The Sheep-Pig Read Online Free PDF Page B

out.
     
    "Wolf! Wolf!" cried the flock, every sheep immediately on edge.
     
    "Move, fools!" snapped Fly, and she hustled them and bustled them with little regard for their feelings.
     
    "Babe! We want Babe!" they bleated. "Ba-a-a-a-a-a-be!"
     
    To be sure, the work was done more quickly, but at the end of it the sheep were in fear and trembling and the dog out of patiience and breath.
     
    "Steady! Steady!" called the farmer a number of times, something he never had to say to Babe.
     
    When the day came for the local trials, Farmer Hogget set off early in the Land Rover, Fly and Babe in the back. He told his wife where he was going, though not that he was taking the pig. Nor did he say that he did not intend to be an ordinary spectator, but instead more of a spy, to see without being seen. He wanted Pig to observe everything that went on without being spotted. now that he had settled on the final daring part of his plan, Hogget realised that secrecy was all-important. No one must know that he owned a ... what would you call him, he thought ... a sheep-pig, I suppose!
     
    The trials took place ten miles or so away, in a curved basin-shaped valley in the hills. At the lower end of the basin was a road. Close to this was the starting point, where the dogs would begin their outrun, and also the enclosure where they would finally pen their sheep. Down there all the spectators would gather. Farmer Hogget, arriving some time before them, parked the Land Rover in a lane, and set off up the valley by a roundabout way, keeping in the shelter of the bordering woods, Fly padding behind him and Babe on the lead trotting to keep up with his long strides.
     
    "Where are we going, Mum?" said Babe excitedly. "What are we going to do?"
     
    "I don't think we're going to do anything, dear," said Fly. "I think the boss wants you to see something."
     
    "What?"
     
    They had reached the head of the valley now, and the farmer found a suitable place to stop, under cover, but with a good view of the course.
     
    "Down, Fly, down, Pig, and stay," he said and exhausted by this long speech, stretched his long frame on the ground and settled down to wait.
     
    "Wants me to see what?" said Babe.
     
    "The trials."
     
    "What's trials?"
     
    "Well," said Fly, "it's a sort of competition, for sheep-dogs and their bosses. Each dog has to fetch five sheep, and move them through a number of gaps and gateways--you can see which ones, they've got flags on either side--down to that circle that's marked out in the field right at the bottom, and there the dog has to shed some sheep."
     
    "What's "shed" mean?"
     
    "Separate them out from the rest; the ones to be shed will have collars on."
     
    "And then what?"
     
    "Then the dog has to gather them all again, and pen them."
     
    "Is that all?"
     
    "It's not easy, dear. Not like moving that bunch of woolly fools of ours up and down a field. It all has to be done quickly, without any mistakes. You lose points if you make mistakes."
     
    "Have you ever been in a trial, Mum?"
     
    "Yes. Here. When I was younger."
     
    "Did you make any mistakes?"
     
    "Of course," said Fly. "Everyone does. It's very difficult, working a small number of strange sheep, in strange country. You'll see."
     
    By the end of the day Babe had seen a great deal. The course was not an easy one, and the sheep were very different from those at home. They were fast and wild, and, good though the dogs were, there were many mistakes made, at the gates, in the shedding-ring, at the final penning.
     
    Babe watched every run intently,, and Hogget watched Babe, and Fly watched them both.
     
    What's the boss up to, she thought, as they drove home. He's surely never thinking that one day Babe might ... no, he couldn't be that daft! Sheep-pig indeed! All right for the little chap to run round our place for a bit of fun, but to think of him competing in trials, even a little local one like today's, well, really! She remembered something he had