Shepherd's crook

“ By a gateway stands a tall campanula or bell-flower, two feet high or nearly, with great bells of blue.
A passing shepherd, without his sheep, but walking with his crook as a staff, stays and turns a brown face towards me when I ask him the way. He points with his iron crook at a narrow line which winds up the Down by some chalk-pits; it is a footpath from the corner of the road. Just by the corner the hedge is grey with silky flocks of clematis; the hawthorn is hidden by it. Near by there is a bush, made up of branches from five different shrubs and plants. ”

“ By this crook, the shepherd guided a sheep in a dangerous pass, placing the crook under the sheep's neck, to hold him up and assist his steps. When a sheep was disposed to stray, the shepherd could hold him back with his crook. When the sheep had fallen into the power of a beast, the crook assisted in drawing him away. A good sheep loved the crook as much as the staff,—to be guided, as well as to be defended. Both of the shepherd's instruments were a great comfort to the sheep, while passing through a frightful and dangerous valley. ”

“ One exception is the spring named after General Crook (General’s Springs) , which he discovered, and near which he had such a narrow escape from being killed by Apaches—that makes into the East Fork of the Verde. It is an awe-inspiring sensation to be able to sit or stand upon the edge of such a precipice and look down upon a broad expanse mantled with juicy grasses, the paradise of live stock. There is no finer grazing section anywhere than the Tonto Basin, and cattle, sheep, and horses all now do well in it. ”

“ Excuse poetry, but, like a pent-up spring, it will break forth; nor must you suspect me of plagiarism. Remark—the second line has honest quotation-marks, which is doing full justice to Mary who owned the particular lamb which has become immortal from its whiteness and exceptional training.
But all this does not bring us any nearer to what this Black Crook means. I have been studying this matter over. Of course a crook is a crook. Put the neck of a winter squash on the end of a bean pole, and you have it. ”

“ The glorious sunshine beamed on lofty crags and pine-covered heights close at our left hand, peered into dark ravine and rocky gorge, sparkled on the swift-flowing stream, and on innumerable dew-drops over the glade. Men and horses awoke to new life. A few miles ahead lay a lofty ridge, and from that, said our guides, the valleys of the Tongue and its branches, and the grand sweep of country towards the Rosebud on the north, and the Big Horn River to the northwest, would be spread before us like a map. Over that ridge, somewhere, lies Crook with his force, expectant of our coming ”

“ A small black walnut is eaten, and so is a wild cherry. The wild strawberry is too rare to be noticed in this treatise, but is known to the Apaches. Corn was planted in small areas by the Sierra Blanca band whenever undisturbed by the scouting parties of their enemies. After General Crook had conquered the whole nation and placed the various bands upon reservations, he insisted upon careful attention being paid to the planting of either corn or barley, and immense quantities of each were raised and sold to the United States Government for the use of its horses and mules. ”

“ A common modern fallacy is that there is a distinction between the crosier and the pastoral staff, the latter name being assigned to the crook of a bishop, and the former to the processional cross borne before an Archbishop. The late Dean Hook, if he was not the originator of the idea in an article in his “Church Dictionary,” at any rate did much to propagate it thereby, and it is now frequently found in books of reference. But the use of the words in the past is all against it. It is true that crosier comes from the Latin crux, a cross, but from the same root too, come crook and crutch ”

“ The calling of its inhabitant was proclaimed by a number of highly-polished sheep-crooks without stems that were hung ornamentally over the fireplace, the curl of each shining crook varying from the antiquated type engraved in the patriarchal pictures of old family Bibles to the most approved fashion of the last local sheep-fair. ”

“ In the darkness of the night of the gist, Crook was brought across Cedar Creek and hidden in a clump of timber behind Hupp's Hill till daylight of the 22d, when, under cover of the intervening woods and ravines, he was marched beyond the right of the Sixth Corps and again concealed not far from the Back road. ”

“ The majority, but by no means all, have got hold, somehow, of some old stoves or the scraps of a stove that they have put together as best they could. They have a well in common at the bottom of the hill, whence they draw water in such utensils as they possess, and which they let down into the water on a wooden crook. Every one has his crook as his own property, and preserves it near him in the cavern. ”

“ Let us stand beneath this low-branched elder.
"We cannot see what flowers are at our feet,"
but that there is violet in abundance we have the testimony of a sense which the darkness does not affect, the same which informed us of the presence of the garlic. Over the hedge the sheep are cropping the clover with short, sharp bites—one, two, three, four, five bites—then three or four shiftings of the short black legs, and again "crop, crop." So the woolly backs are bent all the night, the soft ears not erected as by day, but laid back against the shoulders. Sheep sleep little. ”

“ This small cave is, doubtless, but the tail end of the cavern that once existed here; and, indeed, the large cavern at the hilltop must be little more than a [111] fragment of what it was. Crook's Peak seems to be the mere skeleton of a hill. To account for the presence of such a cavern at the summit, one must postulate a large drainage area in days gone by, and a general configuration entirely opposite to the present. The higher part of the hill is but a Limestone shell enclosing these ancient, and now waterless, caverns. ”

“ Camp Crook, nestling down in one of the wildest gulch pockets of the Black Hills region—basking and sleeping in the flood of moonlight that emanates from the glowing ball up afar in heaven's blue vault, is suddenly and rudely aroused from her dreams. ”

