“Ever do any fishing, Jacob?” I asked—my friend cannot get the old man from the fells to the lake.
“Nay, nut mich. T’ lads gropple us a fry when t’ beck’s lah [low], and on a wet day ther’s a few to gitten wi’ t’ worm. But I nivver caerd [cared] for booats, and hevn’t been across t’ lake in yan mair en a duzzen times i’ me life.”
“What do you think of the lake in spring?” asks my companion. Jacob is not deaf, but the tongue of a Southerner is as difficult to him as the accent of a Frenchman might be. Again he mistakes.
“Ther’s a gradely many, ower many springs,” he grumbles. “I think ef they’d nobbut get to wark an’ drain it ther’d be some fairish land underneath it. Mappen we woddent need to send oor sheep away t’ winterin’. It wod mak some bonny nice pastur’, eh? Mair like sensible than throwing [Cumbrian, thrahin’] brass away to mek gomerals o’ t’ bairns an’ fine gentlemen o’ t’ skulemaisters.”
“It’s gay bonny under Skiddaw in lambing-time, isn’t it, Jacob?” I interpose. The ancient is puzzling himself as to what my friend has meant; he is aware that he has again misunderstood, and is, I am afraid, becoming irritable.
“I don’t see mich to blaw aboot; there’s wark enow on t’ fell, an’ precious lile leet [light] for owt else. Then yan hardly knas [knows] when it is spring. Some days it’s like midsummer, an’ then next day it’s cald enough to flay yan alive. Auld Michael Fletcher, as leev’d up at t’ Yeds, ewst [used] to say, I mind him varra weel, when yan happened to eks [ask] him aboot t’ wedder: ‘Nay, bairn, I don’t kna. Yance ower we used to hae it mak’ o’ decent, rain an’ droot just as t’ land needed ’em. That was when God A’mighty hed t’ job o’ mannishin’ [managing], but noo that them dashed Americans hae gitten hod on’t yan hardly knas what mak o’ wedder we’re gaen to hae t’ next.’ But t’ years er better an’ warse wi’ us; this year t’ wedder was middlin’ nicish, but I mind lots o’ times when it’s been aboot as bad as it weel could be. Ther was yan year i’ particular. We hed aboon six hundred yows [ewes] to leuk after, and when it com a girt sna-storm ther was some dewins. We hed put a vast on ’em on t’ heaf, an’ we hed to gang roond wi’ hay to ’em, for t’ sna wur varra nar a yerd deep; t’ sheep hed gitten into varra nar ivvery okard spot on t’ yall fell. T’ sna was that thick as we hed to sled t’ hay, an’ t’ drifts wer that deep as we couldn’t hae t’ horses at aw ower many a yakker [acre]. Ther was yan ginnel where we hed some wark to git at t’ sheep at aw. T’ top was blockt wi’ a fair wall o’ sna, an’ t’ top o’ that hung ower like t’ thack on a stack. You couldn’t git doon at aw, an’ baeth sides wer as bad, what wi’ girt steep crags an’ mair sna. We tried to git intull ’t fra bela’, but that was war then baeth o’ t’ othern. Yan girt drift piled on t’ top on anudder. I began to think it wur gaen to be a bad job till lile Tommy Moffat, as hed leev’d amang t’ fells, com up.
“‘Why Jacob,’ he says, ‘tou mun git a raep tull ’em.’
“‘And what gud will a raep be tull ’em, tou Daft Watty? They’re nut likely to want any skippin’. Mappen a streaw raep wod dew, but it ud tak a bit ta wind enough for t’ lot on ’em’—ther was forty if ther was yan doon in t’ ghyll—’an’ then I woddent be reet weel sewer they wod kna as it was for ’em to it [eat].’
“‘Noo, Jacob, it’s thee as is Daft Watty. Send for as menny cart raeps as tou hes, an’ I’ll show thee hoo to git doon. We hae warse sna drifts an’ rougher ghylls ner these i’ Ennerdale.’
“Well, when we gat aw t’ raeps he set three on t’ farm lads to hod t’ end, efter he hed tied ’em aw togidder, an then he stuck a gavelock in t’ drift as far as it would gang.