A Shepherds Life

A Shepherd's Life

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Title: A Shepherd's Life
Author: W. H. Hudson
Release Date: February, 2005 [EBook #7415] [This file was first posted on April 26, 2003]
Edition: 10
Language: English
Character set encoding: US-ASCII
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, A SHEPHERD'S LIFE ***

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A SHEPHERD'S LIFE
IMPRESSIONS OF THE SOUTH WILTSHIRE DOWNS
BY W. H. HUDSON

NOTE
I an obliged to Messrs. Longmans, Green, & Co. for permission to make use of an article entitled "A Shepherd of the Downs," which appeared in the October and November numbers of _Longmans' Magazine_ in 1902. With the exception of that article, portions of which I have incorporated in different chapters, the whole of the matter contained in this work now appears for the first time.

CONTENTS
Chapter.
I. SALISBURY PLAIN
II. SALISBURY AS I SEE IT
III. WINTERBOURNE BISHOP
IV. A SHEPHERD OF THE DOWNS
V. EARLY MEMORIES
VI. SHEPHERD ISAAC BAWCOMBE
VII. THE DEER-STEALERS
VIII. SHEPHERDS AND POACHING
IX. THE SHEPHERD ON FOXES
X. BIRD LIFE ON THE DOWNS
XI. STARLINGS AND SHEEP-BELLS
XII. THE SHEPHERD AND THE BIBLE
XIII. VALE OF THE WYLYE
XIV. A SHEEP-DOG'S LIFE
XV. THE ELLERBYS OF DOVETON
XVI. OLD WILTSHIRE DAYS
XVII. OLD WILTSHIRE DAYS (_continued_)
XVIII. THE SHEPHERD'S RETURN
XIX. THE DARK PEOPLE OF THE VILLAGE
XX. SOME SHEEP-DOGS
XXI. THE SHEPHERD AS NATURALIST
XXII. THE MASTER OF THE VILLAGE
XXIII. ISAAC'S CHILDREN
XXIV. LIVING IN THE PAST

A SHEPHERD'S LIFE
SALISBURY PLAIN

CHAPTER I
Introductory remarks--Wiltshire little favoured by tourists--Aspect of the downs--Bad weather--Desolate aspect--The bird-scarer--Fascination of the downs--The larger Salisbury Plain--Effect of the military occupation--A century's changes--Birds--Old Wiltshire sheep--Sheep-horns in a well--Changes wrought by cultivation--Rabbit-warrens on the downs--Barrows obliterated by the plough and by rabbits
Wiltshire looks large on the map of England, a great green county, yet it never appears to be a favourite one to those who go on rambles in the land. At all events I am unable to bring to mind an instance of a lover of Wiltshire who was not a native or a resident, or had not been to Marlborough and loved the country on account of early associations. Nor can I regard myself as an exception, since, owing to a certain kind of adaptiveness in me, a sense of being at home wherever grass grows, I am in a way a native too. Again, listen to any half-dozen of your friends discussing the places they have visited, or intend visiting, comparing notes about the counties, towns, churches, castles, scenery--all that draws them and satisfies their nature, and the chances are that they will not even mention Wiltshire. They all know it "in a way"; they have seen Salisbury Cathedral and Stonehenge, which everybody must go to look at once in his life; and they have also viewed the country from the windows of a railroad carriage as they passed through on their flight to Bath and to Wales with its mountains, and to the west country, which many of us love best of all--Somerset, Devon, and Cornwall. For there is nothing striking in Wiltshire, at all events to those who love nature first; nor mountains, nor sea, nor anything to compare with the places they are hastening to, west or north. The downs! Yes, the downs are there, full in sight of your window, in their flowing forms resembling vast, pale green waves, wave beyond wave, "in fluctuation fixed"; a fine country to walk on in fine weather for all those who regard the mere exercise of walking as sufficient pleasure. But to those who wish for something more, these downs may be neglected, since, if downs are wanted, there is the higher, nobler Sussex range within an hour of London. There are others on whom the naked aspect of the downs has a repelling effect. Like Gilpin they love not an undecorated earth; and false and ridiculous as Gilpin's taste may seem to me and to all those who love the chalk, which "spoils everything" as Gilpin said, he certainly expresses a feeling common to those who are unaccustomed to the emptiness and silence of