‘There’ve been no other local reports of sheep stealing and I doubt if a thief would find it profitable to take just one sheep every once in a while. They like a vanful to make it economic. But yes, you might be right, so keep observations and if you catch the villain, call me.’
On the Wednesday of that week, by one of those odd coincidences that life tends to throw up from time to time, I had to call on Roy Hamilton who farmed at Lee Ridge Farm, Fieldholme, a small moorland village on the northern extremity of my beat. Roy’s firearm certificate was due for renewal and I decided to conduct my quarterly check of his stock register at the same time. I rang in advance to make sure he would be on the premises and we settled on 2 p.m. as the time for my visit.
Roy was a decent young man who had rented this farm from Fieldholme Estate; in his late thirties, married with two sons and a daughter, all at primary school, he was a hard worker who managed to extract a decent living from his sparse patch of moorland. In this, he was helped by his wife, Jill, who worked part-time in an Ashfordly haberdashery shop. Like most of the hill farmers of these moors, he kept sheep which roamed freely on the heathery heights above his farm, and also maintained a small dairy herd which grazed in the dale below his farm.
After completing my business over the inevitable mug of tea, scone and piece of apple pie, I rose to leave when he said, ‘While you’re here, Mr Rhea, I’ve something I ought mebbe to mention to you.’
‘Yes?’ I folded my notebook and slipped my pen back into my pocket.
‘Well, it’s a bit funny, but in the last few days, I’ve had three stray sheep turn up on my land.’
‘Live ones?’ I asked.
‘Oh yes, very healthy ones. Black-faces.’
‘And their markings?’ I asked.
‘Blue flashes on the left shoulder,’ Roy told me. ‘All of them.’
‘Do you know Hannah Winspear?’ I asked. ‘From Milthorpe?’
He shook his head. ‘No, sorry, it’s a fair way from here, Mr Rhea. Can’t say I know the lady.’
‘Well, in the last few days she’s lost three black-face ewes, mebbe more. They’ve disappeared from her flock during the morning, she reckons, over a few days.’
‘These aren’t mine and there’s nobody in our part of the world has a blue flash on the shoulder, Mr Rhea. I thought about advertising I’d found them, but if they’re your friend Hannah’s, she’d better come and look at them, and take them back.’
‘I’ll get her to come over to see you,’ I promised. ‘But how did they get here? It must be miles from Milthorpe!’
‘And there’s a river in between,’ he reminded me. ‘Sheep wouldn’t wander that far and they wouldn’t cross the river, not all three of them at different times.’
‘So they’ve been brought here?’
‘Aye, I think so. We think somebody’s dumped them on our land.’
‘We?’
‘Well, my wife. Jill, that is. She was on the way to work the other morning and spotted a red van. It was parked on the moors on the edge of my land. There was a sheep near it, she said; at first, she thought it was somebody in the act of stealing one of our sheep, then she saw a chap shoo the sheep away . . . it had a blue mark on its shoulder. By the time Jill got there, the van had gone and she couldn’t get its number. And the more Jill thought about it, the more she thought the sheep had been dumped from the van. And that would account for the others, wouldn’t it? Somebody dumping them on our land, for some odd reason.’
‘Is Jill in now?’ I asked.
‘No, she’s at work.’
‘And the sheep? Are they fit and well? Not diseased or sick or injured?’
‘No, not at all. They’re all in good condition. I’ve got them in a pen now, Mr Rhea, I decided to isolate them from my own flock, to be on the safe side, just in case they do have a disease which would infect mine.’
‘Right, I’ll get Hannah to come across and look at them. Thanks for telling me. Now, if you or Jill see that red van again, can you note its number? I’d like to know what the driver’s up to!’
‘And so would I!’ grinned Roy.
It was while returning home, on a glorious drive across the moors, that I recollected the red van which was owned by Abraham and Polly Smithers. I’d often seen it chugging across these moors because this was on the route from Milthorpe to Teesside. It was quite a distinctive vehicle and the only red van within a large radius. If Abraham and Polly were removing Hannah’s sheep, why would they dump them on Roy’s patch of moorland? There was only one way to find out.
