The Squire of Sandal-Side | Page 8

talked, they went through the back-door into a large yard
walled in from the hillside, and having in it three grand old sycamores.
One of these was at the top of the enclosure, and a circle of green
shadow like a tent was around it. In this shadow the squire and the
statesman were sitting. Their heads were uncovered, their long clay
pipes in their hands; and, with a placid complacency, they were
watching the score of busy men before them. Many had come long
distances to try their skill against each other; for the shearings at
Latrigg's were a pastoral game, at which it was a local honor to be the
winner. There the young statesman who could shear his six score a day
found others of a like capacity, and it was Greek against Greek at
Up-Hill shearing that afternoon.
"I had two thousand sheep to get over," said Latrigg, "but they'll be
bare by sunset, squire. That isn't bad for these days. When I was young
we wouldn't have thought so much of two thousand, but every
dalesman then knew what good shearing was. Now," and the old man
shook his head slowly, "good shearers are few and far between. Why,

there's some here from beyond Kirkstone Pass and Nab Scar!"
It was customary for young people of all conditions to give men as
aged as Barf Latrigg the honorable name of "grandfather;" and
Charlotte said, as she sat down in the breezy shadow beside him, "Who
is first, grandfather?"
"Why, our Stephen, to be sure! They'll have to be up before day-dawn
to keep sidey with our Steve.--Steve, how many is thou ahead now?"
The voice that asked the question, though full of triumph, was thin and
weak; but the answer came back in full, mellow tones,--
"Fifteen ahead, grandfather."
"Oh, I'm so glad!"
"Charlotte Sandal says 'she's so glad.' Now then, if thou loses ground, I
wouldn't give a ha'penny for thee."
Then the women who were folding the fleeces on tables under the other
two sycamores lifted their eyes, and glanced at Steve; and some of the
elder ones sent him a merry jibe, and some of the younger ones, smiles,
that made his brown handsome face deepen in color; but he was far too
earnest in his work to spare a moment for a reply. By and by, the squire
put down his pipe, and sat watching with his hands upon his knees.
And a stray child crept up to Charlotte, and climbed upon her lap, and
went to sleep there, and the wind flecked these four representatives of
four generations all over with wavering shadows; and Ducie came
backwards and forwards, and finally carried the sleeping child into the
house; and Stephen, busy as he was, saw every thing that went on in the
group under the top sycamore.
Even before sundown, the last batch of sheep were fleeced and
smitten,[Smitten. Marked with the cipher of the owner in a mixture
mostly of tar.] and turned on to the hillside; and Charlotte, leaning over
the wall, watched them wander contentedly up the fell, with their lambs
trotting beside them. Grandfather and the squire had gone into the
house; Ducie was calling her from the open door; she knew it was

tea-time, and she was young and healthy and hungry enough to be glad
of it.
At the table she met Stephen. The strong, bare-armed Hercules, whom
she had watched tossing the sheep around for his shears as easily as if
they had been kittens under his hands, was now dressed in a handsome
tweed suit, and looking quite as much of a gentleman as the most
fastidious maiden could desire. He came in after the meal had begun,
flushed somewhat with his hard labor, and perhaps, also, with the hurry
of his toilet; but there was no embarrassment in his manner. It had
never yet entered Stephen's mind that there was any occasion for
embarrassment, for the friendship between the squire's family and his
own had been devoid of all sense of inequality. The squire was "the
squire," and was perhaps richer than Latrigg, but even that fact was
uncertain; and the Sandals had been to court, and married into county
families; but then the Latriggs had been for exactly seven hundred
years the neighbors of Sandal,--good neighbors, shoulder to shoulder
with them in every trial or emergency.
The long friendship had never known but one temporary shadow, and
this had been during the time that the present squire's mother ruled in
Sandal; the Mistress Charlotte whose influence was still felt in the old
seat. She had entirely disapproved the familiar affection with which
Latrigg met her husband, and it was said the disputes which drove one
of her sons from his home were