summaryrefslogtreecommitdiff
path: root/old/shlif10h.htm
blob: 93bd15991ab922d44f5480468ed6a0604fc66b08 (plain) 
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131
132
133
134
135
136
137
138
139
140
141
142
143
144
145
146
147
148
149
150
151
152
153
154
155
156
157
158
159
160
161
162
163
164
165
166
167
168
169
170
171
172
173
174
175
176
177
178
179
180
181
182
183
184
185
186
187
188
189
190
191
192
193
194
195
196
197
198
199
200
201
202
203
204
205
206
207
208
209
210
211
212
213
214
215
216
217
218
219
220
221
222
223
224
225
226
227
228
229
230
231
232
233
234
235
236
237
238
239
240
241
242
243
244
245
246
247
248
249
250
251
252
253
254
255
256
257
258
259
260
261
262
263
264
265
266
267
268
269
270
271
272
273
274
275
276
277
278
279
280
281
282
283
284
285
286
287
288
289
290
291
292
293
294
295
296
297
298
299
300
301
302
303
304
305
306
307
308
309
310
311
312
313
314
315
316
317
318
319
320
321
322
323
324
325
326
327
328
329
330
331
332
333
334
335
336
337
338
339
340
341
342
343
344
345
346
347
348
349
350
351
352
353
354
355
356
357
358
359
360
361
362
363
364
365
366
367
368
369
370
371
372
373
374
375
376
377
378
379
380
381
382
383
384
385
386
387
388
389
390
391
392
393
394
395
396
397
398
399
400
401
402
403
404
405
406
407
408
409
410
411
412
413
414
415
416
417
418
419
420
421
422
423
424
425
426
427
428
429
430
431
432
433
434
435
436
437
438
439
440
441
442
443
444
445
446
447
448
449
450
451
452
453
454
455
456
457
458
459
460
461
462
463
464
465
466
467
468
469
470
471
472
473
474
475
476
477
478
479
480
481
482
483
484
485
486
487
488
489
490
491
492
493
494
495
496
497
498
499
500
501
502
503
504
505
506
507
508
509
510
511
512
513
514
515
516
517
518
519
520
521
522
523
524
525
526
527
528
529
530
531
532
533
534
535
536
537
538
539
540
541
542
543
544
545
546
547
548
549
550
551
552
553
554
555
556
557
558
559
560
561
562
563
564
565
566
567
568
569
570
571
572
573
574
575
576
577
578
579
580
581
582
583
584
585
586
587
588
589
590
591
592
593
594
595
596
597
598
599
600
601
602
603
604
605
606
607
608
609
610
611
612
613
614
615
616
617
618
619
620
621
622
623
624
625
626
627
628
629
630
631
632
633
634
635
636
637
638
639
640
641
642
643
644
645
646
647
648
649
650
651
652
653
654
655
656
657
658
659
660
661
662
663
664
665
666
667
668
669
670
671
672
673
674
675
676
677
678
679
680
681
682
683
684
685
686
687
688
689
690
691
692
693
694
695
696
697
698
699
700
701
702
703
704
705
706
707
708
709
710
711
712
713
714
715
716
717
718
719
720
721
722
723
724
725
726
727
728
729
730
731
732
733
734
735
736
737
738
739
740
741
742
743
744
745
746
747
748
749
750
751
752
753
754
755
756
757
758
759
760
761
762
763
764
765
766
767
768
769
770
771
772
773
774
775
776
777
778
779
780
781
782
783
784
785
786
787
788
789
790
791
792
793
794
795
796
797
798
799
800
801
802
803
804
805
806
807
808
809
810
811
812
813
814
815
816
817
818
819
820
821
822
823
824
825
826
827
828
829
830
831
832
833
834
835
836
837
838
839
840
841
842
843
844
845
846
847
848
849
850
851
852
853
854
855
856
857
858
859
860
861
862
863
864
865
866
867
868
869
870
871
872
873
874
875
876
877
878
879
880
881
882
883
884
885
886
887
888
889
890
891
892
893
894
895
896
897
898
899
900
901
902
903
904
905
906
907
908
909
910
911
912
913
914
915
916
917
918
919
920
921
922
923
924
925
926
927
928
929
930
931
932
933
934
935
936
937
938
939
940
941
942
943
944
945
946
947
948
949
950
951
952
953
954
955
956
957
958
959
960
961
962
963
964
965
966
967
968
969
970
971
972
973
974
975
976
977
978
979
980
981
982
983
984
985
986
987
988
989
990
991
992
993
994
995
996
997
998
999
1000
1001
1002
1003
1004
1005
1006
1007
1008
1009
1010
1011
1012
1013
1014
1015
1016
1017
1018
1019
1020
1021
1022
1023
1024
1025
1026
1027
1028
1029
1030
1031
1032
1033
1034
1035
1036
1037
1038
1039
1040
1041
1042
1043
1044
1045
1046
1047
1048
1049
1050
1051
1052
1053
1054
1055
1056
1057
1058
1059
1060
1061
1062
1063
1064
1065
1066
1067
1068
1069
1070
1071
1072
1073
1074
1075
1076
1077
1078
1079
1080
1081
1082
1083
1084
1085
1086
1087
1088
1089
1090
1091
1092
1093
1094
1095
1096
1097
1098
1099
1100
1101
1102
1103
1104
1105
1106
1107
1108
1109
1110
1111
1112
1113
1114
1115
1116
1117
1118
1119
1120
1121
1122
1123
1124
1125
1126
1127
1128
1129
1130
1131
1132
1133
1134
1135
1136
1137
1138
1139
1140
1141
1142
1143
1144
1145
1146
1147
1148
1149
1150
1151
1152
1153
1154
1155
1156
1157
1158
1159
1160
1161
1162
1163
1164
1165
1166
1167
1168
1169
1170
1171
1172
1173
1174
1175
1176
1177
1178
1179
1180
1181
1182
1183
1184
1185
1186
1187
1188
1189
1190
1191
1192
1193
1194
1195
1196
1197
1198
1199
1200
1201
1202
1203
1204
1205
1206
1207
1208
1209
1210
1211
1212
1213
1214
1215
1216
1217
1218
1219
1220
1221
1222
1223
1224
1225
1226
1227
1228
1229
1230
1231
1232
1233
1234
1235
1236
1237
1238
1239
1240
1241
1242
1243
1244
1245
1246
1247
1248
1249
1250
1251
1252
1253
1254
1255
1256
1257
1258
1259
1260
1261
1262
1263
1264
1265
1266
1267
1268
1269
1270
1271
1272
1273
1274
1275
1276
1277
1278
1279
1280
1281
1282
1283
1284
1285
1286
1287
1288
1289
1290
1291
1292
1293
1294
1295
1296
1297
1298
1299
1300
1301
1302
1303
1304
1305
1306
1307
1308
1309
1310
1311
1312
1313
1314
1315
1316
1317
1318
1319
1320
1321
1322
1323
1324
1325
1326
1327
1328
1329
1330
1331
1332
1333
1334
1335
1336
1337
1338
1339
1340
1341
1342
1343
1344
1345
1346
1347
1348
1349
1350
1351
1352
1353
1354
1355
1356
1357
1358
1359
1360
1361
1362
1363
1364
1365
1366
1367
1368
1369
1370
1371
1372
1373
1374
1375
1376
1377
1378
1379
1380
1381
1382
1383
1384
1385
1386
1387
1388
1389
1390
1391
1392
1393
1394
1395
1396
1397
1398
1399
1400
1401
1402
1403
1404
1405
1406
1407
1408
1409
1410
1411
1412
1413
1414
1415
1416
1417
1418
1419
1420
1421
1422
1423
1424
1425
1426
1427
1428
1429
1430
1431
1432
1433
1434
1435
1436
1437
1438
1439
1440
1441
1442
1443
1444
1445
1446
1447
1448
1449
1450
1451
1452
1453
1454
1455
1456
1457
1458
1459
1460
1461
1462
1463
1464
1465
1466
1467
1468
1469
1470
1471
1472
1473
1474
1475
1476
1477
1478
1479
1480
1481
1482
1483
1484
1485
1486
1487
1488
1489
1490
1491
1492
1493
1494
1495
1496
1497
1498
1499
1500
1501
1502
1503
1504
1505
1506
1507
1508
1509
1510
1511
1512
1513
1514
1515
1516
1517
1518
1519
1520
1521
1522
1523
1524
1525
1526
1527
1528
1529
1530
1531
1532
1533
1534
1535
1536
1537
1538
1539
1540
1541
1542
1543
1544
1545
1546
1547
1548
1549
1550
1551
1552
1553
1554
1555
1556
1557
1558
1559
1560
1561
1562
1563
1564
1565
1566
1567
1568
1569
1570
1571
1572
1573
1574
1575
1576
1577
1578
1579
1580
1581
1582
1583
1584
1585
1586
1587
1588
1589
1590
1591
1592
1593
1594
1595
1596
1597
1598
1599
1600
1601
1602
1603
1604
1605
1606
1607
1608
1609
1610
1611
1612
1613
1614
1615
1616
1617
1618
1619
1620
1621
1622
1623
1624
1625
1626
1627
1628
1629
1630
1631
1632
1633
1634
1635
1636
1637
1638
1639
1640
1641
1642
1643
1644
1645
1646
1647
1648
1649
1650
1651
1652
1653
1654
1655
1656
1657
1658
1659
1660
1661
1662
1663
1664
1665
1666
1667
1668
1669
1670
1671
1672
1673
1674
1675
1676
1677
1678
1679
1680
1681
1682
1683
1684
1685
1686
1687
1688
1689
1690
1691
1692
1693
1694
1695
1696
1697
1698
1699
1700
1701
1702
1703
1704
1705
1706
1707
1708
1709
1710
1711
1712
1713
1714
1715
1716
1717
1718
1719
1720
1721
1722
1723
1724
1725
1726
1727
1728
1729
1730
1731
1732
1733
1734
1735
1736
1737
1738
1739
1740
1741
1742
1743
1744
1745
1746
1747
1748
1749
1750
1751
1752
1753
1754
1755
1756
1757
1758
1759
1760
1761
1762
1763
1764
1765
1766
1767
1768
1769
1770
1771
1772
1773
1774
1775
1776
1777
1778
1779
1780
1781
1782
1783
1784
1785
1786
1787
1788
1789
1790
1791
1792
1793
1794
1795
1796
1797
1798
1799
1800
1801
1802
1803
1804
1805
1806
1807
1808
1809
1810
1811
1812
1813
1814
1815
1816
1817
1818
1819
1820
1821
1822
1823
1824
1825
1826
1827
1828
1829
1830
1831
1832
1833
1834
1835
1836
1837
1838
1839
1840
1841
1842
1843
1844
1845
1846
1847
1848
1849
1850
1851
1852
1853
1854
1855
1856
1857
1858
1859
1860
1861
1862
1863
1864
1865
1866
1867
1868
1869
1870
1871
1872
1873
1874
1875
1876
1877
1878
1879
1880
1881
1882
1883
1884
1885
1886
1887
1888
1889
1890
1891
1892
1893
1894
1895
1896
1897
1898
1899
1900
1901
1902
1903
1904
1905
1906
1907
1908
1909
1910
1911
1912
1913
1914
1915
1916
1917
1918
1919
1920
1921
1922
1923
1924
1925
1926
1927
1928
1929
1930
1931
1932
1933
1934
1935
1936
1937
1938
1939
1940
1941
1942
1943
1944
1945
1946
1947
1948
1949
1950
1951
1952
1953
1954
1955
1956
1957
1958
1959
1960
1961
1962
1963
1964
1965
1966
1967
1968
1969
1970
1971
1972
1973
1974
1975
1976
1977
1978
1979
1980
1981
1982
1983
1984
1985
1986
1987
1988
1989
1990
1991
1992
1993
1994
1995
1996
1997
1998
1999
2000
2001
2002
2003
2004
2005
2006
2007
2008
2009
2010
2011
2012
2013
2014
2015
2016
2017
2018
2019
2020
2021
2022
2023
2024
2025
2026
2027
2028
2029
2030
2031
2032
2033
2034
2035
2036
2037
2038
2039
2040
2041
2042
2043
2044
2045
2046
2047
2048
2049
2050
2051
2052
2053
2054
2055
2056
2057
2058
2059
2060
2061
2062
2063
2064
2065
2066
2067
2068
2069
2070
2071
2072
2073
2074
2075
2076
2077
2078
2079
2080
2081
2082
2083
2084
2085
2086
2087
2088
2089
2090
2091
2092
2093
2094
2095
2096
2097
2098
2099
2100
2101
2102
2103
2104
2105
2106
2107
2108
2109
2110
2111
2112
2113
2114
2115
2116
2117
2118
2119
2120
2121
2122
2123
2124
2125
2126
2127
2128
2129
2130
2131
2132
2133
2134
2135
2136
2137
2138
2139
2140
2141
2142
2143
2144
2145
2146
2147
2148
2149
2150
2151
2152
2153
2154
2155
2156
2157
2158
2159
2160
2161
2162
2163
2164
2165
2166
2167
2168
2169
2170
2171
2172
2173
2174
2175
2176
2177
2178
2179
2180
2181
2182
2183
2184
2185
2186
2187
2188
2189
2190
2191
2192
2193
2194
2195
2196
2197
2198
2199
2200
2201
2202
2203
2204
2205
2206
2207
2208
2209
2210
2211
2212
2213
2214
2215
2216
2217
2218
2219
2220
2221
2222
2223
2224
2225
2226
2227
2228
2229
2230
2231
2232
2233
2234
2235
2236
2237
2238
2239
2240
2241
2242
2243
2244
2245
2246
2247
2248
2249
2250
2251
2252
2253
2254
2255
2256
2257
2258
2259
2260
2261
2262
2263
2264
2265
2266
2267
2268
2269
2270
2271
2272
2273
2274
2275
2276
2277
2278
2279
2280
2281
2282
2283
2284
2285
2286
2287
2288
2289
2290
2291
2292
2293
2294
2295
2296
2297
2298
2299
2300
2301
2302
2303
2304
2305
2306
2307
2308
2309
2310
2311
2312
2313
2314
2315
2316
2317
2318
2319
2320
2321
2322
2323
2324
2325
2326
2327
2328
2329
2330
2331
2332
2333
2334
2335
2336
2337
2338
2339
2340
2341
2342
2343
2344
2345
2346
2347
2348
2349
2350
2351
2352
2353
2354
2355
2356
2357
2358
2359
2360
2361
2362
2363
2364
2365
2366
2367
2368
2369
2370
2371
2372
2373
2374
2375
2376
2377
2378
2379
2380
2381
2382
2383
2384
2385
2386
2387
2388
2389
2390
2391
2392
2393
2394
2395
2396
2397
2398
2399
2400
2401
2402
2403
2404
2405
2406
2407
2408
2409
2410
2411
2412
2413
2414
2415
2416
2417
2418
2419
2420
2421
2422
2423
2424
2425
2426
2427
2428
2429
2430
2431
2432
2433
2434
2435
2436
2437
2438
2439
2440
2441
2442
2443
2444
2445
2446
2447
2448
2449
2450
2451
2452
2453
2454
2455
2456
2457
2458
2459
2460
2461
2462
2463
2464
2465
2466
2467
2468
2469
2470
2471
2472
2473
2474
2475
2476
2477
2478
2479
2480
2481
2482
2483
2484
2485
2486
2487
2488
2489
2490
2491
2492
2493
2494
2495
2496
2497
2498
2499
2500
2501
2502
2503
2504
2505
2506
2507
2508
2509
2510
2511
2512
2513
2514
2515
2516
2517
2518
2519
2520
2521
2522
2523
2524
2525
2526
2527
2528
2529
2530
2531
2532
2533
2534
2535
2536
2537
2538
2539
2540
2541
2542
2543
2544
2545
2546
2547
2548
2549
2550
2551
2552
2553
2554
2555
2556
2557
2558
2559
2560
2561
2562
2563
2564
2565
2566
2567
2568
2569
2570
2571
2572
2573
2574
2575
2576
2577
2578
2579
2580
2581
2582
2583
2584
2585
2586
2587
2588
2589
2590
2591
2592
2593
2594
2595
2596
2597
2598
2599
2600
2601
2602
2603
2604
2605
2606
2607
2608
2609
2610
2611
2612
2613
2614
2615
2616
2617
2618
2619
2620
2621
2622
2623
2624
2625
2626
2627
2628
2629
2630
2631
2632
2633
2634
2635
2636
2637
2638
2639
2640
2641
2642
2643
2644
2645
2646
2647
2648
2649
2650
2651
2652
2653
2654
2655
2656
2657
2658
2659
2660
2661
2662
2663
2664
2665
2666
2667
2668
2669
2670
2671
2672
2673
2674
2675
2676
2677
2678
2679
2680
2681
2682
2683
2684
2685
2686
2687
2688
2689
2690
2691
2692
2693
2694
2695
2696
2697
2698
2699
2700
2701
2702
2703
2704
2705
2706
2707
2708
2709
2710
2711
2712
2713
2714
2715
2716
2717
2718
2719
2720
2721
2722
2723
2724
2725
2726
2727
2728
2729
2730
2731
2732
2733
2734
2735
2736
2737
2738
2739
2740
2741
2742
2743
2744
2745
2746
2747
2748
2749
2750
2751
2752
2753
2754
2755
2756
2757
2758
2759
2760
2761
2762
2763
2764
2765
2766
2767
2768
2769
2770
2771
2772
2773
2774
2775
2776
2777
2778
2779
2780
2781
2782
2783
2784
2785
2786
2787
2788
2789
2790
2791
2792
2793
2794
2795
2796
2797
2798
2799
2800
2801
2802
2803
2804
2805
2806
2807
2808
2809
2810
2811
2812
2813
2814
2815
2816
2817
2818
2819
2820
2821
2822
2823
2824
2825
2826
2827
2828
2829
2830
2831
2832
2833
2834
2835
2836
2837
2838
2839
2840
2841
2842
2843
2844
2845
2846
2847
2848
2849
2850
2851
2852
2853
2854
2855
2856
2857
2858
2859
2860
2861
2862
2863
2864
2865
2866
2867
2868
2869
2870
