he ran a few yards away, +and placed it among the furze-bushes, intending to take it home on his +way back, and then returned to the flock. + +They arrived at Tilshead in the small hours, and after receiving his +fourpence he started for home, walking rapidly and then running to be in +time, but when he got back to where the sheep was lying the dawn was +coming, and he knew that before he could get to Chitterne with that +heavy burden on his back people would be getting up in the village and +he would perhaps be seen. The only thing to do was to hide the sheep and +return for it on the following night. Accordingly he carried it away a +couple of hundred yards to a pit or small hollow in the down full of +bramble and furze-bushes, and here he concealed it, covering it with a +mass of dead bracken and herbage, and left it. That afternoon the +long-threatening snow began to fall, and with snow on the ground he +dared not go to recover his sheep, since his footprints would betray +him; he must wait once more for the snow to melt. But the snow fell all +night, and what must his feelings have been when he looked at it still +falling in the morning and knew that he could have gone for the sheep +with safety, since all traces would have been quickly obliterated! + +Once more there was nothing to do but wait patiently for the snow to +cease falling and for the thaw. But how intolerable it was; for the +weather continued bitterly cold for many days, and the whole country was +white. During those hungry days even that poor comfort of sleeping or +dozing away the time was denied him, for the danger of discovery was +ever present to his mind, and Shergold was not one of the callous men +who had become indifferent to their fate; it was his first crime, and he +loved his own life and his wife and children, crying to him for food. +And the food for them was lying there on the down, close by, and he +could not get it! Roast mutton, boiled mutton--mutton in a dozen +delicious forms--the thought of it was as distressing, as maddening, as +that of the peril he was in. + +It was a full fortnight before the wished thaw came; then with fear and +trembling he went for his sheep, only to find that it had been pulled to +pieces and the flesh devoured by dogs and foxes! + +From these memories of the old villagers I turn to the newspapers of the +day to make a few citations. + +The law as it was did not distinguish between a case of the kind just +related, of the starving, sorely tempted Shergold, and that of the +systematic thief: sheep-stealing was a capital offence and the man must +hang, unless recommended to mercy, and we know what was meant by "mercy" +in those days. That so barbarous a law existed within memory of people +to be found living in most villages appears almost incredible to us; but +despite the recommendations to "mercy" usual in a large majority of +cases, the law of that time was not more horrible than the temper of the +men who administered it. There are good and bad among all, and in all +professions, but there is also a black spot in most, possibly in all +hearts, which may be developed to almost any extent, and change the +justest, wisest, most moral men into "human devils"--the phrase invented +by Canon Wilberforce in another connexion. In reading the old reports +and the expressions used by the judges in their summings up and +sentences, it is impossible not to believe that the awful power they +possessed, and its constant exercise, had not only produced the +inevitable hardening effect, but had made them cruel in the true sense +of the word. Their pleasure in passing dreadful sentences was very +thinly disguised, indeed, by certain lofty conventional phrases as to +the necessity of upholding the law, morality, and religion; they were, +indeed, as familiar with the name of the Deity as any ranter in a +conventicle, and the "enormity of the crime" was an expression as +constantly used in the case of the theft of a loaf of bread, or of an +old coat left hanging on a hedge, by some ill-clad, half-starved wretch, +as in cases of burglary, arson, rape, and murder. + +It is surprising to find how very few the real crimes were in those +days, despite the misery of the people; that nearly all the "crimes" for +which men were sentenced to the gallows and to transportation for life, +or for long terms, were offences which would now be sufficiently +punished by a few weeks', or even a few days', imprisonment. Thus in +April 1825, I note that Mr. Justice Park commented on the heavy +appearance of the calendar. It was not so much the number (170) of the +offenders that excited his concern as it was the nature of the crimes +with which they were charged. The worst crime in this instance was +sheep-stealing! + +Again, this same Mr. Justice Park, at the Spring Assizes at Salisbury +1827, said that though the calendar was a heavy one, he was happy to +find on looking at the depositions of the principal cases, that they +were not of a very serious character. Nevertheless he passed sentence of +death on twenty-eight persons, among them being one for stealing half a +crown! + +Of the twenty-eight all but three were eventually reprieved, one of the +fated three being a youth of nineteen, who was charged with stealing a +mare and pleaded guilty in spite of a warning from the judge not to do +so. This irritated the great man who had the power of life and death in +his hand. In passing sentence the judge "expatiated on the prevalence of +the crime of horse-stealing and the necessity of making an example. The +enormity of Read's crime rendered him a proper example, and he would +therefore hold out no hope of mercy towards him." As to the plea of +guilty, he remarked that nowadays too many persons pleaded guilty, +deluded with the hope that it would be taken into consideration and they +would escape the severer penalty. He was determined to put a stop to +that sort of thing; if Read had not pleaded guilty no doubt some +extenuating circumstance would have come up during the trial and he +would have saved his life. + +There, if ever, spoke the "human devil" in a black cap! + +I find another case of a sentence of transportation for life on a youth +of eighteen, named Edward Baker, for stealing a pocket-handkerchief. Had +he pleaded guilty it might have been worse for him. + +At the Salisbury Spring Assizes, 1830, Mr. Justice Gazalee, addressing +the grand jury, said that none of the crimes appeared to be marked with +circumstances of great moral turpitude. The prisoners numbered one +hundred and thirty; he passed sentences of death on twenty-nine, life +transportations on five, fourteen years on five, seven years on eleven, +and various terms of hard labour on the others. + +The severity of the magistrates at the quarter-sessions was equally +revolting. I notice in one case, where the leading magistrate on the +bench was a great local magnate, an M.P. for Salisbury, etc., a poor +fellow with the unfortunate name of Moses Snook was charged with +stealing a plank ten feet long, the property of the aforesaid local +magnate, M.P., etc., and sentenced to fourteen years' transportation. +Sentenced by the man who owned the plank, worth perhaps a shilling or +two! + +When such was the law of the land and the temper of those who +administered it--judges and magistrates or landlords--what must the +misery of the people have been to cause them to rise in revolt against +their masters! They did nothing outrageous even in the height of their +frenzy; they smashed the thrashing machines, burnt some ricks, while the +maddest of them broke into a few houses and destroyed their contents; +but they injured no man; yet they knew what they were facing--the +gallows or transportation to the penal settlements ready for their +reception at the Antipodes. It is a pity that the history of this rising +of the agricultural labourer, the most patient and submissive of men, +has never been written. Nothing, in fact, has ever been said of it +except from the point of view of landowners and farmers, but there is +ample material for a truer and a moving narrative, not only in the brief +reports in the papers of the time, but also in the memories of many +persons still living, and of their children and children's children, +preserved in many a cottage throughout the south of England. + +Hopeless as the revolt was and quickly suppressed, it had served to +alarm the landlords and their tenants, and taken in conjunction with +other outbreaks, notably at Bristol, it produced a sense of anxiety in +the mind of the country generally. The feeling found a somewhat amusing +expression in the House of Commons, in a motion of Mr. Perceval, on 14th +February 1831. This was to move an address to His Majesty to appoint a +day for a general fast throughout the United Kingdom. He said that "the +state of the country called for a measure like this--that it was a state +of political and religious disorganization--that the elements of the +Constitution were being hourly loosened--that in this land there was no +attachment, no control, no humility of spirit, no mutual confidence +between the poor man and the rich, the employer and the employed; but +fear and mistrust and aversion, where, in the time of our fathers, there +was nothing but brotherly love and rejoicing before the Lord." + +The House was cynical and smilingly put the matter by, but the anxiety +was manifested plainly enough in the treatment meted out to the poor men +who had been arrested and were tried before the Special Commissions sent +down to Salisbury, Winchester, and other towns. No doubt it was a +pleasant time for the judges; at Salisbury thirty-four poor fellows were +sentenced to death; thirty-three to be transported for life, ten for +fourteen years, and so on. + +And here is one last little scene about which the reports in the +newspapers of the time say nothing, but which I have from one who +witnessed and clearly remembers it, a woman of ninety-five, whose whole +life has been passed at a village within sound of the Salisbury +Cathedral bells. + +It was when the trial was ended, when those who were found guilty and +had been sentenced were brought out of the court-house to be taken back +to prison, and from all over the Plain and from all parts of Wiltshire +their womenfolk had come to learn their fate, and were gathered, a pale, +anxious, weeping crowd, outside the gates. The sentenced men came out +looking eagerly at the people until they recognized their own and cried +out to them to be of good cheer. "'Tis hanging for me," one would say, +"but there'll perhaps be a recommendation to mercy, so don't you fret +till you know." Then another: "Don't go on so, old mother, 'tis only for +life I'm sent." And yet another: "Don't you cry, old girl, 'tis only +fourteen years I've got, and maybe I'll live to see you all again." And +so on, as they filed out past their weeping women on their way to +Fisherton Jail, to be taken thence to the transports in Portsmouth and +Plymouth harbours waiting to convey their living freights to that hell +on earth so far from home. Not criminals but good, brave men were +these!--Wiltshiremen of that strong, enduring, patient class, who not +only as labourers on the land but on many a hard-fought field in many +parts of the world from of old down to our war of a few years ago in +Africa, have shown the stuff that was in them! + +But, alas! for the poor women who were left--for the old mother who +could never hope to see her boy again, and for the wife and her children +who waited and hoped against hope through long toiling years, + + And dreamed and started as they slept + For joy that he was come, + +but waking saw his face no more. Very few, so far as I can make out, not +more than one in five or six, ever returned. + +This, it may be said, was only what they might have expected, the law +being what it was--just the ordinary thing. The hideous part of the +business was that, as an effect of the alarm created in the minds of +those who feared injury to their property and loss of power to oppress +the poor labourers, there was money in plenty subscribed to hire +witnesses for the prosecution. It was necessary to strike terror into +the people. The smell of blood-money brought out a number of scoundrels +who for a few pounds were only too ready to swear away the life of any +man, and it was notorious that numbers of poor fellows were condemned in +this way. + +One incident as to this point may be given in conclusion of this chapter +about old unhappy things. It relates not to one of those who were +sentenced to the gallows or to transportation, but to an inquest and the +treatment of the dead. + +I have spoken in the last chapter of the mob that visited Hindon, +Fonthill, and other villages. They ended their round at Pytt House, near +Tisbury, where they broke up the machinery. On that occasion a body of +yeomanry came on the scene, but arrived only after the mob had +accomplished its purpose of breaking up the thrashing machines. When the +troops appeared the "rioters," as they were called, made off into the +woods and escaped; but before they fled one of them had met his death. A +number of persons from the farms and villages around had gathered at the +spot and were looking on, when one, a farmer from the neighbouring +village of Chilmark, snatched a gun from a gamekeeper's hand and shot +one of the rioters, killing him dead. On 27th January 1831 an inquest +was held on the body, and some one was found to swear that the man had +been shot by one of the yeomanry, although it was known to everybody +that, when the man was shot, the troop had not yet arrived on the scene. +The man, this witness stated, had attacked, or threatened, one of the +soldiers with his stick, and had been shot. This was sufficient for the +coroner; he instructed his jury to bring in a verdict of "Justifiable +homicide," which they obediently did. "This verdict," the coroner then +said, "entailed the same consequences as an act of _felo-de-se_, +and he felt that he could not give a warrant for the burial of the +deceased. However painful the duty devolved on him in thus adding to the +sorrows of the surviving relations, the law appeared too clear to him to +admit of an alternative." + +The coroner was just as eager as the judges to exhibit his zeal for the +gentry, who were being injured in their interests by these disturbances; +and though he could not hang anybody, being only a coroner, he could at +any rate kick the one corpse brought before him. Doubtless the +"surviving relations," for whose sorrows he had expressed sympathy, +carried the poor murdered man off by night to hide him somewhere in the +earth. + +After the law had been thus vindicated and all the business done with, +even to the corpse-kicking by the coroner, the farmers were still +anxious, and began to show it by holding meetings and discussions on the +condition of the labourers. Everybody said that the men had been very +properly punished; but at the same time it was admitted that they had +some reason for their discontent, that, with bread so dear, it was +hardly possible for a man with a family to support himself on seven +shillings a week, and it was generally agreed to raise the wages one +shilling. But by and by when the anxiety had quite died out, when it was +found that the men were more submissive than they had ever been, the +lesson they had received having sunk deep into their minds, they cut off +the extra shilling and wages were what they had been--seven shillings a +week for a hard-working seasoned labourer, with a family to keep, and +from four to six shillings for young unmarried men and for women, even +for those who did as much work in the field as any man. + +But there were no more risings. + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII + +THE SHEPHERD'S RETURN + + Yarnborough Castle sheep-fair--Caleb leaves Doveton and goes into + Dorset--A land of strange happenings--He is home-sick and returns to + Winterbourne Bishop--Joseph, his brother, leaves home--His meeting with + Caleb's old master--Settles in Dorset and is joined by his sister + Hannah--They marry and have children--I go to look for them--Joseph + Bawcombe in extreme old age--Hannah in decline + + +Caleb's shepherding period in Doveton came to a somewhat sudden +conclusion. It was nearing the end of August and he was beginning to +think about the sheep which would have to be taken to the "Castle" +sheep-fair on 5th October, and it appeared strange to him that his +master had so far said nothing to him on the subject. By "Castle" he +meant Yarnborough Castle, the name of a vast prehistoric earthwork on +one of the high downs between Warminster and Amesbury. There is no +village there and no house near; it is nothing but an immense circular +wall and trench, inside of which the fair is held. It was formerly one +of the most important sheep-fairs in the country, but for the last two +or three decades has been falling off and is now of little account. When +Bawcombe was shepherd at Doveton it was still great, and when he first +went there as Mr. Ellerby's head-shepherd he found himself regarded as a +person of considerable importance at the Castle. Before setting out with +the sheep he asked for his master's instructions, and was told that when +he got to the ground he would be directed by the persons in charge to +the proper place. The Ellerbys, he said, had exhibited and sold their +sheep there for a period of eighty-eight years, without missing a year, +and always at the same spot. Every person visiting the fair on business +knew just where to find the Ellerbys' sheep, and, he added with pride, +they expected them to be the best sheep at the Castle. + +One day Mr. Ellerby came to have a talk with his shepherd, and in reply +to a remark of the latter about the October sheep-fair he said that he +would have no sheep to send. "No sheep to send, master!" exclaimed Caleb +in amazement. Then Mr. Ellerby told him that he had taken a notion into +his head that he wanted to go abroad with his wife for a time, and that +some person had just made him so good an offer for all his sheep that he +was going to accept it, so that for the first time in eighty-eight years +there would be no sheep from Doveton Farm at the Castle fair. When he +came back he would buy again; but if he could live away from the farm, +he would probably never come back--he would sell it. + +Caleb went home with a heavy heart and told his wife. It grieved her, +too, because of her feeling for Mrs. Ellerby, but in a little while she +set herself to comfort him. "Why, what's wrong about it?" she asked. +"'Twill be more 'n three months before the year's out, and master'll +pay for all the time sure, and we can go home to Bishop and bide a +little without work, and see if that father of yours has forgiven 'ee +for going away to Warminster." + +So they comforted themselves, and were beginning to think with pleasure +of home when Mr. Ellerby informed his shepherd that a friend of his, a +good man though not a rich one, was anxious to take him as +head-shepherd, with good wages and a good cottage rent free. The only +drawback for the Bawcombes was that it would take them still farther +from home, for the farm was in Dorset, although quite near the Wiltshire +border. + +Eventually they accepted the offer, and by the middle of September were +once more settled down in what was to them a strange land. How strange +it must have seemed to Caleb, how far removed from home and all familiar +things, when even to this day, more than forty years later, he speaks of +it as the ordinary modern man might speak of a year's residence in +Uganda, Tierra del Fuego, or the Andaman Islands! It was a foreign +country, and the ways of the people were strange to him, and it was a +land of very strange things. One of the strangest was an old ruined +church in the neighbourhood of the farm where he was shepherd. It was +roofless, more than half fallen down, and all the standing portion, with +the tower, overgrown with old ivy; the building itself stood in the +centre of a huge round earthwork and trench, with large barrows on the +ground outside the circle. Concerning this church he had a wonderful +story: its decay and ruin had come about after the great bell in the +tower had mysteriously disappeared, stolen one stormy night, it was +believed, by the Devil himself. The stolen bell, it was discovered, had +been flung into a small river at a distance of some miles from the +church, and there in summer-time, when