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Authors: Patrick O'Brian
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would do my work with great speed and I would draw ahead of the shearers. Sometimes then for a few minutes I had time to straighten my back and blow some of the stench and dust out of my nose and throat. The group of meager, white, shorn ewes was growing: they wandered wretchedly in the outer yard, calling their lambs. They looked like stunted camels. The initials I had stamped on them stared out on the white, often askew.
Each pause ended with a rush of bound sheep piling up in the middle. Halfway through the morning the pace grew worse, because of the arrival of some shearers who had been delayed. The cries of Cneu —a fleece and a sheep ready—and Llinen became almost continuous: any small accident, a bad knot, the mark growing too thick, the stamp getting clogged with wool, anything like this threw me behind and submerged me. I had never known that men could work so hard. There was no sense of time any more: it was lifting sheep, sheep and still sheep, the awful belly-strain of it and the tottering walk under the weight to the middle. I had long ceased wondering when they would stop and whether I could keep it up, when the end came. Suddenly there were no more sheep on the benches, only a row of them in the middle, and the shearers were getting up, stretching their legs and straddling about.
I finished and sat down for a moment out of sight by the well with my head between my knees.
Emyr was looking for me to bring me in to dinner. I washed and went with him. The great kitchen was full: long tables end to end with a cloth the length of them and close rows of men down each side. Nain and Bronwen were handing full plates to the men, standing behind the rows. I sat down with Emyr and we began. No one talked. The young men, shy and awkward, whispered and guffawed for a moment and then everybody was eating. They ate fast, with knife and fork together, bent low to the table; the plates were empty and refilled. In ten minutes they had eaten a sheep. Then it was pudding, three sorts of pudding on the plate: slower now, and with a few scraps of talk, but still very fast.
The clatter of spoons died: each man as he finished pushed away his plate. They got slowly to their feet and walked out.
I had done my best to keep pace with them: I was clogged with food, but still I was behind. Bronwen gave me a cup of tea. She said they would be sharpening their shears, and that they would not be ready for a few minutes. I thought she looked at me doubtfully. I had no conversation.
It was a very good cup of tea: I drank it boiling hot and it did a great deal to settle me inside. When I walked out to the shearing place I no longer felt that it was quite impossible to go on. There was a continual shish-shish as they sharpened their shears with little gray hones: some were smoking. They all looked quite fresh.
The afternoon was a repetition of the morning: the sun was hotter and there was even more dust. After some time the women came out, and now I was glad that I had grown a little more adept. The rolled fleeces piled up on the big stack-cover in the middle, and children played in the mountain of wool, jumping into it as they do into hay, and screaming; I was never very fond of children of that age, and now their din irritated me to distraction. From time to time the old man would gather the corners of the sheet and walk off with the wool. The load was much bigger than myself and it looked like those allegorical burdens in pictures. At first I counted them, but as I grew more and more tired I had no attention for anything but the work under my hands. The little boy Gerallt took to pestering me: he wanted to physic the sheep. He took a beastly delight in the wounds that the shearers made, pink triangular flap, and once a ewe’s teat shorn clean off. Gentle words had no effect on him, and I was wondering whether I could give him an unseen slap when Bronwen took him away.
Exhaustion came sooner this time. The session went on, went on
Each pause ended with a rush of bound sheep piling up in the middle. Halfway through the morning the pace grew worse, because of the arrival of some shearers who had been delayed. The cries of Cneu —a fleece and a sheep ready—and Llinen became almost continuous: any small accident, a bad knot, the mark growing too thick, the stamp getting clogged with wool, anything like this threw me behind and submerged me. I had never known that men could work so hard. There was no sense of time any more: it was lifting sheep, sheep and still sheep, the awful belly-strain of it and the tottering walk under the weight to the middle. I had long ceased wondering when they would stop and whether I could keep it up, when the end came. Suddenly there were no more sheep on the benches, only a row of them in the middle, and the shearers were getting up, stretching their legs and straddling about.
I finished and sat down for a moment out of sight by the well with my head between my knees.
Emyr was looking for me to bring me in to dinner. I washed and went with him. The great kitchen was full: long tables end to end with a cloth the length of them and close rows of men down each side. Nain and Bronwen were handing full plates to the men, standing behind the rows. I sat down with Emyr and we began. No one talked. The young men, shy and awkward, whispered and guffawed for a moment and then everybody was eating. They ate fast, with knife and fork together, bent low to the table; the plates were empty and refilled. In ten minutes they had eaten a sheep. Then it was pudding, three sorts of pudding on the plate: slower now, and with a few scraps of talk, but still very fast.
The clatter of spoons died: each man as he finished pushed away his plate. They got slowly to their feet and walked out.
I had done my best to keep pace with them: I was clogged with food, but still I was behind. Bronwen gave me a cup of tea. She said they would be sharpening their shears, and that they would not be ready for a few minutes. I thought she looked at me doubtfully. I had no conversation.
It was a very good cup of tea: I drank it boiling hot and it did a great deal to settle me inside. When I walked out to the shearing place I no longer felt that it was quite impossible to go on. There was a continual shish-shish as they sharpened their shears with little gray hones: some were smoking. They all looked quite fresh.
The afternoon was a repetition of the morning: the sun was hotter and there was even more dust. After some time the women came out, and now I was glad that I had grown a little more adept. The rolled fleeces piled up on the big stack-cover in the middle, and children played in the mountain of wool, jumping into it as they do into hay, and screaming; I was never very fond of children of that age, and now their din irritated me to distraction. From time to time the old man would gather the corners of the sheet and walk off with the wool. The load was much bigger than myself and it looked like those allegorical burdens in pictures. At first I counted them, but as I grew more and more tired I had no attention for anything but the work under my hands. The little boy Gerallt took to pestering me: he wanted to physic the sheep. He took a beastly delight in the wounds that the shearers made, pink triangular flap, and once a ewe’s teat shorn clean off. Gentle words had no effect on him, and I was wondering whether I could give him an unseen slap when Bronwen took him away.
Exhaustion came sooner this time. The session went on, went on
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