A graphic account of a visit which Mr. and Mrs. Gaskell and
their daughters made to the sheep-shearing at a Westmorland
farm near Keswick. The article aroused much interest among the
readers of _Household Words_. John Forster, writing to Dickens,
asked “who the deuce had written the delightful article on
sheep-shearing?”
Three or four years ago we spent part of a summer in one of the dales
in the neighbourhood of Keswick. We lodged at the house of a small
Statesman, who added to his occupation of a sheep-farmer that of a
woollen manufacturer. His own flock was not large, but he bought up other
people’s fleeces, either on commission, or for his own purposes; and his
life seemed to unite many pleasant and various modes of employment, and
the great jolly, burly man throve upon all, both in body and mind.
One day his handsome wife proposed to us that we should accompany her
to a distant sheep-shearing, to be held at the house of one of her
husband’s customers, where she was sure we should be heartily welcome,
and where we should see an old-fashioned shearing, such as was not often
met with now in the Dales. I don’t know why it was, but we were lazy,
and declined her invitation. It might be that the day was a broiling
one, even for July, or it might be a fit of shyness; but, whichever was
the reason, it very unaccountably vanished soon after she was gone, and
the opportunity seemed to have slipped through our fingers. The day was
hotter than ever; and we should have twice as much reason to be shy and
self-conscious, now that we should not have our hostess to introduce and
chaperone us. However, so great was our wish to go that we blew these
obstacles to the winds, if there were any that day; and, obtaining the
requisite directions from the farm-servant, we set out on our five-mile
walk, about one o’clock on a cloudless day in the first half of July.
Our party consisted of two grown-up persons and four children, the
youngest almost a baby, who had to be carried the greater part of that
weary length of way. We passed through Keswick, and saw the groups of
sketching, boating tourists, on whom we, as residents for a month in
the neighbourhood, looked down with some contempt as mere strangers,
who were sure to go about blundering, or losing their way, or being
imposed upon by guides, or admiring the wrong things, and never seeing
the right things. After we had dragged ourselves through the long
straggling town, we came to a part of the highway where it wound between
copses sufficiently high to make a “green thought in a green shade”; the
branches touched and interlaced overhead, while the road was so straight
that all the quarter of an hour that we were walking we could see the
opening of blue light at the other end, and note the quivering of the
heated, luminous air beyond the dense shade in which we moved. Every now
and then, we caught glimpses of the silver lake that shimmered through
the trees; and, now and then, in the dead noontide stillness, we could
hear the gentle lapping of the water on the pebbled shore—the only sound
we heard, except the low, deep hum of myriads of insects revelling out
their summer lives. We had all agreed that talking made us hotter, so we
and the birds were very silent. Out again into the hot, bright, sunny,
dazzling road, the fierce sun above our heads made us long to be at
home; but we had passed the half-way, and to go on was shorter than to
return. Now we left the highway, and began to mount. The ascent looked
disheartening, but at almost every step we gained increased freshness of
air; and the crisp, short mountain-grass was soft and cool in comparison
with the high-road. The little wandering breezes, that came every now and
then athwart us, were laden with fragrant scents—now of wild thyme—now
of the little scrambling, creeping white rose, which ran along the
ground and pricked our feet with its sharp thorns; and now we came to
a trickling streamlet, on whose spongy banks grew great bushes of the
bog-myrtle, giving a spicy odour to the air. When our breath failed us
during that steep ascent, we had one invariable dodge by which we hoped
to escape the “fat and scant of breath” quotation; we turned round and
admired the lovely views, which from each succeeding elevation became
more and more beautiful.
