Shoulder the Sky (Drumberley Book 3) by Stevenson D. E

Author:Stevenson, D. E. [Stevenson, D. E.]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Publisher: Endeavour Press
Published: 2015-08-25T04:00:00+00:00

20

THE SHEEP-farmer is always busy, first with one thing and then with another. Roy was doing well now and taking an interest in his work, but he could not be expected to do all the work himself and James took it in turn with him to walk round the hills. The tups which James had bought at the Lockerbie Sales had been running with the ewes since the end of November, and while they were out on the hills they had to be watched and herded and kept from straying. The ewes were divided into groups (to every forty or fifty ewes there was a tup) and this meant that James or Roy must walk round the hirsel at least once a day to make sure that all was well.

It was impossible to do this kind of work without a dog and Dan had managed to get one for them; he was a shaggy friendly creature who answered to the name of Shad. Shad was no beauty, and he was not as good a sheep-dog as Gyp, but he was improving and James was quite pleased with him.

Sometimes Rhoda went up the hill with James and they took their lunch and had it together in the shelter of a boulder. Then James would go on, round the great bulk of Crowthorne Hill and Winterfell and Rhoda would amuse herself sketching until he picked her up on his way home. Rhoda enjoyed these outings, she enjoyed walking over the hill in James’s company.

“I’m going round the hill today,” said James one morning at breakfast. “It’s too cold for you, I’m afraid. You can’t sit and sketch, you’d be frozen.”

“I’ll come part of the way and then come back,” replied Rhoda who was unwilling to forego her walk.

They set out together with Shad bounding along beside them. It was certainly very cold but there was not a breath of wind; the sky above the hill-tops was pale and misty. There had been frost in the night and the film of it was silver-grey upon the withered heather and the rushes and upon every blade of grass. The pools in the river were smoking delicately in the morning sun. James and Rhoda took the track to the hills, walking shoulder to shoulder. The sun was in their eyes as they went; it had risen from behind Crowthorne Hill like an orange ball but gradually it gained in power and the mists that swathed its rising were disappearing, evaporating in its rays.

“It is lovely,” Rhoda said with a sigh. “The funny thing about this place is that although it’s freezing it doesn’t make one cold. It’s quite different from a town. In London when it’s cold and frosty the chill goes right through to one’s marrow. I’m almost too hot.”

“Dry hill air and no wind.”

“Yes, I suppose that’s the answer.”

They walked on and presently came to a stone dyke with a gate in it. James had had the gate mended; he opened it for Rhoda to go through and, as he did so, looked at it with pride.

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