Soon the Christmas holidays were over; the children went back to school; the snow melted on the lower slopes of the hills and in the valley. The year wore on uneventfully through January to March. Tom gave Flash his daily lessons with the sheep and together they ranged the hillsides with Uncle John at the weekends. Then, one day, Tom came home from school to feverish activity on the farm.
Uncle John and Andra were busy in the paddock dividing the small field into sections with hurdles. Against the hurdles Uncle John was lashing bundles of straw to make a wind break. Andra was constructing a long kind of shed with other hurdles, sloping them in towards each other to make a roof and lashing them all together.
“What’s going on here?” Tom asked.
“We’re getting ready for the lambing,” Uncle John told him. “Like to lend a hand lashing these bundles of straw to the hurdles, Tom?”
“Will you be bringing the flocks down here again?” Tom asked.
“Only the ewes who are going to have lambs soon. Though the ewes can live the winter out of doors even in bitter weather, when the lambs are born they’re tender young things. If we get any more snow they might die if they’re not protected from the bitter weather.”
“Are you building these straw fences to keep the wind off?”
“That’s the idea, Tom. We drive the ewes into this field and Andra is building the lambing shed where the ewes can give birth to their young ones. The first lambs are due in a week or two and we must be ready for them.”
That weekend Tom and Flash helped John Meggetson and Jeff, with Andra and his sheep dog, to bring down from the hills the batch of ewes that would soon give birth to their lambs. They were turned into the long pens in the paddock. That very night there were several flurries of snow. Before he went to bed, Uncle John laid ready his hand torches and storm lantern. Andra had come from his cottage and taken up his abode in a small room at the farm where there was a bunk bed.
“There’ll be a few sleepless nights ahead of both of them,” Aunt Jane remarked.
“Why?” Tom asked.
“Dear knows why, but the ewes always seem to give birth in the middle of the night.”
“But does Uncle John have to be there with Andra too?”
“It’s usually Andra’s job to do the night work, but you’d think birth was as catching as measles sometimes. Several ewes’ll have their lambs the same night and then Andra needs some help.”
“But do the ewes need people to help them when the lambs are born?” Tom looked puzzled.
“Aye, sometimes a ewe needs a helping hand. Sometimes the poor creatures are exhausted after it and then your uncle gives them a warm drink o’ milk with maybe a drop of brandy in it. Whiles, too, there are lambs that need looking after, that are weak. Then I get the job of bringing them into the kitchen by the fire and feeding them out of a baby’s bottle.”
Each night, the last thing before he went to bed, Uncle John went round the lambing pens to inspect the ewes that were near their time. After that Andra took over. The first night or two only one or two lambs were born and Andra was able to cope alone. Then there came a night when Tom heard a rush of feet to the door and a peremptory knock.
“I’ll need some help, Mr Meggetson. There are nine of the ewes will have their lambs in the next couple of hours.”
“I’ll be with you in a few minutes,” John Meggetson replied, and began to get dressed. Tom slipped out of bed too and into his clothes. From his window he watched his uncle cross the farmyard with his lighted lantern. Tom waited, shivering a little, wondering whether he should follow his Uncle John or not.
Half an hour later John Meggetson came hurrying across the yard, a white bundle in his arms. “Jane! Jane!” he called up the stairs. “I’m sorry, lass, but I’m going to need your help wi’ the lambs too. Here’s the first o’ them!”
Aunt Jane went downstairs in her warm woollen dressing gown. “All right, John! I wasna’ sleeping. I was kind of expecting the call.”
Tom followed her down the stairs uncertain whether he would be sent back to bed.
“Hullo, Tom!” his uncle said in surprise.
“I–I came down to see if I could be any use,” Tom stammered.
His uncle hesitated a moment, then said, “Oh, all right, lad! You can come with me. No doubt you’ll be able to make yourself useful.”
When they reached the lambing pen Andra was on his knees beside a ewe that was panting with the effort of giving birth to her lamb.
“She’s in a pretty poor way, mister,” Andra told Meggetson.
Uncle John set his lantern down and stooped beside Andra. Tom stood back in the shadows watching. The two lanterns made twin pools of light over the distressed ewe. She groaned as Andra massaged her gently.
“Looks like a big lamb, Andra,” Uncle John commented.
“Aye, she’s having a lot of difficulty with it. There’s a chance the lamb may no’ be born alive.”
Every now and again the ewe would give a desperate struggle to get to her feet as if she could run away from the trouble which beset her.
“Right, Andra. You hold her down and I’ll do what I can to help her.” Uncle John rolled up his shirt sleeves. “Tom, can you hold the lantern so that the light shines on the poor beast.”