2871
2872
2873
2874
2875
2876
2877
2878
2879
2880
2881
2882
2883
2884
2885
2886
2887
2888
2889
2890
2891
2892
2893
2894
2895
2896
2897
2898
2899
2900
2901
2902
2903
2904
2905
2906
2907
2908
2909
2910
2911
2912
2913
2914
2915
2916
2917
2918
2919
2920
2921
2922
2923
2924
2925
2926
2927
2928
2929
2930
2931
2932
2933
2934
2935
2936
2937
2938
2939
2940
2941
2942
2943
2944
2945
2946
2947
2948
2949
2950
2951
2952
2953
2954
2955
2956
2957
2958
2959
2960
2961
2962
2963
2964
2965
2966
2967
2968
2969
2970
2971
2972
2973
2974
2975
2976
2977
2978
2979
2980
2981
2982
2983
2984
2985
2986
2987
2988
2989
2990
2991
2992
2993
2994
2995
2996
2997
2998
2999
3000
3001
3002
3003
3004
3005
3006
3007
3008
3009
3010
3011
3012
3013
3014
3015
3016
3017
3018
3019
3020
3021
3022
3023
3024
3025
3026
3027
3028
3029
3030
3031
3032
3033
3034
3035
3036
3037
3038
3039
3040
3041
3042
3043
3044
3045
3046
3047
3048
3049
3050
3051
3052
3053
3054
3055
3056
3057
3058
3059
3060
3061
3062
3063
3064
3065
3066
3067
3068
3069
3070
3071
3072
3073
3074
3075
3076
3077
3078
3079
3080
3081
3082
3083
3084
3085
3086
3087
3088
3089
3090
3091
3092
3093
3094
3095
3096
3097
3098
3099
3100
3101
3102
3103
3104
3105
3106
3107
3108
3109
3110
3111
3112
3113
3114
3115
3116
3117
3118
3119
3120
3121
3122
3123
3124
3125
3126
3127
3128
3129
3130
3131
3132
3133
3134
3135
3136
3137
3138
3139
3140
3141
3142
3143
3144
3145
3146
3147
3148
3149
3150
3151
3152
3153
3154
3155
3156
3157
3158
3159
3160
3161
3162
3163
3164
3165
3166
3167
3168
3169
3170
3171
3172
3173
3174
3175
3176
3177
3178
3179
3180
3181
3182
3183
3184
3185
3186
3187
3188
3189
3190
3191
3192
3193
3194
3195
3196
3197
3198
3199
3200
3201
3202
3203
3204
3205
3206
3207
3208
3209
3210
3211
3212
3213
3214
3215
3216
3217
3218
3219
3220
3221
3222
3223
3224
3225
3226
3227
3228
3229
3230
3231
3232
3233
3234
3235
3236
3237
3238
3239
3240
3241
3242
3243
3244
3245
3246
3247
3248
3249
3250
3251
3252
3253
3254
3255
3256
3257
3258
3259
3260
3261
3262
3263
3264
3265
3266
3267
3268
3269
3270
3271
3272
3273
3274
3275
3276
3277
3278
3279
3280
3281
3282
3283
3284
3285
3286
3287
3288
3289
3290
3291
3292
3293
3294
3295
3296
3297
3298
3299
3300
3301
3302
3303
3304
3305
3306
3307
3308
3309
3310
3311
3312
3313
3314
3315
3316
3317
3318
3319
3320
3321
3322
3323
3324
3325
3326
3327
3328
3329
3330
3331
3332
3333
3334
3335
3336
3337
3338
3339
3340
3341
3342
3343
3344
3345
3346
3347
3348
3349
3350
3351
3352
3353
3354
3355
3356
3357
3358
3359
3360
3361
3362
3363
3364
3365
3366
3367
3368
3369
3370
3371
3372
3373
3374
3375
3376
3377
3378
3379
3380
3381
3382
3383
3384
3385
3386
3387
3388
3389
3390
3391
3392
3393
3394
3395
3396
3397
3398
3399
3400
3401
3402
3403
3404
3405
3406
3407
3408
3409
3410
3411
3412
3413
3414
3415
3416
3417
3418
3419
3420
3421
3422
3423
3424
3425
3426
3427
3428
3429
3430
3431
3432
3433
3434
3435
3436
3437
3438
3439
3440
3441
3442
3443
3444
3445
3446
3447
3448
3449
3450
3451
3452
3453
3454
3455
3456
3457
3458
3459
3460
3461
3462
3463
3464
3465
3466
3467
3468
3469
3470
3471
3472
3473
3474
3475
3476
3477
3478
3479
3480
3481
3482
3483
3484
3485
3486
3487
3488
3489
3490
3491
3492
3493
3494
3495
3496
3497
3498
3499
3500
3501
3502
3503
3504
3505
3506
3507
3508
3509
3510
3511
3512
3513
3514
3515
3516
3517
3518
3519
3520
3521
3522
3523
3524
3525
3526
3527
3528
3529
3530
3531
3532
3533
3534
3535
3536
3537
3538
3539
3540
3541
3542
3543
3544
3545
3546
3547
3548
3549
3550
3551
3552
3553
3554
3555
3556
3557
3558
3559
3560
3561
3562
3563
3564
3565
3566
3567
3568
3569
3570
3571
3572
3573
3574
3575
3576
3577
3578
3579
3580
3581
3582
3583
3584
3585
3586
3587
3588
3589
3590
3591
3592
3593
3594
3595
3596
3597
3598
3599
3600
3601
3602
3603
3604
3605
3606
3607
3608
3609
3610
3611
3612
3613
3614
3615
3616
3617
3618
3619
3620
3621
3622
3623
3624
3625
3626
3627
3628
3629
3630
3631
3632
3633
3634
3635
3636
3637
3638
3639
3640
3641
3642
3643
3644
3645
3646
3647
3648
3649
3650
3651
3652
3653
3654
3655
3656
3657
3658
3659
3660
3661
3662
3663
3664
3665
3666
3667
3668
3669
3670
3671
3672
3673
3674
3675
3676
3677
3678
3679
3680
3681
3682
3683
3684
3685
3686
3687
3688
3689
3690
3691
3692
3693
3694
3695
3696
3697
3698
3699
3700
3701
3702
3703
3704
3705
3706
3707
3708
3709
3710
3711
3712
3713
3714
3715
3716
3717
3718
3719
3720
3721
3722
3723
3724
3725
3726
3727
3728
3729
3730
3731
3732
3733
3734
3735
3736
3737
3738
3739
3740
3741
3742
3743
3744
3745
3746
3747
3748
3749
3750
3751
3752
3753
3754
3755
3756
3757
3758
3759
3760
3761
3762
3763
3764
3765
3766
3767
3768
3769
3770
3771
3772
3773
3774
3775
3776
3777
3778
3779
3780
3781
3782
3783
3784
3785
3786
3787
3788
3789
3790
3791
3792
3793
3794
3795
3796
3797
3798
3799
3800
3801
3802
3803
3804
3805
3806
3807
3808
3809
3810
3811
3812
3813
3814
3815
3816
3817
3818
3819
3820
3821
3822
3823
3824
3825
3826
3827
3828
3829
3830
3831
3832
3833
3834
3835
3836
3837
3838
3839
3840
3841
3842
3843
3844
3845
3846
3847
3848
3849
3850
3851
3852
3853
3854
3855
3856
3857
3858
3859
3860
3861
3862
3863
3864
3865
3866
3867
3868
3869
3870
3871
3872
3873
3874
3875
3876
3877
3878
3879
3880
3881
3882
3883
3884
3885
3886
3887
3888
3889
3890
3891
3892
3893
3894
3895
3896
3897
3898
3899
3900
3901
3902
3903
3904
3905
3906
3907
3908
3909
3910
3911
3912
3913
3914
3915
3916
3917
3918
3919
3920
3921
3922
3923
3924
3925
3926
3927
3928
3929
3930
3931
3932
3933
3934
3935
3936
3937
3938
3939
3940
3941
3942
3943
3944
3945
3946
3947
3948
3949
3950
3951
3952
3953
3954
3955
3956
3957
3958
3959
3960
3961
3962
3963
3964
3965
3966
3967
3968
3969
3970
3971
3972
3973
3974
3975
3976
3977
3978
3979
3980
3981
3982
3983
3984
3985
3986
3987
3988
3989
3990
3991
3992
3993
3994
3995
3996
3997
3998
3999
4000
4001
4002
4003
4004
4005
4006
4007
4008
4009
4010
4011
4012
4013
4014
4015
4016
4017
4018
4019
4020
4021
4022
4023
4024
4025
4026
4027
4028
4029
4030
4031
4032
4033
4034
4035
4036
4037
4038
4039
4040
4041
4042
4043
4044
4045
4046
4047
4048
4049
4050
4051
4052
4053
4054
4055
4056
4057
4058
4059
4060
4061
4062
4063
4064
4065
4066
4067
4068
4069
4070
4071
4072
4073
4074
4075
4076
4077
4078
4079
4080
4081
4082
4083
4084
4085
4086
4087
4088
4089
4090
4091
4092
4093
4094
4095
4096
4097
4098
4099
4100
4101
4102
4103
4104
4105
4106
4107
4108
4109
4110
4111
4112
4113
4114
4115
4116
4117
4118
4119
4120
4121
4122
4123
4124
4125
4126
4127
4128
4129
4130
4131
4132
4133
4134
4135
4136
4137
4138
4139
4140
4141
4142
4143
4144
4145
4146
4147
4148
4149
4150
4151
4152
4153
4154
4155
4156
4157
4158
4159
4160
4161
4162
4163
4164
4165
4166
4167
4168
4169
4170
4171
4172
4173
4174
4175
4176
4177
4178
4179
4180
4181
4182
4183
4184
4185
4186
4187
4188
4189
4190
4191
4192
4193
4194
4195
4196
4197
4198
4199
4200
4201
4202
4203
4204
4205
4206
4207
4208
4209
4210
4211
4212
4213
4214
4215
4216
4217
4218
4219
4220
4221
4222
4223
4224
4225
4226
4227
4228
4229
4230
4231
4232
4233
4234
4235
4236
4237
4238
4239
4240
4241
4242
4243
4244
4245
4246
4247
4248
4249
4250
4251
4252
4253
4254
4255
4256
4257
4258
4259
4260
4261
4262
4263
4264
4265
4266
4267
4268
4269
4270
4271
4272
4273
4274
4275
4276
4277
4278
4279
4280
4281
4282
4283
4284
4285
4286
4287
4288
4289
4290
4291
4292
4293
4294
4295
4296
4297
4298
4299
4300
4301
4302
4303
4304
4305
4306
4307
4308
4309
4310
4311
4312
4313
4314
4315
4316
4317
4318
4319
4320
4321
4322
4323
4324
4325
4326
4327
4328
4329
4330
4331
4332
4333
4334
4335
4336
4337
4338
4339
4340
4341
4342
4343
4344
4345
4346
4347
4348
4349
4350
4351
4352
4353
4354
4355
4356
4357
4358
4359
4360
4361
4362
4363
4364
4365
4366
4367
4368
4369
4370
4371
4372
4373
4374
4375
4376
4377
4378
4379
4380
4381
4382
4383
4384
4385
4386
4387
4388
4389
4390
4391
4392
4393
4394
4395
4396
4397
4398
4399
4400
4401
4402
4403
4404
4405
4406
4407
4408
4409
4410
4411
4412
4413
4414
4415
4416
4417
4418
4419
4420
4421
4422
4423
4424
4425
4426
4427
4428
4429
4430
4431
4432
4433
4434
4435
4436
4437
4438
4439
4440
4441
4442
4443
4444
4445
4446
4447
4448
4449
4450
4451
4452
4453
4454
4455
4456
4457
4458
4459
4460
4461
4462
4463
4464
4465
4466
4467
4468
4469
4470
4471
4472
4473
4474
4475
4476
4477
4478
4479
4480
4481
4482
4483
4484
4485
4486
4487
4488
4489
4490
4491
4492
4493
4494
4495
4496
4497
4498
4499
4500
4501
4502
4503
4504
4505
4506
4507
4508
4509
4510
4511
4512
4513
4514
4515
4516
4517
4518
4519
4520
4521
4522
4523
4524
4525
4526
4527
4528
4529
4530
4531
4532
4533
4534
4535
4536
4537
4538
4539
4540
4541
4542
4543
4544
4545
4546
4547
4548
4549
4550
4551
4552
4553
4554
4555
4556
4557
4558
4559
4560
4561
4562
4563
4564
4565
4566
4567
4568
4569
4570
4571
4572
4573
4574
4575
4576
4577
4578
4579
4580
4581
4582
4583
4584
4585
4586
4587
4588
4589
4590
4591
4592
4593
4594
4595
4596
4597
4598
4599
4600
4601
4602
4603
4604
4605
4606
4607
4608
4609
4610
4611
4612
4613
4614
4615
4616
4617
4618
4619
4620
4621
4622
4623
4624
4625
4626
4627
4628
4629
4630
4631
4632
4633
4634
4635
4636
4637
4638
4639
4640
4641
4642
4643
4644
4645
4646
4647
4648
4649
4650
4651
4652
4653
4654
4655
4656
4657
4658
4659
4660
4661
4662
4663
4664
4665
4666
4667
4668
4669
4670
4671
4672
4673
4674
4675
4676
4677
4678
4679
4680
4681
4682
4683
4684
4685
4686
4687
4688
4689
4690
4691
4692
4693
4694
4695
4696
4697
4698
4699
4700
4701
4702
4703
4704
4705
4706
4707
4708
4709
4710
4711
4712
4713
4714
4715
4716
4717
4718
4719
4720
4721
4722
4723
4724
4725
4726
4727
4728
4729
4730
4731
4732
4733
4734
4735
4736
4737
4738
4739
4740
4741
4742
4743
4744
4745
4746
4747
4748
4749
4750
4751
4752
4753
4754
4755
4756
4757
4758
4759
4760
4761
4762
4763
4764
4765
4766
4767
4768
4769
4770
4771
4772
4773
4774
4775
4776
4777
4778
4779
4780
4781
4782
4783
4784
4785
4786
4787
4788
4789
4790
4791
4792
4793
4794
4795
4796
4797
4798
4799
4800
4801
4802
4803
4804
4805
4806
4807
4808
4809
4810
4811
4812
4813
4814
4815
4816
4817
4818
4819
4820
4821
4822
4823
4824
4825
4826
4827
4828
4829
4830
4831
4832
4833
4834
4835
4836
4837
4838
4839
4840
4841
4842
4843
4844
4845
4846
4847
4848
4849
4850
4851
4852
4853
4854
4855
4856
4857
4858
4859
4860
4861
4862
4863
4864
4865
4866
4867
4868
4869
4870
4871
4872
4873
4874
4875
4876
4877
4878
4879
4880
4881
4882
4883
4884
4885
4886
4887
4888
4889
4890
4891
4892
4893
4894
4895
4896
4897
4898
4899
4900
4901
4902
4903
4904
4905
4906
4907
4908
4909
4910
4911
4912
4913
4914
4915
4916
4917
4918
4919
4920
4921
4922
4923
4924
4925
4926
4927
4928
4929
4930
4931
4932
4933
4934
4935
4936
4937
4938
4939
4940
4941
4942
4943
4944
4945
4946
4947
4948
4949
4950
4951
4952
4953
4954
4955
4956
4957
4958
4959
4960
4961
4962
4963
4964
4965
4966
4967
4968
4969
4970
4971
4972
4973
4974
4975
4976
4977
4978
4979
4980
4981
4982
4983
4984
4985
4986
4987
4988
4989
4990
4991
4992
4993
4994
4995
4996
4997
4998
4999
5000
5001
5002
5003
5004
5005
5006
5007
5008
5009
5010
5011
5012
5013
5014
5015
5016
5017
5018
5019
5020
5021
5022
5023
5024
5025
5026
5027
5028
5029
5030
5031
5032
5033
5034
5035
5036
5037
5038
5039
5040
5041
5042
5043
5044
5045
5046
5047
5048
5049
5050
5051
5052
5053
5054
5055
5056
5057
5058
5059
5060
5061
5062
5063
5064
5065
5066
5067
5068
5069
5070
5071
5072
5073
5074
5075
5076
5077
5078
5079
5080
5081
5082
5083
5084
5085
5086
5087
5088
5089
5090
5091
5092
5093
5094
5095
5096
5097
5098
5099
5100
5101
5102
5103
5104
5105
5106
5107
5108
5109
5110
5111
5112
5113
5114
5115
5116
5117
5118
5119
5120
5121
5122
5123
5124
5125
5126
5127
5128
5129
5130
5131
5132
5133
5134
5135
5136
5137
5138
5139
5140
5141
5142
5143
5144
5145
5146
5147
5148
5149
5150
5151
5152
5153
5154
5155
5156
5157
5158
5159
5160
5161
5162
5163
5164
5165
5166
5167
5168
5169
5170
5171
5172
5173
5174
5175
5176
5177
5178
5179
5180
5181
5182
5183
5184
5185
5186
5187
5188
5189
5190
5191
5192
5193
5194
5195
5196
5197
5198
5199
5200
5201
5202
5203
5204
5205
5206
5207
5208
5209
5210
5211
5212
5213
5214
5215
5216
5217
5218
5219
5220
5221
5222
5223
5224
5225
5226
5227
5228
5229
5230
5231
5232
5233
5234
5235
5236
5237
5238
5239
5240
5241
5242
5243
5244
5245
5246
5247
5248
5249
5250
5251
5252
5253
5254
5255
5256
5257
5258
5259
5260
5261
5262
5263
5264
5265
5266
5267
5268
5269
5270
5271
5272
5273
5274
5275
5276
5277
5278
5279
5280
5281
5282
5283
5284
5285
5286
5287
5288
5289
5290
5291
5292
5293
5294
5295
5296
5297
5298
5299
5300
5301
5302
5303
5304
5305
5306
5307
5308
5309
5310
5311
5312
5313
5314
5315
5316
5317
5318
5319
5320
5321
5322
5323
5324
5325
5326
5327
5328
5329
5330
5331
5332
5333
5334
5335
5336
5337
5338
5339
5340
5341
5342
5343
5344
5345
5346
5347
5348
5349
5350
5351
5352
5353
5354
5355
5356
5357
5358
5359
5360
5361
5362
5363
5364
5365
5366
5367
5368
5369
5370
5371
5372
5373
5374
5375
5376
5377
5378
5379
5380
5381
5382
5383
5384
5385
5386
5387
5388
5389
5390
5391
5392
5393
5394
5395
5396
5397
5398
5399
5400
5401
5402
5403
5404
5405
5406
5407
5408
5409
5410
5411
5412
5413
5414
5415
5416
5417
5418
5419
5420
5421
5422
5423
5424
5425
5426
5427
5428
5429
5430
5431
5432
5433
5434
5435
5436
5437
5438
5439
5440
5441
5442
5443
5444
5445
5446
5447
5448
5449
5450
5451
5452
5453
5454
5455
5456
5457
5458
5459
5460
5461
5462
5463
5464
5465
5466
5467
5468
5469
