The Roots of the Mountains | Page 4

few scattered trees about the hillsides, mostly
thorns or scrubby oaks, gnarled and bent and kept down by the western
wind: here and there also were yew-trees, and whiles the hillsides
would be grown over with box-wood, but none very great; and often
juniper grew abundantly. This then was the country of the Shepherds,
who were friends both of the Dalesmen and the Woodlanders. They
dwelt not in any fenced town or thorp, but their homesteads were
scattered about as was handy for water and shelter. Nevertheless they
had their own stronghold; for amidmost of their country, on the highest
of a certain down above a bottom where a willowy stream winded, was
a great earthwork: the walls thereof were high and clean and
overlapping at the entering in, and amidst of it was a deep well of water,
so that it was a very defensible place: and thereto would they drive their
flocks and herds when war was in the land, for nought but a very great
host might win it; and this stronghold they called Greenbury.

These Shepherd-Folk were strong and tall like the Woodlanders, for
they were partly of the same blood, but burnt they were both ruddy and
brown: they were of more words than the Woodlanders but yet not
many-worded. They knew well all those old story-lays, (and this partly
by the minstrelsy of the Woodlanders,) but they had scant skill in
wizardry, and would send for the Woodlanders, both men and women,
to do whatso they needed therein. They were very hale and long-lived,
whereas they dwelt in clear bright air, and they mostly went light-clad
even in the winter, so strong and merry were they. They wedded with
the Woodlanders and the Dalesmen both; at least certain houses of
them did so. They grew no corn; nought but a few pot-herbs, but had
their meal of the Dalesmen; and in the summer they drave some of their
milch-kine into the Dale for the abundance of grass there; whereas their
own hills and bents and winding valleys were not plenteously watered,
except here and there as in the bottom under Greenbury. No swine they
had, and but few horses, but of sheep very many, and of the best both
for their flesh and their wool. Yet were they nought so deft craftsmen at
the loom as were the Dalesmen, and their women were not very eager
at the weaving, though they loathed not the spindle and rock. Shortly,
they were merry folk well-beloved of the Dalesmen, quick to wrath,
though it abode not long with them; not very curious in their houses
and halls, which were but little, and were decked mostly with the
handiwork of the Woodland-Carles their guests; who when they were
abiding with them, would oft stand long hours nose to beam, scoring
and nicking and hammering, answering no word spoken to them but
with aye or no, desiring nought save the endurance of the daylight.
Moreover, this shepherd-folk heeded not gay raiment over-much, but
commonly went clad in white woollen or sheep-brown weed.
But beyond this shepherd-folk were more downs and more, scantily
peopled, and that after a while by folk with whom they had no kinship
or affinity, and who were at whiles their foes. Yet was there no
enduring enmity between them; and ever after war and battle came
peace; and all blood-wites were duly paid and no long feud followed:
nor were the Dalesmen and the Woodlanders always in these wars,
though at whiles they were. Thus then it fared with these people.

But now that we have told of the folks with whom the Dalesmen had
kinship, affinity, and friendship, tell we of their chief abode, Burgstead
to wit, and of its fashion. As hath been told, it lay upon the land made
nigh into an isle by the folds of the Weltering Water towards the
uppermost end of the Dale; and it was warded by the deep water, and
by the wall aforesaid with its towers. Now the Dale at its widest, to wit
where Wildlake fell into it, was but nine furlongs over, but at Burgstead
it was far narrower; so that betwixt the wall and the wandering stream
there was but a space of fifty acres, and therein lay Burgstead in a space
of the shape of a sword-pommel: and the houses of the kinships lay
about it, amidst of gardens and orchards, but little ordered into streets
and lanes, save that a way went clean through everything from the
tower-warded gate to the bridge over the Water, which was warded by
two other towers on its hither side.
As to the houses, they were some bigger, some smaller, as the
housemates needed. Some were old, but not very old, save two only,
and some