An exclusive extract from Three Bags Full(Doubleday) by Leonie Swann.
‘He was healthy yesterday,’ said Maude. Her ears twitched nervously.
‘That doesn’t mean anything,’ pointed out Sir Ritchfield, the oldest ram in the flock. ‘He didn’t die of an illness. Spades are not an illness.’
The shepherd was lying in the green Irish grass beside the hay-barn, not far from the path through the fields. He didn’t move. A single crow had settled on his woolly Norwegian sweater and was studying his internal arrangements with professional interest. Beside the crow sat a very happy rabbit. Rather further off, close to the edge of the cliff, the sheep were holding a meeting.
They had kept calm that morning when they found their shepherd lying there so unusually cold and lifeless, and were extremely proud of it. In the first flush of alarm, naturally there had been a few frantic cries of ‘Who’s going to bring us hay now?’ and ‘A wolf! There’s a wolf about!’, but Miss Maple had been quick to quell any panic. She explained that here on the greenest, richest pasture in all Ireland only idiots would eat hay in midsummer anyway, and even the most sophisticated wolves didn’t drive spades through the bodies of their victims. For such a tool was undoubtedly sticking out of the shepherd’s insides, which were now wet with dew.
Miss Maple was the cleverest sheep in all Glennkill. Some even claim that she was the cleverest sheep in the world, but no one could prove it. There was in fact an annual Smartest Sheep in Glennkill contest, but Maple’s extraordinary intelligence showed in the very fact that she did not take part in such competitions. The winner, after being crowned with a wreath of shamrock (which it was allowed to eat), spent several days touring pubs of the neighbouring villages, and was constantly expected to perform the trick that erroneously won it the title, eyes streaming as it blinked through clouds of tobacco smoke, with customers pouring Guinness down its throat until it couldn’t stand up properly. Furthermore, from then on the winning sheep’s shepherd held it responsible for each and every prank played out at pasture, since the cleverest animal was always going to be the prime suspect.
George Glenn would never again hold any sheep responsible for anything. He lay impaled on the ground beside the path while his sheep wondered what to do next. They were standing on the cliffs between the watery-blue sky and the sky-blue sea, where they couldn’t smell the blood, and they did feel responsible. ‘He wasn’t a specially good shepherd,’ said Heather, who was still not more than a lamb, and still bore George a grudge for docking her beautiful tail at the end of last winter.
‘Exactly!’ said Cloud, the woolliest and most magnificent sheep ever seen. ‘He didn’t appreciate our work. Norwegian sheep do it better, he said! Norwegian sheep give more wool! He had sweaters made of foreign wool sent from Norway — it’s a disgrace! What other shepherd would insult his own flock like that?’
There ensued a discussion of some length between Heather, Cloud and Mopple the Whale. Mopple the Whale insisted that you judged a sheep’s merits by the quantity and quality of the fodder he provided, and in this respect there was nothing, nothing whatsoever, to be said against George Glenn. Finally they agreed that a good shepherd was one who never docked the lambs’ tails, didn’t keep a sheep dog, provided good fodder and plenty of it, particularly bread and sugar but healthy things too like green stuff, concentrated feed and mangel-wurzels (for they were all very sensible sheep), and who clothed himself entirely in the products of his own flock, for instance an all-in-one suit made of spun sheep’s wool, which would look really good, almost as if he were a sheep himself. Of course it was obvious to them all that no such perfect being was found anywhere in the world, but it was a nice idea all the same. They sighed a little, and were about to scatter, pleased to think that they had cleared up all outstanding questions.
So far, however, Miss Maple had taken no part in the discussion. Now she said, ‘Don’t you want to know what he died of?’
Sir Ritchfield looked at her in surprise. ‘He died of that spade. You wouldn’t have survived it either, a heavy iron thing like that driven right through you. No wonder he’s dead.’
Ritchfield shuddered slightly.
‘And where did the spade come from?’
‘Someone stuck it in him.’ As far as Sir Ritchfield was concerned, that was the end of the matter, but Othello, the only black sheep in the flock, suddenly began taking an interest in the problem.
‘It can only have been a human who did it — or a very large monkey.’ Othello had spent his youth in Dublin Zoo, and never missed an opportunity to mention it.
‘A human.’ Maple nodded, satisfied. ‘I think we ought to find out what kind of human. We owe old George that. If a fierce dog took out one of our lambs he always tried to find the culprit. Anyway, he was our shepherd. No one had a right to stick a spade in him. That’s wolfish behaviour. That’s murder.’
Now the sheep were feeling alarmed. The wind had changed, and the smell of fresh blood was drifting towards the sea.
‘And when we’ve found the person who stuck the spade in,’ asked Heather nervously, ‘then what?’
‘Justice!’ bleated Othello.
‘Justice!’ bleated the other sheep. And so it was decided that George Glenn’s sheep themselves would solve the wicked murder of their shepherd.
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