Uncle John went to work on her with gentle compassionate hands, then, after a few minutes, gave an “Ah!” of satisfaction. “That’s better! Here comes the lamb’s head now.”
From between the flanks of the struggling animal appeared a small black face with bright eyes, then a thrust of white shoulders followed by two white forefeet.
“That’s grand! That’s grand!” Andra breathed.
“Aye, the ewe’ll manage the rest herself now if the lamb’s not too weak to help her.”
Life, even in the smallest and frailest of animals, is a marvellous force. Though the lamb was weak, it began to wriggle. Two or three wriggles, then the hind legs appeared. The lamb tried to stand on its weak little legs but they would not support it. The mother gave a long sigh of achievement and lay still for a minute. She turned her head and looked at the lamb. In that moment Tom knew all the awe and the beauty of birth and the fierce upsurge of joy that comes with it too. To the small boy, born and bred in the city, it was a miracle of nature. The tears started unbidden to his eyes.
Uncle John held the lamb to the ewe’s face and she licked it tiredly as if to claim it for her own.
“She’ll do!” Uncle John said. “I’ll give her a drop of warm milk and brandy and let her lie for a bit. That lamb’s right feeble, though. Tom, will you carry him over to your aunt?”
Tom stooped into the circle of light and took the frail lamb from his uncle. A tear splashed on to Uncle John’s hands. He looked up in surprise, then his face kindled into a warm smile for Tom.
“You’ll do, too, lad,” he said in a quiet voice. “Give your aunt a hand first, then you can come back here to help us, if you like.”
Tom wrapped the lamb in his jacket and cuddled it close to him as he stepped out into the biting northerly wind. To him the lamb had become a precious thing. He stepped into the welcoming warmth of the kitchen.
“Here’s another for you, Aunt Jane.”
“Mercy on us! It’s a whole flock I’ll have here soon!” Aunt Jane took a look at Tom’s bundle. “Och, the poor wee thing! Elspeth, here’s another one for ye. You’ll have to give it a bottle.”
Only then Tom noticed Elspeth kneeling by the fire, a lamb in her arms that she was feeding from a baby’s bottle. She was intent on her task but she looked up and gave Tom a brief smile. “This one’s finishing now. He can go to sleep in the basket. Is that another bottle made up with warm milk, Mrs Meggetson?”
“Aye, lassie, here you are!”
Elspeth took the lamb from Tom. At first it hardly had strength to draw the milk. Mrs Meggetson dipped the teat of the bottle in a bowl of sugar. The lamb gave it a feeble lick, then all at once began to pull on the bottle.
“Sugar never fails with babies and what goes for babies often goes for lambs too,” Aunt Jane chuckled.
Tom watched Elspeth and the lamb. “Will he be all right?” he asked. “He – he almost didn’t live at all.”
“Aye, Tom, he’ll live now. The spark of life is hard to quench even in these wee things,” Aunt Jane told him.
Tom waited till the lamb was fed and put in a blanket in the warm basket by the fire. “I’m going back to help Uncle John now,” he said. “He could do with me.”
There was a new dignity and gravity about Tom. He had assisted at the miracle of birth and his uncle needed him. In a night Tom had risen to the stature of a man.
The lambing went on for many nights after that. Then, one morning, after a quiet night when no lambs were born, Uncle John went out to look at the ewes which had been turned out on the hillside with their lambs to make room for the next batch of ewes in the lambing pens. He came back with a face black as thunder, carrying two dead lambs with their throats torn and bleeding and the wool of their chests dyed red with their blood.
“Oh!” Elspeth cried, jumping to her feet and pressing her hands in horror to her cheeks. Aunt Jane looked equally concerned.
“They’ve been savaged?”
“Aye, lass. There’s been a killer at work,” Uncle John said grimly.
“What kind of a killer, Uncle John?” Tom asked.
“Either a dog running wild among the flocks or a fox. More likely a fox, as we’re so far from other houses and our dogs were in the house all night. I think there’s a strong smell of a fox on the poor wee animals.”
Tom felt the black anger surge in him against the killer as he thought of the pitiful frailty of the lamb he had seen born.
“What’ll we do, Uncle John?”
“We’ll get him, fox or dog.”
“Where did you find them, John?” Aunt Jane nodded at the pitiful little corpses.
“In the low field behind the house.”
“The killer dared to come in so close to the house?”
“Aye. That makes me think it’s a fox. The foxes have been short of food in all this snow. Hunger has made them impudent.”
“Did you know which ewes the lambs belonged to?”
