The red book of animal stories/Sheep Farming on the Border
SHEEP FARMING ON THE BORDER
The sheep possesses all the virtues. Those whose lot is cast in the hills of the Scottish Border (as is the case of the writer) will know how to pity the poor sheep who have to find their food on the hills from December to the month of May—hills which are sometimes deep in snow, and which at best grow browner and deader day by day, often till June is reached.
Yet the sheep work on, often doing with no other food than they can pick for themselves, or, perhaps, a little hay at the best. This is in what is considered a good winter. But generally, in the course of these months the monotony is broken by storms of snow or wind—or both united— which produce terrible suffering to the poor animals, and to their masters.
My great-grandfather, who lived on the same farm as we do, kept minute diaries of these things, and from these, as well as from the stories of the ‘Ettrick Shepherd,’ I have got my information.
The first big storm recorded is that known as the ‘Thirteen Drifty Days.’ It was about 1672, and must have occurred soon after sheep farms were set going on the Border. Now, a steady fall of snow, unless it reaches a great depth, is not a very great misfortune, as the sheep scrape away on the steep hillsides with more or less pluck (if you watch them you see a marvellous difference in degree), and they manage to get enough to live on, as the grass is always fresh beneath the snow.
But if a wind gets up and drift sets in, one sits by one’s fire shuddering to think of the wreaths or drifts piling up outside. Well, in this year of storm there had been a long spell of snow and frost, and the surface of the snow had hardened, and the sheep were weakened by want of food. In the end of January a change seemed coming, and the shepherds were rejoicing to think of relief. Little they thought what the change would be! The wind rose and drift set in, nor did it cease nignt or day for thirteen days. The accounts doubtless lose nothing in the telling; still it seems certain that in all those days the sheep never broke their fast; nor was the drift constant from one quarter, for the wind shifted so continually that the shepherds knew not how to dispose the poor animals for shelter. On the ninth and tenth days the dead grew so numerous, from hunger and the most intense cold, that the shepherds built up dykes or walls of dead sheep in a half-circle to shelter the living. It availed but little; and on the fourteenth day, when the storm at last abated, nought remained on any farms but these walls of dead sheltering a small flock, all likewise stiff and cold. One happier experience is recorded in our long diaries.
A certain Robbie Scott, of Priesthaugh, in Upper Teviotdale, never left his sheep day nor night all through the weary storm. He scraped away what snow he could where the drift had left ground comparatively bare, and he led the sheep to where the rough tops of heather afforded them some little food. A fine fellow he must have been, and of most wondrous endurance; but, worn out at length, on the thirteenth night, he went away to get the sleep he could no longer do without. By morning it was thawing, so his sufferings were not in vain; and later he was rewarded by his sheep bringing eight score lambs, which was more than the whole district altogether could show.
But the greatest storm on record is that of 1794; known as the Gonyal storm—no one knows why—when the thaw did almost as much damage as the actual storm itself. The ground had been covered with hard frozen snow for some time before it began, and the shepherds were all keeping their weather eyes open in expectation of a blast. The day before the storm was thick, dark, and piercingly cold, but without a breath of wind, so that no one had an idea from which direction the tempest would come. One old man, out of his own experience, said that wherever the first opening appeared through the fog the storm would burst; whereat his fellowshepherds hooted, for just then a south wind sprang up, and the opening appeared in the north! Nevertheless the old man was right, for, towards midnight, with a roar like thunder, the hurricane broke with a blinding drift from the north. This lasted for about a week; but to give you some idea of the strength of the blast, I must tell you that two hours before daylight it was impossible to get out of any door facing north, so deep were the drifts outside. In a short time the whole aspect of the country was changed; dykes, of course, had vanished, valleys were levelled, burns which, in the morning, had been swollen to the size of rivers, had in many places disappeared, and even trees were buried entirely out of sight.
So you can, perhaps, understand a little the difficulty younger shepherds, who were new to the district, had in rescuing the sheep on this occasion; for they recognised their whereabouts only by landmarks, and were dismayed to find that everything had completely gone. But all the experienced hands had set out before daylight—with their hats tied firmly on their heads, their plaids sewn round them, and a good flask of whisky in their breast pockets—in search of the sheep. They plodded thus, three or four of them together, in single file, each man leading in turn, for the fury of the blast was such that no mortal could stand up against it for more than ten minutes at a stretch. It seemed an almost hopeless errand; on arriving at the place where the sheep should have been there was no sign of any living creature! The collies were then set to work, and it was extraordinary to see how quickly they pounced upon the place where a sheep lay buried; and one old dog, Sparkie, is said to have smelt out several at a depth of no less than fifty feet below the snow! The sheep were all living when found; but those that were very deeply buried felt the sudden change into the bitter atmosphere above, for, after bounding away in delight at their release, they were almost instantly paralysed and fell helplessly upon the snow, where they remained many hours before recovering the use of their limbs.
When the thaw came the rivers rose so suddenly that many of the poor weakened creatures could not get out of the way in time, and there is a curious record of the ‘throw up’ in the Solway which I quote here: ‘1840 sheep, 9 black cattle, 3 horses, 2 men, 1 woman, 45 dogs, and 180 hares, besides a number of meaner animals.’
In our own experience things are better: there are more roads, and the railways are of much help in many districts; yet the elements remain as before, and we still have our anxieties. I can call to mind being able to walk over dykes on the snow wreaths, and days of drift when one could not see the course of the Teviot lying just below us. Such was a great storm on Old Year’s night in 1874, when six trains were snowed up for two days at the head of Gala Water. Such, again, was a short sharp storm in March 1889. It came on very suddenly, the wind being so violent as to overturn two loaded trucks on the railway near our farm in Liddesdale. The poor sheep just ran before the blast on this farm, going to the head of a deep clench or glen for shelter; there they could get no further, and were ‘smoored,’ or buried in the soft snow. We lost 31 on that occasion; but close by, on the Northumbrian border, losses were heavier, for, as ill-luck would have it, the storm took place on the very day the shepherds had all gone to Rothbury for their dog-licences; so the sheep were not gathered, and
DIGGING THE IMPRISONED SHEEP OUT OF THE SNOW
on one farm eleven score were lost! The track of that storm was only about five miles broad.
Again, in 1894, we had a disastrous storm, and all the sheep on our hill farms had to be driven in to our home farm on the Teviot. There they remained for six long weeks, while the ground was caked completely with ice—not a blade of grass or tuft of heather to be seen. They were all, 2,400, fed twice a day by hand on hay. It was curious to see how, when the first breath of ‘fresh’ came into the air, all the hill sheep stopped eating, and every nose turned in the direction of home with loud and prolonged ‘baas;’ and I do not know whether shepherds or sheep were most delighted to return to their wilds.
When the joyful day came, it reminded one of the flight out of Egypt to see the long line of sheep and shepherds wending over the hills. Little do our friends, who come to us in summer days, like the swallows, understand how different our winter life is. It has its discomforts, its many anxieties; but it also brings one face to face with nature in a way which does one good. It is grand to force one’s way up the hill after a wild storm, and see the snow piled up and blown into all kinds of queer shapes and caves, till one can believe oneself in the Arctic Circle. It is good to see master, and men, and dogs all working together on the quest for buried sheep, feeling about with long poles in likely places till the dogs come to the rescue and scent out the sheep. If the snow is dry and powdery, sheep can live three weeks easily beneath it; but if it is soft it will very soon smother them; in which case great is the anxiety to get them to the light of day.
Such are some of the not uncommon events of Border life—not very remarkable, not very blood-curling; but bringing with them more of hardship than most things in every-day life.