Kidsty Pike, where the wild deer of Martindale often roam. On a day like this we saw over the glistering snowfields a stag and three hinds galloping toward Swindale, a splendid sight! Branstree, a rounded mammoth on our left, is the home of giant foxes; many a stiff run has started from its benks (grass ledges). The deeper hush of night is even now falling on the voiceless wastes. Hark! what is that? The crunching of a foot in the snow, and round a corner in the pass, toiling upwards, comes a dalesman. We hail him with delight, for the very air breeds lonesomeness.
‘I was just coming from Mardale,’ says he. ‘I’ve been driving a few sheep over as had strayed.’
He is a man of rather more than middle age, hard, wiry, full of vigour and life.
‘How long have you lived in this valley?’ I ask.
‘Was born here at a little house halfway down the dale; you’ll remember it—there are a few sap-trees overhanging it. Just before you came to that farm where dead foxes are hanging in t’ trees.‘
‘Been a shepherd all your life?’
‘Well, yes; I was ten year old when I began to shepherd on t’ fell hard aside of home. Things were a bit different then.‘
The sound of a triple tramp on the snow-patched road is all that is heard for a few moments; then, from its feast of carrion beside a rock, a great raven soars croaking up, up, up, high above the dale to where the sun still reigned. The sight of this swooping bird fills the shepherd with wrath.
‘Ay, thoo may croak,’ he says sadly, ‘but maybe we’ll be the better of thee in nesting-time.’ Then to us: ‘Those ravens are a nuisance. Every spring we have to go out nesting to keep down their numbers. They think little of attacking a weakly lamb and carrying it off among the rocks.
‘I remember well one day we went after some ravens in Goat Scaur front. Four shepherds joined me and we took plenty of ropes. Getting opposite where I thought the nest was, we descended the cliff as far as there was foothold. On the last ledge a gavelock [crowbar] was fixed to let out the rope by; then, tying a noose round my body, I stepped and downward. I could hear the old bird croaking away beneath. My mates kept letting the rope come slowly, and, of course, I went down with equal speed. At last, when I should think some fifty feet of rope had been let out, I stopped on a narrow ledge.