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I hae a' thae paulies to sell, an', a' yon Highland stotts down on the green, every ane; an' then I hae ten scores o' yowes to buy after, an', If I canna first sell my ain stock, I canna buy nae ither body's. I hae mair ado than I can manage the day, foreby ganging to houk up hunder-year-auld-banes."
In vain the company related the history of the morning. Tom swore that it was nothing but a jealous conspiracy to rob him of Wully. "Wully sleeps i' the kitchen every night. Never is oot till he's let to bide wi' the yowes. Why, mon, he's wi' oor sheep the year round, and never a hoof have ah lost." Tom became much excited over this abominable attempt against Wully's reputation and life.
'Hark, the mavis' evening sang Sounding Clouden's woods amang; Then a-faulding let us gang, My bonnie Dearie. 'Ca' the yowes to the knowes, Ca' them whare the heather grows, Ca' them whare the burnie rowes My bonnie Dearie. We'll gae down by Clouden side, Through the hazels spreading wide, O'er the waves, that sweetly glide To the moon sae clearly.
I am flattered at your adopting "Ca' the yowes to the knowes", as it was owing to me that it ever saw the light. About seven years ago I was well acquainted with a worthy little fellow of a clergyman, a Mr. Clunie, who sung it charmingly: and, at my request, Mr. Clarke took it down from his singing.
"Thou's despert proud of what thou knows about sheep an' dogs, Peregrine, but there's mony a lad down i' t' dale that's thy marrow." "Aye, I's proud o' what I've larnt misel through tendin' sheep on t' Craven moors for mair nor sixty year; and thou's proud o' thy meadows and pasturs down i' t' dale, aye, and o' thy beasts an' yowes and all thy farm-gear; but it's t' pride that gans afore a fall.
Owd Jerry were i' bed, and the childer too, all except Amos, our eldest barn, and he had set off wi' his father to look after the lambing yowes, and wouldn't be back while eleven o'clock. He was a good lad was Amos, and the only one o' the family that favvoured me; the rest on 'em took after their father.
"Thou's gotten ower mony yowes to thy stint, Thomas Moon," he would say to a farmer who was trying to get the better of his neighbours. "Nay, Peregrine, I reckon I've nobbut eighty, and they're lile 'uns at that." "Eighty's thy stint, but thou's gotten eighty-twee; thou can tak heam wi' thee twee o' yon three-yeer-owds, an' mind thou counts straight next yeer."
"News?" said the farmer, "bad eneugh news, I think; an we can carry through the yowes, it will be a' we can do; we maun e'en leave the lambs to the Black Dwarfs care." "The Black Dwarf!" said MY LEARNED FRIEND AND PATRON, Mr. Jedediah Cleishbotham, "and what sort of a personage may he be?" Jedediah Cleishbotham, seems to have interpolated upon the text of his deceased friend, Mr. Pattieson.
To hear him discussing the respective merits of the Devonshire breed and the short-horns, or the last foolish decision of the magistrates about a pauper, a superficial observer might have seen little difference, beyond his superior shrewdness, between the Vicar and his bucolic parishioners; for it was his habit to approximate his accent and mode of speech to theirs, doubtless because he thought it a mere frustration of the purposes of language to talk of 'shear-hogs' and 'ewes' to men who habitually said 'sharrags' and 'yowes'. Nevertheless the farmers themselves were perfectly aware of the distinction between them and the parson, and had not at all the less belief in him as a gentleman and a clergyman for his easy speech and familiar manners.
"Enclosin' t' freemen's commons is nobbut devil's wark, I's thinkin'," Peregrine went on relentlessly, "and I've marked thee out for devil's wark sin first thou tried to bring more nor thy stint o' Swawdill yowes on to t' moor." The wallers received this home-thrust with a smile of approval, and Timothy, roused by this, sought to defend himself. "It's noan devil's wark," he retorted.
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