The Buccaneer Farmer Part 8

Now their route was fixed, Kit mused about something else. Railton was his neighbor, but, except for this, Kit had no particular grounds for helping him; he had obviously nothing to gain. Then, the peat-cutting was his plan; he had, without altogether meaning to do so, allowed himself to become the leader of the revolt against Osborn. In a way, of course, he was the proper man, because Ashness belonged to his father, and Hayes could not punish him for meddling. Still, Hayes could punish the tenant farmers and Kit knew they ran some risk.

On the whole, he thought the risk worth while. He had a talent that was beginning to develop for leading and saw when one could negotiate and when one must fight. He did not want to fight Osborn, but was being forced into the conflict, and it was comforting to feel that Miss...o...b..rn was not against him. Her note, telling him he must find the sheep, was in his pocket, and he thought it had cost her something to write. She was generous and plucky and he must not hesitate. After all, the job was his and since he had accepted it, he must, if needful, bear the consequences.

Knocking out his pipe, he got up.

"We'll make a start, Tom," he said.

The shepherd shouted to the dogs, the flock broke up and trailed out across the heath. The ewes moved slowly, turning now and then, and Kit thought it ominous that they met other flocks coming down. The Herdwicks knew the weather and were heading for the sheltered dales. For all that, he pushed on, with a bitter wind in his face, and by and by cold rain began to fall. It changed to sleet and the night had got very dark when they crossed the shoulder of a stony fell. One could not see fifty yards, but the steepness of the slope and the click of little hoofs on the wet rock told Kit where they were.

Two hours afterwards, he stopped for breath at the bottom of a narrow valley. The sleet had turned to driving snow, the wind howled in the rocks above, and a swollen beck brawled angrily among the stones. Tom was hardly distinguishable a few yards ahead and Kit could not see the sheep, but the barking of the dogs came faintly down the steep white slope. The Herdwicks were strung out along the hillside, with a dog below and above, and it was comforting to know they could not leave the valley, which was shut in by rugged crags. For a time, driving them would be easy; but it would be different when they left the water and climbed the rise to Bleatarn ghyll.

"How far are we off the mine-house, Tom?" he shouted.

"I dinna ken," said the shepherd. "Mayhappen two miles. Ewes is travelling better; t'lambs is leading them."

Kit agreed, and they pushed on through the snow. After a time, the ground got steeper, and when they crossed the noisy beck and scrambled up a shaly bank, Kit was glad to see a broken wall loom among the tossing flakes. This was the shaft-house of an abandoned mine, and there was a sheep-fold, built with pulled-down material, close by. He shouted and waited until he heard the dogs bark and a rattle of stones. The Herdwicks were coming down and presently broke out from the snow in a compact, struggling flock. Tom shouted and threw a hurdle across the entrance when the dogs had driven the sheep into the fold.

"I dinna ken if snow'll tak' off or not, but it's early yet and we must have a rest before we try ghyll," he said.

They went into the shaft-house and Kit struck a match. One end of the building had been pulled down and the snow blew in through holes in the roof, but a pile of dry fern filled a corner and rotten beams lay about. With some trouble, they lighted a fire and, sitting down close by, took out the food they had brought. The wind screamed about the ruined walls, the smoke eddied round them, and now and then a shower of snow fell on their heads, but they had some shelter and could, if forced, wait for morning.

"Miss...o...b..rn's a bonny la.s.s and kind; but I reckon she couldn't talk her father round," Tom presently remarked.

"No," said Kit. "I believe she tried."

"Favors her mother," Tom resumed. "Mrs. Osborn's heart is good, but at Tarnside women dinna count. It's a kind o' pity, because t' Osborn menfolk are lakers and always was."

A _laker_ is a lounging pleasure-seeker and Kit admitted that the remark was justified.

"I sometimes think Osborn means well," he said.

"Mayhappen! For aw his ordering folks aboot, he's wake; like his father, I mind him weel. Might mak' a fair landlord if he was letten and had t'

money; but oad Hayes is grasping and always at his tail."

"The rent-roll's good. The estate could be managed well."