Accordingly, I popped into Milthorpe and found them both in their garden, tending the dahlias in the former playground. And the little red van was parked outside the house. I entered the garden and admired the flowers, with Abraham, a strange character with long, straggly hair and an equally long straggly beard, explaining to me the different characteristics of his dahlias.
Eventually I found the opportune moment to refer to the reason for my visit. ‘You drive from here some mornings, don’t you? To Teesside?’
‘I do indeed, Mr Rhea, and a glorious run it is too. One gets very poetic feelings, enjoying those moors at dawn.’
‘Have you ever given a sheep a lift?’ I asked, partly in mirth and partly with serious intent.
‘Indeed I have, Mr Rhea, on more than one occasion, I might add. The confounded things come down from the moors and jump over the walls into my garden. I have lost scores of flowers due to rampaging sheep, Mr Rhea, and although I do not like to be unkind to animals, I do feel they should remain where they belong, and that’s on the moors.’
‘Really?’
‘Yes, indeed. On most occasions when I discover them, they run away and jump back over the walls to escape, but from time to time, I manage to corner one or two. I seize them by the horns and manhandle them into my van. Then, on my way to work, I return them from whence they came: the moors.’
‘Those sheep, the ones which invade your garden, do not live on the part of the moors where you dumped them, Abraham. Sheep are not wild animals. They are owned by local people and they have their own patch of moorland . . .’
‘Are you suggesting I am being cruel to them?’ he put to me. ‘That is most certainly not my intention. I am an animal lover, Mr Rhea.’
‘I’m sure you are. But I am saying you could be charged with larceny. Stealing sheep is a crime under section three of the Larceny Act of 1916.’
‘Stealing them? I am not stealing them, Mr Rhea. I am simply removing them from my garden to safeguard my dahlias by returning them to their natural habitat.’
‘The law might say you are permanently depriving their owners of the animals,’ I countered. ‘By taking them so far from their natural habitat, with a river preventing their return even if they could find their way, it might be said you were deliberately and permanently depriving the owners of their livestock.’
‘But those things are semi-wild, Mr Rhea . . .’
‘I think that you, as a lecturer on the environment, should acquaint yourself with practicalities of living in the countryside, Abraham; you rely too much on theories instead of practicalities. Those sheep, you will note, the ones you have removed, have blue flashes on their shoulders . . .’
‘Through rubbing against some wet paint, I guess.’
‘Through having blue dye spread on a particular place to indicate ownership, Abraham. The sheep you removed from their natural home belong to Hannah Winspear of Hob Hole House. The blue mark is hers. They have now been found and kept by a farmer at Fieldholme; he is called Roy Hamilton and he lives at Lee Ridge Farm. Because they might be diseased, Roy has had to segregate them from his own flock, all of which costs time and money.’
‘Have I made a bit of a fool of myself? Shown my townie ignorance?’
‘I rather think you have. Now, the next problem will be persuading my sergeant that you had no criminal intention when you took the animals. I think, first, a word with Hannah and an apology would be a goo
d idea.’
‘By me, you mean?’
‘Yes. If you explain to her what you were doing and the thinking behind your actions, and perhaps with an offer to bring the animals back for her, then she might persuade us not to proceed with a charge of larceny. Or three charges of larceny to be precise, one for each animal.’
‘Yes, Mr Rhea, I will do that. But, really, my dahlias are so important and the sheep manage to leap the walls . . .’
‘Perhaps you might invest in a high wire fence, Abraham? One that neither sheep nor deer can leap over.’
‘Deer?’
‘There are wild deer in our woods, Abraham, and they do love juicy fresh flowers . . .’
‘It was vandals in Middlesbrough,’ he said.
‘Here, it’s wildlife that’s the problem,’ I smiled. ‘But off you go. I will await developments with interest.’