the water was low, it could be +distinctly seen lying half buried in the mud at the bottom. But all the +king's horses and all the king's men couldn't pull it out; the Devil, +who pulled the other way, was strongest. Eventually some wise person +said that a team of white oxen would be able to pull it out, and after +much seeking the white oxen were obtained, and thick ropes were tied to +the sunken bell, and the cattle were goaded and yelled at, and tugged +and strained until the bell came up and was finally drawn right up to +the top of the steep, cliff-like bank of the stream. Then one of the +teamsters shouted in triumph, "Now we've got out the bell, in spite of +all the devils in hell," and no sooner had he spoken the bold words than +the ropes parted, and back tumbled the bell to its old place at the +bottom of the river, where it remains to this day. Caleb had once met a +man in those parts who assured him that he had seen the bell with his +own eyes, lying nearly buried in mud at the bottom of the stream. + +The legend is not in the history of Dorset; a much more prosaic account +of the disappearance of the bell is there given, in which the Devil took +no part unless he was at the back of the bad men who were concerned in +the business. But in this strange, remote country, outside of +"Wiltsheer," Bawcombe was in a region where anything might have +happened, where the very soil and pasture were unlike that of his native +country, and the mud adhered to his boots in a most unaccountable way. +It was almost uncanny. Doubtless he was home-sick, for a month or two +before the end of the year he asked his master to look out for another +shepherd. + +This was a great disappointment to the farmer: he had gone a distance +from home to secure a good shepherd, and had hoped to keep him +permanently, and now after a single year he was going to lose him. What +did the shepherd want? He would do anything to please him, and begged +him to stay another year. But no, his mind was set on going back to his +own native village and to his own people. And so when his long year was +ended he took his crook and set out over the hills and valleys, followed +by a cart containing his "sticks" and wife and children. And at home +with his old parents and his people he was happy once more; in a short +time he found a place as head-shepherd, with a cottage in the village, +and followed his flock on the old familiar down, and everything again +was as it had been from the beginning of life and as he desired it to be +even to the end. + +His return resulted incidentally in other changes and migrations in the +Bawcombe family. His elder brother Joseph, unmarried still although his +senior by about eight years, had not got on well at home. He was a +person of a peculiar disposition, so silent with so fixed and unsmiling +an expression, that he gave the idea of a stolid, thick-skinned man, but +at bottom he was of a sensitive nature, and feeling that his master did +not treat him properly, he gave up his place and was for a long time +without one. He was singularly attentive to all that fell from Caleb +about his wide wanderings and strange experiences, especially in the +distant Dorset country; and at length, about a year after his brother's +return, he announced his intention of going away from his native place +for good to seek his fortune in some distant place where his services +would perhaps be better appreciated. When asked where he intended going, +he answered that he was going to look for a place in that part of Dorset +where Caleb had been shepherd for a year and had been so highly thought +of. + +Now Joseph, being a single man, had no "sticks"; all his possessions +went into a bundle, which he carried tied to his crook, and with his +sheep-dog following at his heels he set forth early one morning on the +most important adventure of his life. Then occurred an instance of what +we call a coincidence, but which the shepherd of the downs, nursed in +the old beliefs and traditions, prefers to regard as an act of +providence. + +About noon he was trudging along in the turnpike road when he was met by +a farmer driving in a trap, who pulled up to speak to him and asked him +if he could say how far it was to Winterbourne Bishop. Joseph replied +that it was about fourteen miles--he had left Bishop that morning. + +Then the farmer asked him if he knew a man there named Caleb Bawcombe, +and if he had a place as shepherd there, as he was now on his way to +look for him and to try and persuade him to go back to Dorset, where he +had been his head-shepherd for the space of a year. + +Joseph said that Caleb had a place as head-shepherd on a farm at Bishop, +that he was satisfied with it, and was, moreover, one that preferred to +bide in his native place. + +The farmer was disappointed, and the other added, "Maybe you've heard +Caleb speak of his elder brother Joseph--I be he." + +"What!" exclaimed the farmer. "You're Caleb's brother! Where be going +then?--to a new place?" + +"I've got no place; I be going to look for a place in Dorsetsheer." + +"'Tis strange to hear you say that," exclaimed the farmer. He was going, +he said, to see Caleb, and if he would not or could not go back to +Dorset himself to ask him to recommend some man of the village to him; +for he was tired of the ways of the shepherds of his own part of the +country, and his heart was set on getting a man from Caleb's village, +where shepherds understood sheep and knew their work. "Now look here, +shepherd," he continued, "if you'll engage yourself to me for a year +I'll go no farther, but take you right back with me in the trap." + +The shepherd was very glad to accept the offer; he devoutly believed +that in making it the farmer was but acting in accordance with the will +of a Power that was mindful of man and kept watch on him, even on His +poor servant Joseph, who had left his home and people to be a stranger +in a strange land. + +So well did servant and master agree that Joseph never had occasion to +look for another place; when his master died an old man, his son +succeeded him as tenant of the farm, and he continued with the son until +he was past work. Before his first year was out, his younger sister, +Hannah, came to live with him and keep house, and eventually they both +got married, Joseph to a young woman of the place, and Hannah to a small +working farmer whose farm was about a mile from the village. Children +were born to both, and in time grew up, Joseph's sons following their +father's vocation, while Hannah's were brought up to work on the farm. +And some of them, too, got married in time and had children of their +own. + +These are the main incidents in the lives of Joseph and Hannah, related +to me at different times by their brother; he had followed their +fortunes from a distance, sometimes getting a message, or hearing of +them incidentally, but he did not see them. Joseph never returned to his +native village, and the visits of Hannah to her old home had been few +and had long ceased. But he cherished a deep enduring affection for +both; he was always anxiously waiting and hoping for tidings of them, +for Joseph was now a feeble old man living with one of his sons, and +Hannah, long a widow, was in declining health, but still kept the farm, +assisted by one of her sons and two unmarried daughters. Though he had +not heard for a long time it never occurred to him to write, nor did +they ever write to him. + +Then, when I was staying at Winterbourne Bishop and had the intention of +shortly paying a visit to Caleb, it occurred to me one day to go into +Dorset and look for these absent ones, so as to be able to give him an +account of their state. It was not a long journey, and arrived at the +village I soon found a son of Joseph, a fine-looking man, who took me to +his cottage, where his wife led me into the old shepherd's room. I found +him very aged in appearance, with a grey face and sunken cheeks, lying +on his bed and breathing with difficulty; but when I spoke to him of +Caleb a light of joy came into his eyes, and he raised himself on his +pillows, and questioned me eagerly about his brother's state and family, +and begged me to assure Caleb that he was still quite well, although too +feeble to get about much, and that his children were taking good care of +him. + +From the old brother I went on to seek the young sister--there was a +difference of more than twenty years in their respective ages--and found +her at dinner in the large old farm-house kitchen. At all events she was +presiding, the others present being her son, their hired labourer, the +farm boy, and two unmarried daughters. She herself tasted no food. I +joined them at their meal, and it gladdened and saddened me at the same +time to be with this woman, for she was Caleb's sister, and was +attractive in herself, looking strangely young for her age, with +beautiful dark, soft eyes and but few white threads in her abundant +black hair. The attraction was also in her voice and speech and manner; +but, alas! there was that in her face which was painful to witness--the +signs of long suffering, of nights that bring no refreshment, an +expression in the eyes of one that is looking anxiously out into the dim +distance--a vast unbounded prospect, but with clouds and darkness +resting on it. + +It was not without a feeling of heaviness at the heart that I said +good-bye to her; nor was I surprised when, less than a year later, Caleb +received news of her death. + + + + +CHAPTER XIX + +THE DARK PEOPLE OF THE VILLAGE + + How the materials for this book were obtained--The hedgehog-hunter--A + gipsy taste--History of a dark-skinned family--Hedgehog eaters--Half-bred + and true gipsies--Perfect health--Eating carrion--Mysterious knowledge + and faculties--The three dark Wiltshire types--Story of another dark + man of the village--Account of Liddy--His shepherding--A happy life + with horses--Dies of a broken heart--His daughter + + +I have sometimes laughed to myself when thinking how a large part of the +material composing this book was collected. It came to me in +conversations, at intervals, during several years, with the shepherd. In +his long life in his native village, a good deal of it spent on the +quiet down, he had seen many things it was or would be interesting to +hear; the things which had interested him, too, at the time, and had +fallen into oblivion, yet might be recovered. I discovered that it was +of little use to question him: the one valuable recollection he +possessed on any subject would, as a rule, not be available when wanted; +it would lie just beneath the surface so to speak, and he would pass and +repass over the ground without seeing it. He would not know that it was +there; it would be like the acorn which a jay or squirrel has hidden and +forgotten all about, which he will nevertheless recover some day if by +chance something occurs to remind him of it. The only method was to talk +about the things he knew, and when by chance he was reminded of some old +experience or some little observation or incident worth hearing, to make +a note of it, then wait patiently for something else. It was a very slow +process, but it is not unlike the one we practise always with regard to +wild nature. We are not in a hurry, but are always watchful, with eyes +and ears and mind open to what may come; it is a mental habit, and when +nothing comes we are not disappointed--the act of watching has been a +sufficient pleasure: and when something does come we take it joyfully as +if it were a gift--a valuable object picked up by chance in our walks. + +When I turned into the shepherd's cottage, if it was in winter and he +was sitting by the fire, I would sit and smoke with him, and if we were +in a talking mood I would tell him where I had been and what I had heard +and seen, on the heath, in the woods, in the village, or anywhere, on +the chance of its reminding him of something worth hearing in his past +life. + +One Sunday morning, in the late summer, during one of my visits to him, +I was out walking in the woods and found a man of the village, a farm +labourer, with his small boy hunting for hedgehogs. He had caught and +killed two, which the boy was carrying. He told me he was very fond of +the flesh of hedgehogs--"pigs," he called them for short; he said he +would not exchange one for a rabbit. He always spent his holidays +pig-hunting; he had no dog and didn't want one; he found them himself, +and his method was to look for the kind of place in which they were +accustomed to live--a thick mass of bramble growing at the side of an +old ditch as a rule. He would force his way into it and, moving round +and round, trample down the roots and loose earth and dead leaves with +his heavy iron-shod boots until he broke into the nest or cell of the +spiny little beast hidden away under the bush. + +He was a short, broad-faced man, with a brown skin, black hair, and +intensely black eyes. Talking with the shepherd that evening I told him +of the encounter, and remarked that the man was probably a gipsy in +blood, although a labourer, living in the village and married to a woman +with blue eyes who belonged to the place. + +This incident reminded him of a family, named Targett, in his native +village, consisting of four brothers and a sister. He knew them first +when he was a boy himself, but could not remember their parents. "It +seemed as if they didn't have any," he said. The four brothers were very +much alike: short, with broad faces, black eyes and hair, and brown +skins. They were good workers, but somehow they were never treated by +the farmers like the other men. They were paid less wages--as much as +two to four shillings a week less per man--and made to do things that +others would not do, and generally imposed upon. It was known to every +employer of labour in the place that they could be imposed upon; yet +they were not fools, and occasionally if their master went too far in +bullying and abusing them and compelling them to work overtime every +day, they would have sudden violent outbursts of rage and go off without +any pay at all. What became of their sister he never knew: but none of +the four brothers ever married; they lived together always, and two died +in the village, the other two going to finish their lives in the +workhouse. + +One of the curious things about these brothers was that they had a +passion for eating hedgehogs. They had it from boyhood, and as boys used +to go a distance from home and spend the day hunting in hedges and +thickets. When they captured a hedgehog they would make a small fire in +some sheltered spot and roast it, and while it was roasting one of them +would go to the nearest cottage to beg for a pinch of salt, which was +generally given. + +These, too, I said, must have been gipsies, at all events on one side. +Where there is a cross the gipsy strain is generally strongest, although +the children, if brought up in the community, often remain in it all +their lives; but they are never quite of it. Their love of wildness and +of eating wild flesh remains in them, and it is also probable that there +is an instability of character, a restlessness, which the small farmers +who usually employ such men know and trade on; the gipsy who takes to +farm work must not look for the same treatment as the big-framed, +white-skinned man who is as strong, enduring, and unchangeable as a +draught horse or ox, and constant as the sun itself. + +The gipsy element is found in many if not most villages in the south of +England. I know one large scattered village where it appears +predominant--as dirty and disorderly-looking a place as can be imagined, +the ground round every cottage resembling a gipsy camp, but worse owing +to its greater litter of old rags and rubbish strewn about. But the +people, like all gipsies, are not so poor as they look, and most of the +cottagers keep a trap and pony with which they scour the country for +many miles around in quest of bones, rags, and bottles, and anything +else they can buy for a few pence, also anything they can "pick up" for +nothing. + +This is almost the only kind of settled life which a man with a good +deal of gipsy blood in him can tolerate; it affords some scope for his +chaffering and predatory instincts and satisfies the roving passion, +which is not so strong in those of mixed blood. But it is too +respectable or humdrum a life for the true, undegenerate gipsy. One wet +evening in September last I was prowling in a copse near Shrewton, +watching the birds, when I encountered a young gipsy and recognized him +as one of a gang of about a dozen I had met several days before near +Salisbury. They were on their way, they had told me, to a village near +Shaftesbury, where they hoped to remain a week or so. + +"What are you doing here?" I asked my gipsy. + +He said he had been to Idmiston; he had been on his legs out in the rain +and wet to the skin since morning. He didn't mind that much as the wet +didn't hurt him and he was not tired; but he had eight miles to walk yet +over the downs to a village on the Wylye where his people were staying. + +I remarked that I had thought they were staying over Shaftesbury way. + +He then looked sharply at me. "Ah, yes," he said, "I remember we met you +and had some talk a fortnight ago. Yes, we went there, but they wouldn't +have us. They soon ordered us off. They advised us to settle down if we +wanted to stay anywhere. Settle down! I'd rather be dead!" + +There spoke the true gipsy; and they are mostly of that mind. But what a +mind it is for human beings in this climate! It is in a year like this +of 1909, when a long cold winter and a miserable spring, with frosty +nights lasting well into June, was followed by a cold wet summer and a +wet autumn, that we can see properly what a mind and body is his--how +infinitely more perfect the correspondence between organism and +environment in his case than in ours, who have made our own conditions, +who have not only houses to live in, but a vast army of sanitary +inspectors, physicians and bacteriologists to safeguard us from that +wicked stepmother who is anxious to get rid of us before our time! In +all this miserable year, during which I have met and conversed with and +visited many scores of gipsies, I have not found one who was not in a +cheerful frame of mind, even when he was under a cloud with the police +on his track; nor one with a cold, or complaining of an ache in his +bones, or of indigestion. + +The subject of gipsies catching cold connects itself just now in my mind +with that of the gipsy's sense of humour. He has that sense, and it +makes him happy when he is reposing in the bosom of his family and can +give it free vent; but the instant you appear on the scene its gracious +outward signs vanish like lightning and he is once more the sly, subtle +animal, watching you furtively, but with intensity. When you have left +him and he relaxes the humour will come back to him; for it is a humour +similar to that of some of the lower animals, especially birds of the +crow family, and of primitive people, only more highly developed, and is +concerned mainly with the delight of trickery--with getting the better +of some one and the huge enjoyment resulting from the process. + +One morning, between nine and ten o'clock, during the excessively cold +spell near the end of November 1909, I paid a visit to some gipsies I +knew at their camp. The men had already gone off for the day, but some +of the women were there--a young married woman, two big girls, and six +or seven children. It was a hard frost and their sleeping accommodation +was just as in the summer-time--bundles of straw and old rugs placed in +or against little half-open canvas and rag shelters; but they all +appeared remarkably well, and some of the children were standing on the +hard frozen ground with bare feet. They assured me that they were all +well, that they hadn't caught colds and didn't mind the cold. I remarked +that I had thought the severe frost might have proved too much for some +of them in that high, unsheltered spot in the downs, and that if I had +found one of the children down with a cold I should have given it a +sixpence to comfort it. "Oh," cried the young married woman, "there's my +poor six months' old baby half dead of a cold; he's very bad, poor dear, +and I'm in great trouble about him." + +"He is bad, the darling!" cried one of the big girls. "I'll soon show +you how bad he is!" and with that she dived into a pile of straw and +dragged