So the work commenced, and day after day it went merrily on. Moncrieff did not consider this a very large shearing, and yet in six days' time no less than 11,000 sheep were turned away fleeceless.
And what a scene it was, to be sure!
I remember well, when quite a little lad, thinking old Parson McGruer's shearing a wonderful sight. The old man, who was very fat and podgy, and seldom got down to breakfast before eleven in the morning, considered himself a sheep farmer on rather a large scale. Did he not own a flock of nearly six hundred—one shepherd's work—that fed quietly on the heath-clad braes of Coila? One 169 shepherd and two collies; and the collies did nearly all the duty in summer and a great part of it in winter. The shepherd had his bit of shieling in a clump of birch-trees at the glen-foot, and at times, crook in hand, his Highland plaid dangling from his shoulder, he might be seen slowly winding along the braes, or standing, statue-like, on the hill-top, his romantic figure well defined against the horizon, and very much in keeping with the scene. I never yet saw the minister's shepherd running. His life was almost an idyllic one in summer, when the birks waved green and eke, or in autumn, when the hills were all ablaze with the crimson glory of the heather. To be sure, his pay was not a great deal, and his fare for the most part consisted of oatmeal and milk, with now and then a slice of the best part of a 'braxied' sheep. Here, in our home in the Silver West, how different! Every puestero had a house or hut as good as the minister's shepherd; and as for living, why, the worthy Mr. McGruer himself never had half so well-found a table. Our dogs in the Silver West lived far more luxuriously than any farm servant or shepherd, or even gamekeeper, 'in a' braid Scotland.'
But our shepherds had to run and to ride both. Wandering over miles upon miles of pasturage, sheep learn to be dainty, and do not stay very long in any one place; so it is considered almost impossible to herd them on foot. It is not necessary to do so; at all events, where one can buy a horse for forty shillings, and where his food costs nil, or next to nil, one usually prefers riding to walking.
But it was a busy time in May even at the Scotch minister's place when sheep-shearing came round. The minister got up early then, if he did not do so all the year round again. The hurdles were all taken to the river-side, or banks of the stream that, leaving Loch Coila, went meandering through the glen. Here the sheep were washed and penned, and anon turned into the enclosures where the shearers were. Lads and lasses all took part in the work in one capacity or another. The sun would 170 be brightly shining, the 'jouking burnie' sparkling clear in its rays; the glens and hills all green and bonnie; the laughing and joking and lilting and singing, and the constant bleating of sheep and lambs, made altogether a curious medley; but every now and then Donald the piper would tune his pipes and make them 'skirl,' drowning all other sounds in martial melody.
But here on Moncrieff's estancia everything was on a grander scale. There was the same bleating of sheep, the same laughing, joking, lilting, singing, and piping; the same hurry-scurry of dogs and men; the same prevailing busy-ness and activity; but everything was multiplied by twenty.
McGruer at home in Coila had his fleeces thrust into a huge sack, which was held up by two stalwart Highlanders. Into this not only were the fleeces put, but also a boy, to jump on them and pack them down. At the estancia we had the very newest forms of machinery to do everything.
Day by day, as our shearing went on, Moncrieff grew gayer and gayer, and on the final morning he was as full of life and fun as a Harrow schoolboy out on the range. The wool harvest had turned out well.
It had not been so every year with Moncrieff and his partner. They had had many struggles to come through—sickness had at one time more than decimated the flocks. The Indians, though they do not as a rule drive away sheep, had played sad havoc among them, and scattered them far and wide over the adjoining pampas, and the pampero[8] had several times destroyed its thousands, before the trees had grown up to afford protection and shelter.
I have said before that Moncrieff was fond of doing things in his own fashion. He was willing enough to adopt all the customs of his adopted country so long as he thought they were right, but many of the habits of his native land he considered would engraft well with those of Mendoza. Moncrieff delighted in dancing—that is, in 171 giving a good hearty rout, and he simply did so whenever there was the slightest excuse. The cereal harvest ended thus, the grape harvest also, and making of the wine and preserves, and so of course did the shearing.