“There was one standing by the fence near to the dead lambs. She was fair exhausted but there was still a spark of fight in her. She glared at us and lowered her head at Jeff as though she thought he was the enemy.”
“So ewes really do fight for their lambs,” Tom remarked.
“Oh, yes! A ewe would stand up to a lion to save her lambs. Aye, but the foxes are crafty. It’s always the ewe wi’ twin lambs they attack.”
“Why is that?” Tom asked.
“Because she canna’ defend both lambs at once. She’ll stamp and butt at the fox as this one did. The snow was trodden down flat with hoof marks through to the turf below, so the poor beast had put up a good fight for them. The fox would nip in between the lambs and their mother and seize one while the mother was defending the other.”
“How will you catch the fox, Uncle John?”
“If the fox can be crafty, so can we! Jane, have you got a tasty bit of meat with a good smell that might attract the killer?”
“Yes, there’s a bit rabbit left from the stew.”
“Just the thing! There’s a weak point in the wire fence – a hole where I think the fox got in. We’ll put the meat near the gap to entice the fox. Come along, Tom! I’ll want you and Flash to help me.”
“Flash too?” Tom asked eagerly.
“Aye. He’s an intelligent wee dog and he’s got a quicker turn o’ speed than Jeff, He’ll know what’s wanted.”
When they reached the lambing pens with Flash, Uncle John said, “Now this is a bit of a delicate operation. That ewe in the far pen had twin lambs two days ago. I want Flash to help shift her and the lambs into the field where the other lambs were killed last night. Flash’ll have to handle her cautiously. She’ll be ready to defend her lambs and she might run at him. Can you direct Flash? He’ll take his commands better from you.”
“I’ll do my best,” Tom replied.
Uncle John opened the gate of the pen and Tom showed Flash the ewe with her lamb. “Fetch her out, Flash!” Tom said. “Steady now!”
Flash eyed the ewe and went inside the pen.
“Down, Flash!” Tom called.
Flash crouched down, keeping his eye fixed on the sheep.
“Come behind, Flash!”
The little dog moved a few paces to the right of the pen and the sheep moved out of her corner and along the other side of the pen towards the gate.
“That’s the way of it!” Uncle John said softly.
“Come round, Flash!” Tom circled his arm.
Flash moved behind the ewe to drive her nearer the gate. Suddenly the ewe turned and stamped at him.
“Down, Flash!” Tom called at once. Flash crouched on his stomach keeping a baleful eye on the ewe which backed away from him. The game of advance and retreat went on, a few paces at a time, Flash moving quietly in response to Tom’s commands, never taking his eyes off the sheep.
“He’s got the power of the eye all right, that one!” Uncle John said with approval.
At last Flash got the sheep and her lambs through the gate without alarming her unduly. From there it was an easier matter to drive them both into the larger field behind the houses. There were patches of green turf showing through the snow. Soon the ewe was grazing quietly on a patch near the hole in the fence, with her lambs close to her.
“That was a piece of good work, Tom. Flash handled them well.”
Tom glowed with pride at his uncle’s rare praise.
“Keep the sheep there while I bring a stake and a rope,” John Meggetson instructed him.
When Meggetson returned he drove the stake into the ground about twenty-five yards from the hole in the fence, then he secured the ewe to it by a long rope which allowed her to range freely for a few yards round about.
“There, Tom! That’s our decoy, the ewe and her lambs. They say the killers come back to the scene of the crime. Tonight we’ll keep watch and wait for the killer, fox or dog, to come back to worry another lamb.”
“Where shall we keep watch?” Tom asked.
Uncle John pointed to a small building which jutted out from the back of the farm. “The old stable. There’s a window there we can open. I’ll have my shotgun at the ready there and Flash will do the rest.”
“How?” Tom asked.
“You’ll see, lad.”
That night, as soon as it was dark, John Meggetson put the piece of rabbit down near the hole in the fence. Then he and Tom took up their stations in the old stable with Flash on the lead. Uncle John gave his instructions about Flash and warned Tom, “We might have to wait quite a long time, keeping very still and not talking.”
Flash crouched at Tom’s feet. The door was slightly ajar so they could get out quickly with as little noise as possible. Uncle John had his gun resting on the window ledge. From there he could cover all the area round the ewe and her lambs. The moon rose and bathed the field in a pale light, making the shadows a deeper black.
Tom was beginning to feel cold and cramped when Flash suddenly stood up stiff-legged and pointed his nose towards the door. Tom held his muzzle so he would make no sound.
“He’s heard something,” Uncle John whispered. “Be ready to unleash him when I say the word.” He peered through the window, watching the moonlit meadow. “I think there’s something stirring in the shadow of the hedge.”