5470
5471
5472
5473
5474
5475
5476
5477
5478
5479
5480
5481
5482
5483
5484
5485
5486
5487
5488
5489
5490
5491
5492
5493
5494
5495
5496
5497
5498
5499
5500
5501
5502
5503
5504
5505
5506
5507
5508
5509
5510
5511
5512
5513
5514
5515
5516
5517
5518
5519
5520
5521
5522
5523
5524
5525
5526
5527
5528
5529
5530
5531
5532
5533
5534
5535
5536
5537
5538
5539
5540
5541
5542
5543
5544
5545
5546
5547
5548
5549
5550
5551
5552
5553
5554
5555
5556
5557
5558
5559
5560
5561
5562
5563
5564
5565
5566
5567
5568
5569
5570
5571
5572
5573
5574
5575
5576
5577
5578
5579
5580
5581
5582
5583
5584
5585
5586
5587
5588
5589
5590
5591
5592
5593
5594
5595
5596
5597
5598
5599
5600
5601
5602
5603
5604
5605
5606
5607
5608
5609
5610
5611
5612
5613
5614
5615
5616
5617
5618
5619
5620
5621
5622
5623
5624
5625
5626
5627
5628
5629
5630
5631
5632
5633
5634
5635
5636
5637
5638
5639
5640
5641
5642
5643
5644
5645
5646
5647
5648
5649
5650
5651
5652
5653
5654
5655
5656
5657
5658
5659
5660
5661
5662
5663
5664
5665
5666
5667
5668
5669
5670
5671
5672
5673
5674
5675
5676
5677
5678
5679
5680
5681
5682
5683
5684
5685
5686
5687
5688
5689
5690
5691
5692
5693
5694
5695
5696
5697
5698
5699
5700
5701
5702
5703
5704
5705
5706
5707
5708
5709
5710
5711
5712
5713
5714
5715
5716
5717
5718
5719
5720
5721
5722
5723
5724
5725
5726
5727
5728
5729
5730
5731
5732
5733
5734
5735
5736
5737
5738
5739
5740
5741
5742
5743
5744
5745
5746
5747
5748
5749
5750
5751
5752
5753
5754
5755
5756
5757
5758
5759
5760
5761
5762
5763
5764
5765
5766
5767
5768
5769
5770
5771
5772
5773
5774
5775
5776
5777
5778
5779
5780
5781
5782
5783
5784
5785
5786
5787
5788
5789
5790
5791
5792
5793
5794
5795
5796
5797
5798
5799
5800
5801
5802
5803
5804
5805
5806
5807
5808
5809
5810
5811
5812
5813
5814
5815
5816
5817
5818
5819
5820
5821
5822
5823
5824
5825
5826
5827
5828
5829
5830
5831
5832
5833
5834
5835
5836
5837
5838
5839
5840
5841
5842
5843
5844
5845
5846
5847
5848
5849
5850
5851
5852
5853
5854
5855
5856
5857
5858
5859
5860
5861
5862
5863
5864
5865
5866
5867
5868
5869
5870
5871
5872
5873
5874
5875
5876
5877
5878
5879
5880
5881
5882
5883
5884
5885
5886
5887
5888
5889
5890
5891
5892
5893
5894
5895
5896
5897
5898
5899
5900
5901
5902
5903
5904
5905
5906
5907
5908
5909
5910
5911
5912
5913
5914
5915
5916
5917
5918
5919
5920
5921
5922
5923
5924
5925
5926
5927
5928
5929
5930
5931
5932
5933
5934
5935
5936
5937
5938
5939
5940
5941
5942
5943
5944
5945
5946
5947
5948
5949
5950
5951
5952
5953
5954
5955
5956
5957
5958
5959
5960
5961
5962
5963
5964
5965
5966
5967
5968
5969
5970
5971
5972
5973
5974
5975
5976
5977
5978
5979
5980
5981
5982
5983
5984
5985
5986
5987
5988
5989
5990
5991
5992
5993
5994
5995
5996
5997
5998
5999
6000
6001
6002
6003
6004
6005
6006
6007
6008
6009
6010
6011
6012
6013
6014
6015
6016
6017
6018
6019
6020
6021
6022
6023
6024
6025
6026
6027
6028
6029
6030
6031
6032
6033
6034
6035
6036
6037
6038
6039
6040
6041
6042
6043
6044
6045
6046
6047
6048
6049
6050
6051
6052
6053
6054
6055
6056
6057
6058
6059
6060
6061
6062
6063
6064
6065
6066
6067
6068
6069
6070
6071
6072
6073
6074
6075
6076
6077
6078
6079
6080
6081
6082
6083
6084
6085
6086
6087
6088
6089
6090
6091
6092
6093
6094
6095
6096
6097
6098
6099
6100
6101
6102
6103
6104
6105
6106
6107
6108
6109
6110
6111
6112
6113
6114
6115
6116
6117
6118
6119
6120
6121
6122
6123
6124
6125
6126
6127
6128
6129
6130
6131
6132
6133
6134
6135
6136
6137
6138
6139
6140
6141
6142
6143
6144
6145
6146
6147
6148
6149
6150
6151
6152
6153
6154
6155
6156
6157
6158
6159
6160
6161
6162
6163
6164
6165
6166
6167
6168
6169
6170
6171
6172
6173
6174
6175
6176
6177
6178
6179
6180
6181
6182
6183
6184
6185
6186
6187
6188
6189
6190
6191
6192
6193
6194
6195
6196
6197
6198
6199
6200
6201
6202
6203
6204
6205
6206
6207
6208
6209
6210
6211
6212
6213
6214
6215
6216
6217
6218
6219
6220
6221
6222
6223
6224
6225
6226
6227
6228
6229
6230
6231
6232
6233
6234
6235
6236
6237
6238
6239
6240
6241
6242
6243
6244
6245
6246
6247
6248
6249
6250
6251
6252
6253
6254
6255
6256
6257
6258
6259
6260
6261
6262
6263
6264
6265
6266
6267
6268
6269
6270
6271
6272
6273
6274
6275
6276
6277
6278
6279
6280
6281
6282
6283
6284
6285
6286
6287
6288
6289
6290
6291
6292
6293
6294
6295
6296
6297
6298
6299
6300
6301
6302
6303
6304
6305
6306
6307
6308
6309
6310
6311
6312
6313
6314
6315
6316
6317
6318
6319
6320
6321
6322
6323
6324
6325
6326
6327
6328
6329
6330
6331
6332
6333
6334
6335
6336
6337
6338
6339
6340
6341
6342
6343
6344
6345
6346
6347
6348
6349
6350
6351
6352
6353
6354
6355
6356
6357
6358
6359
6360
6361
6362
6363
6364
6365
6366
6367
6368
6369
6370
6371
6372
6373
6374
6375
6376
6377
6378
6379
6380
6381
6382
6383
6384
6385
6386
6387
6388
6389
6390
6391
6392
6393
6394
6395
6396
6397
6398
6399
6400
6401
6402
6403
6404
6405
6406
6407
6408
6409
6410
6411
6412
6413
6414
6415
6416
6417
6418
6419
6420
6421
6422
6423
6424
6425
6426
6427
6428
6429
6430
6431
6432
6433
6434
6435
6436
6437
6438
6439
6440
6441
6442
6443
6444
6445
6446
6447
6448
6449
6450
6451
6452
6453
6454
6455
6456
6457
6458
6459
6460
6461
6462
6463
6464
6465
6466
6467
6468
6469
6470
6471
6472
6473
6474
6475
6476
6477
6478
6479
6480
6481
6482
6483
6484
6485
6486
6487
6488
6489
6490
6491
6492
6493
6494
6495
6496
6497
6498
6499
6500
6501
6502
6503
6504
6505
6506
6507
6508
6509
6510
6511
6512
6513
6514
6515
6516
6517
6518
6519
6520
6521
6522
6523
6524
6525
6526
6527
6528
6529
6530
6531
6532
6533
6534
6535
6536
6537
6538
6539
6540
6541
6542
6543
6544
6545
6546
6547
6548
6549
6550
6551
6552
6553
6554
6555
6556
6557
6558
6559
6560
6561
6562
6563
6564
6565
6566
6567
6568
6569
6570
6571
6572
6573
6574
6575
6576
6577
6578
6579
6580
6581
6582
6583
6584
6585
6586
6587
6588
6589
6590
6591
6592
6593
6594
6595
6596
6597
6598
6599
6600
6601
6602
6603
6604
6605
6606
6607
6608
6609
6610
6611
6612
6613
6614
6615
6616
6617
6618
6619
6620
6621
6622
6623
6624
6625
6626
6627
6628
6629
6630
6631
6632
6633
6634
6635
6636
6637
6638
6639
6640
6641
6642
6643
6644
6645
6646
6647
6648
6649
6650
6651
6652
6653
6654
6655
6656
6657
6658
6659
6660
6661
6662
6663
6664
6665
6666
6667
6668
6669
6670
6671
6672
6673
6674
6675
6676
6677
6678
6679
6680
6681
6682
6683
6684
6685
6686
6687
6688
6689
6690
6691
6692
6693
6694
6695
6696
6697
6698
6699
6700
6701
6702
6703
6704
6705
6706
6707
6708
6709
6710
6711
6712
6713
6714
6715
6716
6717
6718
6719
6720
6721
6722
6723
6724
6725
6726
6727
6728
6729
6730
6731
6732
6733
6734
6735
6736
6737
6738
6739
6740
6741
6742
6743
6744
6745
6746
6747
6748
6749
6750
6751
6752
6753
6754
6755
6756
6757
6758
6759
6760
6761
6762
6763
6764
6765
6766
6767
6768
6769
6770
6771
6772
6773
6774
6775
6776
6777
6778
6779
6780
6781
6782
6783
6784
6785
6786
6787
6788
6789
6790
6791
6792
6793
6794
6795
6796
6797
6798
6799
6800
6801
6802
6803
6804
6805
6806
6807
6808
6809
6810
6811
6812
6813
6814
6815
6816
6817
6818
6819
6820
6821
6822
6823
6824
6825
6826
6827
6828
6829
6830
6831
6832
6833
6834
6835
6836
6837
6838
6839
6840
6841
6842
6843
6844
6845
6846
6847
6848
6849
6850
6851
6852
6853
6854
6855
6856
6857
6858
6859
6860
6861
6862
6863
6864
6865
6866
6867
6868
6869
6870
6871
6872
6873
6874
6875
6876
6877
6878
6879
6880
6881
6882
6883
6884
6885
6886
6887
6888
6889
6890
6891
6892
6893
6894
6895
6896
6897
6898
6899
6900
6901
6902
6903
6904
6905
6906
6907
6908
6909
6910
6911
6912
6913
6914
6915
6916
6917
6918
6919
6920
6921
6922
6923
6924
6925
6926
6927
6928
6929
6930
6931
6932
6933
6934
6935
6936
6937
6938
6939
6940
6941
6942
6943
6944
6945
6946
6947
6948
6949
6950
6951
6952
6953
6954
6955
6956
6957
6958
6959
6960
6961
6962
6963
6964
6965
6966
6967
6968
6969
6970
6971
6972
6973
6974
6975
6976
6977
6978
6979
6980
6981
6982
6983
6984
6985
6986
6987
6988
6989
6990
6991
6992
6993
6994
6995
6996
6997
6998
6999
7000
7001
7002
7003
7004
7005
7006
7007
7008
7009
7010
7011
7012
7013
7014
7015
7016
7017
7018
7019
7020
7021
7022
7023
7024
7025
7026
7027
7028
7029
7030
7031
7032
7033
7034
7035
7036
7037
7038
7039
7040
7041
7042
7043
7044
7045
7046
7047
7048
7049
7050
7051
7052
7053
7054
7055
7056
7057
7058
7059
7060
7061
7062
7063
7064
7065
7066
7067
7068
7069
7070
7071
7072
7073
7074
7075
7076
7077
7078
7079
7080
7081
7082
7083
7084
7085
7086
7087
7088
7089
7090
7091
7092
7093
7094
7095
7096
7097
7098
7099
7100
7101
7102
7103
7104
7105
7106
7107
7108
7109
7110
7111
7112
7113
7114
7115
7116
7117
7118
7119
7120
7121
7122
7123
7124
7125
7126
7127
7128
7129
7130
7131
7132
7133
7134
7135
7136
7137
7138
7139
7140
7141
7142
7143
7144
7145
7146
7147
7148
7149
7150
7151
7152
7153
7154
7155
7156
7157
7158
7159
7160
7161
7162
7163
7164
7165
7166
7167
7168
7169
7170
7171
7172
7173
7174
7175
7176
7177
7178
7179
7180
7181
7182
7183
7184
7185
7186
7187
7188
7189
7190
7191
7192
7193
7194
7195
7196
7197
7198
7199
7200
7201
7202
7203
7204
7205
7206
7207
7208
7209
7210
7211
7212
7213
7214
7215
7216
7217
7218
7219
7220
7221
7222
7223
7224
7225
7226
7227
7228
7229
7230
7231
7232
7233
7234
7235
7236
7237
7238
7239
7240
7241
7242
7243
7244
7245
7246
7247
7248
7249
7250
7251
7252
7253
7254
7255
7256
7257
7258
7259
7260
7261
7262
7263
7264
7265
7266
7267
7268
7269
7270
7271
7272
7273
7274
7275
7276
7277
7278
7279
7280
7281
7282
7283
7284
7285
7286
7287
7288
7289
7290
7291
7292
7293
7294
7295
7296
7297
7298
7299
7300
7301
7302
7303
7304
7305
7306
7307
7308
7309
7310
7311
7312
7313
7314
7315
7316
7317
7318
7319
7320
7321
7322
7323
7324
7325
7326
7327
7328
7329
7330
7331
7332
7333
7334
7335
7336
7337
7338
7339
7340
7341
7342
7343
7344
7345
7346
7347
7348
7349
7350
7351
7352
7353
7354
7355
7356
7357
7358
7359
7360
7361
7362
7363
7364
7365
7366
7367
7368
7369
7370
7371
7372
7373
7374
7375
7376
7377
7378
7379
7380
7381
7382
7383
7384
7385
7386
7387
7388
7389
7390
7391
7392
7393
7394
7395
7396
7397
7398
7399
7400
7401
7402
7403
7404
7405
7406
7407
7408
7409
7410
7411
7412
7413
7414
7415
7416
7417
7418
7419
7420
7421
7422
7423
7424
7425
7426
7427
7428
7429
7430
7431
7432
7433
7434
7435
7436
7437
7438
7439
7440
7441
7442
7443
7444
7445
7446
7447
7448
7449
7450
7451
7452
7453
7454
7455
7456
7457
7458
7459
7460
7461
7462
7463
7464
7465
7466
7467
7468
7469
7470
7471
7472
7473
7474
7475
7476
7477
7478
7479
7480
7481
7482
7483
7484
7485
7486
7487
7488
7489
7490
7491
7492
7493
7494
7495
7496
7497
7498
7499
7500
7501
7502
7503
7504
7505
7506
7507
7508
7509
7510
7511
7512
7513
7514
7515
7516
7517
7518
7519
7520
7521
7522
7523
7524
7525
7526
7527
7528
7529
7530
7531
7532
7533
7534
7535
7536
7537
7538
7539
7540
7541
7542
7543
7544
7545
7546
7547
7548
7549
7550
7551
7552
7553
7554
7555
7556
7557
7558
7559
7560
7561
7562
7563
7564
7565
7566
7567
7568
7569
7570
7571
7572
7573
7574
7575
7576
7577
7578
7579
7580
7581
7582
7583
7584
7585
7586
7587
7588
7589
7590
7591
7592
7593
7594
7595
7596
7597
7598
7599
7600
7601
7602
7603
7604
7605
7606
7607
7608
7609
7610
7611
7612
7613
7614
7615
7616
7617
7618
7619
7620
7621
7622
7623
7624
7625
7626
7627
7628
7629
7630
7631
7632
7633
7634
7635
7636
7637
7638
7639
7640
7641
7642
7643
7644
7645
7646
7647
7648
7649
7650
7651
7652
7653
7654
7655
7656
7657
7658
7659
7660
7661
7662
7663
7664
7665
7666
7667
7668
7669
7670
7671
7672
7673
7674
7675
7676
7677
7678
7679
7680
7681
7682
7683
7684
7685
7686
7687
7688
7689
7690
7691
7692
7693
7694
7695
7696
7697
7698
7699
7700
7701
7702
7703
7704
7705
7706
7707
7708
7709
7710
7711
7712
7713
7714
7715
7716
7717
7718
7719
7720
7721
7722
7723
7724
7725
7726
7727
7728
7729
7730
7731
7732
7733
7734
7735
7736
7737
7738
7739
7740
7741
7742
7743
7744
7745
7746
7747
7748
7749
7750
7751
7752
7753
7754
7755
7756
7757
7758
7759
7760
7761
7762
7763
7764
7765
7766
7767
7768
7769
7770
7771
7772
7773
7774
7775
7776
7777
7778
7779
7780
7781
7782
7783
7784
7785
7786
7787
7788
7789
7790
7791
7792
7793
7794
7795
7796
7797
7798
7799
7800
7801
7802
7803
7804
7805
7806
7807
7808
7809
7810
7811
7812
7813
7814
7815
7816
7817
7818
7819
7820
7821
7822
7823
7824
7825
7826
7827
7828
7829
7830
7831
7832
7833
7834
7835
7836
7837
7838
7839
7840
7841
7842
7843
7844
7845
7846
7847
7848
7849
7850
7851
7852
7853
7854
7855
7856
7857
7858
7859
7860
7861
7862
7863
7864
7865
7866
7867
7868
7869
7870
7871
7872
7873
7874
7875
7876
7877
7878
7879
7880
7881
7882
7883
7884
7885
7886
7887
7888
7889
7890
7891
7892
7893
7894
7895
7896
7897
7898
7899
7900
7901
7902
7903
7904
7905
7906
7907
7908
7909
7910
7911
7912
7913
7914
7915
7916
7917
7918
7919
7920
7921
7922
7923
7924
7925
7926
7927
7928
7929
7930
7931
7932
7933
7934
7935
7936
7937
7938
7939
7940
7941
7942
7943
7944
7945
7946
7947
7948
7949
7950
7951
7952
7953
7954
7955
7956
7957
7958
7959
7960
7961
7962
7963
7964
7965
7966
7967
7968
7969
7970
7971
7972
7973
7974
7975
7976
7977
7978
7979
7980
7981
7982
7983
7984
7985
7986
7987
7988
7989
7990
7991
7992
7993
7994
7995
7996
7997
7998
7999
8000
8001
8002
8003
8004
8005
8006
8007
8008
8009
8010
8011
8012
8013
8014
8015
8016
8017
8018
8019
8020
8021
8022
8023
8024
8025
8026
8027
8028
8029
8030
8031
8032
8033
8034
8035
8036
8037
8038
8039
8040
8041
8042
8043
8044
8045
8046
8047
8048
8049
8050
8051
8052
8053
8054
8055
8056
8057
8058
8059
8060
8061
8062
8063
8064
8065
8066
8067
8068