Abraham did visit Hannah to apologize with a huge bunch of dahlias and she forgave him because he offered to bring back her missing sheep. Roy Hamilton was delighted too — his wife also got a bunch of dahlias and Abraham learned something about living in the environment about which he taught. And he bought some rolls of wire netting which he placed around his garden.
Sergeant Blaketon decided there was no criminal intent in this case and so the charge of sheep stealing did not proceed. ‘Once, you could be hanged for stealing sheep,’ he reminded me. ‘That Abraham Smithers is a lucky man.’
‘The sheep are lucky too,’ I said. ‘They survived their trial by ordeal.’
8
I must show out a flag and sign of love . . .
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, 1564–1616
Young men in love may be tempted to display all manner of signs to the lady of their passion. Some such indications might be very subtle and endearing, but others can be rather too intrusive and even embarrassing. Publicizing the name of one’s heart’s desire by sky-writing from an aeroplane or placing an advertisement in the newspapers are just two examples of the latter, but the purpose of such displays, in whatever form they take, is usually to impress a lady or to draw attention to the strength, skills, daring and desirability of the man in question.
Down the ages, young men have produced a wonderful variety of exhibitions which have been intended to impress the opposite sex or at the very least to make the lady of their dreams aware of their yearning existence. Such masculine efforts have included everything from the way they dress to the way they strive to win at sport; some will resort to impressive cars: others will behave in a bewildering range of outrageous ways and the more volatile will fight others in their desire to impress the female of the species.
It might be argued that town and city lads are more streetwise and more confident in the company of girls than rural youths: certainly, a lot of shy rural lads have found difficulty in striking up loving relationships with young women.
Even as I write these notes in 1997, the hills and moors around me are replete with unmarried country lads of all ages, bachelors for eternity. Such lads are tough, hard-working men with all the sexual desires of a healthy male; they are not homosexuals. It’s just that they have not got around to finding a girlfriend and getting married. For these shy and uncultured youths, such a step would be a major event in their lives, something on the same unlikely level as piloting a space ship to the moon or becoming prime minister.
The Yorkshire Dales and North York Moors are rich with examples of clumsy attempts at courtship by rural lads. One story tells of a farm-lad who went out with the same girl for nineteen years. Eventually, as both reached the age of forty, the patient and long-suffering woman plucked up courage and asked, ‘John, isn’t it time we got married?’ His response was, ‘Yes, but who’d have us now?’
In another case, a farmer and his wife were concerned about their 22-year-old son, Dan. Throughout his teenage years and into young manhood, Dan had shown no interest in girls and then, one evening, much to their surprise and pleasure, he got shaved, put on his best suit complete with a tie, plastered his hair with water from the tap and said he was going out.
Dad, puzzled by this sudden and rather uncharacteristic behaviour asked, ‘Where are you going, Dan?’
‘I’m going out,’ replied Dan, with just an air of mystery.
‘Out?’ asked his mother. ‘Where to?’
There was a long pause before Dan answered most coyly, ‘Down to the village. I’m going to see Mary Jane.’
‘Mary Jane from Pasture House Farm?’ beamed his father.
‘Aye,’ said the lad, rushing out of the house as he blushed crimson.
The parents were delighted. Mary Jane was a lovely young woman from a good family with a wide experience of farming. It would be a perfect match. In the hope this would develop into something of a serious and long-term nature, the parents decided to await their son’s return, however late it might be. Sitting by their fireside on the lonely farm, they happily discussed the possible outcome of Dan’s date, thinking their farm would soon have a woman in residence. There might even be children to continue the family links with the business, then Mum and Dad might then be able to retire. There is no doubt it was a very happy and hopeful evening for them. Then, around eleven o’clock, they heard the back door open and in came Dan. He hung his cap on the hook inside the door, and then entered the living-room. Mum and Dad waited expectantly for some kind of report about the evening.
When nothing appeared to be forthcoming, Dad asked, ‘Well, Dan, did you see Mary Jane?’
‘Aye,’ said Dan, his eyes gleaming with happiness. ‘And if I hadn’t ducked down behind that wall, she might have seen me.’