out a huge fat sleeping baby. Holding it up in her arms she +begged me to look at it to see how bad it was; the fat baby slowly +opened its drowsy eyes and blinked at the sun, but uttered no sound, for +it was not a crying baby, but was like a great fat retriever pup pulled +out of its warm bed. + +How healthy they are is hardly known even to those who make a special +study of these aliens, who, albeit aliens, are yet more native than any +Englishman in the land. It is not merely their indifference to wet and +cold; more wonderful still is their dog-like capacity of assimilating +food which to us would be deadly. This is indeed not a nice or pretty +subject, and I will give but one instance to illustrate my point; the +reader with a squeamish stomach may skip the ensuing paragraph. + +An old shepherd of Chitterne relates that a family, or gang, of gipsies +used to turn up from time to time at the village; he generally saw them +at lambing-time, when one of the heads of the party with whom he was +friendly would come round to see what he had to give them. On one +occasion his gipsy friend appeared, and after some conversation on +general subjects, asked him if he had anything in his way. "No, nothing +this time," said the shepherd. "Lambing was over two or three months ago +and there's nothing left--no dead lamb. I hung up a few cauls on a beam +in the old shed, thinking they would do for the dogs, but forgot them +and they went bad and then dried up." + +"They'll do very well for us," said his friend. + +"No, don't you take them!" cried the shepherd in alarm; "I tell you they +went bad months ago, and 'twould kill anyone to eat such stuff. They've +dried up now, and are dry and black as old skin." + +"That doesn't matter--we know how to make them all right," said the +gipsy. "Soaked with a little salt, then boiled, they'll do very well." +And off he carried them. + +In reading the reports of the Assizes held at Salisbury from the late +eighteenth century down to about 1840, it surprised me to find how +rarely a gipsy appeared in that long, sad, monotonous procession of +"criminals" who passed before the man sitting with his black cap on his +head, and were sent to the gallows or to the penal settlements for +stealing sheep and fowls and ducks or anything else. Yet the gipsies +were abundant then as now, living the same wild, lawless life, +quartering the country, and hanging round the villages to spy out +everything stealable. The man caught was almost invariably the poor, +slow-minded, heavy-footed agricultural labourer; the light, +quick-moving, cunning gipsy escaped. In the "Salisbury Journal" for 1820 +I find a communication on this subject, in which the writer says that a +common trick of the gipsies was to dig a deep pit at their camp in which +to bury a stolen sheep, and on this spot they would make their camp +fire. If the sheep was not missed, or if no report of its loss was made +to the police, the thieves would soon be able to dig it up and enjoy it; +but if inquiries were made they would have to wait until the affair had +blown over. + +It amused me to find, from an incident related to me by a workman in a +village where I was staying lately, that this simple, ancient device is +still practised by the gipsies. My informant said that on going out at +about four o'clock one morning during the late summer he was surprised +at seeing two gipsies with a pony and cart at the spot where a party of +them had been encamped a fortnight before. He watched them, himself +unseen, and saw that they were digging a pit on the spot where they had +had their fire. They took out several objects from the ground, but he +was too far away to make out what they were. They put them in the cart +and covered them over, then filled up the pit, trampled the earth well +down, and put the ashes and burnt sticks back in the same place, after +which they got into the cart and drove off. + +Of course a man, even a nomad, must have some place to conceal his +treasures or belongings in, and the gipsy has no cellar nor attic nor +secret cupboard, and as for his van it is about the last place in which +he would bestow anything of value or incriminating, for though he is +always on the move, he is, moving or sitting still, always under a +cloud. The ground is therefore the safest place to hide things in, +especially in a country like the Wiltshire Downs, though he may use +rocks and hollow trees in other districts. His habit is that of the jay +and magpie, and of the dog with a bone to put by till it is wanted. +Possibly the rural police have not yet discovered this habit of the +gipsy. Indeed, the contrast in mind and locomotive powers between the +gipsy and the village policeman has often amused me; the former most +like the thievish jay, ever on mischief bent; the other, who has his eye +on him, is more like the portly Cochin-China fowl of the farmyard, or +the Muscovy duck, or stately gobbler. + +To go back. When the buried sheep had to be kept too long buried and was +found "gone bad" when disinterred, I fancy it made little difference to +the diners. One remembers Thoreau's pleasure at the spectacle of a crowd +of vultures feasting on the carrion of a dead horse; the fine healthy +appetite and boundless vigour of nature filled him with delight. But it +is not only some of the lower animals--dogs and vultures, for +instance--which possess this power and immunity from the effects of +poisons developed in putrid meat; the Greenlanders and African savages, +and many other peoples in various parts of the world, have it as well. + +Sometimes when sitting with gipsies at their wild hearth, I have felt +curious as to the contents of that black pot simmering over the fire. No +doubt it often contains strange meats, but it would not have been +etiquette to speak of such a matter. It is like the pot on the fire of +the Venezuela savage into which he throws whatever he kills with his +little poisoned arrows or fishes out of the river. Probably my only +quarrel with them would be about the little fledgelings: it angers me to +see them beating the bushes in spring in search of small nesties and the +callow young that are in them. After all, the gipsies could retort that +my friends the jays and magpies are at the same business in April and +May. + +It is just these habits of the gipsy which I have described, shocking to +the moralist and sanitarian and disgusting to the person of delicate +stomach, it may be, which please me, rather than the romance and poetry +which the scholar-gipsy enthusiasts are fond of reading into him. He is +to me a wild, untameable animal of curious habits, and interests me as a +naturalist accordingly. It may be objected that being a naturalist +occupied with the appearance of things, I must inevitably miss the one +thing which others find. + +In a talk I had with a gipsy a short time ago, he said to me: "You know +what the books say, and we don't. But we know other things that are not +in the books, and that's what we have. It's ours, our own, and you can't +know it." + +It was well put; but I was not perhaps so entirely ignorant as he +imagined of the nature of that special knowledge, or shall we say +faculty, which he claimed. I take it to be cunning--the cunning of a +wild animal with a man's brain--and a small, an infinitesimal, dose of +something else which eludes us. But that something else is not of a +spiritual nature: the gipsy has no such thing in him; the soul growths +are rooted in the social instinct, and are developed in those in whom +that instinct is strong. I think that if we analyse that dose of +something else, we will find that it is still the animal's cunning, a +special, a sublimated cunning, the fine flower of his whole nature, and +that it has nothing mysterious in it. He is a parasite, but free and as +well able to exist free as the fox or jackal; but the parasitism pays +him well, and he has followed it so long in his intercourse with social +man that it has come to be like an instinct, or secret knowledge, and is +nothing more than a marvellously keen penetration which reveals to him +the character and degree of credulity and other mental weaknesses of his +subject. + +It is not so much the wind on the heath, brother, as the fascination of +lawlessness, which makes his life an everlasting joy to him; to pit +himself against gamekeeper, farmer, policeman, and everybody else, and +defeat them all, to flourish like the parasitic fly on the honey in the +hive and escape the wrath of the bees. + +I must now return from this long digression to my conversation with the +shepherd about the dark people of the village. + +There were, I continued, other black-eyed and black-haired people in the +villages who had no gipsy blood in their veins. So far as I could make +out there were dark people of three originally distinct and widely +different races in the Wiltshire Downs. There was a good deal of mixed +blood, no doubt, and many dark persons could not be identified as +belonging to any particular race. Nevertheless three distinct types +could be traced among the dark people, and I took them to be, first, the +gipsy, rather short of stature, brown-skinned, with broad face and high +cheek-bones, like the men we had just been speaking of. Secondly, the +men and women of white skins and good features, who had rather broad +faces and round heads, and were physically and mentally just as good as +the best blue-eyed people; these were probably the descendants of the +dark, broad-faced Wilsetas, who came over at the time when the country +was being overrun with the English and other nations or tribes, and who +colonized in Wiltshire and gave it their name. The third type differed +widely from both the others. They were smallest in size and had narrow +heads and long or oval faces, and were very dark, with brown skins; they +also differed mentally from the others, being of a more lively +disposition and hotter temper. The characters which distinguish the +ancient British or Iberian race appeared to predominate in persons of +this type. + +The shepherd said he didn't know much about "all that," but he +remembered that they once had a man in the village who was like the last +kind I had described. He was a labourer named Tark, who had several +sons, and when they were grown up there was a last one born: he had to +be the last because his mother died when she gave him birth; and that +last one was like his father, small, very dark-skinned, with eyes like +sloes, and exceedingly lively and active. + +Tark, himself, he said, was the liveliest, most amusing man he had ever +known, and the quickest to do things, whatever it was he was asked to +do, but he was not industrious and not thrifty. The Tarks were always +very poor. He had a good ear for music and was a singer of the old +songs--he seemed to know them all. One of his performances was with a +pair of cymbals which he had made for himself out of some old metal +plates, and with these he used to play while dancing about, clashing +them in time, striking them on his head, his breast, and legs. In these +dances with the cymbals he would whirl and leap about in an astonishing +way, standing sometimes on his hands, then on his feet, so that half the +people in the village used to gather at his cottage to watch his antics +on a summer evening. + +One afternoon he was coming down the village street and saw the +blacksmith standing near his cottage looking up at a tall fir-tree which +grew there on his ground. "What be looking at?" cried Tark. The +blacksmith pointed to a branch, the lowest branch of all, but about +forty feet from the ground, and said a chaffinch had his nest in it, +about three feet from the trunk, which his little son had set his heart +on having. He had promised to get it down for him, but there was no long +ladder and he didn't know how to get it. + +Tark laughed and said that for half a gallon of beer he would go up legs +first and take the nest and bring it down in one hand, which he would +not use in climbing, and would come down as he went up, head first. + +"Do it, then," said the blacksmith, "and I'll stand the half gallon." + +Tark ran to the tree, and turning over and standing on his hands, +clasped the bole with his legs and then with his arms and went up to the +branch, when taking the nest and holding it in one hand, he came down +head first to the ground in safety. + +There were other anecdotes of his liveliness and agility. Then followed +the story of the youngest son, known as Liddy. "I don't rightly know," +said Caleb, "what the name was he was given when they christened 'n; but +he were always called Liddy, and nobody knowed any other name for him." + +Liddy's grown-up brothers all left home when he was a small boy: one +enlisted and was sent to India and never returned; the other two went to +America, so it was said. He was twelve years old when his father died, +and he had to shift for himself; but he was no worse off on that +account, as they had always been very poor owing to poor Tark's love of +beer. Before long he got employed by a small working farmer who kept a +few cows and a pair of horses and used to buy wethers to fatten them, +and these the boy kept on the down. + +Liddy was always a "leetel chap," and looked no more than nine when +twelve, so that he could do no heavy work; but he was a very willing and +active little fellow, with a sweet temper, and so lively and full of fun +as to be a favourite with everybody in the village. The men would laugh +at his pranks, especially when he came from the fields on the old plough +horse and urged him to a gallop, sitting with his face to the tail; and +they would say that he was like his father, and would never be much good +except to make people laugh. But the women had a tender feeling for him, +because, although motherless and very poor, he yet contrived to be +always clean and neat. He took the greatest care of his poor clothes, +washing and mending them himself. He also took an intense interest in +his wethers, and almost every day he would go to Caleb, tending his +flock on the down, to sit by him and ask a hundred questions about sheep +and their management. He looked on Caleb, as head-shepherd on a +good-sized farm, as the most important and most fortunate person he +knew, and was very proud to have him as guide, philosopher, and friend. + +Now it came to pass that once in a small lot of thirty or forty wethers +which the farmer had bought at a sheep-fair and brought home it was +discovered that one was a ewe--a ewe that would perhaps at some future +day have a lamb! Liddy was greatly excited at the discovery; he went to +Caleb and told him about it, almost crying at the thought that his +master would get rid of it. For what use would it be to him? but what a +loss it would be! And at last, plucking up courage, he went to the +farmer and begged and prayed to be allowed to keep the ewe, and the +farmer laughed at him; but he was a little touched at the boy's feeling, +and at last consented. Then Liddy was the happiest boy in the village, +and whenever he got the chance he would go out to Caleb on the down to +talk about and give him news of the one beloved ewe. And one day, after +about nineteen or twenty weeks, Caleb, out with his flock, heard shouts +at a distance, and, turning to look, saw Liddy coming at great speed +towards him, shouting out some great news as he ran; but what it was +Caleb could not make out, even when the little fellow had come to him, +for his excitement made him incoherent. The ewe had lambed, and there +were twins--two strong healthy lambs, most beautiful to see! Nothing so +wonderful had ever happened in his life before! And now he sought out +his friend oftener than ever, to talk of his beloved lambs, and to +receive the most minute directions about their care. Caleb, who is not a +laughing man, could not help laughing a little when he recalled poor +Liddy's enthusiasm. But that beautiful shining chapter in the poor boy's +life could not last, and when the lambs were grown they were sold, and +so were all the wethers, then Liddy, not being wanted, had to find +something else to do. + +I was too much interested in this story to let the subject drop. What +had been Liddy's after-life? Very uneventful: there was, in fact, +nothing in it, nor in him, except an intense love for all things, +especially animals; and nothing happened to him until the end, for he +has been dead now these nine or ten years. In his next place he was +engaged, first, as carter's boy, and then under-carter, and all his love +was lavished on the horses. They were more to him than sheep, and he +could love them without pain, since they were not being prepared for the +butcher with his abhorred knife. Liddy's love and knowledge of horses +became known outside of his own little circle, and he was offered and +joyfully accepted a place in the stables of a wealthy young gentleman +farmer, who kept a large establishment and was a hunting man. From +stable-boy he was eventually promoted to groom. Occasionally he would +reappear in his native place. His home was but a few miles away, and +when out exercising a horse he appeared to find it a pleasure to trot +down the old street, where as a farmer's boy he used to make the village +laugh at his antics. But he was very much changed from the poor boy, who +was often hatless and barefooted, to the groom in his neat, well-fitting +black suit, mounted on a showy horse. + +In this place he continued about thirty years, and was married and had +several children and was very happy, and then came a great disaster. His +employer having met with heavy losses sold all his horses and got rid of +his servants, and Liddy had to go. This great change, and above all his +grief at the loss of his beloved horses, was more than he could endure. +He became melancholy and spent his days in silent brooding, and by and +by, to everybody's surprise, Liddy fell ill, for he was in the prime of +life and had always been singularly healthy. Then to astonish people +still more, he died. What ailed him--what killed him? every one asked of +the doctor; and his answer was that he had no disease--that nothing +ailed him except a broken heart; and that was what killed poor Liddy. + +In conclusion I will relate a little incident which occurred several +months later, when I was again on a visit to my old friend the shepherd. +We were sitting together on a Sunday evening, when his old wife looked +out and said, "Lor, here be Mrs. Taylor with her children coming in to +see us." And Mrs. Taylor soon appeared, wheeling her baby in a +perambulator, with two little girls following. She was a comely, round, +rosy little woman, with black hair, black eyes, and a singularly sweet +expression, and her three pretty little children were like her. She +stayed half an hour in pleasant chat, then went her way down the road to +her home. Who, I asked, was Mrs. Taylor? + +Bawcombe said that in a way she was a native of their old village of +Winterbourne Bishop: at least her father was. She had married a man who +had taken a farm near them, and after having known her as a young girl +they had been glad to have her again as a neighbour. "She's a daughter +of that Liddy I told 'ee about some time ago," he said. + + + + +CHAPTER XX + +SOME SHEEP-DOGS + + Breaking a sheep-dog--The shepherd buys a pup--His training--He + refuses to work--He chases a swallow and is put to death--The + shepherd's remorse--Bob, the sheep-dog--How he was bitten by an + adder--Period of the dog's receptivity--Tramp, the sheep-dog--Roaming + lost about the country--A rage of hunger--Sheep-killing dogs--Dogs + running wild--Anecdotes--A Russian sheep-dog--Caleb parts with Tramp + + +To Caleb the proper training of a dog was a matter of the very first +importance. A man, he considered, must have not only a fair amount of +intelligence, but also experience, and an even temper, and a little +sympathy as well, to sum up the animal in hand--its special aptitudes, +its limitations, its disposition, and that something in addition, which +he called a "kink," and would probably have described as its +idiosyncrasy if he had known the word. There was as much individual +difference among dogs as there is in boys; but if the breed was right, +and you went the right way about it, you could hardly fail to get a good +servant. If a dog was not properly broken, if its trainer had not made +the most of it, he was not a "good shepherd": he lacked the +intelligence--"understanding" was his word--or else the