Ch. 5: Early Memories - Page 2

ballads he had learnt in
his young years--"Down in the Village," "The Days of Queen Elizabeth,"
"The Blacksmith," "The Gown of Green," "The Dawning of the Day," and
many others, which Caleb in the end got by heart and used to sing, too,
when he was grown up.

Caleb was about nine when he began to help regularly with the flock;
that was in the summer-time, when the flock was put every day on the
down and when Isaac's services were required for the haymaking and later
for harvesting and other work. His best memories of this period relate
to his mother and to two sheepdogs, Jack at first and afterwards Rough,
both animals of original character. Jack was a great favourite of his
master, who considered him a "tarrable good dog." He was rather
short-haired, like the old Welsh sheepdog once common in Wiltshire, but
entirely black instead of the usual colour--blue with a sprinkling of
black spots. This dog had an intense hatred of adders and never failed
to kill every one he discovered. At the same time he knew that they were
dangerous enemies to tackle, and on catching sight of one his hair would
instantly bristle up, and he would stand as if paralysed for some
moments, glaring at it and gnashing his teeth, then springing like a cat
upon it he would seize it in his mouth, only to hurl it from him to a
distance. This action he would repeat until the adder was dead, and
Isaac would then put it under a furze-bush to take it home and hang it
on a certain gate. The farmer, too, like the dog, hated adders, and paid
his shepherd sixpence for every one his dog killed.

One day Caleb, with one of his brothers, was out with the flock, amusing
themselves in their usual way on the turf with nine morris-men and the
shepherd's puzzle, when all at once their mother appeared unexpectedly
on the scene. It was her custom, when the boys were sent out with the
flock, to make expeditions to the down just to see what they were up to;
and hiding her approach by keeping to a hedge-side or by means of the
furze-bushes, she would sometimes come upon them with disconcerting
suddenness. On this occasion just where the boys had been playing there
was a low, stout furze-bush, so dense and flat-topped that one could use
it as a seat, and his mother taking off and folding her shawl placed it
on the bush, and sat down on it to rest herself after her long walk. "I
can see her now," said Caleb, "sitting on that furze-bush, in her smock
and leggings, with a big hat like a man's on her head--for that's how
she dressed." But in a few moments she jumped up, crying out that she
felt a snake under her, and snatched off the shawl, and there, sure
enough, out of the middle of the