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<h2> CHAPTER XVIII </h2>
<h3> THE SHEPHERD'S RETURN </h3>
<blockquote>
Yarnborough Castle sheep-fair—Caleb leaves Doveton and
goes into Dorset—A land of strange happenings—He
is home-sick and returns to Winterbourne Bishop—Joseph,
his brother, leaves home—His meeting with Caleb's old
master—Settles in Dorset and is joined by his sister
Hannah—They marry and have children—I go to look
for them—Joseph Bawcombe in extreme old
age—Hannah in decline
</blockquote>
<p>Caleb's shepherding period in Doveton came to a somewhat
sudden conclusion. It was nearing the end of August and he
was beginning to think about the sheep which would have to be
taken to the "Castle" sheep-fair on 5th October, and it
appeared strange to him that his master had so far said
nothing to him on the subject. By "Castle" he meant
Yarnborough Castle, the name of a vast prehistoric earthwork
on one of the high downs between Warminster and Amesbury.
There is no village there and no house near; it is nothing
but an immense circular wall and trench, inside of which the
fair is held. It was formerly one of the most important
sheep-fairs in the country, but for the last two or three
decades has been falling off and is now of little account.
When Bawcombe was shepherd at Doveton it was still great, and
when he first went there as Mr. Ellerby's head-shepherd he
found himself regarded as a person of considerable importance
at the Castle. Before setting out with the sheep he asked for
his master's instructions, and was told that when he got to
the ground he would be directed by the persons in charge to
the proper place. The Ellerbys, he said, had exhibited and
sold their sheep there for a period of eighty-eight years,
without missing a year, and always at the same spot. Every
person visiting the fair on business knew just where to find
the Ellerbys' sheep, and, he added with pride, they expected
them to be the best sheep at the Castle.</p>
<p>One day Mr. Ellerby came to have a talk with his shepherd,
and in reply to a remark of the latter about the October
sheep-fair he said that he would have no sheep to send. "No
sheep to send, master!" exclaimed Caleb in amazement. Then
Mr. Ellerby told him that he had taken a notion into his head
that he wanted to go abroad with his wife for a time, and
that some person had just made him so good an offer for all
his sheep that he was going to accept it, so that for the
first time in eighty-eight years there would be no sheep from
Doveton Farm at the Castle fair. When he came back he would
buy again; but if he could live away from the farm, he would
probably never come back—he would sell it.</p>
<p>Caleb went home with a heavy heart and told his wife. It
grieved her, too, because of her feeling for Mrs. Ellerby,
but in a little while she set herself to comfort him. "Why,
what's wrong about it?" she asked. "'Twill be more 'n three
months before the year's out, and master'll pay for all the
time sure, and we can go home to Bishop and bide a little
without work, and see if that father of yours has forgiven
'ee for going away to Warminster."</p>
<p>So they comforted themselves, and were beginning to think
with pleasure of home when Mr. Ellerby informed his shepherd
that a friend of his, a good man though not a rich one, was
anxious to take him as head-shepherd, with good wages and a
good cottage rent free. The only drawback for the Bawcombes
was that it would take them still farther from home, for the
farm was in Dorset, although quite near the Wiltshire border.</p>
<p>Eventually they accepted the offer, and by the middle of
September were once more settled down in what was to them a
strange land. How strange it must have seemed to Caleb, how
far removed from home and all familiar things, when even to
this day, more than forty years later, he speaks of it as the
ordinary modern man might speak of a year's residence in
Uganda, Tierra del Fuego, or the Andaman Islands! It was a
foreign country, and the ways of the people were strange to
him, and it was a land of very strange things. One of the
strangest was an old ruined church in the neighbourhood of
the farm where he was shepherd. It was roofless, more than
half fallen down, and all the standing portion, with the
tower, overgrown with old ivy; the building itself stood in
the centre of a huge round earthwork and trench, with large
barrows on the ground outside the circle. Concerning this
church he had a wonderful story: its decay and ruin had come
about after the great bell in the tower had mysteriously
disappeared, stolen one stormy night, it was believed, by the
Devil himself. The stolen bell, it was discovered, had been
flung into a small river at a distance of some miles from the
church, and there in summer-time, when the water was low, it