"There's t' mortgages and Osborn canna keep money. When he has it he must spend. There would be nea poor landlord's, if I had my way. I'd let them putten rents up if they had money and spent it on the land. Low rent means poor farming."

Kit knew this was true on the Tarnside estate. d.y.k.es that had kept the floods off the meadows were falling down, drains were choked, and land that had grown good crops was going sour. The wise use of capital would make a wholesome change, but Kit did not altogether like centralized control. Although it was economical, the landlord got the main advantage, and there was much a farmer could do, in cooperation with his neighbors, to help himself, if his lease was long enough. Then, joint action was once common in the dale. Men pooled their labor and implements at hay time and harvest, and combined for their mutual benefit in other ways.

Now it looked as if they might combine again.

"Are they grumbling much at Allerby about burning peat?" he asked.

"T' women grumble," Tom said dryly. "But they willunt stop, for aw the dirt peat maks an' they canna get ovens hot. I reckon Bell has mair coal coming in than he can get shut of. When I was at station last t' yards was nearly full."

"I rather think Bell has been too greedy. He must pay for the coal as it arrives and his money is probably getting short; the traction engine and trailer cost a good sum, and he has spent something on the lime-kilns. In fact, if we hold on, he's bound to give way."

"Then we'll brek him. Our folks are slow to fratch, but they're not quick at letting go," said Tom, who paused and added: "I wunner where Bell got his money; he had none when he took a job at mill in oad Osborn's time."

This started Kit on another line of thought. Bell had, no doubt, saved something, for he was parsimonious, and was too keen a business man to leave his money in the bank. All he made by one speculation was sunk in another; but, after allowing for this, it was hard to see where he got the capital for his numerous ventures. Kit wondered whether Hayes helped; if he did, it was not from friendship. The agent was clever and might be playing a cunning game, in which he used both Osborn and Bell. In fact, Kit thought if he were Osborn he would watch Hayes. This, however, was not his business, and getting up he went to a hole in the wall.

It was snowing very hard; he could see nothing but a haze of tossing flakes, and the wind filled the valley with its roar. He could hardly hear the beck a few yards off.

"The drifts will be getting deep, but we can't start yet," he said. "If we miss the track at the top, there's nothing to stop us falling over the Ling Crag."

Tom agreed, and Kit shivered when he sat down again. He was cold and tired, and the worst part of the journey must yet be made. Looking at his watch he resigned himself to wait, and leaned back with eyes closed against the wall while a wet dog crouched at his feet. An hour or two pa.s.sed and then Tom got up.

"Snow's takin' off," he said. "We must try it."

Kit, pulling himself together, went out and faced the storm. The snow was thinner, but the wind had not dropped and buffeted him savagely as he struggled through a drift to the fold. The dogs had some trouble to drive out the sheep, and when they straggled through the opening Kit imagined the lambs went in front. In a few moments the flock vanished, and he breathed hard as he followed their track up hill. Now and then the dogs barked, but for the most part he heard nothing except the roar of the wind in the crags. He hoped the dogs could find the path across the narrow tableland between two branching ghylls, because it was obvious that his judgment might be at fault. However, there were the lambs; one could trust a Herdwick to return to its heaf.

When he reached the top the wind had blown away the snow, and he stood near the middle of a narrow belt of heath, with his feet sinking in a bog. On each side, he got a glimpse of dark rocks, streaked with white where the wind had packed the snow into the gullies. In front there was a gulf, down which his path led. Scattered snowflakes and rolling mist streamed up from the forbidding hollow. At first he could see nothing of the sheep, but as he floundered across the bog the dogs barked and he found them presently, guarding the flock in a hollow among the crags.

The sheep broke away and Kit pushed on across the narrow belt of bog that was dotted by the marks of little feet. Sometimes he slackened his pace to wait for Tom; the shepherd was getting old and the long climb had tired him. Both stopped for some moments when they reached the brow of the descent, and Kit, bracing himself against the storm tried to look about. He thought he saw the flock close in front.

"They seem doubtful where to go," he said.

"We can do nowt but leave them to find t' ghyll," the shepherd remarked.

