He smiled to himself, as though the memory of some recent encounter with the black coat had returned to him. Then he took a quick glance at the sun.
‘Drinkin’-time!’ said he.
His sheep were all on the far hill-side, half a mile off perhaps, feeding—as sheep always do on windy days—with their heads to the breeze; and shouldering together in long, straight lines, roughly parallel—as, again, sheep generally will, in spite of the prettily ordered groups on painters’ canvases. It is only on days of perfect calm that grazing sheep will head to all points of the compass, and on the South Downs such days are rare indeed.
George Artlett put his hands to his mouth funnel-wise, and sent the shepherd’s folding-call ringing on the breeze.
‘Coo-oo-oo-o-up! Coo-oo-oo-o-up! Coom along—coo-oo-up!’
The shrill, wild notes pealed out, drawing an echo from every hill far and near. At once all the ewes on the distant sunny slope stopped their nibbling, and looked round. Again the cry rang forth. This time the foremost sheep moved a step or two in our direction, hesitated, then came slowly on. A moment later the whole flock was under way, pouring steadily up the hill-side and filling the air with a deep, clamorous song.
But two or three of the younger sheep had stayed behind in a little bay of grass beyond the furze-brake. Rowster looked inquiringly at his master, got a consenting wave of the arm, and was off with the speed of light. We watched him as he raced down the hill in a wide semicircle, and, taking the malingerers in the rear, drove them helter-skelter after the rest. Yelping and snapping behind them, he brought the whole flock up to the dew-pond at what seemed an entirely unnecessary pace.
‘’Tis allers so wi’ dorgs,’ observed young George reflectively. ‘Ye can never larn them as shepherd work ought to go slow as the sun i’ the sky. All fer hurry an’ bustle they be, from birth-time to buryin’—get the hour by, sez they, the day over, life done, an’ on wi’ the next thing!’
We turned our shoulders to the blustering wind, and leant over the rail together, watching the sheep drink. These dew-ponds on the Sussex Downs are always a mystery to strangers coming for the first time into the sheep country; and they are never quite bereft of their miraculous quality, even among the shepherds themselves. That in a land, where there are neither springs nor natural pools of water, man should dig hollows, not in the lowest sink-points of the valleys where one would reasonably make such a work, but on the summits of the highest hills, and then confidently expect Nature to fill them with water, keeping them so filled year after year, in and out of season, no matter what call was made on their resources—must appear little else than downright ineptitude to one who has never had the feasibility of the plan demonstrated under his very eyes. Yet the seeming wonder of the dew-pond has a very simple explanation. It is nothing more than a cold spot on the earth, which continually precipitates the moisture from the air passing over it; and this cold spot is formed on the hill-top because there it encounters air which has not been robbed of its vapour by previous contact with the earth.
The best dew-pan makers are the men of Wiltshire, as all flockmasters know. The pond, having been excavated to the right depth and shape, is lined first with puddled clay or chalk, then with a thick layer of dry straw; finally, upon this straw a further substantial coating of clay is laid, and well beaten down. Nothing is needed then but to bring a few cart-loads of water to start the pond, and to set a ring-fence about it to keep off heavy stock. The action of the straw, in its waterproof double-casing, is to intercept the heat-radiation of the earth at that particular point, so that the pond-cavity and its contents remain colder than the surrounding soil.