could be distinctly seen lying half buried in the mud at the
bottom. But all the king's horses and all the king's men
couldn't pull it out; the Devil, who pulled the other way,
was strongest. Eventually some wise person said that a team
of white oxen would be able to pull it out, and after much
seeking the white oxen were obtained, and thick ropes were
tied to the sunken bell, and the cattle were goaded and
yelled at, and tugged and strained until the bell came up and
was finally drawn right up to the top of the steep,
cliff-like bank of the stream. Then one of the teamsters
shouted in triumph, "Now we've got out the bell, in spite of
all the devils in hell," and no sooner had he spoken the bold
words than the ropes parted, and back tumbled the bell to its
old place at the bottom of the river, where it remains to
this day. Caleb had once met a man in those parts who assured
him that he had seen the bell with his own eyes, lying nearly
buried in mud at the bottom of the stream.</p>
<p>The legend is not in the history of Dorset; a much more
prosaic account of the disappearance of the bell is there
given, in which the Devil took no part unless he was at the
back of the bad men who were concerned in the business. But
in this strange, remote country, outside of "Wiltsheer,"
Bawcombe was in a region where anything might have happened,
where the very soil and pasture were unlike that of his
native country, and the mud adhered to his boots in a most
unaccountable way. It was almost uncanny. Doubtless he was
home-sick, for a month or two before the end of the year he
asked his master to look out for another shepherd.</p>
<p>This was a great disappointment to the farmer: he had gone a
distance from home to secure a good shepherd, and had hoped
to keep him permanently, and now after a single year he was
going to lose him. What did the shepherd want? He would do
anything to please him, and begged him to stay another year.
But no, his mind was set on going back to his own native
village and to his own people. And so when his long year was
ended he took his crook and set out over the hills and
valleys, followed by a cart containing his "sticks" and wife
and children. And at home with his old parents and his people
he was happy once more; in a short time he found a place as
head-shepherd, with a cottage in the village, and followed
his flock on the old familiar down, and everything again was
as it had been from the beginning of life and as he desired
it to be even to the end.</p>
<p>His return resulted incidentally in other changes and
migrations in the Bawcombe family. His elder brother Joseph,
unmarried still although his senior by about eight years, had
not got on well at home. He was a person of a peculiar
disposition, so silent with so fixed and unsmiling an
expression, that he gave the idea of a stolid, thick-skinned
man, but at bottom he was of a sensitive nature, and feeling
that his master did not treat him properly, he gave up his
place and was for a long time without one. He was singularly
attentive to all that fell from Caleb about his wide
wanderings and strange experiences, especially in the distant
Dorset country; and at length, about a year after his
brother's return, he announced his intention of going away
from his native place for good to seek his fortune in some
distant place where his services would perhaps be better
appreciated. When asked where he intended going, he answered
that he was going to look for a place in that part of Dorset
where Caleb had been shepherd for a year and had been so
highly thought of.</p>
<p>Now Joseph, being a single man, had no "sticks"; all his
possessions went into a bundle, which he carried tied to his
crook, and with his sheep-dog following at his heels he set
forth early one morning on the most important adventure of
his life. Then occurred an instance of what we call a
coincidence, but which the shepherd of the downs, nursed in
the old beliefs and traditions, prefers to regard as an act
of providence.</p>
<p>About noon he was trudging along in the turnpike road when he
was met by a farmer driving in a trap, who pulled up to speak
to him and asked him if he could say how far it was to
Winterbourne Bishop. Joseph replied that it was about
fourteen miles—he had left Bishop that morning.</p>
<p>Then the farmer asked him if he knew a man there named Caleb
Bawcombe, and if he had a place as shepherd there, as he was
now on his way to look for him and to try and persuade him to
go back to Dorset, where he had been his head-shepherd for
the space of a year.</p>
<p>Joseph said that Caleb had a place as head-shepherd on a farm
at Bishop, that he was satisfied with it, and was, moreover,
one that preferred to bide in his native place.</p>
