On the Subject of Sheep

A Very Short Story

Andrew backed the pickup off the road, leaving it tucked in beneath the slope of the hill, facing up the road towards Corriemor. He got out of the vehicle slowly, feeling the pain in his left hip as it took his weight. The doctor wanted him to have it replaced, but if arthritis was God’s will, then he would suffer what he must.

He fetched his crook and leaned on it as he limped towards the back of the truck and lowered the tail gate. Jackie and Bob leapt down and ran backwards and forwards, sniffing at bushes, the youngster yapping excitedly and jumping in and out of the wee burn that ran behind the car, until the old man growled “Gerrarrerere!”. The two collies froze, stared at the old man for a moment, then obediently returned to their master and lay down on the thin grass by his feet.

Andrew turned and gazed up towards the ridge. A low cloud blew across the face of the slope, obscuring the peaks. The chilly wind would soon bring a thin rain down to the lower level. A dreich day, it was.

He turned to the dogs, who looked up at him attentively. Pointing up the slope with his crook, he murmured a few sentences in Gaelic, then made a noise that was half shriek and half whistle. The dogs bounded away in the direction he had pointed, and soon were out of sight on the hill.

Andrew got back in the pickup and turned on the radio. The local station was playing traditional songs of exile and longing, interrupted by the news in Gaelic. The rain arrived and spattered the windscreen, blurring the view outside. Andrew’s thoughts drifted through the rain out on to the hill where the sheep wandered loose, grazing on what little grass they could find this early in the year. He may have dozed off for a while.

A single distant bark made him open the car door, pull himself to his feet and stand in the stinging drizzle. A gust swept the mist aside, revealing the ewe and her twin lambs that he had set out to find. Jackie and Bob guided them towards the shepherd, running to outflank them whenever they tried to go off to one side, always making sure that the sheep followed a safe path and did not slip into a gulley or ditch.

As the animals drew near, Andrew shouted a few words of encouragement to the dogs, then retreated to the car. He started the engine and, as the dogs coaxed the sheep into the road and guided them deftly in the direction of the steading at Corriemor, he put the truck into first gear and followed them, driving sedately in the middle of the single-track road.

A man on the radio was talking about a report from the University of Stirling, which documented the catastrophic decline in the number of Gaelic speakers in Scotland. Andrew shook his head sadly. If this went on, by the time the grandchildren grew up, the men would have to be out on the hill every time they needed to find a lost ewe. On the subject of sheep, a man could never talk to the dogs in English.

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