The Shepherd's Life Read Online Free Page A

scare them into danger on the scree or rock faces.
    These are good fell shepherds with a pack of good dogs apiece. They disappear off, one on a quad bike, the other loping off across the heather.
    Two or three of us are sent up the left-hand side of the fell, after Joe, to sweep out the sheep across the fell to the right, with one of us peeling off to hold them that way every half mile or so. Each of us has a landmark we are to hold at.
    Each of us is responsible for not letting any sheep break back past us, easy with a good dog, impossible without one. Farming the fells is only possible because of the bond between men and sheepdogs.
    I’m the last one on this arm of the gather. I am to meet Shoddy at the far end. Wait at the Stones for the others, I’m told.
    Right.
    The eldest shepherd takes a couple of men with him along a dusty old track to the right. He will form a break before the next common. Pushing their sheep away and fetching ours back, he will form the right arm of the gather.
    Men bawl to their dogs, who are excited and heading off after the wrong shepherds.
    We will meet them in a few hours at the far end, past the peat hags—raised peat bogs that rise up out of the sward, like green, or brown, islands slowly emerging out of the earth. They form a sea of raised mounds, some twenty or thirty feet across, others acres in size; they are carved apart by little gulleys and valleys worn by the water, forming dangerous cliffs of black peat the height of a man, or deeper, that you can tumble into. The sheep rub their backs on these peaty cliff faces, giving their fleeces a coal-black hue that tells us this is where they live. In the sheltered low ground between the peat hags sheep can be lost from sight, and the ATV can be easily turned over, so you have to pay attention to navigate through them, and ensure the flock is cleaned out of them and pushed by the dogs away homewards. Beyond them we meet at Wolf Crags and form a kind of noose, with all of the fell encircled and the sheep heading in the right direction for home.

 
    7
    After the noise at the fell gate, gathering quickly becomes a quieter and lonelier day’s work. Most of it is spent far from other people, working with them but far beyond talking distance. It is a day to work with the dogs. A fell dog is a special thing, tough as old boots, smart, and capable of working semi-independently a long way across the mountain. I’m a lucky man to have two fine field sheepdogs. Border collies. There isn’t much they can’t do in the valley bottom. They’ll creep and crawl, and dart every which way, and hold sheep spellbound with a look. They are my pride and joy, but they are not great fell dogs (not yet, anyway). That’s a totally different thing altogether. Fell dogs are their own type; they need to be strong and smart, and less about “eye” and more about following instruction or using their wits when beyond command.
    As we head across the fell we see some ewes that should be on our common beyond a deep gill on the mountainside opposite. I fear they are too far away to get them today. They will, I assume, come in with the neighbouring common and we will collect them later. But Joe, who is cleaning out that gill, has sent his dogs to get them. From where he is, he can scarcely see the sheep as they are so far away. He is farther away than we are. I don’t think it is possible. The dog lurches back, onwards, up and up, climbing higher and higher towards the distant skyline. A whistle or two reassures it that it should keep going for sheep it cannot see yet because of the lie of the land. Then the dog sees the sheep it has been sent for, and knows what to do. It circles behind them and pushes them out of the crags. They twist and turn ever downwards and back towards us, then disappear down the far side of the gill. Ten minutes after the dogs were sent for them, the sheep rise out of the gill close to our feet. They are