They held their breath as they watched the slinking form emerge through the hole, stop and sniff at the rabbit and pull a mouthful or two of the meat from it. Then it seemed as if the sleepy ewe had a premonition of danger. She saw the crouching form of her enemy in the moonlight and tossed her head and gave a snort of alarm. The fox looked up quickly from the rabbit and saw a prey that interested him even more in the twin lambs cowering by their mother’s side. He began to move towards them with bared teeth. The ewe went mad with fear and rage. She stamped and snorted, lowering her head to butt the fox if he came nearer. The fox crouched, waiting his moment to dart in and snatch a lamb.
“Now!” Uncle John whispered to Tom. “Send Flash along the hedge between the fox and the hole in the netting.”
Tom unleashed Flash and hissed at him. “Away here!” and pointed with his stick towards the hedge. Like a streak of lightning Flash sped along under cover of the hedge. The fox heard him, left the sheep and turned to dash for his escape hole. Flash was there before him, racing up and down in front of it with bared teeth and a menacing growl. The fox turned and fled in the opposite direction, making for the gate by the old stable. His flight brought him directly under Uncle John’s line of fire. Uncle John had his finger ready on the trigger. The shot rang out. The fox leaped into the air, then rolled over and lay still.
“That’s put paid to the killer,” Uncle John said grimly.
Flash was sniffing and growling at his fallen enemy when Tom slipped the lead on him again. As Uncle John stooped to pick up the body of the fox, he patted Flash on the head. “Weel done, Flash! If you hadn’t headed the fox off so neatly, I couldna’ have shot him.”
Flash flicked out his tongue and licked him, then turned to Tom and rolled over at his feet. It was as though he knew that together they had vanquished the enemy of the sheep that were in his charge.
As soon as the snows were gone the sheep and their lambs were taken to range the hills again. When Tom was not at school there was plenty of work for both him and Flash. Flash showed a wonderful turn of speed in rounding up the sheep, but what pleased John Meggetson most was Flash’s ready obedience to Tom’s commands.
“They make a good pair,” Meggetson told Jane. “But ye’ve no’ to tell Tom that, for I don’t want him to get swell-headed. A swell-headed master makes a swell-headed dog and that would spoil both of them for the Sheep Dog Trials.”
“D’ye think Flash’ll stand a chance?” Jane asked eagerly.
“Maybe! But dogs can get excited and do silly things. There’s no harm in Tom entering him for the local Sheep Dog Trials at the beginning of July and we’ll see how Flash shapes then.”
As the month of May drew to a close in warm summerlike weather, the work of shearing the sheep began. Shearing pens were erected in the paddock and the sheep brought down in batches the previous night to the farm steading. To Tom’s surprise his uncle turned the sheep into the old byre and closed the door on them instead of leaving them in the open paddock. Tom asked why this was done.
“A sheep canna’ be sheared if its wool is wet,” Uncle John explained, “so they’re kept under cover the night before shearing.”
The next day the actual shearing began. Jeff shepherded a small flock into the pen and the gate was shut on them. Then the inner gate into the shearing space was opened. The sheep bunched together and seemed unwilling to move, but Jeff assumed a threatening attitude behind them and the sheep surged forward. One pushed its way through the gate into the shearing enclosure and Andra shut the gate smartly. The sheep was seized by John Meggetson who heaved it over on to its side and got to work with the clippers.
Tom watched, fascinated. The sharp electric clippers stripped the wool off the sheep all in one piece like a jacket. Uncle John got the sheep between his knees and sheared the wool on the chest and legs very carefully, then a pull and a heave and he had the sheep over on its other side. He sheared down towards the tail. Astonished, Tom cried, “Why, the whole fleece has come off in one piece like a coat!”
Andra spread the fleece flat on the ground, put any short locks of wool in the middle, then rolled the fleece into a bundle and tied it up. Another sheep was let through from the paddock to the shearing pen.
Tom gazed after the shorn sheep. “How thin it looks!”
“Aye, I reckon its own mother would hardly know it!” Uncle John grinned. “Like to give Andra a hand bringing the sheep through from the paddock?”
All this time Flash sat behind Tom. He watched Jeff controlling the sheep and now and again he gave an eager little whine.
“All right, Flash! You shall have your turn soon,” Uncle John promised him.
When Flash’s turn came he ushered the batch of sheep in a quiet, methodical fashion into the pen, and under Tom’s directions he got them moving towards the gate into the shearing pen. They hesitated and bunched together as if dreading the ordeal of having their coats removed and their thin ribs exposed. They headed in all directions but the right one. Flash ran round them and skilfully detached one sheep that seemed to be causing the most trouble. He “wore” the sheep this way and that till he got him through the open gate to Mr Meggetson.
