The Sheep-Pig (4 page)

For a moment it seemed to Babe that Fly was not going to be able to move them, that she would lose this particular battle of wills; but he had not reckoned with her years of experience. Suddenly, quick as a flash, she drove in on them with a growl andwitha twisting leap sprang for the nose of the foremost animal; Babe heard the clack of her teeth as the ewe fell over backwards in fright, a fright which immediately ran through all. Defiant no longer, the flock poured down the hill, Fly snapping furiously at their heels, and surged wildly through the gateway.

"No manners! No manners! No ma-a-a-a-a-a-nners!" they cried, but an air of panic ran through them as they realised how rebellious they had been. How the wolf would punish them! They ran helter-skelter into the middle of the paddock, and wheeled as one to look back, ears pricked, eyes wide with fear. They puffed and blew, and Ma's hacking cough rang out. But to their surprise they saw that the wolf had dropped by the gateway, and that after a moment the pig came trotting out to one side of them.

Though Farmer Hogget could not know what had caused the near-revolt of the flock, he saw clearly that for some reason they had given Fly a hard time, and that she was angry. It was not like her to gallop sheep in that pell-mell fashion.

"Steady!" he said curtly as she harried the rear-guard, and then "Down!" and "Stay!" and shut the gate. Shepherding suited Farmer Hogget-- there was no waste of words in it.

In the corner of the home paddock nearest to the farm buildings was a smallish fenced yard divided into a number of pens and runways. Here the sheep would be brought at shearing-time or to pick out fat lambs for market or to be treated for various troubles. Farmer Hogget had heard the old ewe cough; he thought he would catch her up and give her another drench. He turned to give an order to Fly lying flat and still behind him, and there, lying flat and still beside her, was the pig.

"Stay, Fly!" said Hogget. And, just for fun, "Come, Pig!"

Immediately Babe ran forward and sat at the farmer's right, his front trotters placed neatly together, his big ears cocked for the next command.

Strange thoughts began to stir in Farmer Hogget's mind, and unconsciously he crossed his fingers.

He took a deep breath, and, holding it .... "Away to me, Pig!" he said softly.

Without a moment's hesitation Babe began the long outrun to the right.

Quite what Farmer Hogget had expected to happen, he could never afterwards clearly remember. What he had not expected was that the pig would run round to the rear of the flock, and turn to face it and him, and lie down instantly without a word of further command spoken, just as a well-trained dog would have done. Admittedly, with his jerky little rocking-horse canter he took twice as long to get there as Fly would have, but still, there he was, in the right place, ready and waiting. Admittedly, the sheep had turned to face the pig and were making a great deal of noise, but then Farmer Hogget did not know, and Fly would not listen to, what they were saying. He called the dog to heel, and began to walk with his long loping stride to the collecting-pen in the corner. Out in the middle of the paddock there was a positive babble of talk.

"Good morning!" said Babe. "I do hope I find you all well, and not too distressed by yesterday's experience?" and immediately it seemed that every sheep had something to say to him.

"Bless his heart!" they cried, and, "Dear little soul!" and, "Hullo, Babe!" and, "Nice to see you again!" and then there was a rasping cough and the sound of Ma's hoarse tones.

"What's up then, young un?" she croaked. "What be you doing here instead of that wolf?"

Although Babe wanted, literally, to keep on the right side of the sheep, his loyalty to his foster-mother made him say in a rather hurt voice, "She's not a wolf. She's a sheep-dog."

"Oh all right then," said Ma, "sheep-dog, if you must have it. What dost want, then?"

Babe looked at the army of long sad faces.

"I want to be a sheep-pig," he said.

"Ha ha!" bleated a big lamb standing next to Ma. "Ha ha ha-a-a-a-a!"

"Bide quiet!" said Ma sharply, swinging her head to give the lamb a thumping butt in the side. "That ain't nothing to laugh at."

Raising her voice, she addressed the flock.

