Pastorals of Dorset. 1915

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SHEPHERD ROBBINS.

Farmer Joyce walked meditatively up the steep, deeply-rutted lane which led to the field wherein his sheep were penned.  He was a tall, bluff, burly old man, carrying himself erect in spite of his seventy years, and capable still of performing a hard day’s work with the best of his juniors.

On one of his broad shoulders rested a pitchfork supporting a goodly truss of hay; in the other hand he carried a shepherd’s crook.  A quaint, picturesque, pastoral figure was this, clad in the antiquated smock frock, now so seldom to be seen, but which Farmer Joyce wore summer and winter alike; his nether limbs were encased in corduroys and stout leather leggings, and his great nailed boots left impressions, gigantic and far apart, on the muddy soil.  The cutting wind frolicked with his iron-grey beard and hair, and intensified the ruddy hue of his broad honest face.  The years which had passed over that kindly face 

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had left wonderfully few traces, except for the dust with which they had powdered the once coal-black hair and beard.  There were no furrows in the brow, no pinched lines about the mouth; the eyes looked forth from under their whitened lashes with the large contemplative gaze of the man accustomed to pass his life between earth and sky, to sweep wide horizons, to take note, with one comprehensive glance, of the changes of the weather, of the coming of the seasons as indicated by sun and clouds, by bloom or decay advancing over vast tracts of country.

Farmer Joyce had a mind above petty cares; the small home worries and anxieties he left, as he frequently announced, his missus to see to; for himself he kept his soul untroubled, taking good and evil fortune alike philosophically.  Yet to-day his face wore a puzzled, not to say perturbed, expression, and, as he neared the top of the hill, he imperceptibly slackened his long, swinging strides.

At the turn of the road, through the black irregular line of wintry hedgerow, came glimpses of yellow, standing out vividly against the sombre background of dull green and grey; these were the hurdles carefully padded with straw which penned in the lambing ewes.  

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From the spot where Farmer Joyce stood, pausing a moment hesitatingly before continuing the ascent, a small tarred shepherd’s hut reared itself between him and the sky, and presently the figure of a man appeared slowly moving round it.

“There he be,” murmured the farmer to himself, and went on more rapidly.

The figure advanced to meet him, and was standing by the small wicket gate leading to the field by the time the other reached it.

An old man, much older, apparently, than his master, the outlines of his bent shoulders sharply defined under the soiled linen jacket; his ragged hair and whiskers white, his very face grey and rugged, ploughed into deep furrows by time and hardship; the eyes looking straight before them with a dull non-expectant gaze; the horny old hand, which rested on the gate, gnarled and knotted, and extraordinarily thin.

“Good-day to you, shepherd.  How’s the rheumatics?”

“Good-day, farmer; good-day.  Rheumatics is bad, thank ye.”

“Ah,” said Joyce, “I fear ye’re falterin’, shepherd, I do, truly.”

Shepherd Robbins made no response; he 

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stood aside to let his master pass into the enclosure.  Then the two paced together from pen to pen, the farmer’s usually dreamy eye alert enough now, and quick to take note of anything amiss.  Once or twice he found fault, and once or twice he gave directions; Robbins receiving commands and admonitions alike in stolid silence.  With stiff and feeble movements he helped the farmer to set before the ewes the provender which he had brought, and stood watching them with him while they precipitated themselves upon it.

“What a din they do make—a body can scarce hear his own voice,” cried Joyce, turning away at last.

“’Tis their natur’ like, master,” replied the shepherd, hobbling after him.  “There’s little need of a-hearin’ one’s own voice with ewes and lambs about.  It do take a man all his time to see to ’em.”

“Ah,” agreed the farmer, stopping short suddenly and looking at him, “it do, shepherd; it do.  ’Tis more nor many a man can do.  ’Tis more nor you can do at your time of life, shepherd, I d’ ’low.”

“I do do it,” returned Robbins stolidly.