<p>The farmer was disappointed, and the other added, "Maybe
you've heard Caleb speak of his elder brother Joseph—I
be he."</p>
<p>"What!" exclaimed the farmer. "You're Caleb's brother! Where
be going then?—to a new place?"</p>
<p>"I've got no place; I be going to look for a place in
Dorsetsheer."</p>
<p>"'Tis strange to hear you say that," exclaimed the farmer. He
was going, he said, to see Caleb, and if he would not or
could not go back to Dorset himself to ask him to recommend
some man of the village to him; for he was tired of the ways
of the shepherds of his own part of the country, and his
heart was set on getting a man from Caleb's village, where
shepherds understood sheep and knew their work. "Now look
here, shepherd," he continued, "if you'll engage yourself to
me for a year I'll go no farther, but take you right back
with me in the trap."</p>
<p>The shepherd was very glad to accept the offer; he devoutly
believed that in making it the farmer was but acting in
accordance with the will of a Power that was mindful of man
and kept watch on him, even on His poor servant Joseph, who
had left his home and people to be a stranger in a strange
land.</p>
<p>So well did servant and master agree that Joseph never had
occasion to look for another place; when his master died an
old man, his son succeeded him as tenant of the farm, and he
continued with the son until he was past work. Before his
first year was out, his younger sister, Hannah, came to live
with him and keep house, and eventually they both got
married, Joseph to a young woman of the place, and Hannah to
a small working farmer whose farm was about a mile from the
village. Children were born to both, and in time grew up,
Joseph's sons following their father's vocation, while
Hannah's were brought up to work on the farm. And some of
them, too, got married in time and had children of their own.</p>
<p>These are the main incidents in the lives of Joseph and
Hannah, related to me at different times by their brother; he
had followed their fortunes from a distance, sometimes
getting a message, or hearing of them incidentally, but he
did not see them. Joseph never returned to his native
village, and the visits of Hannah to her old home had been
few and had long ceased. But he cherished a deep enduring
affection for both; he was always anxiously waiting and
hoping for tidings of them, for Joseph was now a feeble old
man living with one of his sons, and Hannah, long a widow,
was in declining health, but still kept the farm, assisted by
one of her sons and two unmarried daughters. Though he had
not heard for a long time it never occurred to him to write,
nor did they ever write to him.</p>
<p>Then, when I was staying at Winterbourne Bishop and had the
intention of shortly paying a visit to Caleb, it occurred to
me one day to go into Dorset and look for these absent ones,
so as to be able to give him an account of their state. It
was not a long journey, and arrived at the village I soon
found a son of Joseph, a fine-looking man, who took me to his
cottage, where his wife led me into the old shepherd's room.
I found him very aged in appearance, with a grey face and
sunken cheeks, lying on his bed and breathing with
difficulty; but when I spoke to him of Caleb a light of joy
came into his eyes, and he raised himself on his pillows, and
questioned me eagerly about his brother's state and family,
and begged me to assure Caleb that he was still quite well,
although too feeble to get about much, and that his children
were taking good care of him.</p>
<p>From the old brother I went on to seek the young
sister—there was a difference of more than twenty years
in their respective ages—and found her at dinner in the
large old farm-house kitchen. At all events she was
presiding, the others present being her son, their hired
labourer, the farm boy, and two unmarried daughters. She
herself tasted no food. I joined them at their meal, and it
gladdened and saddened me at the same time to be with this
woman, for she was Caleb's sister, and was attractive in
herself, looking strangely young for her age, with beautiful
dark, soft eyes and but few white threads in her abundant
black hair. The attraction was also in her voice and speech
and manner; but, alas! there was that in her face which was
painful to witness—the signs of long suffering, of
nights that bring no refreshment, an expression in the eyes
of one that is looking anxiously out into the dim
distance—a vast unbounded prospect, but with clouds and
darkness resting on it.</p>
<p>It was not without a feeling of heaviness at the heart that I
said good-bye to her; nor was I surprised when, less than a
year later, Caleb received news of her death.</p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
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