Ch. 6: Shepherd Isaac Bawcombe - Page 2

mighty voice, and his wandering life over all that wide
world of Salisbury Plain. Afterwards when I became acquainted with a
good many old men, aged from 75 to 90 and upwards, I found that Old
Joe's memory is still green in a good many villages of the district,
from the upper waters of the Avon to the borders of Dorset. But it is
only these ancients who knew him that keep it green; by and by when they
are gone Old Joe and his neddies will be remembered no more.

In those days--down to about 1840, it was customary to burn peat in the
cottages, the first cost of which was about four and sixpence the
wagon-load--as much as I should require to keep me warm for a month in
winter; but the cost of its conveyance to the villages of the Plain was
about five to six shillings per load, as it came from a considerable
distance, mostly from the New Forest. How the labourers at that time,
when they were paid seven or eight shillings a week, could afford to buy
fuel at such prices to bake their rye bread and keep the frost out of
their bones is a marvel to us. Isaac was a good deal better off than
most of the villagers in this respect, as his master--for he never had
but one--allowed him the use of a wagon and the driver's services for
the conveyance of one load of peat each year. The wagon-load of peat and
another of faggots lasted him the year with the furze obtained from his
"liberty" on the down. Coal at that time was only used by the
blacksmiths in the villages, and was conveyed in sacks on ponies or
donkeys, and of those who were engaged in this business the best known
was Old Joe. He appeared periodically in the villages with his eight
donkeys, or neddies as he called them, with jingling bells on their
headstalls and their burdens of two sacks of small coal on each. In
stature he was a giant of about six feet three, very broad-chested, and
invariably wore a broad-brimmed hat, a slate-coloured smock-frock, and
blue worsted stockings to his knees. He walked behind the donkeys, a
very long staff in his hand, shouting at them from time to time, and
occasionally swinging his long staff and bringing it down on the back of
a donkey who was not keeping up the pace. In this way he wandered from
village to village from end to end of the Plain, getting rid of his
small coal and loading his animals with scrap iron which the blacksmiths
would keep for him, and as he continued his rounds for nearly forty
years he was a familiar figure to every inhabitant throughout the
district.

There are some stories still told of his great strength, one of which is
worth giving. He was a man of iron constitution and gave himself a hard
life, and he was hard on his neddies, but he had to feed them well, and
this he often contrived to