Flash the Sheep Dog

by Kathleen Fidler

  “Tom, I think you’re just plain stupid!” Elspeth told him and shut the door with a bang. She went down and took her place at the breakfast table.

  Uncle John was eating his porridge. “Where’s Tom?” he asked.

  “Upstairs! He doesn’t feel like coming down,” Elspeth said briefly.

  “Mercy me! What ails the lad?” Mrs Meggetson exclaimed.

  “If it’s temper I’ll go up and sort him!” Uncle John said grimly.

  Elspeth laid a hand on his sleeve. “Please, Mr Meggetson, don’t be angry with Tom. He really was trying to do something to please you when he went after the ram this morning. He was trying to help you, truly.”

  “Silly young fool! He might have lost his life and yours!” Meggetson growled, but his expression became less grim.

  Elspeth took courage. “I think Tom wasn’t so upset by what you said as by what you didn’t say to Flash.”

  “What I didn’t say to Flash?” John Meggetson looked mystified.

  “Tom said if you’d only have had a word of praise for Flash, it wouldn’t have been so bad.”

  Uncle John looked troubled. “I’ll go up and have a word wi’ the laddie,” he said, rising from his place.

  “Now, John, go easy!” his wife warned him.

  “Ye needna’ worry yourself, lass!” he replied.

  He tapped on Tom’s bedroom door.

  “What is it?” Tom’s voice came truculently.

  Uncle John opened the door. “I’ve come up to have a word wi’ ye, Tom.” Tom’s face flushed angrily. “Now, Tom, listen to what I have to say before you fly off the handle.” Uncle John held up a restraining hand. “There’s been enough trouble owing to me saying the first thing that came into my head this morning.”

  Tom looked up at his uncle in surprise.

  “First of all, Tom, I was real glad to have those animals back, especially the ram. I think you and Flash did a good job of work. He’s a grand wee dog. I’m sorry I failed to thank you for bringing them back, but ye see, lad, I was fair demented at the thought that something might have happened to you.”

  Tom turned round and looked at his uncle in astonishment. “You mean you’d been worried about me?”

  “Aye, Tom! It mattered a lot more about you than the ram, ye know. I can get another ram any day but I canna’—” Uncle John was not given to speaking his feelings. “I’ve got kinda’ used to having you around,” he finished lamely.

  “Oh, Uncle John!” Tom said warmly. He began to laugh, almost hysterically.

  “Get your wet clothes off before your aunt throws a fit, and come down and have your breakfast,” Uncle John directed. “I’m right keen to hear how Flash found the animals.”

  “I–I’ll be down in a minute or two,” Tom capitulated.

  “Is it all right?” Aunt Jane asked anxiously when John Meggetson reappeared.

  “Aye. Ye can put the lad’s bacon and eggs in the pan, Uncle John replied laconically.

  When the meal was ending, Uncle John asked Tom where and how the sheep were found.

  “It was Flash really,” Tom said modestly. “During the night I remembered that when we were coming home, he looked towards the mound where the gorse bushes were buried and gave a little whine. I wondered about it. And he was right too!”

  “Good dog!” Uncle John said, giving Flash a pat on the head. “Aye, ye’ll make a grand sheep dog, right enough,” He cleared his throat. “Elspeth, I’ve no objection to your giving Flash a biscuit.”

  Tom gave his uncle a warm, grateful look.

  More snow fell before Christmas and the hills all about Birkhope stood white against a pale blue sky. Only the clumps of Douglas fir trees, which screened the farm from the northerly blasts, stood out as landmarks. The rest of the country was covered in the velvety white of the drifted snow.

  “A good thing we got the sheep down from the hills when we did or we might have lost half the flock,” Uncle John remarked.

  They had to go on hand-feeding the sheep, for the grass was still buried. Though it was a lot of trouble to cut up turnips and kale, no one grudged the time spent on it, least of all Tom and Elspeth, who willingly lent Uncle John and Andra a hand. A new understanding seemed to have grown between Tom and his uncle.

  A day or two before Christmas Aunt Jane had a quiet talk with her husband. “John, it’s Christmas Day very soon. They make a lot more of Christmas in England than we do.”

  “Aye, we’re more for celebrating the New Year.”

  “I–I wouldn’t like Tom to feel strange here at Christmas.”

  “Weel, what can we do about it?” Uncle John demanded.

  “I thought I’d make an extra good dinner for Christmas Day. Goose and plum pudding like they have in England, you know.”

