Wastwater, the home of many shepherds. As you scramble their flocks are ever around you. And from among desolate-looking rocks, between beds of lichened boulders, they obtain sustenance. There is a tuft of grass just by that patch of parsley fern; a little fringe of soft green nestles beneath that boulder; a skin of living verdure finds root where the scree lies fine as dust. For these wisps of grass the hardy Herdwicks assiduously search, and on such meagre fare they thrive. Our sheep are small in size compared with those of the lowlands but more robust, and so intelligent that no dweller in the mountain-land can understand that cant phrase “a silly sheep.” There are other animals with far less resource or real initiative when faced by danger. The life of the mountain shepherd possesses little of Arcadian joy and pastoral romance. The stress of winter when storm sweeps down from the Gable and the air is riotous with snow, the terrible “clash” at lambing-time when the weather turns wet for weeks, militate against such idylls as are fancied in brighter lands. So ruthless is fact in its war with poetic vapourings that even the glories of the shepherd’s summer do not remain. Instead of the shepherd piping and watching the sheep with lambs by their sides streaming over green swelling hills, in the English mountain-land it is the season of the detested maggot. This cruel pest burrows through wool and skin into the living flesh beneath and devours that. It is almost too sickening to recall the piteous scenes of visible spines and ribs from which the flesh has been denuded; of sheep still living in the most awful agony. Nearly the worst characteristic of this terrible visitation is that a sheep when attacked generally turns recluse and wanders as far as possible from its fellows. Thus, when the shepherd should theoretically be at ease, he is really, ointment pot in hand, climbing about the roughest parts of his holding. Once, when wandering near Wastwater, I met a shepherd.
“Been salving?” I queried.
“Nay, been trying to find some to salve. I’ve a mind they’re somewhere in these ghylls, but I can’t come at ’em.”
“How many do you reckon there’ll be?”
“Mappen sebben or eight. I’m going to try this beck course.”
“Yes, do,” I said: “I think there’s a few up above.”
WASTDALEHEAD CHURCH
The smallest in the district—perhaps in England
Then I explained that from across the mere I had noticed a few white dots, and had entered into remarks thereon with one who through field glasses was scanning the great hillside. He could scarce believe that the small grey masses cluthering in the ghyll were sheep. “They’re far too still.” I admitted the mournful fact, also that they were much above the zone of grass, but added that they were “smitten by wicks.” The shepherd assured that this was the very ghyll, up we went. It was not long before we came to the lowest—I dare not say animal. So weak and emaciated was the living organism from ravages of the terrible maggot that the shepherd immediately kicked out its brain. “Can’t save it,” he muttered through set teeth. The next was not so far gone. The shepherd, with deft hands, cut away the clotted wool and speedily the cleansing ointment was at work. The plunging and baa-ing of the sheep showed that the cure was a “smarty” one. One by one the other sheep were found and remedies applied, so that the shepherd went back to the farm at rest.
Wastwater, haunt of the char and the botling, the latter a mysterious fish. Now and again he turned up, and his appearance spread dread through the country-side—what had not happened when last this hermit fish came ashore? Fever and agues were by some said to follow his occurrence, or trouble about heafage rights. But progressive science scared him from existence (the botling was ever a male) with his little hoard of lore. The fish was taken at the fall of the year in the little becks and among spawning trout. He was a powerful fellow, differing chiefly from his associates in greater size and thickness, and in the manner in which his under jaw turned up and was hooked. In weight the botling ranged from four to twelve pounds. One killed by leister, or fish spear, was so thick that its girth was in excess of its length by four inches. In colour and marking the botling resembled the ordinary lake trout, the brown spots on its back being only proportionately larger. Probably it was only a local variation of Salmo ferox (the great lake trout); it might possibly have been a hybrid fish. At any rate, here the argument must be left: for half a century the botling has not been heard of—his train of woe, however, has not been so considerate.