8069
8070
8071
8072
8073
8074
8075
8076
8077
8078
8079
8080
8081
8082
8083
8084
8085
8086
8087
8088
8089
8090
8091
8092
8093
8094
8095
8096
8097
8098
8099
8100
8101
8102
8103
8104
8105
8106
8107
8108
8109
8110
8111
8112
8113
8114
8115
8116
8117
8118
8119
8120
8121
8122
8123
8124
8125
8126
8127
8128
8129
8130
8131
8132
8133
8134
8135
8136
8137
8138
8139
8140
8141
8142
8143
8144
8145
8146
8147
8148
8149
8150
8151
8152
8153
8154
8155
8156
8157
8158
8159
8160
8161
8162
8163
8164
8165
8166
8167
8168
8169
8170
8171
8172
8173
8174
8175
8176
8177
8178
8179
8180
8181
8182
8183
8184
8185
8186
8187
8188
8189
8190
8191
8192
8193
8194
8195
8196
8197
8198
8199
8200
8201
8202
8203
8204
8205
8206
8207
8208
8209
8210
8211
8212
8213
8214
8215
8216
8217
8218
8219
8220
8221
8222
8223
8224
8225
8226
8227
8228
8229
8230
8231
8232
8233
8234
8235
8236
8237
8238
8239
8240
8241
8242
8243
8244
8245
8246
8247
8248
8249
8250
8251
8252
8253
8254
8255
8256
8257
8258
8259
8260
8261
8262
8263
8264
8265
8266
8267
8268
8269
8270
8271
8272
8273
8274
8275
8276
8277
8278
8279
8280
8281
8282
8283
8284
8285
8286
8287
8288
8289
8290
8291
8292
8293
8294
8295
8296
8297
8298
8299
8300
8301
8302
8303
8304
8305
8306
8307
8308
8309
8310
8311
8312
8313
8314
8315
8316
8317
8318
8319
8320
8321
8322
8323
8324
8325
8326
8327
8328
8329
8330
8331
8332
8333
8334
8335
8336
8337
8338
8339
8340
8341
8342
8343
8344
8345
8346
8347
8348
8349
8350
8351
8352
8353
8354
8355
8356
8357
8358
8359
8360
8361
8362
8363
8364
8365
8366
8367
8368
8369
8370
8371
8372
8373
8374
8375
8376
8377
8378
8379
8380
8381
8382
8383
8384
8385
8386
8387
8388
8389
8390
8391
8392
8393
8394
8395
8396
8397
8398
8399
8400
8401
8402
8403
8404
8405
8406
8407
8408
8409
8410
8411
8412
8413
8414
8415
8416
8417
8418
8419
8420
8421
8422
8423
8424
8425
8426
8427
8428
8429
8430
8431
8432
8433
8434
8435
8436
8437
8438
8439
8440
8441
8442
8443
8444
8445
8446
8447
8448
8449
8450
8451
8452
8453
8454
8455
8456
8457
8458
8459
8460
8461
8462
8463
8464
8465
8466
8467
8468
8469
8470
8471
8472
8473
8474
8475
8476
8477
8478
8479
8480
8481
8482
8483
8484
8485
8486
8487
8488
8489
8490
8491
8492
8493
8494
8495
8496
8497
8498
8499
8500
8501
8502
8503
8504
8505
8506
8507
8508
8509
8510
8511
8512
8513
8514
8515
8516
8517
8518
8519
8520
8521
8522
8523
8524
8525
8526
8527
8528
8529
8530
8531
8532
8533
8534
8535
8536
8537
8538
8539
8540
8541
8542
8543
8544
8545
8546
8547
8548
8549
8550
8551
8552
8553
8554
8555
8556
8557
8558
8559
8560
8561
8562
8563
8564
8565
8566
8567
8568
8569
8570
8571
8572
8573
8574
8575
8576
8577
8578
8579
8580
8581
8582
8583
8584
8585
8586
8587
8588
8589
8590
8591
8592
8593
8594
8595
8596
8597
8598
8599
8600
8601
8602
8603
8604
8605
8606
8607
8608
8609
8610
8611
8612
8613
8614
8615
8616
8617
8618
8619
8620
8621
8622
8623
8624
8625
8626
8627
8628
8629
8630
8631
8632
8633
8634
8635
8636
8637
8638
8639
8640
8641
8642
8643
8644
8645
8646
8647
8648
8649
8650
8651
8652
8653
8654
8655
8656
8657
8658
8659
8660
8661
8662
8663
8664
8665
8666
8667
8668
8669
8670
8671
8672
8673
8674
8675
8676
8677
8678
8679
8680
8681
8682
8683
8684
8685
8686
8687
8688
8689
8690
8691
8692
8693
8694
8695
8696
8697
8698
8699
8700
8701
8702
8703
8704
8705
8706
8707
8708
8709
8710
8711
8712
8713
8714
8715
8716
8717
8718
8719
8720
8721
8722
8723
8724
8725
8726
8727
8728
8729
8730
8731
8732
8733
8734
8735
8736
8737
8738
8739
8740
8741
8742
8743
8744
8745
8746
8747
8748
8749
8750
8751
8752
8753
8754
8755
8756
8757
8758
8759
8760
8761
8762
8763
8764
8765
8766
8767
8768
8769
8770
8771
8772
8773
8774
8775
8776
8777
8778
8779
8780
8781
8782
8783
8784
8785
8786
8787
8788
8789
8790
8791
8792
8793
8794
8795
8796
8797
8798
8799
8800
8801
8802
8803
8804
8805
8806
8807
8808
8809
8810
8811
8812
8813
8814
8815
8816
8817
8818
8819
8820
8821
8822
8823
8824
8825
8826
8827
8828
8829
8830
8831
8832
8833
8834
8835
8836
8837
8838
8839
8840
8841
8842
8843
8844
8845
8846
8847
8848
8849
8850
8851
8852
8853
8854
8855
8856
8857
8858
8859
8860
8861
8862
8863
8864
8865
8866
8867
8868
8869
8870
8871
8872
8873
8874
8875
8876
8877
8878
8879
8880
8881
8882
8883
8884
8885
8886
8887
8888
8889
8890
8891
8892
8893
8894
8895
8896
8897
8898
8899
8900
8901
8902
8903
8904
8905
8906
8907
8908
8909
8910
8911
8912
8913
8914
8915
8916
8917
8918
8919
8920
8921
8922
8923
8924
8925
8926
8927
8928
8929
8930
8931
8932
8933
8934
8935
8936
8937
8938
8939
8940
8941
8942
8943
8944
8945
8946
8947
8948
8949
8950
8951
8952
8953
8954
8955
8956
8957
8958
8959
8960
8961
8962
8963
8964
8965
8966
8967
8968
8969
8970
8971
8972
8973
8974
8975
8976
8977
8978
8979
8980
8981
8982
8983
8984
8985
8986
8987
8988
8989
8990
8991
8992
8993
8994
8995
8996
8997
8998
8999
9000
9001
9002
9003
9004
9005
9006
9007
9008
9009
9010
9011
9012
9013
9014
9015
9016
9017
9018
9019
9020
9021
9022
9023
9024
9025
9026
9027
9028
9029
9030
9031
9032
9033
9034
9035
9036
9037
9038
9039
9040
9041
9042
9043
9044
9045
9046
9047
9048
9049
9050
9051
9052
9053
9054
9055
9056
9057
9058
9059
9060
9061
9062
9063
9064
9065
9066
9067
9068
9069
9070
9071
9072
9073
9074
9075
9076
9077
9078
9079
9080
9081
9082
9083
9084
9085
9086
9087
9088
9089
9090
9091
9092
9093
9094
9095
9096
9097
9098
9099
9100
9101
9102
9103
9104
9105
9106
9107
9108
9109
9110
9111
9112
9113
9114
9115
9116
9117
9118
9119
9120
9121
9122
9123
9124
9125
9126
9127
9128
9129
9130
9131
9132
9133
9134
9135
9136
9137
9138
9139
9140
9141
9142
9143
9144
9145
9146
9147
9148
9149
9150
9151
9152
9153
9154
9155
9156
9157
9158
9159
9160
9161
9162
9163
9164
9165
9166
9167
9168
9169
9170
9171
9172
9173
9174
9175
9176
9177
9178
9179
9180
9181
9182
9183
9184
9185
9186
9187
9188
9189
9190
9191
9192
9193
9194
9195
9196
9197
9198
9199
9200
9201
9202
9203
9204
9205
9206
9207
9208
9209
9210
9211
9212
9213
9214
9215
9216
9217
9218
9219
9220
9221
9222
9223
9224
9225
9226
9227
9228
9229
9230
9231
9232
9233
9234
9235
9236
9237
9238
9239
9240
9241
9242
9243
9244
9245
9246
9247
9248
9249
9250
9251
9252
9253
9254
9255
9256
9257
9258
9259
9260
9261
9262
9263
9264
9265
9266
9267
9268
9269
9270
9271
9272
9273
9274
9275
9276
9277
9278
9279
9280
9281
9282
9283
9284
9285
9286
9287
9288
9289
9290
9291
9292
9293
9294
9295
9296
9297
9298
9299
9300
9301
9302
9303
9304
9305
9306
9307
9308
9309
9310
9311
9312
9313
9314
9315
9316
9317
9318
9319
9320
9321
9322
9323
9324
9325
9326
9327
9328
9329
9330
9331
9332
9333
9334
9335
9336
9337
9338
9339
9340
9341
9342
9343
9344
9345
9346
9347
9348
9349
9350
9351
9352
9353
9354
9355
9356
9357
9358
9359
9360
9361
9362
9363
9364
9365
9366
9367
9368
9369
9370
9371
9372
9373
9374
9375
9376
9377
9378
9379
9380
9381
9382
9383
9384
9385
9386
9387
9388
9389
9390
9391
9392
9393
9394
9395
9396
9397
9398
9399
9400
9401
9402
9403
9404
9405
9406
9407
9408
9409
9410
9411
9412
9413
9414
9415
9416
9417
9418
9419
9420
9421
9422
9423
9424
9425
9426
9427
9428
9429
9430
9431
9432
9433
9434
9435
9436
9437
9438
9439
9440
9441
9442
9443
9444
9445
9446
9447
9448
9449
9450
9451
9452
9453
9454
9455
9456
9457
9458
9459
9460
9461
9462
9463
9464
9465
9466
9467
9468
9469
9470
9471
9472
9473
9474
9475
9476
9477
9478
9479
9480
9481
9482
9483
9484
9485
9486
9487
9488
9489
9490
9491
9492
9493
9494
9495
9496
9497
9498
9499
9500
9501
9502
9503
9504
9505
9506
9507
9508
9509
9510
9511
9512
9513
9514
9515
9516
9517
9518
9519
9520
9521
9522
9523
9524
9525
9526
9527
9528
9529
9530
9531
9532
9533
9534
9535
9536
9537
9538
9539
9540
9541
9542
9543
9544
9545
9546
9547
9548
9549
9550
9551
9552
9553
9554
9555
9556
9557
9558
9559
9560
9561
9562
9563
9564
9565
9566
9567
9568
9569
9570
9571
9572
9573
9574
9575
9576
9577
9578
9579
9580
9581
9582
9583
9584
9585
9586
9587
9588
9589
9590
9591
9592
9593
9594
9595
9596
9597
9598
9599
9600
9601
9602
9603
9604
9605
9606
9607
9608
9609
9610
9611
9612
9613
9614
9615
9616
9617
9618
9619
9620
9621
9622
9623
9624
9625
9626
9627
9628
9629
9630
9631
9632
9633
9634
9635
9636
9637
9638
9639
9640
9641
9642
9643
9644
9645
9646
9647
9648
9649
9650
9651
9652
9653
9654
9655
9656
9657
9658
9659
9660
9661
9662
9663
9664
9665
9666
9667
9668
9669
9670
9671
9672
9673
9674
9675
9676
9677
9678
9679
9680
9681
9682
9683
9684
9685
9686
9687
9688
9689
9690
9691
9692
9693
9694
9695
9696
9697
9698
9699
9700
9701
9702
9703
9704
9705
9706
9707
9708
9709
9710
9711
9712
9713
9714
9715
9716
9717
9718
9719
9720
9721
9722
9723
9724
9725
9726
9727
9728
9729
9730
9731
9732
9733
9734
9735
9736
9737
9738
9739
9740
9741
9742
9743
9744
9745
9746
9747
9748
9749
9750
9751
9752
9753
9754
9755
9756
9757
9758
9759
9760
9761
9762
9763
9764
9765
9766
9767
9768
9769
9770
9771
9772
9773
9774
9775
9776
9777
9778
9779
9780
9781
9782
9783
9784
9785
9786
9787
9788
9789
9790
9791
9792
9793
9794
9795
9796
9797
9798
9799
9800
9801
9802
9803
9804
9805
9806
9807
9808
9809
9810
9811
9812
9813
9814
9815
9816
9817
9818
9819
9820
9821
9822
9823
9824
9825
9826
9827
9828
9829
9830
9831
9832
9833
9834
9835
9836
9837
9838
9839
9840
9841
9842
9843
9844
9845
9846
9847
9848
9849
9850
9851
9852
9853
9854
9855
9856
9857
9858
9859
9860
9861
9862
9863
9864
9865
9866
9867
9868
9869
9870
9871
9872
9873
9874
9875
9876
9877
9878
9879
9880
9881
9882
9883
9884
9885
9886
9887
9888
9889
9890
9891
9892
9893
9894
9895
9896
9897
9898
9899
9900
9901
9902
9903
9904
9905
9906
9907
9908
9909
9910
9911
9912
9913
9914
9915
9916
9917
9918
9919
9920
9921
9922
9923
9924
9925
9926
9927
9928
9929
9930
9931
9932
9933
9934
9935
9936
9937
9938
9939
9940
9941
9942
9943
9944
9945
9946
9947
9948
9949
9950
9951
9952
9953
9954
9955
9956
9957
9958
9959
9960
9961
9962
9963
9964
9965
9966
9967
9968
9969
9970
9971
9972
9973
9974
9975
9976
9977
9978
9979
9980
9981
9982
9983
9984
9985
9986
9987
9988
9989
9990
9991
9992
9993
9994
9995
9996
9997
9998
9999
10000
10001
10002
10003
10004
10005
10006
10007
10008
10009
10010
10011
10012
10013
10014
10015
10016
10017
10018
10019
10020
10021
10022
10023
10024
10025
10026
10027
10028
10029
10030
10031
10032
10033
10034
10035
10036
10037
10038
10039
10040
10041
10042
10043
10044
10045
10046
10047
10048
10049
10050
10051
10052
10053
10054
10055
10056
10057
10058
10059
10060
10061
10062
10063
10064
10065
10066
10067
10068
10069
10070
10071
10072
10073
10074
10075
10076
10077
10078
10079
10080
10081
10082
10083
10084
10085
10086
10087
10088
10089
10090
10091
10092
10093
10094
10095
10096
10097
10098
10099
10100
10101
10102
10103
10104
10105
10106
10107
10108
10109
10110
10111
10112
10113
10114
10115
10116
10117
10118
10119
10120
10121
10122
10123
10124
10125
10126
10127
10128
10129
10130
10131
10132
10133
10134
10135
10136
10137
10138
10139
10140
10141
10142
10143
10144
10145
10146
10147
10148
10149
10150
10151
10152
10153
10154
10155
10156
10157
10158
10159
10160
10161
10162
10163
10164
10165
10166
10167
10168
10169
10170
10171
10172
10173
10174
10175
10176
10177
10178
10179
10180
10181
10182
10183
10184
10185
10186
10187
10188
10189
10190
10191
10192
10193
10194
10195
10196
10197
10198
10199
10200
10201
10202
10203
10204
10205
10206
10207
10208
10209
10210
10211
10212
10213
10214
10215
10216
10217
10218
10219
10220
10221
10222
10223
10224
10225
10226
10227
10228
10229
10230
10231
10232
10233
10234
10235
10236
10237
10238
10239
10240
10241
10242
10243
10244
10245
10246
10247
10248
10249
10250
10251
10252
10253
10254
10255
10256
10257
10258
10259
10260
10261
10262
10263
10264
10265
10266
10267
10268
10269
10270
10271
10272
10273
10274
10275
10276
10277
10278
10279
10280
10281
10282
10283
10284
10285
10286
10287
10288
10289
10290
10291
10292
10293
10294
10295
10296
10297
10298
10299
10300
10301
10302
10303
10304
10305
10306
10307
10308
10309
10310
10311
10312
10313
10314
10315
10316
10317
10318
10319
10320
10321
10322
10323
10324
10325
10326
10327
10328
10329
10330
10331
10332
10333
10334
10335
10336
10337
10338
10339
10340
10341
10342
10343
10344
10345
10346
10347
10348
10349
10350
10351
10352
10353
10354
10355
10356
10357
10358
10359
10360
10361
10362
10363
10364
10365
10366
10367
10368
10369
10370
10371
10372
10373
10374
10375
10376
10377
10378
10379
10380
10381
10382
10383
10384
10385
10386
10387
10388
10389
10390
10391
10392
10393
10394
10395
10396
10397
10398
10399
10400
10401
10402
10403
10404
10405
10406
10407
10408
10409
10410
10411
10412
10413
10414
10415
10416
10417
10418
10419
10420
10421
10422
10423
10424
10425
10426
10427
10428
10429
10430
10431
10432
10433
10434
10435
10436
10437
10438
10439
10440
10441
10442
10443
10444
10445
10446
10447
10448
10449
10450
10451
10452
10453
10454
10455
10456
10457
10458
10459
10460
10461
10462
10463
10464
10465
10466
10467
10468
10469
10470
10471
10472
10473
10474
10475
10476
10477
10478
10479
10480
10481
10482
10483
10484
10485
10486
10487
10488
10489
10490
10491
10492
10493
10494
10495
10496
10497
10498
10499
10500
10501
10502
10503
10504
10505
10506
10507
10508
10509
10510
10511
10512
10513
10514
10515
10516
10517
10518
10519
10520
10521
10522
10523
10524
10525
10526
10527
10528
10529
10530
10531
10532
10533
10534
10535
10536
10537
10538
10539
10540
10541
10542
10543
10544
10545
10546
10547
10548
10549
10550
10551
10552
10553
10554
10555
10556