  “Michty me! What about New Year?” John Meggetson demurred.

  “I don’t see why we shouldn’t have two good celebrations,” Jane told him. “You’ve no cause to grumble if I cook you two good dinners. I’m all for both of them myself! And what about a present for the bairns? It’s a long time since we had children in this house over Christmas.”

  “Heavens, wumman! What will ye think of next? Ye’ll have me fair demented! How are we to get through the snow for shopping in Peebles?

  “Maybe you could manage something without going into Peebles?”

  “D’ye think my other name is Santa Claus?” Uncle John demanded. “You’ll be wanting me to appear in a sledge drawn by reindeer next!”

  “That’s it, John! You’ve hit it the first time!” Aunt Jane clapped her hands. “The sledge!”

  “What sledge?” John Meggetson looked mystified.

  “The sledge our girls had when they were children. It’s somewhere up in the loft. It probably needs a bit of repair and a coat of paint but you could manage that while the children were sleeping.”

  “Mm! Mm!” John pretended to think the matter over but he secretly thought it was an excellent suggestion too.

  “Imagine you thinking of the sledge!” Jane Meggetson said tactfully.

  John shook his head at her with a twinkle in his eye. “Jane Meggetson, ye’re a crafty wumman!” All the same he went to hunt out the sledge from the pile of gear that accumulates in every farm loft.

  “Mind! Don’t let the bairns guess what you’re doing,” Aunt Jane warned him.

  If John Meggetson and his wife had secrets for Christmas, so had Tom and Elspeth. Elspeth had earlier found a quantity of old red wool in a drawer in her own home and was knitting a tea cosy secretly in the mornings before she got up. Tom was clever with his hands and had learned some woodwork at school. He had found a picture of a sheep dog in an old almanac and had found a piece of glass too, just the right size, so he was framing the picture. He worked in the shed where the farm machinery was kept. There was little likelihood of the machinery being used in snowy weather. Elspeth played sentinel for him.

  After breakfast on Christmas Day the children shyly presented their gifts.

  “Just what we were needing! The old tea cosy’s full of holes,” Aunt Jane beamed at Elspeth.

  “That’s a right bonnie picture, Tom!” Uncle John declared. “It reminds me of the first sheep dog I ever had. Let’s get it fixed on the wall right away.”

  When the picture was hung in the place of honour over the mantelpiece, Aunt Jane fixed her husband with her eye and said with marked emphasis, “Weel, what about it, John?”

  “Oh, aye!” Uncle John pretended to have forgotten, and he clapped his hand to his head. “I’ll bring it in.”

  He stepped outside and brought in the bright blue painted sledge. “It’s for both of ye, as it seems just the weather for sledging.”

  “Oh! Oh!” Tom exclaimed, his breath taken away by delight. “Oh, thank you, Uncle John, and Aunt Jane!”

  “Yes, thank you very very much!” Elspeth added.

  “Let’s go try it now!” Tom said.

  “Aye. That low hill just behind the house should be a good p
lace,” Uncle John suggested.

  The children rushed up the hill dragging the sledge, with Flash running excitedly in their wake. Aunt Jane watched them from the window as she washed the dishes. Uncle John took up a drying cloth and said, “I’ll lend you a hand.”

  “Mercy me! What ails ye, John?” she exclaimed.

  “Och! It’s Christmas!” he said lightly.

  Aunt Jane looked at him out of the corner of her eye.

  “There they go, careering down the hill! Weel, what d’ye know? There’s Flash on the sledge with them!” Uncle John stopped his drying operations to watch.

  “I might have known it!” Aunt Jane pretended to be wrathful. “You just came to dry the dishes so you could watch them through the window.”

  “I couldna’ stand here looking and doing nothing or you’d have had something to say,” Uncle John replied with a chuckle.

  Another toboggan run began down the hill.

  “Michty me! They’ve both spilled out of the sledge and Flash too!” Aunt Jane exclaimed. “They’re all lying in a heap!”

  “It’s all right, lass! They’re sorting themselves out and laughing. It’s all part of the fun.”

  Aunt Jane’s face suddenly clouded. “John, it’ll be an awful bleak house without them when Elspeth’s gone home and Kate sends for Tom.”

  “Cheer up, wumman! You knew Elspeth was only kind of loaned for a time and there’s no word o’ Kate wanting Tom yet.” All the same, Uncle John had a secret sinking feeling too.

  8. The Miracle and the Marauder

  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.

  “S
he’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.