if you had a great many?" I asked of a shepherd the other day, feeding
his flock near Old Sarum, and he replied, "Just forty, and I wish there
were eighty." Twenty-five or thirty is a more usual number, but only
because of their cost, for the shepherd has very little money for bells
or anything else. Another told me that he had "only thirty," but he
intended getting more. The sound cheers him; it is not exactly
monotonous, owing to the bells being of various sizes and also greatly
varying in thickness, so that they produce different tones, from the
sharp tinkle-tinkle of the smallest to the sonorous klonk-klonk of the
big, copper bell. Then, too, they are differently agitated, some quietly
when the sheep are grazing with heads down, others rapidly as the animal
walks or trots on; and there are little bursts or peals when a sheep
shakes its head, all together producing a kind of rude harmony--a music
which, like that of bagpipes or of chiming church-bells, heard from a
distance, is akin to natural music and accords with rural scenes.

As to use, there is little or none. A shepherd will sometimes say, when
questioned on the subject, that the bells tell him just where the flock
is or in which direction they are travelling; but he knows better. The
one who is not afraid to confess the simple truth of the matter to a
stranger will tell you that he does not need the bells to tell him where
the sheep are or in which direction they are grazing. His eyes are good
enough for that. The bells are for his solace or pleasure alone. It may
be that the sheep like the tinkling too--it is his belief that they do
like it. A shepherd said to me a few days ago: "It is lonesome with the
flock on the downs; more so in cold, wet weather, when you perhaps don't
see a person all day--on some days not even at a distance, much less to
speak to. The bells keep us from feeling it too much. We know what we
have them for, and the more we have the better we like it. They are
company to us."