<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN">
<HTML>
<HEAD>
<TITLE>The Project Gutenberg eBook of A Shepherd's Life, by W. H. Hudson</TITLE>
<META HTTP-EQUIV="content-Type" CONTENT="text/html; charset=us-ascii">
</HEAD>
<BODY>
<H1>The Project Gutenberg eBook of A Shepherd's Life, by W. H. Hudson</H1>

<PRE>
Copyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to check the
copyright laws for your country before downloading or redistributing
this or any other Project Gutenberg eBook.

This header should be the first thing seen when viewing this Project
Gutenberg file.  Please do not remove it.  Do not change or edit the
header without written permission.

Please read the "legal small print," and other information about the
eBook and Project Gutenberg at the bottom of this file.  Included is
important information about your specific rights and restrictions in
how the file may be used.  You can also find out about how to make a
donation to Project Gutenberg, and how to get involved.


**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts**

**eBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971**

*****These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers!*****


Title: A Shepherd's Life

Author: W. H. Hudson

Release Date: February, 2005  [EBook #7415]
[This file was first posted on April 26, 2003]

Edition: 10

Language: English

Character set encoding: US-ASCII

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, A SHEPHERD'S LIFE ***




Eric Eldred, David Garcia, Charles Franks, and the Online Distributed
Proofreading Team



</PRE>


    
    <p>
      &nbsp;
    </p>
    <p>
      &nbsp;
    </p>
    <p>
      &nbsp;
    </p><br>
    <br>
     
    <h1>
      A SHEPHERD'S LIFE
    </h1>
    <h2>
      IMPRESSIONS OF THE SOUTH WILTSHIRE DOWNS
    </h2>
    <center>
      <b>BY W. H. HUDSON</b>
    </center>
    <p>
      &nbsp;
    </p>
    
