were to occupy for the night the shepherd would invite the farmers to
his house and entertain them with oatcakes, Wensleydale cheese and
home-brewed beer; meanwhile, the conversation turned upon the past
lambing season and the prospects for the next hay harvest. When the
farmers had taken their leave Peregrine would pay a visit to the pens to
see that all the sheep were properly marked and in a fit condition for a
moorland life. Next morning he opened the pens and took the ewes and
lambs on to the moors.

For the next ten months they were under his sole charge, except during
the short periods of time when they had to be brought down to the farms.
The first occasion was "clipping-time," at the end of June, before the
hay harvest began. Then, on the first of September, they returned to the
dale in order that the ram lambs might be taken from the flocks and sold
at the September fairs. Once again, before winter set in, the farmers
demanded their sheep of Peregrine in order to anoint them with a salve
of tar, butter and grease, which would keep out the wet. For the rest
the flocks remained with Peregrine on the moors, and it was his duty to
drive them from one part to another when change of herbage required it.

The moors seemed woven into the fabric of Peregrine's life, and he
belonged to them as exclusively as the grouse or mountain linnet. He
knew every rock upon their crests and every runnel of water that fretted
its channel through the peat; he could mark down the merlin's nest among
the heather and the falcon's eyrie in the cleft of the scar. If he
started a brooding grouse and the young birds scattered themselves in
all directions, he could gather them all around him by imitating the
mother's call-note. The moor had for him few secrets and no terrors. He
could find his way through driving mist or snowstorm, knowing exactly
where the sheep would take shelter from the blast, and rescuing them