"Listen to me, all you ewes," she said, "and lambs too. This young chap was kind to me, like I told you, when I were poorly. And I told him, if he was to ask me to go somewhere or do something, politely, like he would, why, I'd be only too delighted. We ain't stupid, I told him, all we do want is to be treated right, and we'm as bright as the next beast, we are."

"We are!" chorused the flock. "We are! We are! We a-a-a-a-a-are!"

"Right then," said Ma. "What shall us do, Babe?"

Babe looked across towards Farmer Hogget, who had opened the gate of the collecting-pen and now stood leaning on his crook, Fly at his feet. The pen was in the left bottom corner of the paddock, and so Babe expected, and at that moment got, the command "Come by, Pig!" to send him left and so behind the sheep and thus turn them down towards the corner.

He cleared his throat. "If I might ask a great favour of you," he said hurriedly, "could you all please be kind enough to walk down to that gate where the farmer is standing, and to go through it? Take your time, please, there's absolutely no rush."

A look of pure contentment passed over the faces of the flock, and with one accord they turned and walked across the paddock, Babe a few paces in their rear. Sedately they walked, and steadily, over to the corner, through the gate, into the pen, and then stood quietly waiting. No one broke ranks or tried to slip away, no one pushed or shoved, there was no noise or fuss. From the oldest to the youngest, they went in like lambs.

Then at last a gentle murmur broke out as everyone in different ways quietly expressed their pleasure.

"Babe!" said Fly to the pig. "That was quite beautifully done, dear!"

"Thank you so much!" said Babe to the sheep. "You did that so nicely!"

"Ta!" said the sheep. "Ta! Ta! Ta-a-a-a-a-a! 'Tis a pleasure to work for such a little gennulman!" And Ma added, "You'll make a wunnerful sheep-pig, young un, or my name's not Ma-a-a-a-a-a."

As for Farmer Hogget, he heard none of this, so wrapped up was he in his own thoughts. He's as good as a dog, he told himself excitedly, he's better than a dog, than any dog! I wonder ...!

"Good Pig," he said.

Then he uncrossed his fingers and closed the gate.

Chapter 7

"What's trials?"

Every day after that, of course, Babe went the rounds with Farmer Hogget and Fly. At first the farmer worried about using the pig to herd the sheep, not because it was a strange and unusual thing to do which people might laugh at--he did not care about that--but because he was afraid it might upset Fly and put her nose out of joint. However it did not seem to do so.

He could have spared himself the worry if he had been able to listen to their conversation.

"That was fun!" said Babe to Fly that evening. "I wonder if the boss will let me do some more work?"

"I'm sure he will, dear. You did it so well. It was almost as though the sheep knew exactly what it was you wanted them to do."

"But that's just it! I asked them ...."

"No use asking sheep anything, dear," interrupted Fly. "You have to make them do what you want, I've told you before."

"Yes, Mum. But ... will you mind, if the boss uses me instead of you, sometimes?"

"Mind?" said Fly. "You bet your trotters I won't! All my life I've had to run round after those idiots, up hill, down dale, day in, day out. And as for "sometimes", as far as I'm concerned you can work them every day. I'm not as young as I was. I'll be only too happy to lie comfortably in the grass and watch you, my Babe."

And before long that was exactly what she was doing. Once Farmer Hogget could see by her wagging tail and smiling eyes that she was perfectly happy about it, he began to use Babe to do some of her work. At first he only gave the pig simple tasks, but as the days and weeks went by, Hogget began to make more and more use of his new helper. The speed with which Babe learned amazed him, and before long he was relying on him for all the work with the flock, while Fly lay and proudly watched. Now, there was nothing, it seemed, that the pig could not do, and do faultlessly, at that.

He obeyed all the usual commands immediately and correctly. He could fetch sheep or take them away, move them to left or right, persuade them round obstacles or through gaps, cut the flock in half, or take out one individual.