    <p>
      &nbsp;
    </p>
    <p>
      &nbsp;
    </p>
    <h2>
      NOTE
    </h2>
    <p>
      I an obliged to Messrs. Longmans, Green, &amp; Co. for
      permission to make use of an article entitled "A Shepherd of
      the Downs," which appeared in the October and November
      numbers of <i>Longmans' Magazine</i> 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.
    </p>
    <p>
      &nbsp;
    </p>
    <p>
      &nbsp;
    </p>
    <p>
      &nbsp;
    </p>
    <p>
      &nbsp;
    </p>
    <p>
      &nbsp;
    </p>
    <p>
      &nbsp;
    </p>
    <h2>
      CONTENTS
    </h2>
    <p>
      Chapter.
    </p>
    <p>
      &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; I. <a href=
      "#ch01">SALISBURY PLAIN</a>
    </p>
    <p>
      &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; II. <a href="#ch02">SALISBURY
      AS I SEE IT</a>
    </p>
    <p>
      &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; III. <a href="#ch03">WINTERBOURNE
      BISHOP</a>
    </p>
    <p>
      &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; IV. <a href="#ch04">A SHEPHERD
      OF THE DOWNS</a>
    </p>
    <p>
      &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; V. <a href="#ch05">EARLY
      MEMORIES</a>
    </p>
    <p>
      &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; VI. <a href="#ch06">SHEPHERD
      ISAAC BAWCOMBE</a>
    </p>
    <p>
      &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; VII. <a href="#ch07">THE
      DEER-STEALERS</a>
    </p>
    <p>
      &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; VIII. <a href="#ch08">SHEPHERDS AND
      POACHING</a>
    </p>
    <p>
      &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; IX. <a href="#ch09">THE
      SHEPHERD ON FOXES</a>
    </p>
    <p>
      &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; X. <a href="#ch10">BIRD
      LIFE ON THE DOWNS</a>
    </p>
    <p>
      &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; XI. <a href="#ch11">STARLINGS
      AND SHEEP-BELLS</a>
    </p>
    <p>
      &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; XII. <a href="#ch12">THE SHEPHERD
      AND THE BIBLE</a>
    </p>
    <p>
      &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; XIII. <a href="#ch13">VALE OF THE
      WYLYE</a>
    </p>
    <p>
      &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; XIV. <a href="#ch14">A SHEEP-DOG'S
      LIFE</a>
    </p>
    <p>
      &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; XV. <a href="#ch15">THE
      ELLERBYS OF DOVETON</a>
    </p>
    <p>
      &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; XVI. <a href="#ch16">OLD WILTSHIRE
      DAYS</a>
    </p>
    <p>
      &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; XVII. <a href="#ch17">OLD WILTSHIRE DAYS
      (<i>continued</i>)</a>
    </p>
    <p>
      &nbsp;&nbsp; XVIII. <a href="#ch18">THE SHEPHERD'S RETURN</a>
    </p>
    <p>
      &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; XIX. <a href="#ch19">THE DARK PEOPLE
      OF THE VILLAGE</a>
    </p>
    <p>
      &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; XX. <a href="#ch20">SOME
      SHEEP-DOGS</a>
    </p>
    <p>
      &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; XXI. <a href="#ch21">THE SHEPHERD AS
      NATURALIST</a>
    </p>
    <p>
      &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; XXII. <a href="#ch22">THE MASTER OF THE
      VILLAGE</a>
    </p>
    <p>
      &nbsp;&nbsp; XXIII. <a href="#ch23">ISAAC'S CHILDREN</a>
    </p>
    <p>
      &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; XXIV. <a href="#ch24">LIVING IN THE
      PAST</a>
    </p>
    <p>
      &nbsp;
    </p>
    <p>
      &nbsp;
    </p>
    <p>
      &nbsp;
    </p>
    <p>
      &nbsp;
    </p>
    <p>
      &nbsp;
    </p>
    <p>
      &nbsp;
    </p>
    <h1>
      A SHEPHERD'S LIFE
    </h1><a name="ch01"><!--Marker--></a> 
    <h2>
      CHAPTER I
    </h2>
    <h3>
      SALISBURY PLAIN
    </h3>
    <blockquote>
      Introductory remarks&#8212;Wiltshire little favoured by
      tourists&#8212;Aspect of the downs&#8212;Bad
      weather&#8212;Desolate aspect&#8212;The
      bird-scarer&#8212;Fascination of the downs&#8212;The larger
      Salisbury Plain&#8212;Effect of the military
      occupation&#8212;A century's changes&#8212;Birds&#8212;Old
      Wiltshire sheep&#8212;Sheep-horns in a well&#8212;Changes
      wrought by cultivation&#8212;Rabbit-warrens on the
      downs&#8212;Barrows obliterated by the plough and by rabbits
    </blockquote>
    <p>
      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&#8212;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&#8212;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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&#8212;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      "What did you want?" I demanded impatiently.
    </p>
    <p>
      "I didn't want anything."
    </p>
    <p>
      "But you started running here as fast as you could the moment
      you caught sight of me."
    </p>
    <p>
      "Yes, I did."
    </p>
    <p>
      "Well, what did you do it for&#8212;what was your object in
      running here?"
    </p>
    <p>
      "Just to see you pass," he answered.
    </p>
    <p>
      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."
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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&#8212;blue and white and rose&#8212;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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&#8212;grasses,
      clovers, and numerous small creeping herbs&#8212;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&#8212;to get all
      the dew and rain and sunshine that it can&#8212;and the
      result is a rough surface.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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&#8212;the breed which is now universal, in South
      Wilts at all events.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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&#8212;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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&#8212;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&#8212;"it will serve me my time," the owner
      says&#8212;but the end is utter barrenness.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      &nbsp;
    </p>
    <p>
      &nbsp;
    </p>
    <p>
      &nbsp;
    </p>
    <p>
      &nbsp;
    </p><a name="ch02"><!--Marker--></a> 
    <h2>
      CHAPTER II
    </h2>
    <h3>
      SALISBURY AS I SEE IT
    </h3>
    <blockquote>
      The Salisbury of the villager&#8212;The cathedral from the
      meadows&#8212;Walks to Wilton and Old Sarum&#8212;The spire
      and a rainbow&#8212;Charm of Old Sarum&#8212;The
      devastation&#8212;Salisbury from Old Sarum&#8212;Leland's
      description&#8212;Salisbury and the village
      mind&#8212;Market-day&#8212;The infirmary&#8212;The
      cathedral&#8212;The lesson of a child's desire&#8212;In the
      streets again&#8212;An Apollo of the downs
    </blockquote>
    <p>
      To the dwellers on the Plain, Salisbury itself is an
      exceedingly important place&#8212;the most important in the
      world. For if they have seen a greater&#8212;London, let us
      say&#8212;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&#8212;hundreds
      of people in the streets and market-place&#8212;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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&#8212;the true Britons, who possessed the land
      from neolithic times&#8212;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!
    </p>
    <p>
      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&#8212;even this best one of
      all which Salisbury possessed cannot be preserved&#8212;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."
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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&#8212;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&#8212;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&#8212;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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&#8212;a
      joyful occasion which gives a festive look to every face. The
      mere sight of it exhilarates like wine. The numbers&#8212;the
      people and the animals! The carriers' carts drawn up in rows
      on rows&#8212;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&#8212;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!
    </p>
    <p>
      And so with every one in that vast assemblage&#8212;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&#8212;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&#8212;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&#8212;how
      often!&#8212;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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&#8212;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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&#8212;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&#8212;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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&#8212;all
      the familiar places and objects, all the streets&#8212;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&#8212;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      Before a stall in the market-place a child is standing with
      her mother&#8212;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&#8212;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."
    </p>
    <p>
      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.'"
    </p>
    <p>
      "And she's never forgot it," said the other woman.
    </p>
    <p>
      "Not she&#8212;Marty ain't one to forget."
    </p>
    <p>
      "And you been four times, mother," put in the girl.
    </p>
    <p>
      "Have I now! Well, 'tis too late now&#8212;half-past two, and
      we must be't' Goat' at four."
    </p>
    <p>
      "Oh, mother, you promised!"
    </p>
    <p>
      "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&#8212;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&#8212;a heavenly cathedral to which all this is but a
      dim porch or passage!
    </p>
    <p>
      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&#8212;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."
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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&#8212;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&#8212;did 'ee ever see such a boy!" and laughing
      and perspiring she would start on after him again.
    </p>
    <p>
      Now this incident would have been too trivial to relate had
      it not been for the appearance of the man himself&#8212;his
      powerful and perfect physique and marvellously handsome
      face&#8212;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      As he came on I placed myself directly in his path and stared
      straight into his eyes&#8212;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      &nbsp;
    </p>
    <p>
      &nbsp;
    </p>
    <p>
      &nbsp;
    </p>
    <p>
      &nbsp;
    </p><a name="ch03"><!--Marker--></a> 
    <h2>
      CHAPTER III
    </h2>
    <h3>
      WINTERBOURNE BISHOP
    </h3>
    <blockquote>
      A favourite village&#8212;Isolated situation&#8212;Appearance
      of the village&#8212;Hedge-fruit&#8212;The
      winterbourne&#8212;Human interest&#8212;The home
      feeling&#8212;Man in harmony with nature&#8212;Human bones
      thrown out by a rabbit&#8212;A spot unspoiled and unchanged
    </blockquote>
    <p>
      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&#8212;I know them all intimately&#8212;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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&#8212;buildings worthy of being called houses in
      these great days&#8212;unless the three small farm-houses are
      considered better than cottages, and the rather mean-looking
      rectory&#8212;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&#8212;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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&#8212;a
      thousand times more nuts than the little dormice require for
      their own modest wants.
    </p>
    <p>
      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&#8212;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&#8212;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&#8212;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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&#8212;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&#8212;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&#8212;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&#8212;farmers, shepherds, labourers&#8212;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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&#8212;that it was a relief to
      have no thought about anything.
    </p>
    <p>
      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&#8212;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&#8212;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&#8212;and at that sight there
      would come a sense of elation, like that of coming home.
    </p>
    <p>
      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&#8212;sheep
      and cattle&#8212;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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&#8212;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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&#8212;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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&#8212;who and what was he, and how long
      ago did he live on the earth&#8212;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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&#8212;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      &nbsp;
    </p>
    <p>
      &nbsp;
    </p>
    <p>
      &nbsp;
    </p>
    <p>
      &nbsp;
    </p><a name="ch04"><!--Marker--></a> 
    <h2>
      CHAPTER IV
    </h2>
    <h3>
      A SHEPHERD OF THE DOWNS
    </h3>
    <blockquote>
      Caleb Bawcombe&#8212;An old shepherd's love of his
      home&#8212;Fifty years' shepherding&#8212;Bawcombe's singular
      appearance&#8212;A tale of a titlark&#8212;Caleb Bawcombe's
      father&#8212;Father and son&#8212;A grateful sportsman and
      Isaac Bawcombe's pension&#8212;Death following death in old
      married couples&#8212;In a village churchyard&#8212;A
      farm-labourer's gravestone and his story
    </blockquote>
    <p>
      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&#8212;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      One of his memories was of an old shepherd named John, whose
      acquaintance he made when a very young man&#8212;John being
      at that time seventy-eight years old&#8212;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&#8212;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?&#8212;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."
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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&#8212;about forty-five miles&#8212;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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&#8212;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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&#8212;a soft, broad, white felt hat, thick boots and
      brown leather leggings, and a long, grey cloth overcoat with
      red collar and brass buttons.
    </p>
    <p>
      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&#8212;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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."
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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&#8212;and all about his old trousers!"
    </p>
    <p>
      "I suppose he wants them," I returned, "and you promised to
      do them, so he has some reason for going at you about it."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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'&#8212;how did I know he wanted them in a hurry? A
      troublesome old man!"
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      "Well, you can read it for yourself, now you've got your
      glasses on."
    </p>
    <p>
      "I can't read. You see, I'm old&#8212;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."
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      "But if you have always lived here you must know what is said
      on this stone?"
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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?"
    </p>
    <p>
      I read her another and several more, then came to one which
      she said she knew&#8212;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!
    </p>
    <p>
      "And what was your trouble?"
    </p>
    <p>
      "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.
    </p>
    <p>
      I went on reading, and presently she said, "No, that's wrong.
      There wasn't ever a Lampard in this parish. That I know."
    </p>
    <p>
      "You don't know! There certainly was a Lampard or it would
      not be stated here, cut in deep letters on this stone."
    </p>
    <p>
      "No, there wasn't a Lampard. I've never known such a name and
      I've lived here all my life."
    </p>
    <p>
      "But there were people living here before you came on the
      scene. He died a long time ago, this Lampard&#8212;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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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?"
    </p>
    <p>
      "Why, of course it's true&#8212;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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "I've heard something about that king and his wives. But
      about Lampard, it do seem strange I've never heard that name
      before."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "I should like to hear some of them if you'll tell me."
    </p>
    <p>
      "Let me think a moment: there was Thorr, Pizzie, Gee, Every,
      Pottle, Kiddle, Toomer, Shergold, and&#8212;"
    </p>
    <p>
      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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "Very well," I said, "but don't keep putting me
      out&#8212;I've got more names in my mind to tell you.
      Maidment, Marchmont, Velvin, Burpitt, Winzur, Rideout,
      Cullurne."
    </p>
    <p>
      Of these she only knew one&#8212;Rideout.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      "You knew them, I suppose?"
    </p>
    <p>
      "Yes, they belonged here, both of them."
    </p>
    <p>
      "Tell me about them."
    </p>
    <p>
      "There's nothing to tell; he was only a labourer and worked
      on the same farm all his life."
    </p>
    <p>
      "Who put a stone over them&#8212;their children?"
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "But I want to hear more."
    </p>
    <p>
      "There's no more, I've said; he was a labourer, and after she
      died he died."
    </p>
    <p>
      "Yes? go on."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "Did they fall ill at the same time?"
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "And you said there was nothing to tell!"
    </p>
    <p>
      "No, there wasn't anything. He was just one of us, a labourer
      on the farm."
    </p>
    <p>
      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."
    </p>
    <p>
      And I had no thought of saying or writing a word about her.
      But since that day she has haunted me&#8212;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      &nbsp;
    </p>
    <p>
      &nbsp;
    </p>
    <p>
      &nbsp;
    </p>
    <p>
      &nbsp;
    </p><a name="ch05"><!--Marker--></a> 
    <h2>
      CHAPTER V
    </h2>
    <h3>
      EARLY MEMORIES
    </h3>
    <blockquote>
      A child shepherd&#8212;Isaac and his
      children&#8212;Shepherding in boyhood&#8212;Two notable
      sheep-dogs&#8212;Jack, the adder-killer&#8212;Sitting on an
      adder&#8212;Rough and the drovers&#8212;The Salisbury
      coach&#8212;A sheep-dog suckling a lamb
    </blockquote>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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&#8212;poor mite!"
    </p>
    <p>
      "No more'n six," answered Isaac proudly, with a laugh.
    </p>
    <p>
      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&#8212;"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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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&#8212;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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&#8212;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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&#8212;the driving of sheep.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "No, I mustn't sell her," said Caleb.
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "No, I mustn't," said Caleb, distressed at the other's
      persistence.
    </p>
    <p>
      "Well, will you come a little way on the road with us?" asked
      the drover.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      Then the drover pulled out his sovereign once more and tried
      to make the boy take it.
    </p>
    <p>
      "I mustn't," he repeated, almost in tears. "What would father
      say?"
    </p>
    <p>
      "Say! He won't say nothing. He'll think you've done well."
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      "Will that dog bite, missus?" said the man.
    </p>
    <p>
      "Maybe he will," said she. "I won't answer for he if you come
      any nearer."
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      &nbsp;
    </p>
    <p>
      &nbsp;
    </p>
    <p>
      &nbsp;
    </p>
    <p>
      &nbsp;
    </p><a name="ch06"><!--Marker--></a> 
    <h2>
      CHAPTER VI
    </h2>
    <h3>
      SHEPHERD ISAAC BAWCOMBE
    </h3>
    <blockquote>
      A noble shepherd&#8212;A fighting village
      blacksmith&#8212;Old Joe the collier&#8212;A story of his
      strength&#8212;Donkeys poisoned by yew&#8212;The shepherd
      without his sheep&#8212;How the shepherd killed a deer
    </blockquote>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      "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.
    </p>
    <p>
      "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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      In those days&#8212;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&#8212;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&#8212;for he never
      had but one&#8212;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      In time he recovered from his loss and replaced his dead
      neddies with others, and continued for many years longer on
      his rounds.
    </p>
    <p>
      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&#8212;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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&#8212;he could not overtake his father!
    </p>
    <p>
      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&#8212;what d'you think of that?"
    </p>
    <p>
      "Well, Isaac," said she, "I hope thee'll be happy now and let
      I alone."
    </p>
    <p>
      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&#8212;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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&#8212;physically a kind of Alexander
      Selkirk of the Wiltshire Downs. And he, moreover, had a dog
      to help him&#8212;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&#8212;bitterly cold, with a strong north wind blowing
      on the snow-covered downs&#8212;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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&#8212;if he could catch it!&#8212;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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&#8212;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&#8212;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      &nbsp;
    </p>
    <p>
      &nbsp;
    </p>
    <p>
      &nbsp;
    </p>
    <p>
      &nbsp;
    </p><a name="ch07"><!--Marker--></a> 
    <h2>
      CHAPTER VII
    </h2>
    <h3>
      THE DEER-STEALERS
    </h3>
    <blockquote>
      Deer-stealing on Salisbury Plain&#8212;The head-keeper
      Harbutt&#8212;Strange story of a baby&#8212;Found as a
      surname&#8212;John Barter the village carpenter&#8212;How the
      keeper was fooled&#8212;A poaching attack planned&#8212;The
      fight&#8212;Head-keeper and carpenter&#8212;The carpenter
      hides his son&#8212;The arrest&#8212;Barter's sons forsake
      the village
    </blockquote>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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:
    </p>
    <p>
      &nbsp;&nbsp; Take me in and treat me well,<br>
      &nbsp;&nbsp; For in this house my father dwell.
    </p>
    <p>
      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&#8212;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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&#8212;"the
      spit of his father" people said, meaning the
      head-keeper&#8212;and he was now one of Harbutt's
      under-keepers.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "You've tored them to pieces yourself and you can git him
      others," retorted the old man in a rage.
    </p>
    <p>
      "Very well," said the keeper. "But bide a moment&#8212;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!"
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      "When I said that," returned the other, with a grin, "I was
      just thinking what 'twould be he deserves to git."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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!"
    </p>
    <p>
      Harbutt regarded him with a smile of gratified malice.
    </p>
    <p>
      "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&#8212;you've
      no blacksmith in your village now. No, your boy weren't alone
      and you know that damned well."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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."
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      "I've come to take your son," said the constable.
    </p>
    <p>
      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."
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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&#8212;Isaac's destined wife.
    </p>
    <p>
      &nbsp;
    </p>
    <p>
      &nbsp;
    </p>
    <p>
      &nbsp;
    </p>
    <p>
      &nbsp;
    </p><a name="ch08"><!--Marker--></a> 
    <h2>
      CHAPTER VIII
    </h2>
    <h3>
      SHEPHERDS AND POACHING
    </h3>
    <blockquote>
      General remarks on poaching&#8212;Farmer, shepherd, and
      dog&#8212;A sheep-dog that would not hunt&#8212;Taking a
      partridge from a hawk&#8212;Old Gaarge and Young
      Gaarge&#8212;Partridge-poaching&#8212;The shepherd robbed of
      his rabbits&#8212;Wisdom of Shepherd
      Gathergood&#8212;Hare-trapping on the down&#8212;Hare-taking
      with a crook
    </blockquote>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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&#8212;he
      doesn't wait to find a distressed one with a stoat on its
      track&#8212;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&#8212;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      The shepherd indignantly asked who had said such a thing.
    </p>
    <p>
      "Never mind about that," said the farmer. "Is it true?"
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "May be so," said the farmer, unconvinced.
    </p>
    <p>
      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."
    </p>
    <p>
      My comment on this story was that the farmer had displayed an
      almost incredible ignorance of a sheepdog&#8212;and a
      shepherd. "How would it have been if you had said, 'Catch
      him, Bob,' or whatever his name was?" I asked.
    </p>
    <p>
      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."
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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!
    </p>
    <p>
      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&#8212;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?"
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      Such a man may be found in most villages; he calls himself a
      "general dealer," and keeps a trap and pony&#8212;in some
      cases he keeps the ale-house&#8212;and is a useful member of
      the small, rural community&#8212;a sort of human
      carrion-crow.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      Caleb never tried this plan, but was convinced that
      Gathergood was right about it.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      &nbsp;
    </p>
    <p>
      &nbsp;
    </p>
    <p>
      &nbsp;
    </p>
    <p>
      &nbsp;
    </p><a name="ch09"><!--Marker--></a> 
    <h2>
      CHAPTER IX
    </h2>
    <h3>
      THE SHEPHERD ON FOXES
    </h3>
    <blockquote>
      A fox-trapping shepherd&#8212;Gamekeepers and foxes&#8212;Fox
      and stoat&#8212;A gamekeeper off his guard&#8212;Pheasants
      and foxes&#8212;Caleb kills a fox&#8212;A fox-hunting
      sheep-dog&#8212;Two varieties of foxes&#8212;Rabbits playing
      with little foxes&#8212;How to expel foxes&#8212;A playful
      spirit in the fox&#8212;Fox-hunting a danger to sheep
    </blockquote>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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&#8212;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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&#8212;wild and whirling words they may
      be&#8212;are sinking into the hearts of the agricultural
      labourers of the new generation.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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&#8212;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      About that same Monk a sad story will have to be told in
      another chapter.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      What moved them to act in such a way is a mystery, but it was
      perhaps play to them.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      &nbsp;
    </p>
    <p>
      &nbsp;
    </p>
    <p>
      &nbsp;
    </p>
    <p>
      &nbsp;
    </p><a name="ch10"><!--Marker--></a> 
    <h2>
      CHAPTER X
    </h2>
    <h3>
      BIRD LIFE ON THE DOWNS
    </h3>
    <blockquote>
      Great bustard&#8212;Stone curlew&#8212;Big hawks&#8212;Former
      abundance of the raven&#8212;Dogs fed on carrion&#8212;Ravens
      fighting&#8212;Ravens' breeding-places in Wilts&#8212;Great
      Ridge Wood ravens&#8212;Field-fare breeding in
      Wilts&#8212;Pewit&#8212;Mistle-thrush&#8212;Magpie and
      turtledove&#8212;Gamekeepers and magpies&#8212;Rooks and
      farmers&#8212;Starling, the shepherd's favourite
      bird&#8212;Sparrowhawk and "brown thrush"
    </blockquote>
    <p>
      Wiltshire, like other places in England, has long been
      deprived of its most interesting birds&#8212;the species that
      were best worth preserving. Its great bustard, once our
      greatest bird&#8212;even greater than the golden and sea
      eagles and the "giant crane" with its "trumpet sound" once
      heard in the land&#8212;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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&#8212;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&#8212;it was very big, blue above with a white breast
      barred with black&#8212;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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&#8212;about 1830&#8212;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&#8212;master, he shot a
      raven."
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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&#8212;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!
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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&#8212;to cut
      furze and keep a cow, or pony, or donkey, or half a dozen
      sheep or goats&#8212;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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&#8212;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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&#8212;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!
    </p>
    <p>
      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&#8212;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      When I find a dead starling on the downs ranged over by
      sparrowhawks, it is almost always a young bird&#8212;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      &nbsp;
    </p>
    <p>
      &nbsp;
    </p>
    <p>
      &nbsp;
    </p>
    <p>
      &nbsp;
    </p><a name="ch11"><!--Marker--></a> 
    <h2>
      CHAPTER XI
    </h2>
    <h3>
      STARLINGS AND SHEEP-BELLS
    </h3>
    <blockquote>
      Starlings' singing&#8212;Native and borrowed
      sounds&#8212;Imitations of sheep-bells&#8212;The shepherd on
      sheep-bells&#8212;The bells for pleasure, not use&#8212;A dog
      in charge of the flock&#8212;Shepherd calling his
      sheep&#8212;Richard Warner of Bath&#8212;Ploughmen singing to
      their oxen in Cornwall&#8212;A shepherd's loud singing
    </blockquote>
    <p>
      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&#8212;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&#8212;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&#8212;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&#8212;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&#8212;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      But&#8212;to pass to another subject&#8212;what does the
      shepherd himself think or feel about it; and why does he have
      bells on his sheep?
    </p>
    <p>
      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&#8212;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&#8212;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&#8212;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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&#8212;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&#8212;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."
    </p>
    <p>
      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&#8212;May, June, or
      October&#8212;when the stranger came out to the down and
      talked to I."
    </p>
    <p>
      One day, in September, when sauntering over Mere Down, one of
      the most extensive and loneliest-looking sheep-walks in South
      Wilts&#8212;a vast, elevated plain or table-land, a portion
      of which is known as White Sheet Hill&#8212;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&#8212;in sole
      charge&#8212;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      As the scene I had witnessed appeared unusual I related it to
      the very next shepherd I talked with.
    </p>
    <p>
      "Oh, there was nothing in that," he said. "Of course the dog
      was behind the flock."
    </p>
    <p>
      I said, "No, the peculiar thing was that both dogs were with
      their master, and the flock followed."
    </p>
    <p>
      "Well, my sheep would do the same," he returned. "That is,
      they'll do it if they know there's something good for
      them&#8212;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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&#8212;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:&#8212;
    </p>
    <p>
      "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"&#8212;the
      Rev. Richard Warner is tedious, but let us be patient and see
      what follows&#8212;"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 <i>pastoral state</i> 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 <i>fellow mortals</i>. 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"....
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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&#8212;"Nature in
      Downland"&#8212;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      &nbsp;
    </p>
    <p>
      &nbsp;
    </p>
    <p>
      &nbsp;
    </p>
    <p>
      &nbsp;
    </p><a name="ch12"><!--Marker--></a> 
    <h2>
      CHAPTER XII
    </h2>
    <h3>
      THE SHEPHERD AND THE BIBLE
    </h3>
    <blockquote>
      Dan'l Burdon, the treasure-seeker&#8212;The shepherd's
      feeling for the Bible&#8212;Effect of the pastoral
      life&#8212;The shepherd's story of Isaac's boyhood&#8212;The
      village on the Wylye
    </blockquote>
    <p>
      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&#8212;ashes and
      wood, and earth and flints&#8212;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."
    </p>
    <p>
      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?"
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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&#8212;as incredible
      or unimaginable, we may say&#8212;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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&#8212;Abraham and Jacob and
      the rest.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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&#8212;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      &nbsp;
    </p>
    <p>
      &nbsp;
    </p>
    <p>
      &nbsp;
    </p>
    <p>
      &nbsp;
    </p><a name="ch13"><!--Marker--></a> 
    <h2>
      CHAPTER XIII
    </h2>
    <h3>
      VALE OF THE WYLYE
    </h3>
    <blockquote>
      Warminster&#8212;Vale of the Wylye&#8212;Counting the
      villages&#8212;A lost church&#8212;Character of the
      villages&#8212;Tytherington church&#8212;Story of the
      dog&#8212;Lord Lovell&#8212;Monuments in
      churches&#8212;Manor-houses&#8212;Knook&#8212;The
      cottages&#8212;Yellow stonecrop&#8212;Cottage
      gardens&#8212;Marigolds&#8212;Golden-rod&#8212;Wild flowers
      of the water-side&#8212;Seeking for the characteristic
      expression
    </blockquote>
    <p>
      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&#8212;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&#8212;one of the three streamlets which flow into the
      Wylye at its source&#8212;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      It is a green valley&#8212;the greenness strikes one sharply
      on account of the pale colour of the smooth, high downs on
      either side&#8212;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&#8212;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&#8212;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      This is perhaps one of the principal charms of the
      Wylye&#8212;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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&#8212;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&#8212;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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&#8212;probably the
      lowest-rented manor-house in England, though it is not very
      rare to find such places tenanted by labourers.
    </p>
    <p>
      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&#8212;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&#8212;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&#8212;Welcome-home-husband-though-never-so-drunk.
    </p>
    <p>
      But its garden flowers, clustering and nestling round it,
      amid which its feet are set&#8212;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&#8212;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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&#8212;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&#8212;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&#8212;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&#8212;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      But when my sight wanders away from the flower to others