“Ah,” pursued the farmer, following out his own train of thought, as though he had not 

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heard him, “we be near lambin’ time now, and ’tis puzzlin’ to know how ye’re agoin’ to manage it.  It do puzzle me, I know.  Ye’re falterin’, man, I tell ’ee.”

Robbins gazed vacantly at his master, rubbing his gnarled hands together slowly.

“My missus was a-sayin’ it to me only last night,” pursued the other.  “She do think—”

But here some gleam of intelligence seemed to filter into Robbins’ mind.

“Missus do think I’m past work,” he said.  “That’s what she do do.  Missus never could abear me.”

“Now then, come,” cried the farmer, with a kind of mild roar of exasperation.  “The missus is a good missus to ’ee, Robbins.  She be but anxious for to help ’ee.”

“She’s onreasonable,” grumbled the shepherd; “onreasonable, that’s what she be.  She do look for too much, and expect too much.  When Daisy calved she was vexed at its bein’ a bull calf.  ‘Well, missus,’ I says, ‘I can’t help it if it be a bull.  Things falls out so,’ I says, ‘as we can’t always have our own way.  There must be he’s as well as she’s in this world.’  An’ she did rate me for the sayin’, an’ she do keep a grudge agin me ever since.”

“Nay, now,” said Farmer Joyce, sinking 

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his voice, but still speaking with the air of mild expostulation which had characterised his former remarks.  “She don’t bear ’ee no grudge, man, not she.  She be all for doin’ ’ee a good turn, I tell ’ee.  Says she to me last night, ‘We must gi’ shepherd help,’ she says, ‘else he’ll ne’er get through wi’ the lambin’ this year.  He desarves consideration,’ she says.  ‘He’s worked for ’ee faithful all his life.  We mus’n’t let un drop in ’arness,’ says she.  Them be her very words, shepherd.”

Robbins continued to rub his hands, but without any appearance of gratification.  Mr. Joyce coughed, stuck his pitchfork in the ground, but almost immediately took it out again.  He seemed to find some difficulty in proceeding.

“Them was her very words,” he resumed, however, presently.  “‘He mus’n’t be allowed to drop in ’arness.  We shall be four shillin’ a week out o’ pocket, but Shepherd Robbins do desarve it,’ she says.”

The farmer paused again.  It takes some little time for a new idea to penetrate into the inner consciousness of a Dorset rustic, but after a few moments Robbins seemed to grasp this one, and a gleam came into his faded eyes.

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“Four shillin’ a week,” he repeated.  “What kind o’ chap be you a-goin’ to get for that money, master?  Why, the lads ’nd scarce frighten the crows for that.”

The farmer coughed again and gently prodded the ground with his pitchfork, watching the operation with apparently intent interest for a moment or two.  Then he slowly raised his eyes.

“He’ll be a-gettin’ eight shillin’ a week, shepherd.  Ye see, ’tis this way.  We be a-payin’ you twelve shillin’ now, we be.”

Robbins nodded.  He had ceased to rub his hands, but stood with the palms still tightly pressed together.

“Well, ye see, we didn’t a-grudge it ye.  Ye was wuth it to us, shepherd—while ye was strong an’ hearty ye was wuth it to us,” he repeated handsomely.  “But now, ye bain’t fit for much, and that’s the trewth; ’tis no fault o’ yourn, but ye bain’t.  We lost a terrible lot o’ lambs last year.  Ye be too stiff in your joints to get about quick, an’ ye can’t get through your work.  It comes hard on we, ye see, to be payin’ out good money an’ not gettin’ the money value—an’ it comes hard on you too, now ye be a-gettin’ into years, shepherd, to be strivin’ an’ contrivin’ like, an’ 

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bibberin’ in the frostiss an’ snow stuff, an standin’ out o’ nights when the rheumatics is bad.  ’Tis cruel hard for ye, shepherd.”

“Ay, sure,” agreed Robbins more readily than usual.  He did not in the least see the drift of the farmer’s argument, but felt that the last proposition was indubitably true.

