For the first time, in near upon fifty years, old Artlett has had no hand in the pen-making. Rheumatism, the life-long foe of the shepherd, has got him by the heels at last; and, if it turn out with him as with nearly all his kind, he will never again leave the chimney-corner, until he is carried thence and laid to sleep beside his long line of forbears up in the churchyard. But young George is as good a shepherd as any of his line, in this, as in all other branches of the craft. Wherever you go among the neighbouring sheep-farms, you will hear tell of the amazing good luck of Windlecombe at lambing-time. George Artlett views the matter from a different standpoint.
We sat together in his cosy hut on the hillside, towards twelve o’clock of a gusty, moonlit night. The coke-fire burned in the little stove with a steady brightness, casting its red rays through the open door, and far out into the resounding night. Overhead a lantern swung gently to and fro, rocking our shadows on the walls. From the lambing-pens hard by there rose a ceaseless yammering chorus, and from the outer folds a confusion of tongues deeper still, mingled with the tolling of innumerable bells. George Artlett sat on the straw mattress in the corner, his knees drawn up to his chin.
‘Ah! luck!’ said he, a little scornfully, peering at me through the cloud of tobacco-smoke—all from my own pipe—which hovered between us. ‘An’ how be it then, as them as believes in luck, gets so onaccountable little on’t? Gregory, over at Redesdown yonder—’a wunt so much as throw a hurdle on a Friday, an’ ’a wears a bag o’ charm-stuff round’s neck, an’ ’a wud walk a mile sooner ’n goo unner a laadder—well, how be it wi’ un? Lambs dyin’ every day, folks say; ah! an’ yows too—seven on ’em gone a’ready! “’Twill be thirteen,” ’a sez, “thirteen, th’ on-lucky number, an’ then ’twill stop. ’Tis Redesdown’s luck!” sez he; “ye can do nought agen it!” An’ next year, ’a’ll goo on feedin’ short an’ poor, jest as ’a allers doos; an’ putten th’ yows to th’ ram too young; an’ lambin’ i’ th’ hoameyard agen, where ’tis so soggy an’ onhealthy, jest because ’tis near to ’s bed. When a man doos his night-shepherdin’, swearin’ at th’ laads through ’s windy, ’a may well look fer bad luck!’
He rose, and drew on his great blanket-coat, and pulled his sou’wester over his eyes. Then he took down the lantern from its hook, and together we plunged out into the buffeting wind to make the round of the folds for the sixth time since my advent, although the night was but half over.
The moon was nearly at the full. In its flood of pure white light, the lambing-yard, with its surrounding folds, looked like some extensive fortification, so high and impregnable seemed the walls that hemmed it in on every side. These walls were made of sheaves of straw, standing on end, shoulder to shoulder, of such girth and density that not a breath of the unruly wind could penetrate them. Within, the lambing-yard was floored a foot deep with the same straw, and on all sides were the pens, little separate bays flanked and topped by hurdles covered in with the like material. The whole place was crowded with ewes and lambs; the newest arrivals still in the pens with their mothers, the rest almost as snugly berthed out in the mainway of the yard. Outside this elaborate stockade were two great folds, the one containing the ewes still to be reckoned with, the other thronged with those whose troubles were happily over, and with whom already the cares and joys of motherhood were verging on the trite.
Shepherd Artlett took no chances at any stage of his work. At the entrance to the lambing-yard, he carefully covered up the lantern with his coat, and thereafter allowed its light to fall only where he need direct his scrutiny.
‘Nane o’ Gregory’s luck fer me!’ he said. ‘There bean’t no wolves on th’ Hill nowadays, but sheep, they be jest as much afeared o’ summat as ’twur born in ’em to dread. ’Tis in their blood, I reckons. Now look ye! A naked light carried i’ th’ haand, an’ let sudden in upon ’em—see how it sets th’ shadders dancin’ an’ prancin’ all around! Like as not, ’tis so th’ wolves came leapin’ round th’ folds ages an’ ages back; an’ so it bides in th’ blood wi’ all sheep—a sort o’ natur’s bygone memory. Froughten wan yow, an’ ye be like to froughten all. Set ’em stampedin’, an’ that means slipped lambs, turned milk, an’ trouble wi’out end—Gregory’s luck agen!’
On these rounds, every pen in the yard was visited, and its denizens critically examined: not a sheep of the huddled, vociferating crowd through which we threaded our difficult course, but had her share in George Artlett’s swift-roving glance. Here and there we came upon a newborn lamb, and then George took its four legs in one handful and carried it head downwards through the throng to the nearest vacant pen, its frantic mother bleating her expostulation close in our rear. There were the feeding-cages to fill with hay, and mangold to be carried in and scattered amongst the crouching sheep. Sometimes there was a sickly lamb or ewe to doctor, when we went trudging back to rifle the medicine-chest in the hut; and rarely a weakling, who refused its natural food, must be taken under George’s coat, a silent shivering woolly atom, and restored to life and voice by the warmth of our fire and the bottle.
In how great a measure the luck of Windlecombe or any sheep-farm depends on the foresight and tender care of the shepherd, was well brought home to me as, in the first ghostly light of morning, something like a crisis came to vary the monotonous round of our task. I had dozed off as I sat in my corner, and woke to find grey dawn picking out the tops of the hills, and George away on his unending business. Presently, through the little window at my side, I saw him coming back over the rimy grass, his coat bulged out with the usual burden. He set the lamb down on the straw by the fire. Limp and lifeless it looked, and past all aid; but George fell patiently to work swabbing it. As he worked, he talked.