      blooming with it&#8212;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&#8212;hollyhocks and peonies and crystalline
      white lilies with powdery gold inside, and the common
      sunflower&#8212;I begin to perceive that they all possess
      something of that same magical quality.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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&#8212;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      There are other chalk streams in Wiltshire and Hampshire and
      Dorset&#8212;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&#8212;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&#8212;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&#8212;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      All this&#8212;the far-removed events and periods in
      time&#8212;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      &nbsp;
    </p>
    <p>
      &nbsp;
    </p>
    <p>
      &nbsp;
    </p>
    <p>
      &nbsp;
    </p><a name="ch14"><!--Marker--></a> 
    <h2>
      CHAPTER XIV
    </h2>
    <h3>
      A SHEEP-DOG'S LIFE
    </h3>
    <blockquote>
      Watch&#8212;His visits to a dew-pond&#8212;David and his dog
      Monk&#8212;Watch goes to David's assistance&#8212;Caleb's new
      master objects to his dog&#8212;Watch and the
      corn-crake&#8212;Watch plays with rabbits and
      guinea-pigs&#8212;Old Nance the rook-scarer&#8212;The lost
      pair of spectacles&#8212;Watch in decline&#8212;Grey hairs in
      animals&#8212;A grey mole&#8212;Last days of Watch&#8212;A
      shepherd on old sheep-dogs
    </blockquote>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      "What be you wanting, Watch&#8212;a drink or a swim?" the
      shepherd would say, and Watch, cocking up his ears, would
      repeat the whine.
    </p>
    <p>
      "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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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&#8212;very much put out.
    </p>
    <p>
      "What are you here for&#8212;what's wrong with 'ee?" demanded
      Caleb.
    </p>
    <p>
      "Nothing's wrong," returned the other.
    </p>
    <p>
      "Where's Monk then?" asked Caleb.
    </p>
    <p>
      "Dead," said David.
    </p>
    <p>
      "Dead! How's he dead?"
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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?"
    </p>
    <p>
      "I'm just going back to them&#8212;I'm going to do without a
      dog. I'm going to put them in the rape and they'll be all
      right."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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&#8212;I must do
      without'n this morning."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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."
    </p>
    <p>
      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&#8212;go to Dave."
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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&#8212;Dave wants 'ee," and away Watch would go
      to the other shepherd and flock.
    </p>
    <p>
      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&#8212;he could not go after the
      sheep in that violent way and grab them as he did without
      injuring them with his teeth.
    </p>
    <p>
      "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&#8212;that it was actually against
      his nature to bite or injure anything.
    </p>
    <p>
      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."
    </p>
    <p>
      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&#8212;that was some
      secret bitterness in his heart&#8212;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&#8212;the master's gone off to the
      head-shepherd."
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      "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.
    </p>
    <p>
      "Why, it's alive&#8212;the dog hasn't hurt it," said the
      farmer, taking it in his hands to examine it.
    </p>
    <p>
      "Watch never hurted any creature yet," said Bawcombe. He
      caught things just for his own amusement, but never injured
      them&#8212;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      The farmer said it was wonderful&#8212;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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&#8212;perhaps
      <i>you</i> can do something with it?
    </p>
    <p>
      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&#8212;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      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&#8212;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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."
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      Some hours later the farmer came to him and asked him
      casually if he had seen an old gallus-crow about.
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      Old Nance had two possessions she greatly prized&#8212;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&#8212;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&#8212;not to himself, but to that larger and more
      important kind of dog that goes about on its hind legs.
    </p>
    <p>
      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&#8212;the "dogs for sport and pleasure"&#8212;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&#8212;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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&#8212;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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&#8212;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      &nbsp;
    </p>
    <p>
      &nbsp;
    </p>
    <p>
      &nbsp;
    </p>
    <p>
      &nbsp;
    </p><a name="ch15"><!--Marker--></a> 
    <h2>
      CHAPTER XV
    </h2>
    <h3>
      THE ELLERBYS OF DOVETON
    </h3>
    <blockquote>
      The Bawcombes at Doveton Farm&#8212;Caleb finds favour with
      his master&#8212;Mrs. Ellerby and the shepherd's
      wife&#8212;The passion of a childless wife&#8212;The
      curse&#8212;A story of the "mob"&#8212;The attack on the
      farm&#8212;A man transported for life&#8212;The hundred and
      ninth Psalm&#8212;The end of the Ellerbys
    </blockquote>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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&#8212;that he had "found favour" in
      his master's eyes.
    </p>
    <p>
      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&#8212;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&#8212;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&#8212;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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&#8212;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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&#8212;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      She had no child of her own&#8212;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&#8212;every child born to them came lifeless into the
      world. "And so 'twould always be, for sure," said the
      villagers, "because of the curse."
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      This made the shepherd angry. "What be you saying about a
      curse that is on them?&#8212;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."
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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:&#8212;
    </p>
    <p>
      "Let the iniquity of his fathers be remembered with the Lord;
      and let not the sin of his mother be blotted out.
    </p>
    <p>
      "Let them be before the Lord continually, that he may cut off
      the memory of them from the earth.
    </p>
    <p>
      "Because that he remembered not to show mercy, but persecuted
      the poor and needy man, that he might even slay the broken in
      heart.
    </p>
    <p>
      "As he loved cursing, so let it come unto him; as he
      delighted not in blessing, so let it be far from him.
    </p>
    <p>
      "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.
    </p>
    <p>
      "Let it be unto him as a garment which covereth him, and for
      a girdle wherewith he is girded continually.
    </p>
    <p>
      "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.
    </p>
    <p>
      "I am come like the shadow when it declineth: I am tossed up
      and down as the locust.
    </p>
    <p>
      "My knees are weak through fasting; and my flesh faileth of
      fatness."
    </p>
    <p>
      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&#8212;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!
    </p>
    <p>
      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&#8212;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      &nbsp;
    </p>
    <p>
      &nbsp;
    </p>
    <p>
      &nbsp;
    </p>
    <p>
      &nbsp;
    </p><a name="ch16"><!--Marker--></a> 
    <h2>
      CHAPTER XVI
    </h2>
    <h3>
      OLD WILTSHIRE DAYS
    </h3>
    <blockquote>
      Old memories&#8212;Hindon as a borough and as a
      village&#8212;The Lamb Inn and its birds&#8212;The "mob" at
      Hindon&#8212;The blind smuggler&#8212;Rawlings of Lower
      Pertwood Farm&#8212;Reed, the thresher and
      deer-stealer&#8212;He leaves a fortune&#8212;Devotion to
      work&#8212;Old Father Time&#8212;Groveley Wood and the
      people's rights&#8212;Grace Reed and the Earl of
      Pembroke&#8212;An illusion of the very
      aged&#8212;Sedan-chairs in Bath&#8212;Stick-gathering by the
      poor&#8212;Game-preserving
    </blockquote>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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&#8212;throstle, pied
      wagtail, and flycatcher&#8212;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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!
    </p>
    <p>
      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&#8212;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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&#8212;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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&#8212;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&#8212;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&#8212;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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"&#8212;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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!
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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&#8212;a relic of the olden time.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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!"
    </p>
    <p>
      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."
    </p>
    <p>
      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&#8212;the scrubby oaks having little value&#8212;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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&#8212;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      &nbsp;
    </p>
    <p>
      &nbsp;
    </p>
    <p>
      &nbsp;
    </p>
    <p>
      &nbsp;
    </p><a name="ch17"><!--Marker--></a> 
    <h2>
      CHAPTER XVII
    </h2>
    <h3>
      OLD WILTSHIRE DAYS&#8212;<i>CONTINUED</i>
    </h3>
    <blockquote>
      An old Wiltshire woman's memories&#8212;Her home&#8212;Work
      on a farm&#8212;A little
      bird-scarer&#8212;Housekeeping&#8212;The agricultural
      labourers' rising&#8212;Villagers out of work&#8212;Relief
      work&#8212;A game of ball with barley
      bannocks&#8212;Sheep-stealing&#8212;A poor man
      hanged&#8212;Temptations to steal&#8212;A sheep-stealing
      shepherd&#8212;A sheep-stealing farmer&#8212;Story of
      Ebenezer Garlick&#8212;A sheep-stealer at Chitterne&#8212;The
      law and the judges&#8212;A "human devil" in a black
      cap&#8212;How the revolting labourers were punished&#8212;A
      last scene at Salisbury Court House&#8212;Inquest on a
      murdered man&#8212;Policy of the farmers
    </blockquote>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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;&#8212;seventy-five years of hard work&#8212;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&#8212;practically nothing.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      "But what could your little brother, a child of seven, do in
      such a place?" I asked.
    </p>
    <p>
      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."
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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&#8212;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&#8212;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&#8212;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      In some parishes the farmer overseers were allowed to give
      relief work&#8212;out of the rates, it goes without
      saying&#8212;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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&#8212;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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!
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      Of sheep-stealing stories I will relate one more&#8212;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&#8212;one of
      the South Wiltshire surnames very common in the early part of
      last century, which now appear to be dying
      out&#8212;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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!
    </p>
    <p>
      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&#8212;mutton in a dozen delicious
      forms&#8212;the thought of it was as distressing, as
      maddening, as that of the peril he was in.
    </p>
    <p>
      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!
    </p>
    <p>
      From these memories of the old villagers I turn to the
      newspapers of the day to make a few citations.
    </p>
    <p>
      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"&#8212;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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!
    </p>
    <p>
      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!
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      There, if ever, spoke the "human devil" in a black cap!
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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!
    </p>
    <p>
      When such was the law of the land and the temper of those who
      administered it&#8212;judges and magistrates or
      landlords&#8212;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&#8212;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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&#8212;that it was a state of political and
      religious disorganization&#8212;that the elements of the
      Constitution were being hourly loosened&#8212;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."
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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!&#8212;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!
    </p>
    <p>
      But, alas! for the poor women who were left&#8212;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,
    </p>
    <p>
      &nbsp;&nbsp; And dreamed and started as they slept<br>
      &nbsp;&nbsp; For joy that he was come,
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      This, it may be said, was only what they might have expected,
      the law being what it was&#8212;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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 <i>felo-de-se</i>, 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."
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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&#8212;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      But there were no more risings.
    </p>
    <p>
      &nbsp;
    </p>
    <p>
      &nbsp;
    </p>
    <p>
      &nbsp;
    </p>
    <p>
      &nbsp;
    </p><a name="ch18"><!--Marker--></a> 
    <h2>
      CHAPTER XVIII
    </h2>
    <h3>
      THE SHEPHERD'S RETURN
    </h3>
    <blockquote>
      Yarnborough Castle sheep-fair&#8212;Caleb leaves Doveton and
      goes into Dorset&#8212;A land of strange happenings&#8212;He
      is home-sick and returns to Winterbourne Bishop&#8212;Joseph,
      his brother, leaves home&#8212;His meeting with Caleb's old
      master&#8212;Settles in Dorset and is joined by his sister
      Hannah&#8212;They marry and have children&#8212;I go to look
      for them&#8212;Joseph Bawcombe in extreme old
      age&#8212;Hannah in decline
    </blockquote>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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&#8212;he would sell it.
    </p>
    <p>
      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."
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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&#8212;he had left Bishop that morning.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      The farmer was disappointed, and the other added, "Maybe
      you've heard Caleb speak of his elder brother Joseph&#8212;I
      be he."
    </p>
    <p>
      "What!" exclaimed the farmer. "You're Caleb's brother! Where
      be going then?&#8212;to a new place?"
    </p>
    <p>
      "I've got no place; I be going to look for a place in
      Dorsetsheer."
    </p>
    <p>
      "'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."
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      From the old brother I went on to seek the young
      sister&#8212;there was a difference of more than twenty years
      in their respective ages&#8212;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&#8212;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&#8212;a vast unbounded prospect, but with clouds and
      darkness resting on it.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      &nbsp;
    </p>
    <p>
      &nbsp;
    </p>
    <p>
      &nbsp;
    </p>
    <p>
      &nbsp;
    </p><a name="ch19"><!--Marker--></a> 
    <h2>
      CHAPTER XIX
    </h2>
    <h3>
      THE DARK PEOPLE OF THE VILLAGE
    </h3>
    <blockquote>
      How the materials for this book were obtained&#8212;The
      hedgehog-hunter&#8212;A gipsy taste&#8212;History of a
      dark-skinned family&#8212;Hedgehog eaters&#8212;Half-bred and
      true gipsies&#8212;Perfect health&#8212;Eating
      carrion&#8212;Mysterious knowledge and faculties&#8212;The
      three dark Wiltshire types&#8212;Story of another dark man of
      the village&#8212;Account of Liddy&#8212;His
      shepherding&#8212;A happy life with horses&#8212;Dies of a
      broken heart&#8212;His daughter
    </blockquote>
    <p>
      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&#8212;the act of watching has been a
      sufficient pleasure: and when something does come we take it
      joyfully as if it were a gift&#8212;a valuable object picked
      up by chance in our walks.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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&#8212;"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&#8212;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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&#8212;as much as two to four shillings a week less per
      man&#8212;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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&#8212;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      "What are you doing here?" I asked my gipsy.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      I remarked that I had thought they were staying over
      Shaftesbury way.
    </p>
    <p>
      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!"
    </p>
    <p>
      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&#8212;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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&#8212;with
      getting the better of some one and the huge enjoyment
      resulting from the process.
    </p>
    <p>
      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&#8212;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&#8212;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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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&#8212;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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "They'll do very well for us," said his friend.
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "That doesn't matter&#8212;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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&#8212;dogs and vultures,
      for instance&#8212;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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."
    </p>
    <p>
      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&#8212;the cunning of a wild animal with a man's
      brain&#8212;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      I must now return from this long digression to my
      conversation with the shepherd about the dark people of the
      village.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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&#8212;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      "Do it, then," said the blacksmith, "and I'll stand the half
      gallon."
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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."
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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&#8212;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&#8212;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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&#8212;what killed him? every one asked
      of the doctor; and his answer was that he had no
      disease&#8212;that nothing ailed him except a broken heart;
      and that was what killed poor Liddy.
    </p>
    <p>
      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?
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      &nbsp;
    </p>
    <p>
      &nbsp;
    </p>
    <p>
      &nbsp;
    </p>
    <p>
      &nbsp;
    </p><a name="ch20"><!--Marker--></a> 
    <h2>
      CHAPTER XX
    </h2>
    <h3>
      SOME SHEEP-DOGS
    </h3>
    <blockquote>
      Breaking a sheep-dog&#8212;The shepherd buys a pup&#8212;His
      training&#8212;He refuses to work&#8212;He chases a swallow
      and is put to death&#8212;The shepherd's remorse&#8212;Bob,
      the sheep-dog&#8212;How he was bitten by an
      adder&#8212;Period of the dog's receptivity&#8212;Tramp, the
      sheep-dog&#8212;Roaming lost about the country&#8212;A rage
      of hunger&#8212;Sheep-killing dogs&#8212;Dogs running
      wild&#8212;Anecdotes&#8212;A Russian sheep-dog&#8212;Caleb
      parts with Tramp
    </blockquote>
    <p>
      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&#8212;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&#8212;"understanding" was his word&#8212;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&#8212;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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."
    </p>
    <p>
      A day or two later the man came back and said he had kept one
      of the best of the five for him&#8212;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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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&#8212;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&#8212;Jack and Watch, and so on&#8212;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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."
    </p>
    <p>
      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&#8212;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      "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&#8212;he's got his father's temper."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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&#8212;he's got retriever's
      blood."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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&#8212;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      An hour later the fanner appeared on the scene. "What are you
      doing here, shepherd?" he demanded in surprise. "Not trimming
      the lambs!"
    </p>
    <p>
      Bawcombe, raising himself on his elbow, replied that he was
      not trimming the lambs&#8212;that he would trim no lambs that
      day.
    </p>
    <p>
      "Oh, but we must get on with the trimming!" cried the farmer.
    </p>
    <p>
      Bawcombe returned that the dog had put him out, and now the
      dog was dead&#8212;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      The farmer knew his man, and swallowing his anger walked off
      without another word.
    </p>
    <p>
      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."
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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."
    </p>
    <p>
      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&#8212;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."
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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&#8212;the
      price of an ordinary animal&#8212;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "Don't you be feared," he shouted back. "He won't hurt 'ee;
      he's starving&#8212;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&#8212;he'll tear my hand off. I never
      see'd such a desprit-looking beast!"
    </p>
    <p>
      "'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&#8212;that
      eloquent action which a dog uses when humbling himself before
      and imploring mercy from one mightier than himself, man or
      dog.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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&#8212;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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&#8212;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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."
    </p>
    <p>
      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?"
    </p>
    <p>
      "Why do you ask me that?" said the shepherd.
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      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&#8212;that was the name he had given his
      dog&#8212;could have told him his history.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      &nbsp;
    </p>
    <p>
      &nbsp;
    </p>
    <p>
      &nbsp;
    </p>
    <p>
      &nbsp;
    </p><a name="ch21"><!--Marker--></a> 
    <h2>
      CHAPTER XXI
    </h2>
    <h3>
      THE SHEPHERD AS NATURALIST
    </h3>
    <blockquote>
      General remarks&#8212;Great Ridge Wood&#8212;Encounter with a
      roe-deer&#8212;A hare on a stump&#8212;A gamekeeper's
      memory&#8212;Talk with a gipsy&#8212;A strange story of a
      hedgehog&#8212;A gipsy on memory&#8212;The shepherd's feeling
      for animals&#8212;Anecdote of a shrew&#8212;Anecdote of an
      owl&#8212;Reflex effect of the gamekeeper's calling&#8212;We
      remember best what we see emotionally
    </blockquote>
    <p>
      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&#8212;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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&#8212;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."
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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&#8212;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&#8212;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      "You know," said he, in the course of our talk about wild
      animals, "we are very fond of hedgehogs&#8212;we like them
      better than rabbits."
    </p>
    <p>
      "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&#8212;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&#8212;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      "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?"
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "But no doubt," I said, "you've seen other queer things in
      hedgehogs and in other little animals which I should like to
      hear."
    </p>
    <p>
      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
      <i>That's</i> 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."
    </p>
    <p>
      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&#8212;a shrew, or over-runner, as he
      called it.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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."
    </p>
    <p>
      The shepherd's inference was wrong; he did not know&#8212;few
      do&#8212;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&#8212;a
      long-eared owl.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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&#8212;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      &nbsp;
    </p>
    <p>
      &nbsp;
    </p>
    <p>
      &nbsp;
    </p>
    <p>
      &nbsp;
    </p><a name="ch22"><!--Marker--></a> 
    <h2>
      CHAPTER XXII
    </h2>
    <h3>
      THE MASTER OF THE VILLAGE
    </h3>
    <blockquote>
      Moral effect of the great man&#8212;An orphaned
      village&#8212;The masters of the village.&#8212;Elijah
      Raven&#8212;Strange appearance and character&#8212;Elijah's
      house&#8212;The owls&#8212;Two rooms in the
      house&#8212;Elijah hardens with time&#8212;The village club
      and its arbitrary secretary&#8212;Caleb dips the lambs and
      falls ill&#8212;His claim on the club rejected&#8212;Elijah
      in court
    </blockquote>
    <p>
      In my roamings about the downs it is always a relief&#8212;a
      positive pleasure in fact&#8212;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&#8212;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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&#8212;to be on top. He
      may be, and generally is, an exceedingly unpleasant fellow to
      have for a neighbour&#8212;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&#8212;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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&#8212;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&#8212;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&#8212;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&#8212;not borrowed, since Elijah neither lent nor
      gave&#8212;but he could sell him anything he
      possessed&#8212;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      For many years Elijah had two feathered tenants, a pair of
      white owls&#8212;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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&#8212;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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&#8212;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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&#8212;I couldn't go, master, if you
      offered me money for it," he said.
    </p>
    <p>
      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&#8212;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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?"
    </p>
    <p>
      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&#8212;in there I said it
      indoors, and I say again that indoors I'll never pay
      you&#8212;no, not one penny piece. But if I happen some day
      to meet you out of doors then I'll pay you. Now go."
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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&#8212;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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&#8212;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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!"
    </p>
    <p>
      "Sit down, sir," thundered the judge; "sit down and hold your
      tongue, or I shall have you removed."
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      And that was the end of the Winterbourne Bishop club, and
      from that time it has continued without one.
    </p>
    <p>
      &nbsp;
    </p>
    <p>
      &nbsp;
    </p>
    <p>
      &nbsp;
    </p>
    <p>
      &nbsp;
    </p><a name="ch23"><!--Marker--></a> 
    <h2>
      CHAPTER XXIII
    </h2>
    <h3>
      ISAAC'S CHILDREN
    </h3>
    <blockquote>
      Isaac Bawcombe's family&#8212;The youngest son&#8212;Caleb
      goes to seek David at Wilton sheep-fair&#8212;Martha, the
      eldest daughter&#8212;Her beauty&#8212;She marries Shepherd
      Ierat&#8212;The name of Ierat&#8212;Story of Ellen
      Ierat&#8212;The Ierats go to Somerset&#8212;Martha and the
      lady of the manor&#8212;Martha's travels&#8212;Her mistress
      dies&#8212;Return to Winterbourne Bishop&#8212;Shepherd
      Ierat's end
    </blockquote>
    <p>
      Caleb was one of five, the middle one, with a brother and
      sister older and a brother and sister younger than
      himself&#8212;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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."
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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&#8212;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&#8212;there were no Ierats
      except Martha Ierat, the widow, of Winterbourne Bishop and
      her son&#8212;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      Who were the men? was the first question asked There was only
      one&#8212;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      So it was settled, and on the following morning Ellen, the
      rejected, was told to take up her traps and walk.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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&#8212;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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&#8212;perhaps I should say
      hundreds&#8212;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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&#8212;she'll soon want 'ee to
      nurse her little one."
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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&#8212;she would rather leave the place
      than submit to it. But she didn't believe it&#8212;they had
      only said that to tease and frighten her!
    </p>
    <p>
      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."
    </p>
    <p>
      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?&#8212;I don't remember your face."
    </p>
    <p>
      "No, ma'am," said Martha, blushing and curtsying. "I be the
      new shepherd's wife at the manor-house farm&#8212;we've only
      been here a few days."
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      The poor young mother went in fear and trembling, trying to
      stiffen herself against the expected blandishments.
    </p>
    <p>
      Then followed the fateful interview. The lady was satisfied
      that she had got hold of the right person at last&#8212;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&#8212;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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."
    </p>
    <p>
      "It's early," she replied, "but maybe you got the boy to mind
      the sheep for you."
    </p>
    <p>
      "I don't mean I've done work for the day," he returned. "I've
      done for good&#8212;I'll not go with the flock no more."
    </p>
    <p>
      "What be saying?" she cried in sudden alarm. "Be you feeling
      bad&#8212;what be the matter?"
    </p>
    <p>
      "No, I'm not bad," he said. "I'm perfectly well, but I've
      done work;" and more than that he would not say.
    </p>
    <p>
      She watched him anxiously but could see nothing wrong with
      him; his appetite was good, he smoked his pipe, and was
      cheerful.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      "Oh, yes, that'll do very well," he said, and she made it for
      him.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      &nbsp;
    </p>
    <p>
      &nbsp;
    </p>
    <p>
      &nbsp;
    </p>
    <p>
      &nbsp;
    </p><a name="ch24"><!--Marker--></a> 
    <h2>
      CHAPTER XXIV
    </h2>
    <h3>
      LIVING IN THE PAST
    </h3>
    <blockquote>
      Evening talks&#8212;On the construction of
      sheep-folds&#8212;Making hurdles&#8212;Devil's
      guts&#8212;Character in sheep-dogs&#8212;Sally the spiteful
      dog&#8212;Dyke the lost dog who returned&#8212;Strange
      recovery of a lost dog&#8212;Badger the playful
      dog&#8212;Badger shepherds the fowls&#8212;A ghost
      story&#8212;A Sunday-evening talk&#8212;Parsons and
      ministers&#8212;Noisy religion&#8212;The shepherd's love of
      his calling&#8212;Mark Dick and the giddy
      sheep&#8212;Conclusion
    </blockquote>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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&#8212;to him the plant had always been known as
      <i>bithywind</i> or else <i>Devil's guts</i>. 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?
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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&#8212;a mere slave.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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&#8212;old Dyke has come back to us!"
      "What be you talking about?" growled the old shepherd. "Lie
      down and go to sleep&#8212;you've been dreaming." "'Tain't no
      dream; 'tis Dyke&#8212;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      Did ever two friends, long sundered by unhappy chance,
      recognize each other's voices at such a distance and so come
      together once more!
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      Then (to go on with Caleb's reminiscences) there was Badger,
      owned by a farmer and worked for some years by
      Caleb&#8212;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      These were always his best stories&#8212;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      "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&#8212;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&#8212;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&#8212;not till I got to the cottage."
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      But invariably the principal subject was sheep.
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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&#8212;all them that have talked
      to me&#8212;have said bad things of the Church, and that's
      not true religion: I say that the Bible teaches different."
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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&#8212;NOISE; if, sir, you can understand what I mean."
    </p>
    <p>
      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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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&#8212;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&#8212;from a
      mackerel or a cabbage or a penn'orth of milk, to a newspaper
      or a book or a picture or a religion&#8212;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      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&#8212;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      "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&#8212;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.
    </p>
    <p>
      "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."
    </p>
    <p>
      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&#8212;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&#8212;his father, perhaps, or old John, or Mark
      Dick, or Liddy, or Dan'l Burdon, the solemn seeker after
      buried treasure.
    </p>
    <p>
      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."
    </p>
    <p>
      &nbsp;
    </p>
    <p>
      &nbsp;
    </p>
    <p>
      &nbsp;
    </p>
    