knowledge or +patience or persistence to do his part. It was, however, possible for +the best shepherd to make mistakes, and one of the greatest to be made, +which was not uncommon, was to embark on the long and laborious business +of training an animal of mixed blood--a sheep-dog with a taint of +terrier, retriever, or some other unsuitable breed in him. In discussing +this subject with other shepherds I generally found that those who were +in perfect agreement with Caleb on this point were men who were somewhat +like him in character, and who regarded their work with the sheep as so +important that it must be done thoroughly in every detail and in the +best way. One of the best shepherds I know, who is sixty years old and +has been on the same downland sheep-farm all his life, assures me that +he has never had and never would have a dog which was trained by +another. But the shepherd of the ordinary kind says that he doesn't care +much about the animal's parentage, or that he doesn't trouble to inquire +into its pedigree: he breaks the animal, and finds that he does pretty +well, even when he has some strange blood in him; finally, that all dogs +have faults and you must put up with them. Caleb would say of such a man +that he was not a "good shepherd." One of his saddest memories was of a +dog which he bought and broke without having made the necessary +inquiries about its parentage. + +It happened that a shepherd of the village, who had taken a place at a +distant farm, was anxious to dispose of a litter of pups before leaving, +and he asked Caleb to have one. Caleb refused. "My dog's old, I know," +he said, "but I don't want a pup now and I won't have 'n." + +A day or two later the man came back and said he had kept one of the +best of the five for him--he had got rid of all the others. "You can't +do better," he persisted. "No," said Caleb, "what I said I say again. I +won't have 'n, I've no money to buy a dog." + +"Never mind about money," said the other. "You've got a bell I like the +sound of; give he to me and take the pup." And so the exchange was made, +a copper bell for a nice black pup with a white collar; its mother, +Bawcombe knew, was a good sheep-dog, but about the other parent he made +no inquiries. + +On receiving the pup he was told that its name was Tory, and he did not +change it. It was always difficult, he explained, to find a name for a +dog--a name, that is to say, which anyone would say was a proper name +for a dog and not a foolish name. One could think of a good many proper +names--Jack and Watch, and so on--but in each case one would remember +some dog which had been called by that name, and it seemed to belong to +that particular well-remembered dog and to no other, and so in the end +because of this difficulty he allowed the name to remain. + +The dog had not cost him much to buy, but as it was only a few weeks old +he had to keep it at his own cost for fully six months before beginning +the business of breaking it, which would take from three to six months +longer. A dog cannot be put to work before he is quite half a year old +unless he is exceptionally vigorous. Sheep are timid creatures, but not +unintelligent, and they can distinguish between the seasoned old +sheep-dog, whose furious onset and bite they fear, and the raw young +recruit as easily as the rook can distinguish between the man with a gun +and the man of straw with a broomstick under his arm. They will turn +upon and attack the young dog, and chase him away with his tail between +his legs. He will also work too furiously for his strength and then +collapse, with the result that he will make a cowardly sheep-dog, or, as +the shepherds say, "brokenhearted." + +Another thing. He must be made to work at first with an old sheep-dog, +for though he has the impulse to fly about and do something, he does not +know what to do and does not understand his master's gestures and +commands. He must have an object-lesson, he must see the motion and hear +the word and mark how the old dog flies to this or that point and what +he does. The word of command or the gesture thus becomes associated in +his mind with a particular action on his part. But he must not be given +too many object-lessons or he will lose more than he will gain--a +something which might almost be described as a sense of individual +responsibility. That is to say, responsibility to the human master who +delegates his power to him. Instead of taking his power directly from +the man he takes it from the dog, and this becomes a fixed habit so +quickly that many shepherds say that if you give more than from three to +six lessons of this kind to a young dog you will spoil him. He will need +the mastership of the other dog, and will thereafter always be at a loss +and work in an uncertain way. + +A timid or unwilling young dog is often coupled with the old dog two or +three times, but this method has its dangers too, as it may be too much +for the young dog's strength, and give him that "broken-heart" from +which he will never recover; he will never be a good sheep-dog. + +To return to Tory. In due time he was trained and proved quick to learn +and willing to work, so that before long he began to be useful and was +much wanted with the sheep, as the old dog was rapidly growing stiffer +on his legs and harder of hearing. + +One day the lambs were put into a field which was half clover and half +rape, and it was necessary to keep them on the clover. This the young +dog could not or would not understand; again and again he allowed the +lambs to go to the rape, which so angered Caleb that he threw his crook +at him. Tory turned and gave him a look, then came very quietly and +placed himself behind his master. From that moment he refused to obey, +and Bawcombe, after exhausting all his arts of persuasion, gave it up +and did as well as he could without his assistance. + +That evening after folding-time he by chance met a shepherd he was well +acquainted with and told him of the trouble he was in over Tory. + +"You tie him up for a week," said the shepherd, "and treat him well till +he forgets all about it, and he'll be the same as he was before you +offended him. He's just like old Tom--he's got his father's temper." + +"What's that you say?" exclaimed Bawcombe. "Be you saying that Tory's +old Tom's son? I'd never have taken him if I'd known that. Tom's not +pure-bred--he's got retriever's blood." + +"Well, 'tis known, and I could have told 'ee, if thee'd asked me," said +the shepherd. "But you do just as I tell 'ee, and it'll be all right +with the dog." + +Tory was accordingly tied up at home and treated well and spoken kindly +to and patted on the head, so that there would be no unpleasantness +between master and servant, and if he was an intelligent animal he would +know that the crook had been thrown not to hurt but merely to express +disapproval of his naughtiness. + +Then came a busy day for the shepherd, when the lambs were trimmed +before being taken to the Wilton sheep-fair. There was Bawcombe, his +boy, the decrepit old dog, and Tory to do the work, but when the time +came to start Tory refused to do anything. + +When sent to turn the lambs he walked off to a distance of about twenty +yards, sat down and looked at his master. Caleb hoped he would come +round presently when he saw them all at work, and so they did the best +they could without him for a time; but the old dog was stiffer and +harder of hearing than ever, and as they could not get on properly Caleb +went at intervals to Tory and tried to coax him to give them his help; +and every time he was spoken to he would get up and come to his master, +then when ordered to do something he would walk off to the spot where he +had chosen to be and calmly sit down once more and look at them. Caleb +was becoming more and more incensed, but he would not show it to the +dog; he still hoped against hope; and then a curious thing happened. A +swallow came skimming along close to the earth and passed within a yard +of Tory, when up jumped the dog and gave chase, darting across the field +with such speed that he kept very near the bird until it rose and passed +over the hedge at the farther side. The joyous chase over Tory came back +to his old place, and sitting on his haunches began watching them again +struggling with the lambs. It was more than the shepherd could stand; he +went deliberately up to the dog, and taking him by the straw collar +still on his neck drew him quietly away to the hedge-side and bound him +to a bush, then getting a stout stick he came back and gave him one blow +on the head. So great was the blow that the dog made not the slightest +sound: he fell; his body quivered a moment and his legs stretched +out--he was quite dead. Bawcombe then plucked an armful of bracken and +threw it over his body to cover it, and going back to the hurdles sent +the boy home, then spreading his cloak at the hedge-side, laid himself +down on it and covered his head. + +An hour later the fanner appeared on the scene. "What are you doing +here, shepherd?" he demanded in surprise. "Not trimming the lambs!" + +Bawcombe, raising himself on his elbow, replied that he was not trimming +the lambs--that he would trim no lambs that day. + +"Oh, but we must get on with the trimming!" cried the farmer. + +Bawcombe returned that the dog had put him out, and now the dog was +dead--he had killed him in his anger, and he would trim no more lambs +that day. He had said it and would keep to what he had said. + +Then the farmer got angry and said that the dog had a very good nose and +would have been useful to him to take rabbits. + +"Master," said the other, "I got he when he were a pup and broke 'n to +help me with the sheep and not to catch rabbits; and now I've killed 'n +and he'll catch no rabbits." + +The farmer knew his man, and swallowing his anger walked off without +another word. + +Later on in the day he was severely blamed by a shepherd friend who said +that he could easily have sold the dog to one of the drovers, who were +always anxious to pick up a dog in their village, and he would have had +the money to repay him for his trouble; to which Bawcombe returned, "If +he wouldn't work for I that broke 'n he wouldn't work for another. But +I'll never again break a dog that isn't pure-bred." + +But though he justified himself he had suffered remorse for what he had +done; not only at the time, when he covered the dead dog up with bracken +and refused to work any more that day, but the feeling had persisted all +his life, and he could not relate the incident without showing it very +plainly. He bitterly blamed himself for having taken the pup and for +spending long months in training him without having first taken pains to +inform himself that there was no bad blood in him. And although the dog +was perhaps unfit to live he had finally killed him in anger. If it had +not been for that sudden impetuous chase after a swallow he would have +borne with him and considered afterwards what was to be done; but that +dash after the bird was more than he could stand; for it looked as if +Tory had done it purposely, in something of a mocking spirit, to exhibit +his wonderful activity and speed to his master, sweating there at his +task, and make him see what he had lost in offending him. + +The shepherd gave another instance of a mistake he once made which +caused him a good deal of pain. It was the case of a dog named Bob which +he owned when a young man. He was an exceptionally small dog, but his +quick intelligence made up for lack of strength, and he was of a very +lively disposition, so that he was a good companion to a shepherd as +well as a good servant. + +One summer day at noon Caleb was going to his flock in the fields, +walking by a hedge, when he noticed Bob sniffing suspiciously at the +roots of an old holly-tree growing on the bank. It was a low but very +old tree with a thick trunk, rotten and hollow inside, the cavity being +hidden with the brushwood growing up from the roots. As he came abreast +of the tree, Bob looked up and emitted a low whine, that sound which +says so much when used by a dog to his master and which his master does +not always rightly understand. At all events he did not do so in this +case. It was August and the shooting had begun, and Caleb jumped to the +conclusion that a wounded bird had crept into the hollow tree to hide, +and so to Bob's whine, which expressed fear and asked what he was to do, +the shepherd answered, "Get him." Bob dashed in, but quickly recoiled, +whining in a piteous way, and began rubbing his face on his legs. +Bawcombe in alarm jumped down and peered into the hollow trunk and heard +a slight rustling of dead leaves, but saw nothing. His dog had been +bitten by an adder, and he at once returned to the village, bitterly +blaming himself for the mistake he had made and greatly fearing that he +would lose his dog. Arrived at the village his mother at once went off +to the down to inform Isaac of the trouble and ask him what they were to +do. Caleb had to wait some time, as none of the villagers who gathered +round could suggest a remedy, and in the meantime Bob continued rubbing +his cheek against his foreleg, twitching and whining with pain; and +before long the face and head began to swell on one side, the swelling +extending to the nape and downwards to the throat. Presently Isaac +himself, full of concern, arrived on the scene, having left his wife in +charge of the flock, and at the same time a man from a neighbouring +village came riding by and joined the group. The horseman got off and +assisted Caleb in holding the dog while Isaac made a number of incisions +with his knife in the swollen place and let out some blood, after which +they rubbed the wounds and all the swollen part with an oil used for the +purpose. The composition of this oil was a secret: it was made by a man +in one of the downland villages and sold at eighteenpence a small +bottle; Isaac was a believer in its efficacy, and always kept a bottle +hidden away somewhere in his cottage. + +Bob recovered in a few days, but the hair fell out from all the part +which had been swollen, and he was a curious-looking dog with half his +face and head naked until he got his fresh coat, when it grew again. He +was as good and active a dog as ever, and lived to a good old age, but +one result of the poison he never got over: his bark had changed from a +sharp ringing sound to a low and hoarse one. "He always barked," said +the shepherd, "like a dog with a sore throat." + +To go back to the subject of training a dog. Once you make a beginning +it must be carried through to a finish. You take him at the age of six +months, and the education must be fairly complete when he is a year old. +He is then lively, impressionable, exceedingly adaptive; his +intelligence at that period is most like man's; but it would be a +mistake to think that it will continue so--that to what he learns now in +this wonderful half-year, other things may be added by and by as +opportunity arises. At a year he has practically got to the end of his +capacity to learn. He has lost his human-like receptivity, but what he +has been taught will remain with him for the rest of his life. We can +hardly say that he remembers it; it is more like what is called +"inherited memory" or "lapsed intelligence." + +All this is very important to a shepherd, and explains the reason an old +head-shepherd had for saying to me that he had never had, and never +would have, a dog he had not trained himself. No two men follow +precisely the same method in training, and a dog transferred from his +trainer to another man is always a little at a loss; method, voice, +gestures, personality, are all different; his new master must study him +and in a way adapt himself to the dog. The dog is still more at a loss +when transferred from one kind of country to another where the sheep are +worked in a different manner, and one instance Caleb gave me of this is +worth relating. It was, I thought, one of his best dog stories. + +His dogs as a rule were bought as pups; occasionally he had had to get a +dog already trained, a painful necessity to a shepherd, seeing that the +pound or two it costs--the price of an ordinary animal--is a big sum of +money to him. And once in his life he got an old trained sheep-dog for +nothing. He was young then, and acting as under-shepherd in his native +village, when the report came one day that a great circus and menagerie +which had been exhibiting in the west was on its way to Salisbury, and +would be coming past the village about six o'clock on the following +morning. The turnpike was a little over a mile away, and thither Caleb +went with half a dozen other young men of the village at about five +o'clock to see the show pass, and sat on a gate beside a wood to wait +its coming. In due time the long procession of horses and mounted men +and women, and gorgeous vans containing lions and tigers and other +strange beasts, came by, affording them great admiration and delight. +When it had gone on and the last van had disappeared at the turning of +the road, they got down from the gate and were about to set out on their +way back when a big, shaggy sheepdog came out of the wood and running to +the road began looking up and down in a bewildered way. They had no +doubt that he belonged to the circus and had turned aside to hunt a +rabbit in the wood; then, thinking the animal would understand them, +they shouted to it and waved their arms in the direction the procession +had gone. But the dog became frightened, and turning fled back into +cover, and they saw no more of it. + +Two or three days later it was rumoured that a strange dog had been seen +in the neighbourhood of Winterbourne Bishop, in the fields; and women +and children going to or coming from outlying cottages and farms had +encountered it, sometimes appearing suddenly out of the furze-bushes and +staring wildly at them; or they would meet him in some deep lane between +hedges, and after standing still a moment eyeing them he would turn and +fly in terror from their strange faces. Shepherds began to be alarmed +for the safety of their sheep, and there was a good deal of excitement +and talk about the strange dog. Two or three days later Caleb +encountered it. He was returning from his flock at the side of a large +grass field where four or five women were occupied cutting the thistles, +and the dog, which he immediately recognized as the one he had seen at +the turnpike, was following one of the women about. She was greatly +alarmed, and called to him, "Come here, Caleb, for goodness' sake, and +drive this big dog away! He do look so desprit, I'm afeared of he." + +"Don't you be feared," he shouted back. "He won't hurt 'ee; he's +starving--don't you see his bones sticking out? He's asking to be fed." +Then going a little nearer he called to her to take hold of the dog by +the neck and keep him while he approached. He feared that the dog on +seeing him coming would rush away. After a little while she called the +dog, but when he went to her she shrank away from him and called out, +"No, I daren't touch he--he'll tear my hand off. I never see'd such a +desprit-looking beast!" + +"'Tis hunger," repeated Caleb, and then very slowly and cautiously he +approached, the dog all the time eyeing him suspiciously, ready to rush +away on the slightest alarm. And while approaching him he began to speak +gently to him, then coming to a stand stooped and patting his legs +called the dog to him. Presently he came, sinking his body lower as he +advanced and at last crawling, and when he arrived at the shepherd's +feet he turned himself over on his back--that eloquent action which a +dog uses when humbling himself before and imploring mercy from one +mightier than himself, man or dog. + +Caleb stooped, and after patting the dog gripped him firmly by the neck +and pulled him up, while with his free hand he undid his leather belt to +turn it into a dog's collar and leash; then, the end of the strap in his +hand, he said "Come," and started home with the dog at his side. Arrived +at the cottage he got a bucket and mixed as much meal as would make two +good feeds, the dog all the time watching him with his muscles twitching +and the water running from his mouth. The meal well mixed he emptied it +out on the turf, and what followed, he said, was an amazing thing to +see: the dog hurled himself down on the food and started devouring it as +if the mass of meal had been some living savage creature he had