Audubon County journal. (Exira, Iowa) 1884-1993, 1898-08-25
RUSklN'S SHEPHERDLAND.
A Picturesque Region Always Dear to the
Artists Heart.

A Picturesque Region Always Dear to the
Artists Heart.
Shepherdland, as Mr.. Ruskin
ohristened the fells and dales near
Brentwood, is little known to the
ordinary tourist, who keeps to the
main roads, and its hardy sons, who
earn their living either by sheep
farming OF slate quarrying, still
possess those virtues of self reliance,
unceasing industry and sturdy in
dependence characteristic of all
mountaineers. A reserved race, like
all northerners, and by no means
inclined to respond promptly to
every casual greeting, travellers
from the more ELUSIVE south who
have strayed among them have
often gone away complaining of
their rudeness and moroseness. And
yet by no race is such condemna-
ton less deserved, as all those who
have penetrated within those bare,
stern looking, gray stone farm
houses and enjoyed the hospitality
and confidence of their owners will
agree, and certainly nowhere in
England do better housewives exist
than those who bear sway in the
fell farms and skaters cottages of
the two Langdales.
The farmhouses themselves are
built of the waste of the green
slate quarries and are straight wall
ed, unornamented structures set in
the most sheltered places at the fell
foot, their chief characteristic being
the deep porch, built so as to pro-
tect the kitchen or "house place."
into which it opens, from the driv-
ing wind and heavy winter snow.
The cottages, also built of waste, )"
are generally plastered, and show
as brilliant and pleasing patches of
dazzling white against the dull pur-
pie of the fellside heather and whin
bushes. Occasionally the porch will
be gay in summer with the vivid
scarlet tropaolum, that most ca
PRECIOUS of plants, which will cover
a wayside cottage window with a
curtain of glowing color and abso-
lutely refuse to put forth a single
bud in some well kept garden, to
which its koboldlike mind has taken
exception.
Within both farmhouses and cot
tage are alike in two particulars
their spotless cleanliness and the
beauty and appropriateness of their
furniture. That healthy pride in
ones goods and chattels which the
cheap, bad furniture, miserable, jer-
ry built cottages and frequent moves
necessitated by the exigencies of the
labor market have almost destroyed
among the southern laborers still
exists in all its old strength in the
hearts of the shepherds wives of
the north. Indeed such is the value
set upon furniture and the pride
with which it is cherished that
within the last 30 years both chill
dren and servants stood to their
meals lest the treasured chairs
should suffer from scratches made
on their rails by careless feet, the
result being that no home in Eng
land can show more picturesque
interior than that seen through the
open porch of lakeland farmhouse.
Hours are very long in the north,
for work at the quarries begins at 6,
and house must be astir by if it's
master be either slater or farmer,
though the mistress will often be
found still busy over mending or
ironing as late as II at night. The
children, too, must be started on
their walk to school by 7:3O at lat
est, and many whose homes lie still
farther from the schoolhouse even
earlier. When all have been safely
set on their way, homework begins
in earnest. The mistress and her
maids feed the poultry, milk the
COWS and even look after the wants
of such sheep as happen to be folded
in the intake near the house.
Such is the spirit possessed by the
whole race that no woman shirks
her burden, and work is done and
children bred up in honesty and
health, blow the wind never so cold
ly or lie the winter snow never SO
long. -London Chronicle.