<PRE>


*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, A SHEPHERD'S LIFE ***

This file should be named shlif10h.htm or shlif10h.zip
Corrected EDITIONS of our eBooks get a new NUMBER, shlif11h.htm
VERSIONS based on separate sources get new LETTER, shlif10ah.htm


Project Gutenberg eBooks are often created from several printed
editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the US
unless a copyright notice is included.  Thus, we usually do not
keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition.

We are now trying to release all our eBooks one year in advance
of the official release dates, leaving time for better editing.
Please be encouraged to tell us about any error or corrections,
even years after the official publication date.

Please note neither this listing nor its contents are final til
midnight of the last day of the month of any such announcement.
The official release date of all Project Gutenberg eBooks is at
Midnight, Central Time, of the last day of the stated month.  A
preliminary version may often be posted for suggestion, comment
and editing by those who wish to do so.

Most people start at our Web sites at:
<a href="http://gutenberg.net">http://gutenberg.net</a> or
<a href="http://promo.net.pg">http://promo.net/pg</a>

These Web sites include award-winning information about Project
Gutenberg, including how to donate, how to help produce our new
eBooks, and how to subscribe to our email newsletter (free!).


Those of you who want to download any eBook before announcement
can get to them as follows, and just download by date.  This is
also a good way to get them instantly upon announcement, as the
indexes our cataloguers produce obviously take a while after an
announcement goes out in the Project Gutenberg Newsletter.

<a href="http://www.ibiblio.org/gutenberg/etext04">http://www.ibiblio.org/gutenberg/etext04</a> or
<a href="ftp://ftp.ibiblio.org/pub/docs/books/gutenberg/etext04">ftp://ftp.ibiblio.org/pub/docs/books/gutenberg/etext04</a>

Or /etext03, 02, 01, 00, 99, 98, 97, 96, 95, 94, 93, 92, 92, 91 or 90

Just search by the first five letters of the filename you want,
as it appears in our Newsletters.


Information about Project Gutenberg (one page)

We produce about two million dollars for each hour we work.  The
time it takes us, a rather conservative estimate, is fifty hours
to get any eBook selected, entered, proofread, edited, copyright
searched and analyzed, the copyright letters written, etc.   Our
projected audience is one hundred million readers.  If the value
per text is nominally estimated at one dollar then we produce $2
million dollars per hour in 2002 as we release over 100 new text
files per month:  1240 more eBooks in 2001 for a total of 4000+
We are already on our way to trying for 2000 more eBooks in 2002
If they reach just 1-2% of the world's population then the total
will reach over half a trillion eBooks given away by year's end.

The Goal of Project Gutenberg is to Give Away 1 Trillion eBooks!
This is ten thousand titles each to one hundred million readers,
which is only about 4% of the present number of computer users.

Here is the briefest record of our progress (* means estimated):

eBooks Year Month

    1  1971 July
   10  1991 January
  100  1994 January
 1000  1997 August
 1500  1998 October
 2000  1999 December
 2500  2000 December
 3000  2001 November
 4000  2001 October/November
 6000  2002 December*
 9000  2003 November*
10000  2004 January*


The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation has been created
to secure a future for Project Gutenberg into the next millennium.

We need your donations more than ever!

As of February, 2002, contributions are being solicited from people
and organizations in: Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Connecticut,
Delaware, District of Columbia, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Illinois,
Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Massachusetts,
Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New
Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Ohio,
Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South
Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, West
Virginia, Wisconsin, and Wyoming.

We have filed in all 50 states now, but these are the only ones
that have responded.

As the requirements for other states are met, additions to this list
will be made and fund raising will begin in the additional states.
Please feel free to ask to check the status of your state.

In answer to various questions we have received on this:

We are constantly working on finishing the paperwork to legally
request donations in all 50 states.  If your state is not listed and
you would like to know if we have added it since the list you have,
just ask.

While we cannot solicit donations from people in states where we are
not yet registered, we know of no prohibition against accepting
donations from donors in these states who approach us with an offer to
donate.

International donations are accepted, but we don't know ANYTHING about
how to make them tax-deductible, or even if they CAN be made
deductible, and don't have the staff to handle it even if there are
ways.

Donations by check or money order may be sent to:

Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation
PMB 113
1739 University Ave.
Oxford, MS 38655-4109

Contact us if you want to arrange for a wire transfer or payment
method other than by check or money order.

The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation has been approved by
the US Internal Revenue Service as a 501(c)(3) organization with EIN
[Employee Identification Number] 64-622154.  Donations are
tax-deductible to the maximum extent permitted by law.  As fund-raising
requirements for other states are met, additions to this list will be
made and fund-raising will begin in the additional states.

We need your donations more than ever!

You can get up to date donation information online at:

<a href="http://www.gutenberg.net/donation.html">http://www.gutenberg.net/donation.html</a>


***

If you can't reach Project Gutenberg,
you can always email directly to:

<a href="mailto:hart@pobox.com">Michael S. Hart [hart@pobox.com]</a>

Prof. Hart will answer or forward your message.

We would prefer to send you information by email.


**The Legal Small Print**


(Three Pages)

***START**THE SMALL PRINT!**FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN EBOOKS**START***
Why is this "Small Print!" statement here? You know: lawyers.
They tell us you might sue us if there is something wrong with
your copy of this eBook, even if you got it for free from
someone other than us, and even if what's wrong is not our
fault. So, among other things, this "Small Print!" statement
disclaims most of our liability to you. It also tells you how
you may distribute copies of this eBook if you want to.

*BEFORE!* YOU USE OR READ THIS EBOOK
By using or reading any part of this PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm
eBook, you indicate that you understand, agree to and accept
this "Small Print!" statement. If you do not, you can receive
a refund of the money (if any) you paid for this eBook by
sending a request within 30 days of receiving it to the person
you got it from. If you received this eBook on a physical
medium (such as a disk), you must return it with your request.

ABOUT PROJECT GUTENBERG-TM EBOOKS
This PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm eBook, like most PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm eBooks,
is a "public domain" work distributed by Professor Michael S. Hart
through the Project Gutenberg Association (the "Project").
Among other things, this means that no one owns a United States copyright
on or for this work, so the Project (and you!) can copy and
distribute it in the United States without permission and
without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, set forth
below, apply if you wish to copy and distribute this eBook
under the "PROJECT GUTENBERG" trademark.

Please do not use the "PROJECT GUTENBERG" trademark to market
any commercial products without permission.

To create these eBooks, the Project expends considerable
efforts to identify, transcribe and proofread public domain
works. Despite these efforts, the Project's eBooks and any
medium they may be on may contain "Defects". Among other
things, Defects may take the form of incomplete, inaccurate or
corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other
intellectual property infringement, a defective or damaged
disk or other eBook medium, a computer virus, or computer
codes that damage or cannot be read by your equipment.

LIMITED WARRANTY; DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES
But for the "Right of Replacement or Refund" described below,
[1] Michael Hart and the Foundation (and any other party you may
receive this eBook from as a PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm eBook) disclaims
all liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including
legal fees, and [2] YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE OR
UNDER STRICT LIABILITY, OR FOR BREACH OF WARRANTY OR CONTRACT,
INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE
OR INCIDENTAL DAMAGES, EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE
POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES.

If you discover a Defect in this eBook within 90 days of
receiving it, you can receive a refund of the money (if any)
you paid for it by sending an explanatory note within that
time to the person you received it from. If you received it
on a physical medium, you must return it with your note, and
such person may choose to alternatively give you a replacement
copy. If you received it electronically, such person may
choose to alternatively give you a second opportunity to
receive it electronically.

THIS EBOOK IS OTHERWISE PROVIDED TO YOU "AS-IS". NO OTHER
WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, ARE MADE TO YOU AS
TO THE EBOOK OR ANY MEDIUM IT MAY BE ON, INCLUDING BUT NOT
LIMITED TO WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A
PARTICULAR PURPOSE.

Some states do not allow disclaimers of implied warranties or
the exclusion or limitation of consequential damages, so the
above disclaimers and exclusions may not apply to you, and you
may have other legal rights.

INDEMNITY
You will indemnify and hold Michael Hart, the Foundation,
and its trustees and agents, and any volunteers associated
with the production and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm
texts harmless, from all liability, cost and expense, including
legal fees, that arise directly or indirectly from any of the
following that you do or cause:  [1] distribution of this eBook,
[2] alteration, modification, or addition to the eBook,
or [3] any Defect.

DISTRIBUTION UNDER "PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm"
You may distribute copies of this eBook electronically, or by
disk, book or any other medium if you either delete this
"Small Print!" and all other references to Project Gutenberg,
or:

[1]  Only give exact copies of it.  Among other things, this
     requires that you do not remove, alter or modify the
     eBook or this "small print!" statement.  You may however,
     if you wish, distribute this eBook in machine readable
     binary, compressed, mark-up, or proprietary form,
     including any form resulting from conversion by word
     processing or hypertext software, but only so long as
     *EITHER*:

     [*]  The eBook, when displayed, is clearly readable, and
          does *not* contain characters other than those
          intended by the author of the work, although tilde
          (~), asterisk (*) and underline (_) characters may
          be used to convey punctuation intended by the
          author, and additional characters may be used to
          indicate hypertext links; OR

     [*]  The eBook may be readily converted by the reader at
          no expense into plain ASCII, EBCDIC or equivalent
          form by the program that displays the eBook (as is
          the case, for instance, with most word processors);
          OR

     [*]  You provide, or agree to also provide on request at
          no additional cost, fee or expense, a copy of the
          eBook in its original plain ASCII form (or in EBCDIC
          or other equivalent proprietary form).

[2]  Honor the eBook refund and replacement provisions of this
     "Small Print!" statement.

[3]  Pay a trademark license fee to the Foundation of 20% of the
     gross profits you derive calculated using the method you
     already use to calculate your applicable taxes.  If you
     don't derive profits, no royalty is due.  Royalties are
     payable to "Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation"
     the 60 days following each date you prepare (or were
     legally required to prepare) your annual (or equivalent
     periodic) tax return.  Please contact us beforehand to
     let us know your plans and to work out the details.

WHAT IF YOU *WANT* TO SEND MONEY EVEN IF YOU DON'T HAVE TO?
Project Gutenberg is dedicated to increasing the number of
public domain and licensed works that can be freely distributed
in machine readable form.

The Project gratefully accepts contributions of money, time,
public domain materials, or royalty free copyright licenses.
Money should be paid to the:
"Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation."

If you are interested in contributing scanning equipment or
software or other items, please contact Michael Hart at:
hart@pobox.com

[Portions of this eBook's header and trailer may be reprinted only
when distributed free of all fees.  Copyright (C) 2001, 2002 by
Michael S. Hart.  Project Gutenberg is a TradeMark and may not be
used in any sales of Project Gutenberg eBooks or other materials be
they hardware or software or any other related product without
express permission.]

*END THE SMALL PRINT! FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN EBOOKS*Ver.02/11/02*END*
</PRE>

</BODY>
</HTML>
generated by cgit v1.2.3 (git 2.25.1) at 2026-05-25 21:57:32 +0000