captured +and was frenziedly tearing to pieces. He turned round and round, +floundering on the earth, uttering strange noises like half-choking +growls and screams while gobbling down the meal; then when he had +devoured it all he began tearing up and swallowing the turf for the sake +of the little wet meal still adhering to it. + +Such rage of hunger Caleb had never seen, and it was painful to him to +think of what the dog had endured during those days when it had been +roaming foodless about the neighbourhood. Yet it was among sheep all the +time--scores of flocks left folded by night at a distance from the +village; one would have imagined that the old wolf and wild-dog instinct +would have come to life in such circumstances, but the instinct was to +all appearance dead. + +My belief is that the pure-bred sheep-dog is indeed the last dog to +revert to a state of nature; and that when sheep-killing by night is +traced to a sheep-dog, the animal has a bad strain in him, of retriever, +or cur, or "rabbit-dog," as the shepherds call all terriers. When I was +a boy on the pampas sheep-killing dogs were common enough, and they were +always curs, or the common dog of the country, a smooth-haired animal +about the size of a coach-dog, red, or black, or white. I recall one +instance of sheep-killing being traced to our own dogs--we had about six +or eight just then. A native neighbour, a few miles away, caught them at +it one morning; they escaped him in spite of his good horse, with lasso +and bolas also, but his sharp eyes saw them pretty well in the dim +light, and by and by he identified them, and my father had to pay him +for about thirty slain and badly injured sheep; after which a gallows +was erected and our guardians ignominiously hanged. Here we shoot dogs; +in some countries the old custom of hanging them, which is perhaps less +painful, is still followed. + +To go back to our story. From that time the stray dog was Caleb's +obedient and affectionate slave, always watching his face and every +gesture, and starting up at his slightest word in readiness to do his +bidding. When put with the flock he turned out to be a useful sheep-dog, +but unfortunately he had not been trained on the Wiltshire Downs. It was +plain to see that the work was strange to him, that he had been taught +in a different school, and could never forget the old and acquire a new +method. But as to what conditions he had been reared in or in what +district or country no one could guess. Every one said that he was a +sheep-dog, but unlike any sheep-dog they had ever seen; he was not +Wiltshire, nor Welsh, nor Sussex, nor Scotch, and they could say no +more. Whenever a shepherd saw him for the first time his attention was +immediately attracted, and he would stop to speak with Caleb. "What sort +of a dog do you call that?" he would say. "I never see'd one just like +'n before." + +At length one day when passing by a new building which some workmen had +been brought from a distance to erect in the village, one of the men +hailed Caleb and said, "Where did you get that dog, mate?" + +"Why do you ask me that?" said the shepherd. + +"Because I know where he come from: he's a Rooshian, that's what he is. +I've see'd many just like him in the Crimea when I was there. But I +never see'd one before in England." + +Caleb was quite ready to believe it, and was a little proud at having a +sheep-dog from that distant country. He said that it also put something +new into his mind. He didn't know nothing about Russia before that, +though he had been hearing so much of our great war there and of all the +people that had been killed. Now he realized that Russia was a great +country, a land where there were hills and valleys and villages, where +there were flocks and herds, and shepherds and sheepdogs just as in the +Wiltshire Downs. He only wished that Tramp--that was the name he had +given his dog--could have told him his history. + +Tramp, in spite of being strange to the downs and the downland +sheep-dog's work, would probably have been kept by Caleb to the end but +for his ineradicable passion for hunting rabbits. He did not neglect his +duty, but he would slip away too often, and eventually when a man who +wanted a good dog for rabbits one day offered Caleb fifteen shillings +for Tramp, he sold him, and as he was taken away to a distance by his +new master, he never saw him again. + + + + +CHAPTER XXI + +THE SHEPHERD AS NATURALIST + + General remarks--Great Ridge Wood--Encounter with a roe-deer--A hare + on a stump--A gamekeeper's memory--Talk with a gipsy--A strange story + of a hedgehog--A gipsy on memory--The shepherd's feeling for + animals--Anecdote of a shrew--Anecdote of an owl--Reflex effect of the + gamekeeper's calling--We remember best what we see emotionally + + +It will appear to some of my readers that the interesting facts about +wild life, or rather about animal life, wild and domestic, gathered in +my talks with the old shepherd, do not amount to much. If this is all +there is to show after a long life spent out of doors, or all that is +best worth preserving, it is a somewhat scanty harvest, they will say. +To me it appears a somewhat abundant one. We field naturalists, who set +down what we see and hear in a notebook, lest we forget it, do not +always bear in mind that it is exceedingly rare for those who are not +naturalists, whose senses and minds are occupied with other things, to +come upon a new and interesting fact in animal life, or that these +chance observations are quickly forgotten. This was strongly borne in +upon me lately while staying in the village of Hindon in the +neighbourhood of the Great Ridge Wood, which clothes the summit of the +long high down overlooking the vale of the Wylye. It is an immense wood, +mostly of scrub or dwarf oak, very dense in some parts, in others thin, +with open, barren patches, and like a wild forest, covering altogether +twelve or fourteen square miles--perhaps more. There are no houses near, +and no people in it except a few gamekeepers: I spent long days in it +without meeting a human being. It was a joy to me to find such a spot in +England, so wild and solitary, and I was filled with pleasing +anticipation of all the wild life I should see in such a place, +especially after an experience I had on my second day in it. I was +standing in an open glade when a cock-pheasant uttered a cry of alarm, +and immediately afterwards, startled by the cry perhaps, a roe-deer +rushed out of the close thicket of oak and holly in which it had been +hiding, and ran past me at a very short distance, giving me a good sight +of this shyest of the large wild animals still left to us. He looked +very beautiful to me, in that mouse-coloured coat which makes him +invisible in the deep shade in which he is accustomed to pass the +daylight hours in hiding, as he fled across the green open space in the +brilliant May sunshine. But he was only one, a chance visitor, a +wanderer from wood to wood about the land; and he had been seen once, a +month before my encounter with him, and ever since then the keepers had +been watching and waiting for him, gun in hand, to send a charge of shot +into his side. + +That was the best and the only great thing I saw in the Great Ridge +Wood, for the curse of the pheasant is on it as on all the woods and +forests in Wiltshire, and all wild life considered injurious to the +semi-domestic bird, from the sparrowhawk to the harrier and buzzard and +goshawk, and from the little mousing weasel to the badger; and all the +wild life that is only beautiful, or which delights us because of its +wildness, from the squirrel to the roe-deer, must be included in the +slaughter. + +One very long summer day spent in roaming about in this endless wood, +always on the watch, had for sole result, so far as anything out of the +common goes, the spectacle of a hare sitting on a stump. The hare +started up at a distance of over a hundred yards before me and rushed +straight away at first, then turned, and ran on my left so as to get +round to the side from which I had come. I stood still and watched him +as he moved swiftly over the ground, seeing him not as a hare but as a +dim brown object successively appearing, vanishing, and reappearing, +behind and between the brown tree-trunks, until he had traced half a +circle and was then suddenly lost to sight. Thinking that he had come to +a stand I put my binocular on the spot where he had vanished, and saw +him sitting on an old oak stump about thirty inches long. It was a round +mossy stump, about eighteen inches in diameter, standing in a bed of +brown dead leaves, with the rough brown trunks of other dwarf oak-trees +on either side of it. The animal was sitting motionless, in profile, its +ears erect, seeing me with one eye, and was like a carved figure of a +hare set on a pedestal, and had a very striking appearance. + +As I had never seen such a thing before I thought it was worth +mentioning to a keeper I called to see at his lodge on my way back in +the evening. It had been a blank day, I told him--a hare sitting on a +stump being the only thing I could remember to tell him. "Well," he +said, "you've seen something I've never seen in all the years I've been +in these woods. And yet, when you come to think of it, it's just what +one might expect a hare would do. The wood is full of old stumps, and it +seems only natural a hare should jump on to one to get a better view of +a man or animal at a distance among the trees. But I never saw it." + +What, then, had he seen worth remembering during his long hours in the +wood on that day, or the day before, or on any day during the last +thirty years since he had been policing that wood, I asked him. He +answered that he had seen many strange things, but he was not now able +to remember one to tell me! He said, further, that the only things he +remembered were those that related to his business of guarding and +rearing the birds; all other things he observed in animals, however +remarkable they might seem to him at the moment, were things that didn't +matter and were quickly forgotten. + +On the very next day I was out on the down with a gipsy, and we got +talking about wild animals. He was a middle-aged man and a very perfect +specimen of his race--not one of the blue-eyed and red or light-haired +bastard gipsies, but dark as a Red Indian, with eyes like a hawk, and +altogether a hawk-like being, lean, wiry, alert, a perfectly wild man in +a tame, civilized land. The lean, mouse-coloured lurcher that followed +at his heels was perfect too, in his way--man and dog appeared made for +one another. When this man spoke of his life, spent in roaming about the +country, of his very perfect health, and of his hatred of houses, the +very atmosphere of any indoor place producing a suffocating and +sickening effect on him, I envied him as I envy birds their wings and as +I can never envy men who live in mansions. His was the wild, the real +life, and it seemed to me that there was no other worth living. + +"You know," said he, in the course of our talk about wild animals, "we +are very fond of hedgehogs--we like them better than rabbits." + +"Well, so do I," was my remark. I am not quite sure that I do, but that +is what I told him. "But now you talk of hedgehogs," I said, "it's funny +to think that, common as the animal is, it has some queer habits I can't +find anything about from gamekeepers and others I've talked to on the +subject, or from my own observation. Yet one would imagine that we know +all there is to be known about the little beast; you'll find his history +in a hundred books--perhaps in five hundred. There's one book about our +British animals so big you'd hardly be able to lift its three volumes +from the ground with all your strength, in which its author has raked +together everything known about the hedgehog, but he doesn't give me the +information I want--just what I went to the book to find. Now here's +what a friend of mine once saw. He's not a naturalist, nor a sportsman, +nor a gamekeeper, and not a gipsy; he doesn't observe animals or want to +find out their ways; he is a writer, occupied day and night with his +writing, sitting among books, yet he saw something which the naturalists +and gamekeepers haven't seen, so far as I know. He was going home one +moonlight night by a footpath through the woods when he heard a very +strange noise a little distance ahead, a low whistling sound, very +sharp, like the continuous twittering of a little bird with a voice like +a bat, or a shrew, only softer, more musical. He went on very +cautiously, until he spied two hedgehogs standing on the path facing +each other, with their noses almost or quite touching. He remained +watching and listening to them for some moments, then tried to go a +little nearer and they ran away. + +"Now I've asked about a dozen gamekeepers if they ever saw such a thing, +and all said they hadn't; they never heard hedgehogs make that +twittering sound, like a bird or a singing mouse; they had only heard +them scream like a rabbit when in a trap. Now what do you say about it?" + +"I've never seen anything like that," said the gipsy. "I only know the +hedgehog makes a little whistling sound when he first comes out at +night; I believe it is a sort of call they have." + +"But no doubt," I said, "you've seen other queer things in hedgehogs and +in other little animals which I should like to hear." + +Yes, he had, first and last, seen a good many queer things both by day +and night, in woods and other places, he replied, and then continued: +"But you see it's like this. We see something and say, 'Now that's a +very curious thing!' and then we forget all about it. You see, we don't +lay no store by such things; we ain't scholards and don't know nothing +about what's said in books. We see something and say _That's_ +something we never saw before and never heard tell of, but maybe others +have seen it and you can find it in the books. So that's how 'tis, but +if I hadn't forgotten them I could have told you a lot of queer things." + +That was all he could say, and few can say more. Caleb was one of the +few who could, and one wonders why it was so, seeing that he was +occupied with his own tasks in the fields and on the down where wild +life is least abundant and varied, and that his opportunities were so +few compared with those of the gamekeeper. It was, I take it, because he +had sympathy for the creatures he observed, that their actions had +stamped themselves on his memory, because he had seen them emotionally. +We have seen how well he remembered the many sheep-dogs he had owned, +how vividly their various characters are portrayed in his account of +them. I have met with shepherds who had little to tell about the dogs +they had possessed; they had regarded their dogs as useful servants and +nothing more as long as they lived, and when dead they were forgotten. +But Caleb had a feeling for his dogs which made it impossible for him to +forget them or to recall them without that tenderness which accompanies +the thought of vanished human friends. In a lesser degree he had +something of this feeling for all animals, down even to the most minute +and unconsidered. I recall here one of his anecdotes of a very small +creature--a shrew, or over-runner, as he called it. + +One day when out with his flock a sudden storm of rain caused him to +seek for shelter in an old untrimmed hedge close by. He crept into the +ditch, full of old dead leaves beneath the tangle of thorns and +brambles, and setting his back against the bank he thrust his legs out, +and as he did so was startled by an outburst of shrill little screams at +his feet. Looking down he spied a shrew standing on the dead leaves +close to his boot, screaming with all its might, its long thin snout +pointed upwards and its mouth wide open; and just above it, two or three +inches perhaps, hovered a small brown butterfly. There for a few moments +it continued hovering while the shrew continued screaming; then the +butterfly flitted away and the shrew disappeared among the dead leaves. + +Caleb laughed (a rare thing with him) when he narrated this little +incident, then remarked: "The over-runner was a-crying 'cause he +couldn't catch that leetel butterfly." + +The shepherd's inference was wrong; he did not know--few do--that the +shrew has the singular habit, when surprised on the surface and in +danger, of remaining motionless and uttering shrill cries. His foot, set +down close to it, had set it screaming; the small butterfly, no doubt +disturbed at the same moment, was there by chance. I recall here another +little story he related of a bird--a long-eared owl. + +One summer there was a great drought, and the rooks, unable to get their +usual food from the hard, sun-baked pasture-lands, attacked the roots +and would have pretty well destroyed them if the farmer had not +protected his swedes by driving in stakes and running cotton-thread and +twine from stake to stake all over the field. This kept them off, just +as thread keeps the chaffinches from the seed-beds in small gardens, and +as it keeps the sparrows from the crocuses on lawn and ornamental +grounds. One day Caleb caught sight of an odd-looking, brownish-grey +object out in the middle of the turnip-field, and as he looked it rose +up two or three feet into the air, then dropped back again, and this +curious movement was repeated at intervals of two or three minutes until +he went to see what the thing was. It turned out to be a long-eared owl, +with its foot accidentally caught by a slack thread, which allowed the +bird to rise a couple of feet into the air; but every such attempt to +escape ended in its being pulled back to the ground again. It was so +excessively lean, so weightless in his hand, when he took it up after +disengaging its foot, that he thought it must have been captive for the +space of two or three days. The wonder was that it had kept alive during +those long midsummer days of intolerable heat out there in the middle of +the burning field. Yet it was in very fine feather and beautiful to look +at with its long, black ear-tufts and round, orange-yellow eyes, which +would never lose their fiery lustre until glazed in death. Caleb's first +thought on seeing it closely was that it would have been a prize to +anyone who liked to have a handsome bird stuffed in a glass case. Then +raising it over his head he allowed it to fly, whereupon it flew off a +distance of a dozen or fifteen yards and pitched among the turnips, +after which it ran a little space and rose again with labour, but soon +recovering strength it flew away over the field and finally disappeared +in the deep shade of the copse beyond. + +In relating these things the voice, the manner, the expression in his +eyes were more than the mere words, and displayed the feeling which had +caused these little incidents to endure so long in his memory. + +The gamekeeper cannot have this feeling: he may come to his task with +the liveliest interest in, even with sympathy for, the wild creatures +amidst which he will spend his life, but it is all soon lost. His +business in the woods is to kill, and the reflex effect is to extinguish +all interest in the living animal--in its life and mind. It would, +indeed, be a wonderful thing if he could remember any singular action or +appearance of an animal which he had witnessed before bringing his gun +automatically to his shoulder. + + + + +CHAPTER XXII + +THE MASTER OF THE VILLAGE + + Moral effect of the great man--An orphaned village--The masters of the + village.