A Shepherd's Life: Impressions of the South Wiltshire Downs

by W. H. Hudson

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.

"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.

"Why, it's alive—the dog hasn't hurt it," said the farmer, taking it in his hands to examine it.

"Watch never hurted any creature yet," said Bawcombe. He caught things just for his own amusement, but never injured them—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.

The farmer said it was wonderful—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.

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—perhaps you can do something with it?

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—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.

"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."

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—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.

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."