Perhaps it is the isolated nature and long hours of a farm-lad’s work that nurtures this shyness and prevents him meeting available girls; I know one moorland farm which boasts seven sons, only one of whom has married. The men’s parents, each in their eighties, continue to live on the premises from where they direct operations, and so the lads perform all the domestic and administrative work as well as undertaking all the tough work on the farm. Quite simply, their long hours and isolated home life have kept them away from suitable young women.
In my work as a village constable on a large rural beat, I came across such circumstances on a surprisingly regular basis. I must admit there were times I felt sorry for the lads in question — quite simply, their only relaxation was sleep. Farm work was so enduring and demanding that time off was never considered; consequently, many of these isolated lads had no opportunity to meet other youngsters, except perhaps at a cattle market or agricultural show. Even those outings were associated with their work. That being so, I wondered how any of them ever managed to strike up a relationship with a desirable young woman. Some did manage it, of course, and got married to live happily ever after, but many did not.
It was an event at Briggsby which provided me with just one example of a farm-lad’s determination to create an initiative for love. Having undertaken a brief foot patrol of that village, I was driving back to Aidensfield on a beautiful sunny and clear September morning. As I descended the long, steep hill from the lofty elevation upon which Briggsby is situated, I had a clear view of the patchwork of dry-stone walls and multi-coloured open fields which were spread before me at the far side of the dale. I began to admire the colours and patterns of that scene, the recently ploughed cornfields in deep brown, the patch of green sugar beet, the softer green meadows and yellowed grazing lands, all of which were separated one from the other by centuries-old dry-stone walls.
Built without mortar, these amazing structures have survived in spite of the weather and the wildlife which lives within the gaps among the stones. Although farmers of this region tend to graze their sheep on the open moors, some flocks are maintained in fields and meadows and it was while admiring that long-distance view that I noticed a peculiarity among some sheep which were grazing in one of those enclosed fields. Although, from my vantage point, the animals were little more than off-white dots on the distant landscape,
I realized that some were spelling out a word.
In capital letters, the word read SUE. As I was driving at the time and concentrating upon my actions, I must admit I did not immediately realize what I was seeing. Initially, I regarded it as merely a gathering of sheep on a distant hillside which happened to have formed themselves into what appeared to be a word. I realized that I might be imagining that word, that I might have seen the animals create a recognizable design that no one else would have noticed, particularly in those circumstances.
I drove on, marvelling at the coincidence before me, but not paying any further attention. Later, I thought it was one of those natural phenomena which sometimes occur, like cloud formations which look like human faces or clumps of distant shrubs which grow in such a way that they assume the shape of animals. Different people may see different shapes in these circumstances. Three or four days later, however, the sheep were spelling the same name but a week later, the word had changed. Now it was SUE XX.
I had now come to realize, of course, that sheep cannot spell like that, nor could they be expected to form themselves into these very clear messages on such a regular basis. Obviously, someone was persuading them to stand together in such a way that these messages could be read from the distant road. I began to wonder how it was achieved. Sheep are not regarded as the most intelligent of animals and I did not think any shepherd or farmer, however skilled, could persuade them to stand in that formation for what amounted to a considerable time. Formation dancing and dressage among sheep was unknown at that time.
As the days went by, the messages became even more intriguing through the use of more sheep or by making smaller letters — one day, the sheep said I LOVE SUE, and on another occasion the message was SUE X IAN. By this stage, I had realized the field in question belonged to Longrigg Farm, the home of the Sedman family. And they had a son called Ian who worked on the farm. I had come across Ian from time to time, recalling that he was a shy lad in his late teens or early twenties who rarely left the premises. Whenever he did leave, it was usually on his racing pedal cycle which he rode into Ashfordly or Aidensfield to buy something personal like a new LP or pair of shoes. I’d never seen him in any of the local pubs, nor had I noticed him attending any of the village dances. He appeared to lead a very lonely and isolated life.
CONSTABLE OVER THE STILE a perfect feel-good read from one of Britain’s best-loved authors (Constable Nick Mystery Book 20) Page 18