--Elijah Raven--Strange appearance and character--Elijah's + house--The owls--Two rooms in the house--Elijah hardens with time--The + village club and its arbitrary secretary--Caleb dips the lambs and falls + ill--His claim on the club rejected--Elijah in court + + +In my roamings about the downs it is always a relief--a positive +pleasure in fact--to find myself in a village which has no squire or +other magnificent and munificent person who dominates everybody and +everything, and, if he chooses to do so, plays providence in the +community. I may have no personal objection to him--he is sometimes +almost if not quite human; what I heartily dislike is the effect of his +position (that of a giant among pigmies) on the lowly minds about him, +and the servility, hypocrisy, and parasitism which spring up and +flourish in his wide shadow whether he likes these moral weeds or not. +As a rule he likes them, since the poor devil has this in common with +the rest of us, that he likes to stand high in the general regard. But +how is he to know it unless he witnesses its outward beautiful signs +every day and every hour on every countenance he looks upon? Better, to +my mind, the severer conditions, the poverty and unmerited sufferings +which cannot be relieved, with the greater manliness and self-dependence +when the people are left to work out their own destiny. On this account +I was pleased to make the discovery on my first visit to Caleb's native +village that there was no magnate, or other big man, and no gentleman +except the parson, who was not a rich man. It was, so to speak, one of +the orphaned villages left to fend for itself and fight its own way in a +hard world, and had nobody even to give the customary blankets and sack +of coals to its old women. Nor was there any very big farmer in the +place, certainly no gentleman farmer; they were mostly small men, some +of them hardly to be distinguished in speech and appearance from their +hired labourers. + +In these small isolated communities it is common to find men who have +succeeded in rising above the others and in establishing a sort of +mastery over them. They are not as a rule much more intelligent than the +others who are never able to better themselves; the main difference is +that they are harder and more grasping and have more self-control. These +qualities tell eventually, and set a man a little apart, a little higher +than the others, and he gets the taste of power, which reacts on him +like the first taste of blood on the big cat. Henceforward he has his +ideal, his definite goal, which is to get the upper hand--to be on top. +He may be, and generally is, an exceedingly unpleasant fellow to have +for a neighbour--mean, sordid, greedy, tyrannous, even cruel, and he may +be generally hated and despised as well, but along with these feelings +there will be a kind of shamefaced respect and admiration for his +courage in following his own line in defiance of what others think and +feel. It is after all with man as with the social animals: he must have +a master--not a policeman, or magistrate, or a vague, far-away, +impersonal something called the authorities or the government; but a +head of the pack or herd, a being like himself whom he knows and sees +and hears and feels every day. A real man, dressed in old familiar +clothes, a fellow-villager, who, wolf or dog-like, has fought his way to +the mastership. + +There was a person of this kind at Winterbourne Bishop who was often +mentioned in Caleb's reminiscences, for he had left a very strong +impression on the shepherd's mind--as strong, perhaps, though in a +disagreeable way, as that of Isaac his father, and of Mr. Ellerby of +Doveton. For not only was he a man of great force of character, but he +was of eccentric habits and of a somewhat grotesque appearance. The +curious name of this person was Elijah Raven. He was a native of the +village and lived till extreme old age in it, the last of his family, in +a small house inherited from his father, situated about the centre of +the village street. It was a quaint, old, timbered house, little bigger +than a cottage, with a thatched roof, and behind it some outbuildings, a +small orchard, and a field of a dozen or fifteen acres. Here he lived +with one other person, an old man who did the cooking and housework, but +after this man died he lived alone. Not only was he a bachelor, but he +would never allow any woman to come inside his house. Elijah's one idea +was to get the advantage of others--to make himself master in the +village. Beginning poor, he worked in a small, cautious, peddling way at +farming, taking a field or meadow or strip of down here and there in the +neighbourhood, keeping a few sheep, a few cows, buying and selling and +breeding horses. The men he employed were those he could get at low +wages--poor labourers who were without a place and wanted to fill up a +vacant time, or men like the Targetts described in a former chapter who +could be imposed upon; also gipsies who flitted about the country, +working in a spasmodic way when in the mood for the farmers who could +tolerate them, and who were paid about half the wages of an ordinary +labourer. If a poor man had to find money quickly, on account of illness +or some other cause, he could get it from Elijah at once--not borrowed, +since Elijah neither lent nor gave--but he could sell him anything he +possessed--a horse or cow, or sheepdog, or a piece of furniture; and if +he had nothing to sell, Elijah would give him something to do and pay +him something for it. The great thing was that Elijah had money which he +was always willing to circulate. At his unlamented death he left several +thousands of pounds, which went to a distant relation, and a name which +does not smell sweet, but is still remembered not only at Winterbourne +Bishop but at many other villages on Salisbury Plain. + +Elijah was short of stature, broad-shouldered, with an abnormally big +head and large dark eyes. They say that he never cut his hair in his +life. It was abundant and curly, and grew to his shoulders, and when he +was old and his great mass of hair and beard became white it was said +that he resembled a gigantic white owl. Mothers frightened their +children into quiet by saying, "Elijah will get you if you don't behave +yourself." He knew and resented this, and though he never noticed a +child, he hated to have the little ones staring in a half-terrified way +at him. To seclude himself more from the villagers he planted holly and +yew bushes before his house, and eventually the entire building was +hidden from sight by the dense evergreen thicket. The trees were cut +down after his death: they were gone when I first visited the village +and by chance found a lodging in the house, and congratulated myself +that I had got the quaintest, old rambling rooms I had ever inhabited. I +did not know that I was in Elijah Raven's house, although his name had +long been familiar to me: it only came out one day when I asked my +landlady, who was a native, to tell me the history of the place. She +remembered how as a little girl, full of mischief and greatly daring, +she had sometimes climbed over the low front wall to hide under the +thick yew bushes and watch to catch a sight of the owlish old man at his +door or window. + +For many years Elijah had two feathered tenants, a pair of white +owls--the birds he so much resembled. They occupied a small garret at +the end of his bedroom, having access to it through a hole under the +thatch. They bred there in peace, and on summer evenings one of the +common sights of the village was Elijah's owls flying from the house +behind the evergreens and returning to it with mice in their talons. At +such seasons the threat to the unruly children would be varied to "Old +Elijah's owls will get you." Naturally, the children grew up with the +idea of the birds and the owlish old man associated in their minds. + +It was odd that the two very rooms which Elijah had occupied during all +those solitary years, the others being given over to spiders and dust, +should have been assigned to me when I came to lodge in the house. The +first, my sitting-room, was so low that my hair touched the ceiling when +I stood up my full height; it had a brick floor and a wide old fireplace +on one side. Though so low-ceilinged it was very large and good to be in +when I returned from a long ramble on the downs, sometimes wet and cold, +to sit by a wood fire and warm myself. At night when I climbed to my +bedroom by means of the narrow, crooked, worm-eaten staircase, with two +difficult and dangerous corners to get round, I would lie awake staring +at the small square patch of greyness in the black interior made by the +latticed window; and listening to the wind and rain outside, would +remember that the sordid, owlish old man had slept there and stared +nightly at that same grey patch in the dark for very many years. If, I +thought, that something of a man which remains here below to haunt the +scene of its past life is more likely to exist and appear to mortal eyes +in the case of a person of strong individuality, then there is a chance +that I may be visited this night by Elijah Raven his ghost. But his +owlish countenance never appeared between me and that patch of pale dim +light; nor did I ever feel a breath of cold unearthly air on me. + +Elijah did not improve with time; the years that made him long-haired, +whiter, and more owl-like also made him more penurious and grasping, and +anxious to get the better of every person about him. There was scarcely +a poor person in the village--not a field labourer nor shepherd nor +farmer's boy, nor any old woman he had employed, who did not consider +that they had suffered at his hands. The very poorest could not escape; +if he got some one to work for fourpence a day he would find a reason to +keep back a portion of the small sum due to him. At the same time he +wanted to be well thought of, and at length an opportunity came to him +to figure as one who did not live wholly for himself but rather as a +person ready to go out of his way to help his neighbours. + +There had long existed a small benefit society or club in the village to +which most of the farm-hands in the parish belonged, the members +numbering about sixty or seventy. Subscriptions were paid quarterly, but +the rules were not strict, and any member could take a week or a +fortnight longer to pay; when a member fell ill he received half the +amount of his wages a week from the funds in hand, and once a year they +had a dinner. The secretary was a labourer, and in time he grew old and +infirm and could not hold a pen in his rheumaticky fingers, and a +meeting was held to consider what was to be done in the matter. It was +not an easy one to settle. There were few members capable of keeping the +books who would undertake the duty, as it was unpaid, and no one among +them well known and trusted by all the members. It was then that Elijah +Raven came to the rescue. He attended the meeting, which he was allowed +to do owing to his being a person of importance--the only one of that +description in the village; and getting up on his legs he made the offer +to act as secretary himself. This came as a great surprise, and the +offer was at once and unanimously accepted, all unpleasant feelings +being forgotten, and for the first time in his life Elijah heard himself +praised as a disinterested person, one it was good to have in the +village. + +Things went on very well for a time, and at the yearly dinner of the +club, a few months later, Elijah gave an account of his stewardship, +showing that the club had a surplus of two hundred pounds. Shortly after +this trouble began; Elijah, it was said, was making use of his position +as secretary for his own private interests and to pay off old scores +against those he disliked. When a man came with his quarterly +subscription Elijah would perhaps remember that this person had refused +to work for him or that he had some quarrel with him, and if the +subscription was overdue he would refuse to take it; he would tell the +man that he was no longer a member, and he also refused to give sick pay +to any applicant whose last subscription was still due, if he happened +to be in Elijah's black book. By and by he came into collision with +Caleb, one of the villagers against whom he cherished a special grudge, +and this small affair resulted in the dissolution of the club. + +At this time Caleb was head-shepherd at Bartle's Cross, a large farm +above a mile and a half from the village. One excessively hot day in +August he had to dip the lambs; it was very hard work to drive them from +the farm over a high down to the stream a mile below the village, where +there was a dipping place, and he was tired and hot, and in a sweat when +he began the work. With his arms bared to the shoulders he took and +plunged his first lamb into the tank. When engaged in dipping, he said, +he always kept his mouth closed tightly for fear of getting even a drop +of the mixture in it, but on this occasion it unfortunately happened +that the man assisting him spoke to him and he was compelled to reply, +but had no sooner opened his mouth to speak than the lamb made a violent +struggle in his arms and splashed the water over his face and into his +mouth. He got rid of it as quickly as he could, but soon began to feel +bad, and before the work was over he had to sit down two or three times +to rest. However, he struggled on to the finish, then took the flock +home and went to his cottage. He could do no more. The farmer came to +see what the matter was, and found him in a fever, with face and throat +greatly swollen. "You look bad," he said; "you must be off to the +doctor." But it was five miles to the village where the doctor lived, +and Bawcombe replied that he couldn't go. "I'm too bad--I couldn't go, +master, if you offered me money for it," he said. + +Then the farmer mounted his horse and went himself, and the doctor came. +"No doubt," he said, "you've got some of the poison into your system and +took a chill at the same time." The illness lasted six weeks, and then +the shepherd resumed work, although still feeling very shaky. By and by +when the opportunity came, he went to claim his sick pay--six shillings +a week for the six weeks, his wages being then twelve shillings. Elijah +flatly refused to pay him; his subscription, he said, had been due for +several weeks and he had consequently forfeited his right to anything. +In vain the shepherd explained that he could not pay when lying ill at +home with no money in the house and receiving no pay from the farmer. +The old man remained obdurate, and with a very heavy heart the shepherd +came out and found three or four of the villagers waiting in the road +outside to hear the result of the application. + +They, too, were men who had been turned away from the club by the +arbitrary secretary. Caleb was telling them about his interview when +Elijah came out of the house and, leaning over the front gate, began to +listen. The shepherd then turned towards him and said in a loud voice: +"Mr. Elijah Raven, don't you think this is a tarrible hard case! I've +paid my subscription every quarter for thirty years and never had +nothing from the fund except two weeks' pay when I were bad some years +ago. Now I've been bad six weeks, and my master giv' me nothing for that +time, and I've got the doctor to pay and nothing to live on. What am I +to do?" + +Elijah stared at him in silence for some time, then spoke: "I told you +in there I wouldn't pay you one penny of the money and I'll hold to what +I said--in there I said it indoors, and I say again that indoors I'll +never pay you--no, not one penny piece. But if I happen some day to meet +you out of doors then I'll pay you. Now go." + +And go he did, very meekly, his wrath going down as he trudged home; for +after all he would have his money by and by, although the hard old man +would punish him for past offences by making him wait for it. + +A week or so went by, and then one day while passing through the village +he saw Elijah coming towards him, and said to himself, Now I'll be paid! +When the two men drew near together he cried out cheerfully, "Good +morning, Mr. Raven." The other without a word and without a pause passed +by on his way, leaving the poor shepherd gazing crestfallen after him. + +After all he would not get his money! The question was discussed in the +cottages, and by and by one of the villagers who was not so poor as most +of them, and went occasionally to Salisbury, said he would ask an +attorney's advice about the matter. He would pay for the advice out of +his own pocket; he wanted to know if Elijah could lawfully do such +things. + +To the man's astonishment the attorney said that as the club was not +registered and the members had themselves made Elijah their head he +could do as he liked--no action would lie against him. But if it was +true and it could be proved that he had spoken those words about paying +the shepherd his money if he met him out of doors, then he could be made +to pay. He also said he would take the case up and bring it into court +if a sum of five pounds was guaranteed to cover expenses in case the +decision went against them. + +Poor Caleb, with twelve shillings a week to pay his debts and live on, +could guarantee nothing, but by and by when the lawyer's opinion had +been discussed at great length at the inn and in all the cottages in the +village, it was found that several of Bawcombe's friends were willing to +contribute something towards a guarantee fund, and eventually the sum of +five pounds was raised and handed over to the person who had seen the +lawyer. + +His first step was to send for Bawcombe, who had to get a day off and +journey in the carrier's cart one market-day to Salisbury. The result +was that action was taken, and in due time the case came on. Elijah +Raven was in court with two or three of his friends--small working +farmers who had some interested motive in desiring to appear as his +supporters. He, too, had engaged a lawyer to conduct his case. The +judge, said Bawcombe, who had never seen one before, was a tarrible +stern-looking old man in his wig. The plaintiff's lawyer he did open the +case and he did talk and talk a lot, but Elijah's counsel he did keep on +interrupting him, and they two argued and argued, but the judge he never +said no word, only he looked blacker and more tarrible stern. Then when +the talk did seem all over, Bawcombe, ignorant of the forms, got up and +said, "I beg your lordship's pardon, but may I speak?" He didn't rightly +remember afterwards what he called him, but 'twere your lordship or your +worship, he was sure. "Yes, certainly, you are here to speak," said the +judge, and Bawcombe then gave an account of his interview with Elijah +and of the conversation outside the house. + +Then up rose Elijah Raven, and in a loud voice exclaimed, "Lord, Lord, +what a sad thing it is to have to sit here and listen to this man's +lies!" + +"Sit down, sir," thundered the judge; "sit down and hold your tongue, or +I shall have you removed." + +Then Elijah's lawyer jumped up, and the judge told him he'd better sit +down too because he knowed who the liar was in this case. "A brutal +case!" he said, and that was the end, and Bawcombe got his six weeks' +sick pay and expenses, and about three pounds besides, being his share +of the society's funds which Elijah had been advised to distribute to +the members. + +And that was the end of the Winterbourne Bishop club, and from that time +it has continued without one. