nd gesture, and the act of receiving the farmers'
flocks was invested by him with ritual solemnity. He gave to each farmer
in turn a formal greeting, and then proceeded to count the sheep and
lambs that the dogs had been trained to drive slowly past him in single
file. He knew every farmer's "stint" or allowance, and stern were his
words to the man who tried to exceed his proper number.

"Thou's gotten ower mony yowes to thy stint, Thomas Moon," he would say
to a farmer who was trying to get the better of his neighbours.

"Nay, Peregrine, I reckon I've nobbut eighty, and they're lile 'uns at
that."

"Eighty's thy stint, but thou's gotten eighty-twee; thou can tak heam
wi' thee twee o' yon three-yeer-owds, an' mind thou counts straight next
yeer."

Further argument was useless; Peregrine had the reputation of never
making a mistake in his reckoning, and, amid the jeers of his fellows,
Thomas Moon would drive his two rejected ewes with their lambs back to
his farm.

When all the sheep had been counted and driven into the pens which they
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 ev