To drench Ma, for instance, there was no need for Hogget to bring all the sheep down to the collecting-pen, or to corner them all and catch her by a hindleg with his crook. He could simply point her out to the pig, and Babe would gently work her out of the bunch and bring her right to the farmer's feet, where she stood quietly waiting. It seemed like a miracle to Hogget, but of course it was simple.

"Ma!"

"Yes, young un?"

"The boss wants to give you some more medicine."

"Oh not again! 'Tis horrible stuff, that."

"But it'll make your cough better."

"Oh ar?"

"Come along, Ma. Please."

"Oh all right then, young un. Anything to oblige you."

And there were other far more miraculous things that Babe could easily have done if the farmer had only known. For example when it was time for the ewes to be separated from their lambs, now almost as big and strong as their mothers, Farmer Hogget behaved like any other shepherd, and brought the whole flock down to the pens, and took a lot of time and trouble to part them. If only he had been able to explain things to Babe, how easy it could have been.

"Dear ladies, will you please stay on the hill, if you'd be so kind?"

"Youngsters, down you go to the collecting-pen if you please, there's good boys and girls," and it could have been done in the shake of a lamb's tail.

However Babe's increasing skill at working sheep determined Farmer Hogget to take the next step in a plan which had begun to form in his mind on the day when the piglet had first penned the sheep. That step was nothing less than to take Pig with him to the local sheep-dog trials in a couple of weeks' time. Only just to watch of course, just so that he could have a look at well-trained dogs working a small number of sheep, and see what they and their handlers were required to do. I'm daft, he thought, grinning to himself. He did not tell his wife.

Before the day came, he put a collar and lead on the pig. He could not risk him running away, in a strange place. He kept him on the lead all one morning, letting Fly do the work as of old. He need not have bothered--Babe would have stayed tight at heel when told--but it was interesting to note the instant change in the atmosphere as the collie ran out.

"Wolf! Wolf!" cried the flock, every sheep immediately on edge.

"Move, fools!" snapped Fly, and she hustled them and bustled them with little regard for their feelings.

"Babe! We want Babe!" they bleated. "Ba-a-a-a-a-a-be!"

To be sure, the work was done more quickly, but at the end of it the sheep were in fear and trembling and the dog out of patiience and breath.

"Steady! Steady!" called the farmer a number of times, something he never had to say to Babe.

When the day came for the local trials, Farmer Hogget set off early in the Land Rover, Fly and Babe in the back. He told his wife where he was going, though not that he was taking the pig. Nor did he say that he did not intend to be an ordinary spectator, but instead more of a spy, to see without being seen. He wanted Pig to observe everything that went on without being spotted. now that he had settled on the final daring part of his plan, Hogget realised that secrecy was all-important. No one must know that he owned a ... what would you call him, he thought ... a sheep-pig, I suppose!

The trials took place ten miles or so away, in a curved basin-shaped valley in the hills. At the lower end of the basin was a road. Close to this was the starting point, where the dogs would begin their outrun, and also the enclosure where they would finally pen their sheep. Down there all the spectators would gather. Farmer Hogget, arriving some time before them, parked the Land Rover in a lane, and set off up the valley by a roundabout way, keeping in the shelter of the bordering woods, Fly padding behind him and Babe on the lead trotting to keep up with his long strides.

"Where are we going, Mum?" said Babe excitedly. "What are we going to do?"

"I don't think we're going to do anything, dear," said Fly. "I think the boss wants you to see something."

"What?"

They had reached the head of the valley now, and the farmer found a suitable place to stop, under cover, but with a good view of the course.

"Down, Fly, down, Pig, and stay," he said and exhausted by this long speech, stretched his long frame on the ground and settled down to wait.

"Wants me to see what?" said Babe.

"The trials."

"What's trials?"

"Well," said Fly, "it's a sort of competition, for sheep-dogs and their bosses. Each dog has to fetch five sheep, and move them through a number of gaps and gateways--you can see which ones, they've got flags on either side--down to that circle that's marked out in the field right at the bottom, and there the dog has to shed some sheep."