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII + +ISAAC'S CHILDREN + + Isaac Bawcombe's family--The youngest son--Caleb goes to seek David at + Wilton sheep-fair--Martha, the eldest daughter--Her beauty--She marries + Shepherd Ierat--The name of Ierat--Story of Ellen Ierat--The Ierats go + to Somerset--Martha and the lady of the manor--Martha's travels--Her + mistress dies--Return to Winterbourne Bishop--Shepherd Ierat's end + + +Caleb was one of five, the middle one, with a brother and sister older +and a brother and sister younger than himself--a symmetrical family. I +have already written incidentally of the elder brother and the youngest +sister, and in this chapter will complete the history of Isaac's +children by giving an account of the eldest sister and youngest brother. + +The brother was David, the hot-tempered young shepherd who killed his +dog Monk, and who afterwards followed his brother to Warminster. In +spite of his temper and "want of sense" Caleb was deeply attached to +him, and when as an old man his shepherding days were finished he +followed his wife to their new home, he grieved at being so far removed +from his favourite brother. For some time he managed to make the journey +to visit him once a year. Not to his home near Warminster, but to +Wilton, at the time of the great annual sheep-fair held on 12th +September. From his cottage he would go by the carrier's cart to the +nearest town, and thence by rail with one or two changes by Salisbury to +Wilton. + +After I became acquainted with Caleb he was ill and not likely to +recover, and for over two years could not get about. During all this +time he spoke often to me of his brother and wished he could see him. I +wondered why he did not write; but he would not, nor would the other. +These people of the older generation do not write to each other; years +are allowed to pass without tidings, and they wonder and wish and talk +of this and that absent member of the family, trusting it is well with +them, but to write a letter never enters into their minds. + +At last Caleb began to mend and determined to go again to Wilton +sheep-fair to look for his beloved brother; to Warminster he could not +go; it was too far. September the 12th saw him once more at the old +meeting-place, painfully making his slow way to that part of the ground +where Shepherd David Bawcombe was accustomed to put his sheep. But he +was not there. "I be here too soon," said Caleb, and sat himself +patiently down to wait, but hours passed and David did not appear, so he +got up and made his way about the fair in search of him, but couldn't +find 'n. Returning to the old spot he got into conversation with two +young shepherds and told them he was waiting for his brother who always +put his sheep in that part. "What be his name?" they asked, and when he +gave it they looked at one another and were silent. Then one of them +said, "Be you Shepherd Caleb Bawcombe?" and when he had answered them +the other said, "You'll not see your brother at Wilton to-day. We've +come from Doveton, and knew he. You'll not see your brother no more. He +be dead these two years." + +Caleb thanked them for telling him, and got up and went his way very +quietly, and got back that night to his cottage. He was very tired, said +his wife; he wouldn't eat and he wouldn't talk. Many days passed and he +still sat in his corner and brooded, until the wife was angry and said +she never knowed a man make so great a trouble over losing a brother. +'Twas not like losing a wife or a son, she said; but he answered not a +word, and it was many weeks before that dreadful sadness began to wear +off, and he could talk cheerfully once more of his old life in the +village. + +Of the sister, Martha, there is much more to say; her life was an +eventful one as lives go in this quiet downland country, and she was, +moreover, distinguished above the others of the family by her beauty and +vivacity. I only knew her when her age was over eighty, in her native +village where her life ended some time ago, but even at that age there +was something of her beauty left and a good deal of her charm. She had a +good figure still and was of a good height; and had dark, fine eyes, +clear, dark, unwrinkled skin, a finely shaped face, and her grey hair, +once black, was very abundant. Her manner, too, was very engaging. At +the age of twenty-five she married a shepherd named Thomas Ierat--a +surname I had not heard before and which made me wonder where were the +Ierats in Wiltshire that in all my rambles among the downland villages I +had never come across them, not even in the churchyards. Nobody +knew--there were no Ierats except Martha Ierat, the widow, of +Winterbourne Bishop and her son--nobody had ever heard of any other +family of the name. I began to doubt that there ever had been such a +name until quite recently when, on going over an old downland village +church, the rector took me out to show me "a strange name" on a tablet +let into the wall of the building outside. The name was Ierat and the +date the seventeenth century. He had never seen the name excepting on +that tablet. Who, then, was Martha's husband? It was a queer story which +she would never have told me, but I had it from her brother and his +wife. + +A generation before that of Martha, at a farm in the village of Bower +Chalk on the Ebble, there was a girl named Ellen Ierat employed as a +dairymaid. She was not a native of the village, and if her parentage and +place of birth were ever known they have long passed out of memory. She +was a good-looking, nice-tempered girl, and was much liked by her master +and mistress, so that after she had been about two years in their +service it came as a great shock to find that she was in the family way. +The shock was all the greater when the fresh discovery was made one day +that another unmarried woman in the house, who was also a valued +servant, was in the same condition. The two unhappy women had kept their +secret from every one except from each other until it could be kept no +longer, and they consulted together and determined to confess it to +their mistress and abide the consequences. + +Who were the men? was the first question asked There was only +one--Robert Coombe, the shepherd, who lived at the farm-house, a slow, +silent, almost inarticulate man, with a round head and flaxen hair; a +bachelor of whom people were accustomed to say that he would never marry +because no woman would have such a stolid, dull-witted fellow for a +husband. But he was a good shepherd and had been many years on the farm, +and it was altogether a terrible business. Forthwith the farmer got out +his horse and rode to the downs to have it out with the unconscionable +wretch who had brought that shame and trouble on them. He found him +sitting on the turf eating his midday bread and bacon, with a can of +cold tea at his side, and getting off his horse he went up to him and +damned him for a scoundrel and abused him until he had no words left, +then told his shepherd that he must choose between the two women and +marry at once, so as to make an honest woman of one of the two poor +fools; either he must do that or quit the farm forthwith. + +Coombe heard in silence and without a change in his countenance, +masticating his food the while and washing it down with an occasional +draught from his can, until he had finished his meal; then taking his +crook he got up, and remarking that he would "think of it" went after +his flock. + +The farmer rode back cursing him for a clod; and in the evening Coombe, +after folding his flock, came in to give his decision, and said he had +thought of it and would take Jane to wife. She was a good deal older +than Ellen and not so good-looking, but she belonged to the village and +her people were there, and everybody knowed who Jane was, an' she was an +old servant an' would be wanted on the farm. Ellen was a stranger among +them, and being only a dairymaid was of less account than the other one. + +So it was settled, and on the following morning Ellen, the rejected, was +told to take up her traps and walk. + +What was she to do in her condition, no longer to be concealed, alone +and friendless in the world? She thought of Mrs. Poole, an elderly woman +of Winterbourne Bishop, whose children were grown up and away from home, +who when staying at Bower Chalk some months before had taken a great +liking for Ellen, and when parting with her had kissed her and said: "My +dear, I lived among strangers too when I were a girl and had no one of +my own, and know what 'tis." That was all; but there was nobody else, +and she resolved to go to Mrs. Poole, and so laden with her few +belongings she set out to walk the long miles over the downs to +Winterbourne Bishop where she had never been. It was far to walk in hot +August weather when she went that sad journey, and she rested at +intervals in the hot shade of a furze-bush, haunted all day by the +miserable fear that the woman she sought, of whom she knew so little, +would probably harden her heart and close her door against her. But the +good woman took compassion on her and gave her shelter in her poor +cottage, and kept her till her child was born, in spite of all the +women's bitter tongues. And in the village where she had found refuge +she remained to the end of her life, without a home of her own, but +always in a room or two with her boy in some poor person's cottage. Her +life was hard but not unpeaceful, and the old people, all dead and gone +now, remembered Ellen as a very quiet, staid woman who worked hard for a +living, sometimes at the wash-tub, but mostly in the fields, haymaking +and harvesting and at other times weeding, or collecting flints, or with +a spud or sickle extirpating thistles in the pasture-land. She worked +alone or with other poor women, but with the men she had no friendships; +the sharpest women's eyes in the village could see no fault in her in +this respect; if it had not been so, if she had talked pleasantly with +them and smiled when addressed by them, her life would have been made a +burden to her. She would have been often asked who her brat's father +was. The dreadful experience of that day, when she had been cast out and +was alone in the world, when, burdened with her unborn child, she had +walked over the downs in the hot August weather, in anguish of +apprehension, had sunk into her soul. Her very nature was changed, and +in a man's presence her blood seemed frozen, and if spoken to she +answered in monosyllables with her eyes on the earth. This was noted, +with the result that all the village women were her good friends; they +never reminded her of her fall, and when she died still young they +grieved for her and befriended the little orphan boy she had left on +their hands. + +He was then about eleven years old, and was a stout little fellow with a +round head and flaxen hair like his father; but he was not so stolid and +not like him in character; at all events his old widow in speaking of +him to me said that never in all his life did he do one unkind or unjust +thing. He came from a long line of shepherds, and shepherding was +perhaps almost instinctive in him; from his earliest boyhood the +tremulous bleating of the sheep and half-muffled clink of the copper +bells and the sharp bark of the sheep-dog had a strange attraction for +him. He was always ready when a boy was wanted to take charge of a flock +during a temporary absence of the shepherd, and eventually, when only +about fifteen, he was engaged as under-shepherd, and for the rest of his +life shepherding was his trade. + +His marriage to Martha Bawcombe came as a surprise to the village, for +though no one had any fault to find with Tommy Ierat there was a slur on +him, and Martha, who was the finest girl in the place, might, it was +thought, have looked for some one better. But Martha had always liked +Tommy; they were of the same age and had been playmates in their +childhood; growing up together their childish affection had turned to +love, and after they had waited some years and Tommy had a cottage and +seven shillings a week, Isaac and his wife gave their consent and they +were married. Still they felt hurt at being discussed in this way by the +villagers, so that when Ierat was offered a place as shepherd at a +distance from home, where his family history was not known, he was glad +to take it and his wife to go with him, about a month after her child +was born. + +The new place was in Somerset, thirty-five to forty miles from their +native village, and Ierat as shepherd at the manor-house farm on a large +estate would have better wages than he had ever had before and a nice +cottage to live in. Martha was delighted with her new home--the cottage, +the entire village, the great park and mansion close by, all made it +seem like paradise to her. Better than everything was the pleasant +welcome she received from the villagers, who looked in to make her +acquaintance and seemed very much taken with her appearance and nice, +friendly manner. They were all eager to tell her about the squire and +his lady, who were young, and of how great an interest they took in +their people and how much they did for them and how they were loved by +everybody on the estate. + +It happens, oddly enough, that I became acquainted with this same man, +the squire, over fifty years after the events I am relating, when he was +past eighty. This acquaintance came about by means of a letter he wrote +me in reference to the habits of a bird or some such small matter, a way +in which I have become acquainted with scores--perhaps I should say +hundreds--of persons in many parts of the country. He was a very fine +man, the head of an old and distinguished county family; an ideal +squire, and one of the few large landowners I have had the happiness to +meet who was not devoted to that utterly selfish and degraded form of +sport which consists in the annual rearing and subsequent slaughter of a +host of pheasants. + +Now when Martha was entertaining half a dozen of her new neighbours who +had come in to see her, and exhibited her baby to them and then +proceeded to suckle it, they looked at one another and laughed, and one +said, "Just you wait till the lady at the mansion sees 'ee--she'll soon +want 'ee to nurse her little one." + +What did they mean? They told her that the great lady was a mother too, +and had a little sickly baby and wanted a nurse for it, but couldn't +find a woman to please her. + +Martha fired up at that. Did they imagine, she asked, that any great +lady in the world with all her gold could tempt her to leave her own +darling to nurse another woman's? She would not do such a thing--she +would rather leave the place than submit to it. But she didn't believe +it--they had only said that to tease and frighten her! + +They laughed again, looking admiringly at her as she stood before them +with sparkling eyes, flushed cheeks, and fine full bust, and only +answered, "Just you wait, my dear, till she sees 'ee." + +And very soon the lady did see her. The people at the manor were strict +in their religious observances, and it had been impressed on Martha that +she had better attend at morning service on her first Sunday, and a girl +was found by one of her neighbours to look after the baby in the +meantime. And so when Sunday came she dressed herself in her best +clothes and went to church with the others. The service over, the squire +and his wife came out first and were standing in the path exchanging +greetings with their friends; then as the others came out with Martha in +the midst of the crowd the lady turned and fixed her eyes on her, and +suddenly stepping out from the group she stopped Martha and said, "Who +are you?--I don't remember your face." + +"No, ma'am," said Martha, blushing and curtsying. "I be the new +shepherd's wife at the manor-house farm--we've only been here a few +days." + +The other then said she had heard of her and that she was nursing her +child, and she then told Martha to go to the mansion that afternoon as +she had something to say to her. + +The poor young mother went in fear and trembling, trying to stiffen +herself against the expected blandishments. + +Then followed the fateful interview. The lady was satisfied that she had +got hold of the right person at last--the one in the world who would be +able to save her precious little one "from to die," the poor pining +infant on whose frail little life so much depended! She would feed it +from her full, healthy breasts and give it something of her own +abounding, splendid life. Martha's own baby would do very well--there +was nothing the matter with it, and it would flourish on "the bottle" or +anything else, no matter what. All she had to do was to go back to her +cottage and make the necessary arrangements, then come to stay at the +mansion. + +Martha refused, and the other smiled; then Martha pleaded and cried and +said she would never never leave her own child, and as all that had no +effect she was angry, and it came into her mind that if the lady would +get angry too she would be ordered out and all would be over. But the +lady wouldn't get angry, for when Martha stormed she grew more gentle +and spoke tenderly and sweetly, but would still have it her own way, +until the poor young mother could stand it no longer, and so rushed away +in a great state of agitation to tell her husband and ask him to help +her against her enemy. But Tommy took the lady's side, and his young +wife hated him for it, and was in despair and ready to snatch up her +child and run away from them all, when all at once a carriage appeared +at the cottage, and the great lady herself, followed by a nurse with the +sickly baby in her arms, came in. She had come, she said very gently, +almost pleadingly, to ask Martha to feed her child once, and Martha was +flattered and pleased at the request, and took and fondled the infant in +her arms, then gave it suck at her beautiful breast. And when she had +fed the child, acting very tenderly towards it like a mother, her +visitor suddenly burst into tears, and taking Martha in her arms she +kissed her and pleaded with her again until she could resist no more; +and it was settled that she was to live at the mansion and come once +every day to the village to feed her own child from the breast. + +Martha's connexion with the people at the mansion did not end when she +had safely reared the sickly child. The lady had become attached to her +and wanted to have her always, although Martha could not act again as +wet nurse, for she had no more children herself. And by and by when her +mistress lost her health after the birth of a third child and was +ordered abroad, she took Martha with her, and she passed a whole year +with her on the Continent, residing in France and Italy. They came home +again, but as the lady continued to decline in health she travelled +again, still taking Martha with her, and they visited India and other +distant countries, including the Holy Land; but travel and wealth and +all that the greatest physicians in the world could do for her, and the +tender care of a husband who worshipped her, availed not, and she came +home in the end to die; and Martha went back to her Tommy and the boy, +to be separated no more while their lives lasted. + +The great house was shut up and remained so for years. The squire was +the last man in England to shirk his duties as landlord and to his +people whom he loved, and who loved him as few great landowners are +loved in England, but his grief was too great for even his great +strength to bear up against, and it was long feared by his friends that +he would never recover from his loss. But he was healed in time, and ten +years later married again and returned to his home, to live there until +nigh upon his ninetieth year. Long before this the Ierats had returned +to their native village. When I last saw Martha, then in her +eighty-second year, she gave me the following account of her Tommy's +end. + +He continued shepherding up to the age of seventy-eight. One Sunday, +early in the afternoon, when she was ill with an attack of influenza, he +came home, and putting aside his crook said, "I've done work." + +"It's early," she replied, "but maybe you got the boy to mind the sheep +for you." + +"I don't mean I've done work for the day," he returned. "I've done for +good--I'll not go with the flock no more." + +"What be saying?" she cried in sudden alarm. "Be you feeling bad--what +be the matter?" + +"No, I'm not bad," he said. "I'm perfectly well, but I've done work;" +and more than that he would not say. + +She watched him anxiously but could see nothing wrong with him; his +appetite was good, he smoked his pipe, and was cheerful. + +Three days later she noticed that he had some difficulty in pulling on a +stocking when dressing in the morning, and went to his assistance. He +laughed and said, "Here's a funny thing! You be ill and I be well, and +you've got to help me put on a stocking!" and he laughed again. + +After dinner that day he said he wanted a drink and would have a glass +of beer. There was no beer in the house, and she asked him if he would +have a cup of tea. + +"Oh, yes, that'll do very well," he said, and she made it for him. + +After drinking his cup of tea he got a footstool, and placing it at her +feet sat down on it and rested his head on her knees; he remained a long +time in this position so perfectly still that she at length bent over +and felt and examined his face, only to discover that he was dead. + +And that was the end of Tommy Ierat, the son of Ellen. He died, she +said, like a baby that has been fed and falls asleep on its mother's +breast. