CHAPTER 7

“What’s trials?”

Every day after that, of course, Babe went the rounds with Farmer Hogget and Fly. At first the farmer worried about using the pig to herd the sheep, not because it was a strange and unusual thing to do which people might laugh at—he did not care about that—but because he was afraid it might upset Fly and put her nose out of joint. However it did not seem to do so.

He could have spared himself the worry if he had been able to listen to their conversation.

“That was fun!” said Babe to Fly that evening. “I wonder if the boss will let me do some more work?”

“I’m sure he will, dear. You did it so well. It was almost as though the sheep knew exactly what it was you wanted them to do.”

“But that’s just it! I asked them…”

“No use asking sheep anything, dear,” interrupted Fly. “You have to make them do what you want, I’ve told you before.”

“Yes, Mum. But…will you mind, if the boss uses me instead of you, sometimes?”

“Mind?” said Fly. “You bet your trotters I won’t! All my life I’ve had to run around after those idiots, up hill, down dale, day in, day out. And as for ‘sometimes,’ as far as I’m concerned you can work them every day. I’m not as young as I was. I’ll be only too happy to lie comfortably in the grass and watch you, my Babe.”

And before long that was exactly what she was doing. Once Farmer Hogget could see by her wagging tail and smiling eyes that she was perfectly happy about it, he began to use Babe to do some of her work. At first he only gave the pig simple tasks, but as the days and weeks went by, Hogget began to make more and more use of his new helper. The speed with which Babe learned amazed him, and before long he was relying on him for all the work with the flock, while Fly lay and proudly watched. Now, there was nothing, it seemed, that the pig could not do, and do faultlessly, at that.

He obeyed all the usual commands immediately and correctly. He could fetch sheep or take them away, move them to left or right, persuade them to move around obstacles or through gaps, cut the flock in half, or take out one individual.

To work on Ma, for instance, there was no need for Hogget to bring all the sheep down to the collecting pen, or to corner them all and catch her by a hind leg with his crook. He could simply point her out to the pig, and Babe would gently work her out of the bunch and bring her right to the farmer’s feet, where she stood quietly waiting. It seemed like a miracle to Hogget, but of course it was simple.

“Ma!”

“Yes, young un?”

“The boss wants to give you some more medicine.”

“Oh not again! ’Tis horrible stuff, that.”

“But it’ll make your cough better.”

“Oh ar?”

“Come along, Ma. Please.”

“Oh all right then, young un. Anything to oblige you.”

And there were other far more miraculous things that Babe could easily have done if the farmer had only known. For example, when it was time for the ewes to be separated from their lambs, now almost as big and strong as their mothers, Farmer Hogget behaved like any other shepherd, and brought the whole flock down to the pens, and took a lot of time and trouble to part them. If only he had been able to explain things to Babe, how easy it could have been.

“Dear ladies, will you please stay on the hill, if you’d be so kind?”

“Youngsters, down you go to the collecting pen if you please, there’s good boys and girls,” and it could have been done in the shake of a lamb’s tail.

However, Babe’s increasing skill at working sheep made Farmer Hogget determined to take the next step in a plan which had begun to form in his mind on the day the piglet had first penned the sheep. That step was nothing less than to take Pig with him to the local sheepdog trials in a couple of weeks’ time. Only just to watch of course, just so that he could have a look at well-trained dogs working a small number of sheep, and see what they and their handlers were required to do. I’m daft, he thought, grinning to himself. He did not tell his wife.

Before the day came, he put a collar and lead on the pig. He could not risk him running away, in a strange place. He kept him on the lead all one morning, letting Fly do the work as of old. He need not have bothered—Babe would have stayed tight at heel when told—but it was interesting to note the instant change in the atmosphere as the collie ran out.

“Wolf! Wolf!” cried the flock, every sheep immediately on edge.

“Move, fools!” snapped Fly, and she hustled them and bustled them with little regard for their feelings.

“Babe! We want Babe!” they bleated. “Ba-a-a-a-a-a-be!”

To be sure, the work was done more quickly, but at the end of it the sheep were scared and trembling and the dog out of patience and breath.

“Steady! Steady!” called the farmer a number of times, something he never had to say to Babe.

—

When the day came for the local trials, Farmer Hogget set off early in the Land Rover, Fly and Babe in the back. He told his wife where he was going, though not that he was taking the pig. Nor did he say that he did not intend to be an ordinary spectator, but instead more of a spy, to see without being seen. He wanted Pig to observe everything that went on without being spotted. Now that he had settled on the final daring part of his plan, Hogget realized that secrecy was all-important. No one must know that he owned a…what would you call him, he thought…a sheep-pig, I suppose!

The trials took place ten miles or so away, in a curved basin-shaped valley in the hills. At the lower end of the basin was a road. Close to this was the starting point, where the dogs would begin their outrun, and also the enclosure where they would finally pen their sheep. Down there all the spectators would gather. Farmer Hogget, arriving some time before them, parked the Land Rover in a lane, and set off up the valley by a roundabout way, keeping in the shelter of the bordering woods, Fly padding behind him and Babe on the lead trotting to keep up with his long strides.

“Where are we going, Mum?” said Babe excitedly. “What are we going to do?”

“I don’t think we’re going to do anything, dear,” said Fly. “I think the boss wants you to see something.”

“What?”

They had reached the head of the valley now, and the farmer found a suitable place to stop, under cover, but with a good view of the course.

“Down, Fly, down, Pig, and stay,” he said and exhausted by this long speech, stretched his long frame on the ground and settled down to wait.

“Wants me to see what?” said Babe.

“The trials.”

“What’s trials?”

“Well,” said Fly, “it’s a sort of competition, for sheepdogs and their bosses. Each dog has to fetch five sheep, and move them through a number of gaps and gateways—you can see which ones, they’ve got flags on either side—down to that circle that’s marked out in the field right at the bottom, and there the dog has to shed some sheep.”

“What’s ‘shed’ mean?”

“Separate them out from the rest; the ones to be shed will have collars on.”

“And then what?”

“Then the dog has to gather them all again, and pen them.”

“Is that all?”

“It’s not easy, dear. Not like moving that bunch of woolly fools of ours up and down a field. It all has to be done quickly, without any mistakes. You lose points if you make mistakes.”

“Have you ever been in a trial, Mum?”

“Yes. Here. When I was younger.”

“Did you make any mistakes?”

“Of course,” said Fly. “Everyone does. It’s very difficult, working a small number of strange sheep, in strange country. You’ll see.”

By the end of the day Babe had seen a great deal. The course was not an easy one, and the sheep were very different from those at home. They were fast and wild, and, good though the dogs were, there were many mistakes made, at the gates, in the shedding ring, at the final penning.

Babe watched every run intently, and Hogget watched Babe, and Fly watched them both.

What’s the boss up to, she thought, as they drove home. He’s surely never thinking that one day Babe might…no, he couldn’t be that daft! Sheep-pig indeed! All right for the little chap to run round our place for a bit of fun, but to think of him competing in trials, even a little local one like today’s, well, really! She remembered something Babe had said in his early duck-herding days.

“I suppose you’d say,” she remarked now, “that those dogs just weren’t polite enough?”

“That’s right,” said Babe.