At last, perched on a level which seemed nothing more than a mere shelf
of rock, we saw our destined haven—a grey stone farm-house, high over our
heads, high above the lake as we were—with out-buildings enough around it
to justify the Scotch name of a “town”; and near it one of those great
bossy sycamores, so common in similar situations all through Cumberland
and Westmorland. One more long tug, and then we should be there. So,
cheering the poor tired little ones, we set off bravely for that last
piece of steep rocky path; and we never looked behind till we stood in
the coolness of the deep porch, looking down from our natural terrace
on the glassy Derwentwater, far, far below, reflecting each tint of the
blue sky, only in darker, fuller colours every one. We seemed on a level
with the top of Catbells; and the tops of great trees lay deep down—so
deep that we felt as if they were close enough together and solid enough
to bear our feet if we chose to spring down and walk upon them. Right
in front of where we stood there was a ledge of the rocky field that
surrounded the house. We had knocked at the door, but it was evident
that we were unheard in the din and merry clatter of voices within, and
our old original shyness returned. By-and-by someone found us out, and a
hearty burst of hospitable welcome ensued. Our coming was all right; it
was understood in a minute who we were; our real hostess was hardly less
urgent in her civilities than our temporary hostess, and both together
bustled out of the room upon which the outer door entered, into a large
bedroom which opened out of it—the state apartment, in all such houses in
Cumberland—where the children make their first appearance and where the
heads of the household lie down to die if the Great Conqueror gives them
sufficient warning for such decent and composed submission as is best in
accordance with the simple dignity of their lives.
Into this chamber we were ushered, and the immediate relief from its dark
coolness to our over-heated bodies and dazzled eyes was inexpressibly
refreshing. The walls were so thick that there was room for a very
comfortable window-seat in them, without there being any projection
into the room; and the long, low shape prevented the skyline from
being unusually depressed, even at that height; and so the light was
subdued, and the general tint through the room deepened into darkness,
where the eye fell on that stupendous bed, with its posts, and its
head-piece, and its footboard, and its trappings of all kinds of the
deepest brown; and the frame itself looked large enough for six or seven
people to lie comfortably therein, without even touching each other. In
the hearth-place stood a great pitcher filled with branches of odorous
mountain flowers; and little bits of rosemary and lavender were strewed
about the room, partly, as I afterwards learnt, to prevent incautious
feet from slipping about on the polished oak floor. When we had noticed
everything, and rested, and cooled (as much as we could do before the
equinox), we returned to the company assembled in the house-place.
This house-place was almost a hall of grandeur. Along one side ran an
oaken dresser, all decked with the same sweet evergreens, fragments of
which strewed the bedroom floor. Over this dresser were shelves, bright
with most exquisitely polished pewter. Opposite to the bedroom door was
the great hospitable fireplace, ensconced within its proper chimney
corners, and having the “master’s cupboard” on its right-hand side. Do
you know what a “master’s cupboard” is? Mr. Wordsworth could have told
you; ay, and have shown you one at Rydal Mount, too. It is a cupboard
about a foot in width, and a foot and a half in breadth, expressly
reserved for the use of the master of the household. Here he may keep
pipe and tankard, almanac and what not; and although no door bars the
access of any hand, in this open cupboard his peculiar properties rest
secure, for is it not “the master’s cupboard”? There was a fire in the
house-place, even on this hot day; it gave a grace and a vividness to the
room, and being kept within proper limits, it seemed no more than was
requisite to boil the kettle. For, I should say, that the very minute of
our arrival our hostess (so I shall designate the wife of the farmer at
whose house the sheep-shearing was to be held) proposed tea; and although
we had not dined, for it was but little past three, yet, on the principle
of “Do at Rome as the Romans do,” we assented with a good grace, thankful
to have any refreshment offered us, short of water-gruel, after our long
and tiring walk, and rather afraid of our children “cooling too quickly.”
While the tea was preparing, and it took six comely matrons to do it
justice, we proposed to Mrs. C. (our real hostess) that we should go and
see the sheep-shearing. She accordingly led us away into a back yard,
where the process was going on. By a back yard I mean a far different
place from what a Londoner would so designate; our back yard, high up on
the mountain-side, was a space about forty yards by twenty, overshadowed
by the noble sycamore, which might have been the very one that suggested
to Coleridge:
“This sycamore (oft musical with bees—
Such tents the Patriarchs loved),” etc., etc.