“Well done, Flash! You shed that sheep like a veteran! That dog uses his brains,” he told Tom. “As soon as we’ve done shearing we’ll start on giving Flash a thorough training for the Trials.”
Thereafter, every evening and most of Saturday was spent in giving Flash his intensive training. Uncle John outlined to Tom what Flash would have to do at the Trials.
“There’s nothing the dog hasn’t done already in practice. He’ll have five sheep to work with.”
“Only five!” Tom exclaimed. “Why, Flash can bring in a whole flock!”
“Maybe, but it’s five sheep each dog has to run on in the Trials. He’ll have to make an outrun of four hundred yards, either to right or left, so practise both.”
Tom nodded. “Then Flash has to lift the sheep down towards me?”
“That’s right, but he has to send them through centre gates seven yards wide, about one hundred and fifty yards from where you will be standing.”
“Flash has brought sheep through narrower spaces than that.”
“Aye, but style counts for a lot, Tom. He mustn’t let a sheep get away from him round the posts. Then, the next thing, he has to bring the sheep in a cross drive right across the course through two sets of gates at opposite sides, then back to where you are standing. There’ll be two posts set up where you are to stand.”
Tom nodded. “What next?”
“You’ll be at the forward post by then and he must bring the sheep round behind you.”
“Yes, and then?”
“There’s a circle twenty-five feet across near your post, which is called the shedding ring. Flash will have to drive his five sheep into that. There he has to separate two of the sheep from the five and do it inside the circle.”
“I think he could do that all right.”
“Yes, so do I. Then comes penning the sheep.”
“He’s had plenty of practice in that,” Tom said with satisfaction. “What’s the size of the pen?”
“Nine feet by six feet, and one side of it is a gate. You’ll have a six-foot rope by which to hold the gate open. You’ve got to stay at the end of the rope. Ye can speak to the dog, but no’ help him in any way to drive the sheep in. When he’s got the sheep in, ye can swing the gate shut.”
“Is that the end of the competition?” Tom asked.
“Oh no! Flash will have to bring the sheep out o’ the pen back to you in the ring and separate one sheep from the rest. Ye’ll be able to point it out to him and that sheep’ll be marked by a red ribbon.”
“Flash has singled out one sheep before now and without a ribbon.”
“True!” Uncle John agreed. “But, the whole job from the outrun has to be done inside fifteen minutes.”
Tom let out a low whistle. “Flash has lots of speed, though.”
“Aye, but it doesn’t depend on speed alone, mark you! The dog that gets most marks from the judges will be the one which moves the sheep quietly and steadily. He mustn’t rush the sheep or scatter them. Ye won’t have to give him too many commands, either.” Uncle John finished on a word of caution. “Fuss is what spoils many a performance.”
Uncle John and Tom marked out the lower field as though it were the competition ground and even built a pen on it. After that Tom spent every spare moment of his time in training Flash. He taught the dog to obey his whistle as well as his word of command. Elspeth usually watched the training too, standing on the gate into the field to see Flash’s performance better. If, but only if, Flash had done well, she was allowed to give him one biscuit, but only after she had asked Tom’s permission. Flash knew this was his reward for working well and he would look from Tom to Elspeth and back, waiting to see if he would be rewarded.
“You know, Elspeth, Flash tries harder if you’re watching him,” Tom declared.
“I think the three of them make a kind of team, Tom, Flash and Elspeth,” Uncle John confided in Aunt Jane. “There’s no word o’ the lassie going back hame yet, is there?”
Aunt Jane shook her head. “When Mr Young was up here at the weekend he said Alison might have to stay at the Convalescent Home a wee while yet. She’s to have massage and all kinds of electrical treatment.”
“Though I hope Alison gets better quickly, I’m no’ wanting to lose the lassie either. I hope she’s able to stay till after the Sheep Dog Trials anyway. There’s no denying both Tom and Flash do better when Elspeth’s looking on.”
Aunt Jane nodded her head sagely. “You see, Elspeth believes in Tom and Flash, and Tom knows it and it gives him confidence. He thinks a lot of Elspeth’s good opinion.”
“Aye, and when Tom has confidence, so has Flash! It’s as though Flash can read Tom’s thoughts at times.” He sat silent for a moment or two, then said, “There’s been no word from America for a while. I wonder if Kate ever will send for the lad?”
Aunt Jane folded up her knitting. “With Elspeth gone home and Tom in America, we’re going to be a right lonely old couple again, John Meggetson. I don’t think we’re going to like it.”