“So ye see ’tis this way: I lose four shillin’ a week by hirin’ a chap to help ’ee, and you lose four shillin’ a week.  I’ll pay him eight shillin’, an’ I’ll pay you eight shillin’, an’ ye’ll divide the work between ye.  That’s it, do ye see?” said Farmer Joyce confidentially.  “Divide the work an’ divide the wage.”

Robbins stared at him, vacantly at first, then with a growing sense of indignation as he began dimly to understand the nature of the proposal.

“I don’t agree, master,” he said, after a moment’s pause.  “Nay, that I don’t.  I never axed no help, an’ I’m not a-goin’ to divide no wage.  Twelve shillin’ a week is what I did agree for, an’ I’ve a-had it for twenty year an’ more.  I can’t do with no less now nor I did then.”

“Well, but,” argued the farmer, “’tis this way, ye see, I can’t afford to be at a loss.  I’ve a-stood it as long as I could, shepherd, but I 

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can’t noways let things go wrong this season same as last; I can’t truly.  Ye mustn’t be onreasonable.  Why, look ’ee—d’ye know any man o’ your years in these parts as gets twelve shillin’ a week?  It’s the natur’ o’ things as when they can’t do the full day’s work they can’t have the full day’s pay.  Look at Adam Blanchard and Eddard Boyt yon.  When they began to falter they made up their minds to it and went back to eight shillin’ a week same as their grandsons do get.”

“Ay,” agreed Robbins bitterly, “little chaps leavin’ school gets eight shillin’ a week—it’s bwoy’s wage, bwoy’s wage.”

“An’ very good wage too,” retorted the farmer, now as much nettled as was possible for one of his placid nature.  “You ought to take it an’ be thankful, Abel Robbins.  Many a man ’ud be proud an’ glad to earn as much an’ have it paid reg’lar.  Many a able-bodied man wi’ a family,” he added impressively.  “’Tis enough an’ more than enough for you, a lone man wi’ no one dependin’ on ye, so to speak.”

“Ay, I am a lone man, I am that,” agreed the shepherd warmly.  “An’ why am I a lone man?  When I worked for ye first, 

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after your father died, says you, ‘We must have a single man,’ says you.  ‘I must have ye on the spot,’ says you, ‘with all them dumb things about the place to see to.’  So I give up walkin’ wi’ the maid I was coortin’ an’ give up the notion o’ gettin’ wed.  An’ when you got married yourself your missus sent me to lodge in the village.”

“Well, an’ why didn’t ye get tied up then?” returned Joyce, with no less heat.  “Why, that’s nigh forty year ago.  You have had time, sure, to pick a wife between this an’ then?”

Abel stared at him reflectively.  “I’d got used to bein’ without one,” he said, dropping his voice.  “I was goin’ on thirty, then.  Ay, it was too late.  I’d given up the thought o’ womankind, an’ ’twouldn’t have seemed nait’ral like.  But I could wish now that I did ha’ married an’ had childern to keep me.”

“Ye mid ha’ been without ’em,” replied Joyce, once more placid and thoughtful.  “Ay, shepherd, ’tis very like you would.  There’s nothin’ in my opinion more disappointin’ an’ onsartin than wedlock.  There was my mother, a poor ailing thing, an’ Lard, what a family she did have to be sure!  The babbies used to be like rabbits—’pon me word they 

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was.  But they died most of ’em, an’ only a matter o’ half a-dozen o’ us grew up.  Well now, look at my missus—she be a fine, strong, healthy woman, bain’t she?  Never had chick nor child, as the sayin’ goes.  An’ my first wife, ye mind her, Abel?  She was a straight woman an’ a stout un, an’ the only child she had was a poor nesh little thing, that withered away, ye may say, as soon as it was born.  Ye mightn’t ha’ had no children, shepherd, an’ if so be ye had wed ye’d have had the wife to keep.”

“That’s true,” assented Abel.

“An’ there’s another thing,” pursued the farmer, following up his advantage, “if you’d ha’ married when ye was a young un, your sons would be gettin’ into years pretty well by now themselves.  They’d have wives an’ families o’ their own.  Lard bless you! that they would, an’ where ’ud you be among ’em all?”