Kit agreed. Bleatarn ghyll was beneath him, but there was another hollow and it is hard to walk straight down hill in the dark. He must trust the sheep, and, huddling close together, they refused to leave the crag. When the dogs drove them out they vanished, and since the ground was bare of snow they left no tracks. He stumbled on, falling into pools and stumbling across banks of stones, and soon stopped again. He had come down the slope, so to speak, blindly, and now stood on the edge of a vast, dark pit. One could not see beyond the edge, but the confused noises that came up hinted at profound depth. The gale shrieked, but he heard the roar of falling water and the rattle of stones the wind dislodged.

"Do you think this is Beatarn ghyll?" he asked.

"I dinna ken," Tom answered; and added hopefully, "if it's t'ither, we'll mayhappen find oot before we step over Ling Crag."

They went down at a venture, whistling vainly for the dogs. The drop was very sharp, and now they were leaving the wind-swept pa.s.s, the snow had begun to pack among the stones and boggy gra.s.s. Still, so far as they could see, there were no marks of little feet and they wondered what had happened to the flock, until a faint bark came out of the mist. The noise got louder and Kit knew the dogs were running round the stopping sheep.

"We're right," he said. "They've gone through the broken wall and the dogs are holding them at the top of the force."

A few minutes afterwards he scrambled over a pile of fallen stones, shouted to Tom, and began to run, for he understood what had happened.

The broken wall marked the boundary of the Mireside heaf and the sheep were now on familiar ground. It was his business to drive them to the farm, but they were trying to turn off to look for shelter among the crags. At the force, where the Bleatarn beck leaps in linked falls to the valley, one could get down between the water and the rocks; on the other side, a path about a foot wide led across the face of a precipice. In daylight, if the stones were dry, a man with steady nerves could use the path, but when slab and scree were packed with snow nothing but a Herdwick could cross it safely. The dogs knew this and were trying to hold the flock.

When the men came up they saw an indistinct, woolly ma.s.s on the other side of the beck. The ma.s.s was not level but slanted sharply, and the sheep at the bottom sent down showers of stones as they surged to and fro, with heads turned to the dogs. It was obvious that they did not mean to go down the ghyll, and Herdwicks born among the crags can climb where no dog can follow.

"The dogs canna turn them," gasped Tom. "They'll be away ower Eel Scar; they're brekkin' noo."

The flock began to open out and three or four sheep straggled forward, but Kit's bob-tailed dog slid down a snowy slab and fell upon the first.

The sheep ran back, but the others stood and Kit saw the dog could not stop them long. The Herdwicks knew the advantage was theirs on ground like this.

Jumping from a boulder, he fell into the swollen beck and made his way up the nearly perpendicular slab. At the top he found a dangerous ledge and advanced upon the sheep, which had their backs to the stream. Twining his fingers in a lamb's wool, he picked up the animal and balancing himself precariously threw it as far as he could. It fell into the beck and scrambled out on the other side, where the track led down the ghyll. The effort had cost him much, for his heart beat and he gasped for breath, but he doubted if he had done enough. Dragging another lamb from the flock, he hurled it into the water, and then his foot slipped and he rolled down the slab and fell in the snow.

He got up, badly shaken, and saw that his plan had worked. Sheep will follow a leader and the flock was straggling down the ghyll behind the lambs. Kit recrossed the beck and descended cautiously, keeping close to the rocks. The ghyll is a rough climb in daylight, and summer tourists, trying to cross the fells, often turn back at the bottom. There is no path and one scrambles over large, sharp stones, some of which are loose and fall at a touch. In places, banks of treacherous gravel drop to the beck, which plunges over ledges into deep, spray-veiled pools. Now the stones were slippery with snow, the wind raged, and mist and tossing flakes hid the ground a few yards ahead.

Somehow he got down, but he was exhausted and breathless when he reached the bottom, where he was forced to wait before he could whistle to his dog. He heard its bark and stumbling forward, found the flock bunched together in a hollow. Then he sat down in the snow while Tom counted the sheep.

"They're aw here," said the shepherd. "A better job than I thowt we'd mak! Weel, let's gan on."

Kit was tired, and bruised by his fall, but he went forward behind the dogs. His troubles were over, for a broad smooth path led along the hill-foot to Mireside.