At the gate by which this field was entered from the yard stood a group
of eager-eyed boys, panting like the sheep, but not like them from fear,
but from excitement and joyous exertion. Their faces were flushed with
brown-crimson, their scarlet lips were parted into smiles, and their
eyes had that peculiar blue lustre in them, which is only gained by a
free life in the pure and blithesome air. As soon as these lads saw that
a sheep was wanted by the shearers within, they sprang towards one in
the field—the more boisterous and stubborn an old ram the better—and
tugging and pulling and pushing and shouting—sometimes mounted astride
of the poor obstreperous brute, and holding his horns like a bridle—they
gained their point, and dragged their captive up to the shearer, like
little victors as they were, all glowing and ruddy with conquest. The
shearers sat each astride on a long bench, grave and important—the heroes
of the day. The flock of sheep to be shorn on this occasion consisted of
more than a thousand, and eleven famous shearers had come, walking in
from many miles’ distance to try their skill, one against the other; for
sheep-shearings are a sort of rural Olympics. They were all young men
in their prime, strong, and well made; without coat or waistcoat, and
with upturned shirt-sleeves. They sat each across a long bench or narrow
table, and caught up the sheep from the attendant boys who had dragged it
in; they lifted it on to the bench, and placing it by a dexterous knack
on its back, they began to shear the wool off the tail and under parts;
then they tied the two hind-legs and the two fore-legs together, and laid
it first on one side and then on the other, till the fleece came off in
one whole piece; the art was to shear all the wool off, and yet not to
injure the sheep by any awkward cut; if any such an accident did occur, a
mixture of tar and butter was immediately applied; but every wound was a
blemish on the shearer’s fame. To shear well and completely, and yet do
it quickly, shows the perfection of the clippers. Some can finish off as
many as six score sheep in a summer’s day; and if you consider the weight
and uncouthness of the animal, and the general heat of the weather, you
will see that, with justice, clipping or shearing is regarded as harder
work than mowing. But most shearers are content with despatching four or
five score; it is only on unusual occasions, or when Greek meets Greek,
that six score are attempted or accomplished.
When the sheep is divided into its fleece and itself, it becomes the
property of two persons. The women seize the fleece, and, standing by
the side of a temporary dresser (in this case made of planks laid across
barrels, beneath which sharp scant shadow could be obtained from the
eaves of the house), they fold it up. This, again, is an art, simple as
it may seem; and the farmers’ wives and daughters about Langdale Head
are famous for it. They begin with folding up the legs, and then roll
the whole fleece up, tying it with the neck; and the skill consists, not
merely in doing this quickly and firmly, but in certain artistic pulls
of the wool so as to display the finer parts, and not, by crushing up
the fibre, to make it appear coarse to the buyer. Six comely women were
thus employed; they laughed, and talked, and sent shafts of merry satire
at the grave and busy shearers, who were too earnest in their work to
reply, although an occasional deepening of colour, or twinkle of the eye,
would tell that the remark had hit. But they reserved their retorts, if
they had any, until the evening, when the day’s labour would be over,
and when, in the licence of country humour, I imagine, some of the saucy
speakers would meet with their match. As yet, the applause came from
their own party of women; though now and then one of the old men, sitting
under the shade of a sycamore, would take his pipe out of his mouth to
spit, and, before beginning again to send up the softly curling white
wreaths of smoke, he would condescend on a short, deep laugh and a “Well
done, Maggie!” “Give it him, lass!” for, with the not unkindly jealousy
of age towards youth, the old grandfathers invariably took part with
the women against the young men. These sheared on, throwing the fleeces
to the folders, and casting the sheep down on the ground with gentle
strength, ready for another troop of boys to haul it to the right-hand
side of the farmyard, where the great outbuildings were placed; where all
sorts of country vehicles were crammed and piled, and seemed to throw up
their scarlet shafts into the air, as if imploring relief from the crowd
of shandries and market carts that pressed upon them. Out of the sun,
in the dark shadow of a cart-house, a pan of red-hot coals glowed in a
trivet; and upon them was placed an iron basin holding tar and raddle,
or ruddle. Hither the right-hand troop of boys dragged the poor naked
sheep to be “smitten”—that is to say, marked with the initials or cypher
of the owner. In this case the sign of the possessor was a circle or
spot on one side, and a straight line on the other; and, after the sheep
were thus marked, they were turned out to the moor, amid the crowd of
bleating lambs that sent up an incessant moan for their lost mothers;
each found out the ewe to which it belonged the moment she was turned out
of the yard, and the placid contentment of the sheep that wandered away
up the hill-side, with their little lambs trotting by them, gave just
the necessary touch of peace and repose to the scene. There were all the
classical elements for the representation of life: there were the “old
men and maidens, young men and children” of the Psalmist; there were all
the stages and conditions of being that sing forth their farewell to the
departing crusaders in the “Saint’s Tragedy.”
We were very glad indeed that we had seen the sheep-shearing, though the
road had been hot, and long, and dusty, and we were as yet unrefreshed
and hungry.