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The shepherd on the east hill could shout out lambing intelligence to the shepherd on the west hill, over the intervening town chimneys, without great inconvenience to his voice, so nearly did the steep pastures encroach upon the burghers' backyards. And at night it was possible to stand in the very midst of the town and hear from their native paddocks on the lower levels of greensward the mild lowing of the farmer's heifers, and the profound, warm blowings of breath in which those creatures indulge.
T. Hardy, Fellow-Townsmen, Macmillan, p. 111, chap. 1.
PLACE: Dorset
TIME: ca. 1800
The boy stood under the rick before mentioned and every few seconds used his clacker or rattle briskly. At each clack the rooks left off pecking, and rose and went away on their leisurely wings, burnished like tassets of mail, afterwards wheeling back and regarding him warily, and descending to feed at a more respectful distance.
He sounded the clacker till his arm ached, and at length his heart grew sympathetic with the birds' thwarted desires.
T. Hardy, Jude the Obscure, Macmillan and Co. Ltd., London, 1906, p. 11.
PLACE: Wiltshire
TIME: late 19th century
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