Free Shadow on the Fells by Eleanor Jones

upset her most.
    Well, Will would pay, just like he had for the sheep, although this time she would ask for more than the duck’s real value. Maybe then he’d make an effort with his crazy dog.
    Determined to make Will pay his dues, she wrote out a bill and put it in her jacket pocket. She’d have to wait until she came across him again to give it to him. However, she soon forgot she was even carrying it because before she got a chance to hand it over, the lambing began.
    Chrissie knew that lambs were imminent since all the ewes had been scanned and the dates were pretty accurate nowadays. She had been checking the flock regularly, ever since they came down into the low pasture, driving slowly around the meadows just as it got dark, watching for signs of a ewe in discomfort or maybe even prostrate on the ground with a head or a pair of black cloven hooves protruding, which might mean that the animal needed her help. Apart from routine visits that she paid a set fee for, she only called the vet in exceptional circumstances.
    Most of the flock was grazing when she began her routine check. They looked up into the Land Rover’s headlights, their eyes like bright torches in the twilight. An older, experienced ewe was the first one she saw with a lamb—a big, strong, healthy lamb, she was pleased to see. Nothing to worry about there.
    After making sure the lamb had started to suckle, she drove on and was almost ready to go back to the yard when she spotted another ewe in the farthest corner of the field. Two tiny newborn twin lambs were standing beside it on wobbly legs. The ewe licked their backs, forming a bond as she nudged them toward her teats, which they both latched onto eagerly. Small though they were, they both appeared okay for now. She watched them for a little while and decided to let them be. The weather was dry and mild for the end of March—it was icy rain that caused problems—and they’d come to no harm out here with their mother. A pity, though, that there were two. On lower ground, farmers welcomed twins, but way up on the fells a single lamb had a better chance of survival.
    * * *
    F OR THE NEXT week or so, Chrissie was kept busy with the constant arrival of lambs. Night after night, she was up until the early hours, awakening at dawn to check the flock again.
    She was proud of the fact that there had been no casualties so far, though one of the twins was having difficulties. It had been weak when it was born, and had already been getting cold when she found it the previous evening. She helped it suckle, making sure it had milk in its belly, and she kept it warm all night by the stove in the kitchen, but in the morning it was almost lifeless. Still, she had to try. Where there was life, there was hope.
    Bundling the lamb up, Chrissie took it out into the semidarkness to the pen in the barn where its mother had bleated restlessly all night. She placed it carefully down on the hay and grabbed the fell sheep’s thick, oily wool.
    With a twist of her knee, she flipped the ewe expertly onto its back. It lay helplessly against her, forelegs in the air, as she reached for the lamb. Its udder was bulging, she noted with satisfaction, and when she squeezed a teat, warm milk ran onto her hand. She tried to get the lamb to latch on, to no avail. Realizing it was too weak now to suckle, she eased its jaw open and squeezed the milk in drop by drop, lifting the little one’s head and rubbing the underside of its throat to try and get it to swallow.
    â€œCome on,” she pleaded as she felt its first weak gulp.
    After almost half an hour of effort, Chrissie moved the lamb out of harm’s way and turned the ewe upright, letting her loose. Chrissie stood with her hands on the small of her back to ease the dull ache. The anxious mother went straight to her baby, letting out low bleating sounds as she licked its tightly curled coat. The lamb remained motionless, and Chrissie’s