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIV + +LIVING IN THE PAST + + Evening talks--On the construction of sheep-folds--Making + hurdles--Devil's guts--Character in sheep-dogs--Sally the spiteful + dog--Dyke the lost dog who returned--Strange recovery of a lost + dog--Badger the playful dog--Badger shepherds the fowls--A ghost + story--A Sunday-evening talk--Parsons and ministers--Noisy + religion--The shepherd's love of his calling--Mark Dick and the + giddy sheep--Conclusion + + +During our frequent evening talks, often continued till a late hour, it +was borne in on Caleb Bawcombe that his anecdotes of wild creatures +interested me more than anything else he had to tell; but in spite of +this, or because he could not always bear it in mind, the conversation +almost invariably drifted back to the old subject of sheep, of which he +was never tired. Even in his sleep he does not forget them; his dreams, +he says, are always about sheep; he is with the flock, shifting the +hurdles, or following it out on the down. A troubled dream when he is +ill or uneasy in his sleep is invariably about some difficulty with the +flock; it gets out of his control, and the dog cannot understand him or +refuses to obey when everything depends on his instant action. The +subject was so much to him, so important above all others, that he would +not spare the listener even the minutest details of the shepherd's life +and work. His "hints on the construction of sheep-folds" would have +filled a volume; and if any farmer had purchased the book he would not +have found the title a misleading one and that he had been defrauded of +his money. But with his singular fawn-like face and clear eyes on his +listener it was impossible to fall asleep, or even to let the attention +wander; and incidentally even in his driest discourse there were little +bright touches which one would not willingly have missed. + +About hurdles he explained that it was common for the downland shepherds +to repair the broken and worn-out ones with the long woody stems of the +bithywind from the hedges; and when I asked what the plant was he +described the wild clematis or traveller's-joy; but those names he did +not know--to him the plant had always been known as _bithywind_ or +else _Devil's guts_. It struck me that bithywind might have come by +the transposition of two letters from withybind, as if one should say +flutterby for butterfly, or flagondry for dragonfly. Withybind is one of +the numerous vernacular names of the common convolvulus. Lilybind is +another. But what would old Gerarde, who invented the pretty name of +traveller's-joy for that ornament of the wayside hedges, have said to +such a name as Devil's guts? + +There was, said Caleb, an old farmer in the parish of Bishop who had a +peculiar fondness for this plant, and if a shepherd pulled any of it out +of one of his hedges after leafing-time he would be very much put out; +he would shout at him, "Just you leave my Devil's guts alone or I'll not +keep you on the farm." And the shepherds in revenge gave him the +unpleasant nickname of "Old Devil's Guts," by which he was known in that +part of the country. + +As a rule, talk about sheep, or any subject connected with sheep, would +suggest something about sheepdogs individual dogs he had known or +possessed, and who always had their own character and peculiarities, +like human beings. They were good and bad and indifferent; a really bad +dog was a rarity; but a fairly good dog might have some trick or vice or +weakness. There was Sally, for example, a stump-tail bitch, as good a +dog with sheep as he ever possessed, but you had to consider her +feelings. She would keenly resent any injustice from her master. If he +spoke too sharply to her, or rebuked her unnecessarily for going a +little out of her way just to smell at a rabbit burrow, she would nurse +her anger until an opportunity came of inflicting a bite on some erring +sheep. Punishing her would have made matters worse: the only way was to +treat her as a reasonable being and never to speak to her as a dog--a +mere slave. + +Dyke was another dog he remembered well. He belonged to old Shepherd +Matthew Titt, who was head-shepherd at a farm near Warminster, adjacent +to the one where Caleb worked. Old Mat and his wife lived alone in their +cottage out of the village, all their children having long grown up and +gone away to a distance from home, and being so lonely "by their two +selves" they loved their dog just as others love their relations. But +Dyke deserved it, for he was a very good dog. One year Mat was sent by +his master with lambs to Weyhill, the little village near Andover, where +a great sheep-fair is held in October every year. It was distant over +thirty miles, but Mat though old was a strong man still and greatly +trusted by his master. From this journey he returned with a sad heart, +for he had lost Dyke. He had disappeared one night while they were at +Weyhill. Old Mrs. Titt cried for him as she would have cried for a lost +son, and for many a long day they went about with heavy hearts. + +Just a year had gone by when one night the old woman was roused from +sleep by loud knocks on the window-pane of the living-room below. "Mat! +Mat!" she cried, shaking him vigorously, "wake up--old Dyke has come +back to us!" "What be you talking about?" growled the old shepherd. "Lie +down and go to sleep--you've been dreaming." "'Tain't no dream; 'tis +Dyke--I know his knock," she cried, and getting up she opened the window +and put her head well out, and there sure enough was Dyke, standing up +against the wall and gazing up at her, and knocking with his paw against +the window below. + +Then Mat jumped up, and going together downstairs they unbarred the door +and embraced the dog with joy, and the rest of the night was spent in +feeding and caressing him, and asking him a hundred questions, which he +could only answer by licking their hands and wagging his tail. + +It was supposed that he had been stolen at the fair, probably by one of +the wild, little, lawless men called "general dealers," who go flying +about the country in a trap drawn by a fast-trotting pony; that he had +been thrown, muffled up, into the cart and carried many a mile away, and +sold to some shepherd, and that he had lost his sense of direction. But +after serving a stranger a full year he had been taken with sheep to +Weyhill Fair once more, and once there he knew where he was, and had +remembered the road leading to his old home and master, and making his +escape had travelled the thirty long miles back to Warminster. + +The account of Dyke's return reminded me of an equally good story of the +recovery of a lost dog which I heard from a shepherd on the Avon. He had +been lost over a year, when one day the shepherd, being out on the down +with his flock, stood watching two drovers travelling with a flock on +the turnpike road below, nearly a mile away, and by and by hearing one +of their dogs bark he knew at that distance that it was his dog. "I +haven't a doubt," he said to himself, "and if I know his bark he'll know +my whistle." With that he thrust two fingers in his mouth and blew his +shrillest and longest whistle, then waited the result. Presently he +spied a dog, still at a great distance, coming swiftly towards him; it +was his own dog, mad with joy at finding his old master. + +Did ever two friends, long sundered by unhappy chance, recognize each +other's voices at such a distance and so come together once more! + +Whether the drovers had seen him desert them or not, they did not follow +to recover him, nor did the shepherd go to them to find out how they had +got possession of him; it was enough that he had got his dog back. + +No doubt in this case the dog had recognized his old home when taken by +it, but he was in another man's hands now, and the habits and discipline +of a life made it impossible for him to desert until that old, familiar, +and imperative call reached his ears and he could not disobey. + +Then (to go on with Caleb's reminiscences) there was Badger, owned by a +farmer and worked for some years by Caleb--the very best stump-tail he +ever had to help him. This dog differed from others in his vivacious +temper and ceaseless activity. When the sheep were feeding quietly and +there was little or nothing to do for hours at a time, he would not lie +down and go to sleep like any other sheep-dog, but would spend his +vacant time "amusing of hisself" on some smooth slope where he could +roll over and over; then run back and roll over again and again, playing +by himself just like a child. Or he would chase a butterfly or scamper +about over the down hunting for large white flints, which he would bring +one by one and deposit them at his master's feet, pretending they were +something of value and greatly enjoying the game. This dog, Caleb said, +would make him laugh every day with his games and capers. + +When Badger got old his sight and hearing failed; yet when he was very +nearly blind and so deaf that he could not hear a word of command, even +when it was shouted out quite close to him, he was still kept with the +flock because he was so intelligent and willing. But he was too old at +last; it was time for him to be put out of the way. The farmer, however, +who owned him, would not consent to have him shot, and so the wistful +old dog was ordered to keep at home at the farm-house. Still he refused +to be superannuated, and not allowed to go to the flock he took to +shepherding the fowls. In the morning he would drive them out to their +run and keep them there in a flock, going round and round them by the +hour, and furiously hunting back the poor hens that tried to steal off +to lay their eggs in some secret place. This could not be allowed, and +so poor old Badger, who would have been too miserable if tied up, had to +be shot after all. + +These were always his best stories--his recollections of sheep-dogs, for +of all creatures, sheep alone excepted, he knew and loved them best. Yet +for one whose life had been spent in that small isolated village and on +the bare down about it, his range was pretty wide, and it even included +one memory of a visitor from the other world. Let him tell it in his own +words. + +"Many say they don't believe there be such things as ghosties. They +niver see'd 'n. An' I don't say I believe or disbelieve what I hear +tell. I warn't there to see. I only know what I see'd myself: but I +don't say that it were a ghostie or that it wasn't one. I was coming +home late one night from the sheep; 'twere close on 'leven o'clock, a +very quiet night, with moonsheen that made it a'most like day. Near th' +end of the village I come to the stepping-stones, as we call 'n, where +there be a gate and the road, an' just by the road the four big white +stones for people going from the village to the copse an' the down on +t'other side to step over the water. In winter 'twas a stream there, but +the water it dried in summer, and now 'twere summer-time and there wur +no water. When I git there I see'd two women, both on 'em tall, with +black gowns on, an' big bonnets they used to wear; an' they were +standing face to face so close that the tops o' their bonnets wur a'most +touching together. Who be these women out so late? says I to myself. +Why, says I, they be Mrs. Durk from up in the village an' Mrs. Gaarge +Durk, the keeper's wife down by the copse. Then I thought I know'd how +'twas: Mrs. Gaarge, she'd a been to see Mrs. Durk in the village, and +Mrs. Durk she were coming out a leetel way with her, so far as the +stepping-stones, and they wur just having a last leetel talk before +saying Good night. But mind, I hear'd no talking when I passed 'n. An' +I'd hardly got past 'n before I says, Why, what a fool be I! Mrs. Durk +she be dead a twelvemonth, an' I were in the churchyard and see'd her +buried myself. Whatever be I thinking of? That made me stop and turn +round to look at 'n agin. An' there they was just as I see'd 'n at +first--Mrs. Durk, who was dead a twelvemonth, an' Mrs. Gaarge Durk from +the copse, standing there with their bonnets a'most touching together. +An' I couldn't hear nothing--no talking, they were so still as two +posties. Then something came over me like a tarrible coldness in the +blood and down my back, an' I were afraid, and turning I runned faster +than I ever runned in my life, an' never stopped--not till I got to the +cottage." + +It was not a bad ghost story: but then such stories seldom are when +coming from those who have actually seen, or believe they have seen, an +immaterial being. Their principal charm is in their infinite variety; +you never find two real or true ghost stories quite alike, and in this +they differ from the weary inventions of the fictionist. + +But invariably the principal subject was sheep. + +"I did always like sheep," said Caleb. "Some did say to me that they +couldn't abide shepherding because of the Sunday work. But I always +said, Someone must do it; they must have food in winter and water in +summer, and must be looked after, and it can't be worse for me to do +it." + +It was on a Sunday afternoon, and the distant sound of the church bells +had set him talking on this subject. He told me how once, after a long +interval, he went to the Sunday morning service in his native village, +and the vicar preached a sermon about true religion. Just going to +church, he said, did not make men religious. Out there on the downs +there were shepherds who seldom saw the inside of a church, who were +sober, righteous men and walked with God every day of their lives. Caleb +said that this seemed to touch his heart because he knowed it was true. + +When I asked him if he would not change the church for the chapel, now +he was ill and his vicar paid him no attention, while the minister came +often to see and talk to him, as I had witnessed, he shook his head and +said that he would never change. He then added: "We always say that the +chapel ministers are good men: some say they be better than the parsons; +but all I've knowed--all them that have talked to me--have said bad +things of the Church, and that's not true religion: I say that the Bible +teaches different." + +Caleb could not have had a very wide experience, and most of us know +Dissenting ministers who are wholly free from the fault he pointed out; +but in the purely rural districts, in the small villages where the small +men are found, it is certainly common to hear unpleasant things said of +the parish priest by his Nonconformist rival; and should the parson have +some well-known fault or make a slip, the other is apt to chuckle over +it with a very manifest and most unchristian delight. + +The atmosphere on that Sunday afternoon was very still, and by and by +through the open window floated a strain of music; it was from the brass +band of the Salvationists who were marching through the next village, +about two miles away. We listened, then Caleb remarked: "Somehow I never +cared to go with them Army people. Many say they've done a great good, +and I don't disbelieve it, but there was too much what I call--NOISE; +if, sir, you can understand what I mean." + +I once heard the great Dr. Parker speak the word imagination, or, as he +pronounced it, im-madge-i-na-shun, with a volume of sound which filled a +large building and made the quality he named seem the biggest thing in +the universe. That in my experience was his loftiest oratorical feat; +but I think the old shepherd rose to a greater height when, after a long +pause during which he filled his lungs with air, he brought forth the +tremendous word, dragging it out gratingly, so as to illustrate the +sense in the prolonged harsh sound. + +To show him that I understood what he meant very well, I explained the +philosophy of the matter as follows: He was a shepherd of the downs, who +had lived always in a quiet atmosphere, a noiseless world, and from +lifelong custom had become a lover of quiet. The Salvation Army was born +in a very different world, in East London--the dusty, busy, crowded +world of streets, where men wake at dawn to sounds that are like the +opening of hell's gates, and spend their long strenuous days and their +lives in that atmosphere peopled with innumerable harsh noises, until +they, too, acquire the noisy habit, and come at last to think that if +they have anything to say to their fellows, anything to sell or advise +or recommend, from the smallest thing--from a mackerel or a cabbage or a +penn'orth of milk, to a newspaper or a book or a picture or a +religion--they must howl and yell it out at every passer-by. And the +human voice not being sufficiently powerful, they provide themselves +with bells and gongs and cymbals and trumpets and drums to help them in +attracting the attention of the public. + +He listened gravely to this outburst, and said he didn't know exactly +'bout that, but agreed that it was very quiet on the downs, and that he +loved their quiet. "Fifty years," he said, "I've been on the downs and +fields, day and night, seven days a week, and I've been told that it's a +poor way to spend a life, working seven days for ten or twelve, or at +most thirteen shillings. But I never seen it like that; I liked it, and +I always did my best. You see, sir, I took a pride in it. I never left a +place but I was asked to stay. When I left it was because of something I +didn't like. I couldn't never abide cruelty to a dog or any beast. And I +couldn't abide bad language. If my master swore at the sheep or the dog +I wouldn't bide with he--no, not for a pound a week. I liked my work, +and I liked knowing things about sheep. Not things in books, for I never +had no books, but what I found out with my own sense, if you can +understand me. + +"I remember, when I were young, a very old shepherd on the farm; he had +been more 'n forty years there, and he was called Mark Dick. He told me +that when he were a young man he was once putting the sheep in the fold, +and there was one that was giddy--a young ewe. She was always a-turning +round and round and round, and when she got to the gate she wouldn't go +in but kept on a-turning and turning, until at last he got angry and, +lifting his crook, gave her a crack on the head, and down she went, and +he thought he'd killed her. But in a little while up she jumps and +trotted straight into the fold, and from that time she were well. Next +day he told his master, and his master said, with a laugh, 'Well, now +you know what to do when you gits a giddy sheep.' Some time after that +Mark Dick he had another giddy one, and remembering what his master had +said, he swung his stick and gave her a big crack on the skull, and down +went the sheep, dead. He'd killed it this time, sure enough. When he +tells of this one his master said, 'You've cured one and you've killed +one; now don't you try to cure no more,' he says. + +"Well, some time after that I had a giddy one in my flock. I'd been +thinking of what Mark Dick had told me, so I caught the ewe to see if I +could find out anything. I were always a tarrible one for examining +sheep when they were ill. I found this one had a swelling at the back of +her head; it were like a soft ball, bigger 'n a walnut. So I took my +knife and opened it, and out ran a lot of water, quite clear; and when I +let her go she ran quite straight, and got well. After that I did cure +other giddy sheep with my knife, but I found out there were some I +couldn't cure. They had no swelling, and was giddy because they'd got a +maggot on the brain or some other trouble I couldn't find out." + +Caleb could not have finished even this quiet Sunday afternoon +conversation, in the course of which we had risen to lofty matters, +without a return to his old favourite subjects of sheep and his +shepherding life on the downs. He was long miles away from his beloved +home now, lying on his back, a disabled man who would never again follow +a flock on the hills nor listen to the sounds he loved best to hear--the +multitudinous tremulous bleatings of the sheep, the tinklings of +numerous bells, and crisp ringing bark of his dog. But his heart was +there still, and the images of past scenes were more vivid in him than +they can ever be in the minds of those who live in towns and read books. +"I can see it now," was a favourite expression of his when relating some +incident in his past life. Whenever a sudden light, a kind of smile, +came into his eyes, I knew that it was at some ancient memory, a touch +of quaintness or humour in some farmer or shepherd he had known in the +vanished time--his father, perhaps, or old John, or Mark Dick, or Liddy, +or Dan'l Burdon, the solemn seeker after buried treasure. + +After our long Sunday talk we were silent for a time, and then he +uttered these impressive words: "I don't say that I want to have my life +again, because 'twould be sinful. We must take what is sent. But if +'twas offered to me and I was told to choose my work, I'd say, Give me +my Wiltsheer Downs again and let me be a shepherd there all my life long." + + + + + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of A Shepherd's Life, by W. H. 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