Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: May 12, 2025
For days together Jim Mason was stuck with his bags in the Dalesman's Daughter, and there was no communication between the two Dales. On the Mere Marches the snow massed deep and impassable in thick, billowy drifts. In the Devil's Bowl men said it lay piled some score feet deep. And sheep, seeking shelter in the ghylls and protected spots, were buried and lost in their hundreds.
Wilson's physical imperfections were an offence in the dalesman's eyes: "He's as widderful in his wizzent old skin as his own grandfather." Angus was not less severe on Wilson's sly smoothness of manner. "Yon sneaking old knave," he would say, "is as slape as an eel in the beck; he'd wammel himself into crookedest rabbit hole on the fell."
Only once was he spurred into reply. It was in the tap-room of the Dalesman's Daughter on the occasion of the big spring fair in Grammoch-town, when there was a goodly gathering of farmers and their dogs in the room. M'Adam was standing at the fireplace with Red Wull at his side.
Cup Day is always a general holiday in the Daleland, and every soul crowds over to Silverdale. Shops were shut; special trains ran in to Grammoch-town; and the road from the little town was dazed with char-a-bancs, brakes, wagonettes, carriages, carts, foot-passengers, wending toward the Dalesman's Daughter.
The paddock at the back of the Dalesman's Daughter was packed with a clammering, chattering multitude: animated groups of farmers; bevies of solid rustics; sharp-faced townsmen; loud-voiced bookmakers; giggling girls; amorous boys, thrown together like toys in a sawdust bath; whilst here and there, on the outskirts of the crowd, a lonely man and wise-faced dog, come from afar to wrest his proud title from the best sheep-dog in the North.
He had that independent manner which honorable descent and absolute ownership of house and land give; and he looked every inch a gentleman, though he wore only the old dalesman's costume, breeches of buckskin fastened at the knees with five silver buttons, home-knit stockings and low shoes, and a red waistcoat, open that day, in order to show the fine ruffles on his shirt.
And the little man put his hands with a feverish clutch on Ralph's shoulders, and looked into his face. For an instant there was a tremor on the young dalesman's features, but it lasted only long enough for Sim to recognize it, and then the old firmness returned. "But what of the poor woman and her barns?" Ralph said, quietly.
*N. B. You may know a Red McCulloch anywhere by the ring of white upon his tail some two inches from the root. AFTER that first encounter in the Dalesman's Daughter, Red Wull, for so M'Adam called him, resigned himself complacently to his lot; recognizing, perhaps, his destiny. Thenceforward the sour little man and the vicious puppy grew, as it were, together. The two were never apart.
At length on this day, James Moore, leaving the old dog behind him, had gone over to Grammoch-town to consult Dingley, the vet. On his way home he met Jim Mason with Gyp, the faithful Betsy's unworthy successor, at the Dalesman's Daughter. Together they started for the long tramp home over the Marches. And that journey is marked with a red stone in this story.
The doctor had jerked his horse up by the Vicarage gate. The door at the back opened and shut again, suddenly, sharply, as if in fear. A voice swung out like a mournful bell into the night. A dalesman's voice; such a voice as the lonely land fashions sometimes for its own delight, drawling and tender, hushed by the hills and charged with the infinite, mysterious sadness of their beauty.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking