“SCOTTISH SHEEP LORE.”

Otago Witness, Issue 3016, 3 January 1912, Page 20

“SCOTTISH SHEEP LORE.”

Scotland produces more than the “ braw lads o’ Gala Water,” and the dainty dairymaids of Ayrshire. Prominent among her human products aro the shepherds. ihey thrive well in Highland glene and amid Howland voles, and when they emigrate they leave a trail of work and worth behind them. They have left their footprints all over this continent. Like Caesar, they come, they see, they conquer—peaceful victories, in Eastern valleys, on Vermont hills, on sago brush plains or steep mountain-sides, or* groat divides, windswept in winter, blistered by burning suns in summer. Next to the minor and hunter the shepherd gets nearer Nature than any other dweller in the West. Many of them got their education from the same school as the writer. Their knowledge came from the lips of tender mothers as they heard the folk lore songs of their native land; imbibed from fathers made of the sterner stuff, men under whoso shaggy brows was a wealth of experience and knowledge. They had it by inheritance. They had mairied and intcpmoxried among themselves. For generations they had lived in the same place, in the same way, had herded the same hirsels, bom, lived, and died 1 in the same house. Their ambition did riot go beyond their work. They were content to do it we] 1, and they rested easy under its canopy. Sometimes one of them, more ambiti rus than his neighbours, drifted into a farm and usually raised a family who did credit to their enlarged opportunities. In the Borderland a thrifty shepherd named Scott cam© from his shepherd’s shieling to a fertile farm. His sons, able and intelligent, followed fast in his footsteps, and now his grandsons are farming many a broad acre in Southern Scotland. But the great bulk of these shepherds are tied to the land of the green hillside. I love tie talk to them, but you have got to do it cautiously. . They are suspicious of the pumping process. You must approach subjects in a roundabout way and lot them tell their own story. To on© like myself, who can speak the language of Burns, it is easy to win the way, to their minds, to find the deep philosophy imbedded there, to catch on to the finer points of outwardly ragged matures. How interestingly they can tell of the peculiarities of their flock, of the weather and its vagaries,, of past years, all of which had some red mark on it. They live the simple life, but it is not a daily grind. There is continual change, a shifting panorama of climate and conditions, which tends to make interest and keeps the brain going. . It is this active mental world that has made long generations of Scotch shepherds into logicians, politicians, theologians, but never amid these enticing pursuits forgetting the main work of their vocation. The low-country shepherd, working among tame grasses, turnip fields, and using endless quantities of concentrated food, has not the opportunity for reflection and thought that fall upon his brother worker on the green hillside or the purple moorland. The one is surrounded by hedgerows, a smaller world of enclosures, but the genuine hill “herd” has open space, unlimited freedom for his gaze, the swelling hills, the sparkling streams, the mottled scone of brown and green, ever a joy to the eye, the springy turf a solace to the foot. Then what weather prophets those men, arc! From cliildhood they have watched the signs and they have listened to their fathers and grandfathers toll the story of cloud and sky, of sun dogs and northern lights, of twinkling dhwn and dtroamy night, the movement of the flock, the motion of the birds, the changing wind. All this rolled up into a sort of a distinctive knowledge of what is coming. No Gloucester fisherman can beat them as weather prophets. In many of them this depth of character and t-heir solitary work has developed a religious fervour. They are Presbyterians to a man'. They may belong to different sects of this religion, but they all tend towards the same place, and have an inveterate hatred for that wily gentleman named the devil. They seem to be ever on ihe watch for him, and h© gets th© blame for many things. The spirit of the Covenantors still lives ini those men of modem times. In my ycunger days I saw much of this side of their life. There was a little village on the edge of the T.ommermoor Hills. There were two churches there. One would serve the people, hut the irony of Fate, or whatever you like to call it, has over churched Scotland. How such a state of affairs came about is too long to tell here. Wo wont to a little modern kirk. The ivy grows over it new, but as a boy when I went there first it stood out with bare walks. Time had not mellowed it, and inside wore the hard, stiff pews that a .Scotchman is doomed to sit upon when worshipping God. Our way was across green fields and through wood. The odour of the- pines was blended with the perfume of the flowers that decked the mcadowlands. When you got near th© churdh ;f you were a bit early you could see people from all quarters wending their way to the village. The dogs often cam© with their masters, for many of thorn who wore miles away had to “look the hill” on their way to worship. It was a solemn scone - inside —a smell of peppermint and a free interchange of the snuff boy. I sc© them yet, a loved picture in memory’s frame. The big. intelligent men, the. women with high-coloured checks and quaint hats with bits of colour, but withal a sombre seen©. During the prayers they stood up, and while singing

they sat. That was part of their religion. When the sermon w:ie fairly started a sleepy effect com© over the congregation. The minister laboured harl, but the close air of the church after a long vralk was too much for the sturdy, healthy shepherd. His head drooped, and ho wag off to the land of dreams. I never heard the minister reprove them, although a neighbouring minister used to do so. And he did it one day ip this way. Stopping in his sermon, he addresed one of his congregation thus: “ John Tomson, if ye dinna stap snorin’ ye’ll wauken the laird.” The lord of the manor is a sort of sacred object, and his righto had to be protected, even at tlie expense of pulpit dignity. Although it is a long time since I left those scenes, I like to go back and think about them. The life was simple, but there was a freshness and vigour about the people and their ways that will ever appeal to heart.—JoHif Clay, m the National Wool Grower of America.