Tales of the Ridings

by F. W. Moorman

Such were the surroundings amid which Peregrine Ibbotson had spent three quarters of a century, and he asked for nothing better than that he should end his days as a Yorkshire shepherd. But now a rumour arose that there was a project on foot to enclose the moors. The meadows and pastures in the valley below had been enclosed for more than half-a-century, and this had been brought about without having recourse to Act of Parliament. The fields had been enclosed by private commission; the farmers had agreed to refer the matter to expert arbitrators and their decisions had been accepted without much grumbling. The dalesmen were proud of their freehold property and were now casting their eyes upon the moorland pastures above. They agreed that the sheep would crop the grass more closely if confined by walls within a certain space, and the fees paid to the shepherd for his labour would be saved; for each farmer would be able to look after his own sheep. But what weighed with them most was the pride of individual possession compared with which the privilege of sharing with their neighbours in communal rights over the whole moor seemed of small account. Moreover, stones for walling were plentiful, and the disbanding of the armies after the French wars had made labour cheap.

At first Peregrine refused to believe the rumour; the moors, he argued with himself, had always been commons and commons they must remain. Yet the rumour persisted and gradually began to work like poison in his mind. He was too proud to mention the matter to the farmers when they came up for the autumn salving of the sheep, but a constraint in their manner deepened his suspicions, and all through the winter a pall of gloom enshrouded his mind like the pall of gloom on the moors themselves. Spring brought dark foreboding to yet darker certainty. From his mountain eyrie Peregrine could now see bands of men assembling in the village below. They were wallers, attracted thither by the prospect of definite work during the summer months, and on Easter Monday a start was made. Peregrine watched them from the fells, and as he saw them carrying the blocks of limestone in their hands they seemed to him like an army of stinging ants which had been disturbed in their ant-hill and were carrying their eggs to another spot.

Slowly but surely the work advanced. At first the walls took a beeline track up the hillside, but when they reached the higher ground, where scars of rock and patches of reedy swamp lay in their path, their progress became serpentine. But whether straight or winding, the white walls mounted ever upwards, and Peregrine knew that his doom was sealed. The moors which Ibbotsons had shepherded for two hundred years would soon pass out of his charge; the most ancient of callings, which Peregrine loved as he loved life itself, would be his no more; his mountain home, which had stood the shock of an age-long battle with the storms, would pass into the hand of some dalesman's hind, and he would be forced to descend to the valley and end his days in one or other of the smoky towns where his remaining sons were living.

There was no human being to whom he could communicate his thoughts, yet the pent-up anguish must find outlet somehow, lest the heart-strings should snap beneath the strain. It was therefore to his sheepdog, Rover, that he unburdened his mind, as the dog lay with its paws across his knees in the heather, looking up to its master's face. "Snakes, Rover, doesta see t' snakes," he would mutter, as his eye caught the serpent-like advance of the walls. The dog seemed to catch his meaning, and responded with a low growl of sympathy. "Aye, they're snakes," the old man went on, "crawlin's up t' fell-side on their bellies an' lickin' up t' dust. They've gotten their fangs into my heart, Rover, and seean they'll be coilin' thersels about my body. I niver thowt to see t' snakes clim' t' moors; they sud hae bided i' t' dale and left t' owd shipperd to dee in peace."

When clipping-time came the walls had almost reached the level of the shepherd's cottage. It was the farmers' custom to pay Peregrine a visit at this time and receive at his hands the sheep that were to be driven down to the valley to be clipped and earmarked. But this year not a single one appeared. Shame held them back, and they sent their hinds instead. These knew well what was passing in the shepherd s mind, but they stood in too much awe of him to broach the subject; and he, on his side, was too proud to confide his grievance to irresponsible farm servants. But if nothing was said the dark circles round Peregrine's eyes and the occasional trembling of his hand betrayed to the men his sleepless nights and the palsied fear that infected his heart.

At times, too, though he did his utmost to avoid them, the shepherd would come upon the bands of wallers engaged in their sinister task. These were strangers to the dale and less reticent than the men from the farms.

"Good-mornin', shipperd. Thou'll be noan sae pleased to set een on us wallers, I reckon," one of them would say.

"Good-mornin'," Peregrine would reply. "I weant say that I's fain to see you, but I've no call to threap wi' waller-lads. Ye can gan back to them that sent you and axe 'em why they've nivver set foot on t' moor this yeer."

"Mebbe they're thrang wi' their beasts and have no time to look after t' yowes."

"Thrang wi' beasts, is it? Nay, they're thrang wi' t' devil, and are flaid to look an honest man i' t' face."