This flight of imagination was too much for Robbins, who did not attempt to follow it.  He came back instead to the point at issue.

“Eight shillin’ a week,” he repeated.  “’Tis what your father give me when I first worked for en.  Ay, I worked for en for that an’ kept myself.  You mind the time, master; you were 

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a young un too yourself—there is but a two year atween us, but you’ve wore well, fanner; a deal better nor I.  ’Tis the good food, I daresay—ay, ay, it makes a lot of difference.  Good keep makes fat sheep, as the sayin’ goes.  A man laisses twice as long if his victuals is nourishin’.”

“Come, come, I do ’low you’re tough though,” laughed his master good-naturedly.  “Ye’ll see me down, maybe.  You come of a long-lived race, shepherd.”

“Ay, eight shillin’ a week yer father give me,” repeated Robbins, reverting to his original statement, and once more rubbing his hands and blinking his dim eyes as though in the effort to gaze back on that distant past.  “I mind ’twas thought wonderful high pay i’ them days; folks was gettin’ six shillin’ an’ five, but yer father said I was wuth it to en; an’ when he died an’ I went to live yonder with you ye give me eight shillin’ a week an’ my keep—ay, that was summat, I was hearty enough then.  Ye give me that for ten year, an’ then ye got married an’ I must shift to the village, an’ then ye give me ten shillin’ a week.  And when I were fifty year of age I up an’ I says to you, ‘Master,’ says I, ‘I’ve a-sarved ye twenty-five year now an’ ye must 

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raise me,’ says I, d’ye mind?  So ye rose me two shillin’, didn’t ye?  Well, an’ I’ve had twelve shillin’ a week ever since,” he summed up, and his eyes, which had been travelling slowly back over the years, reverted altogether to the present and fixed themselves reproachfully on his master’s face.  “An’ now I be to have bwoy’s pay again, be I?” he queried with an almost childish quiver and droop of the under lip.

“Well, Abel, ’tis onfortunate—terrible onfortunate, ’tis truely.  I’m fair puzzled, I am,” returned the farmer, much moved himself.  “Look at it whichever way you will it don’t seem fair, but there’s a deal o’ difference between the look o’ things an’ the real natur’ of em’, shepherd.  Look at figures now, an’ prices.  Lard, when ye count by pence ye seem to have such a lot you’re fair puzzled wi’ addin’ ’em up—a body ’ud need to have twenty fingers instead of a cluster o’ five.  But put ’em into shillin’s an’ where are ye?  An’ put ’em into pounds, ah—” here the farmer drew in his breath with a sucking sound that implied volumes.  “An’ yet it be all the same money, Abel.”

The shepherd, looking at him still reproachfully, shook his head.

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“I know nothin’ about figures, master; all I know is ’tis cruel hard that when I’ve a-worked all my days for ’ee, Farmer Joyce, you turn on me i’ my ancient years.  It be hard, an’ I can’t say no different.”

For the third time that day Mr. Joyce’s usually equable temper was disturbed.  He now spoke angrily, partly to end the dispute, for the sight of Abel Robbins’ haggard, reproachful face was almost more than he could bear, partly because he was vexed at the pertinacity with which the old fellow adhered to his own point of view, partly because his kind heart smote him for the course of action he was about to pursue, though his judgment held it to be just.

“Well, ’tis this way, Robbins,” he cried roughly, “take it or leave it, an’ please yourself.  I’ve made ye a fair offer, an’ more than a fair offer.  I can get another man to do all the work for ten shillin’ a week—men be plenty an’ work be scarce—’tis clear loss of six shillin’ a week out o’ my own pocket, an’ if I’m willin’ to put up with it you should be content; I’ll stick to my bargain.”

“Well, I bain’t content, master,” cried Robbins, a dull fire coming into his eyes.  “I’d sooner leave—I’d sooner give notice—ay, that I would.”……………………….