The Squire of Sandal-Side | Page 8

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 caused by her determination to break up the companionship existing between the young people of the two houses at that time.
The squire remembered it. He had also, in some degree, regarded his mother's prejudices while she lived; but, after her death, Sophia and Charlotte, as well as their brother, began to go very often to Up-Hill Farm. Naturally Stephen, who was Ducie's son, became the companion of Harry Sandal; and the girls grew up in his sight like two beautiful sisters. It was only within the past year that he had begun to understand that one was dearer to him than the other; but though none of the three was now ignorant of the fact, it was as