“ Indians are prone to sacrifice property at the time of death of relations, and, under the advice of their “Medicine Men,” slaughtered altogether nearly two thousand sheep, which they had purchased with their own money or which represented the increase from the original flock. Crook bought from the Apaches all the hay they would cut, and had the Quartermaster pay cash for it; every pound of hay, every stick of wood, and no small portion of the corn used by the military at Camp Apache and San Carlos were purchased from the Apaches as individuals, and not from contractors or from tribes. ”

“ A shrub five or six feet long and of suitable size, with a short crook at the larger end, is convenient. It can be split at the crooked end, slipped on the edge of the pan and wired there without much trouble. ”

“ S.S.S.
"By Hook or by Crook."—I imagine that the expression "By hook or by crook" is in very general use throughout England. It was familiar to my ear forty years ago in Surrey, and within these four years its origin was (to my satisfaction at the moment) brought home to my comprehension in the North of Devon, where the tenant of a certain farm informed me that, by an old custom, he was entitled to take wood from some adjoining land "by hook and crook;" ”

“ In another tale of the same kind, the cowherd tends the cow of the fairy, and, following the animal into a cave, receives some golden wheat. In a third version, the fool throws away a handful of golden barley, and only comes to know of his mistake when his wife finds that some fuel cakes, on which he had laid his blanket, had turned into gold.152 So, at Pathari, in Bhopâl, there lived a Muni, or a Pîr, in a cave unknown to any one. His goat used to graze with the herdsman’s flock. The shepherd, one day, followed the goat into the cave and found an old man sitting intent in meditation. ”

“ The passage also illustrates the Hook or Crook privilege, which has been already satisfactorily explained. The date is A.D. 1525:
"We say, and for truth testify that the wood called Dynmure Wood, was ever open and common to all burgesses and inhabitants of Bodmin till now of late, as well for all manner kind of their beasts to common therein, as to have their burden wood, to bear and carry away upon their backs, of lop, crop, hook, crook, and bag wood; ... always reserving to the Prior the stems of the trees for their fuel and building." ”

“ From the highest point gained during the day Crook eagerly scanned the broad vista of country spread out at our feet, reaching from the course of the Little Big Horn on the left to the country near Pumpkin Buttes on the right. Neither the natural vision nor the aid of powerful glasses showed the slightest trace of a marching or a camping column; there was no smoke, no dust, to indicate the proximity of either Terry or Gibbon. ”

“ Even now if a tree is destroyed in the sacred grove, the gods evince their displeasure by withholding seasonable rain.” This idea of the influence of cutting trees on weather has been illustrated by Mr. Frazer from the usages of other races.20 So, among the Khândhs, “that timber may never be wanting, in case of accidents from fire or from enemies, a considerable grove, generally of Sâl, is uniformly dedicated by every village to the forest god, whose favour is ever and anon sought by the sacrifice of birds, hogs, and sheep, with the usual accompaniments of rice and an addled egg. ”

“ While the different detachments were marching to the point of rendezvous, Crook hurried to Fort 286Laramie, and thence eastward to the Red Cloud Agency to hold a conference with the chiefs.
It was during trips like this—while rolling over the endless plains of Wyoming, now rivalling the emerald in their vernal splendors—that General Crook was at his best: a clear-headed thinker, a fluent conversationalist, and a most pleasant companion. ”

“ TIDE WATER CLAM My friend, it's my belief that when it rains every third drop lands on a crook. You've no idea what a lot there are, and the only wonder is how they make a living. But your most dangerous crook is the gentleman variety, and that was easy for me because my father's family was about the best in the United States, barring only my mother's. ”

“ Our line of march still continued northward, going down the Tongue River, whose valley for a long distance narrowed to a little gorge bordered by bluffs of red and yellow sandstone, between one hundred and fifty and two hundred feet high—in some places much higher—well fringed with scrub pine and juniper. Coal measures of a quality not definitely determined cropped out in all parts of the country. By this time we were pretty far advanced across the borders of the Territory of Montana, and in a region well grassed with grama and the “black sage,” a plant almost as nutritious as oats. ”

“ The tail-end of her body is always twisted and curved up over her back so as to form a crook, and the lower surface of her body (that is to say, of course, the upper surface of the crook) is covered with pointed, leaf-shaped scales, arranged in three rows. The crook is propped on four long, thin legs, like stilts; and on each of these legs, at the point where the thigh joins the shin, is a curved, projecting blade not unlike that of a cleaver. ”

“ There is one thing certain about a hot trail: you’ll find Indians on it if you go far enough, and you’ll find them nowhere else. Comfort and ease beckoned from 366Fort Lincoln, but duty pointed to Deadwood, and straight to Deadwood Crook went. His two and a half days’ rations were made to last five; the Rees were sent in with despatches as fast as their ponies could travel to Lincoln, to inform Sheridan of our whereabouts, and to ask that supplies be hurried out from Camp Robinson to meet us. ”

“ Then as the dry season came on and the barren waste came creeping back they also worked their way back toward the more settled farm lands, until autumn found them selling their wool to the nearby farmers and townspeople in exchange for wheat and barley and some of the other necessaries of life.
The Shepherd's Daily Life
Sheep-raising might seem at times a peaceful and even a somewhat monotonous business. The flocks found their own food, grazing in the pastures. ”

“ Then is assuredly the time to strike, provided always that the soldiers be not caught and frozen to death by some furious storm while on the march, or after being wounded. Crook wanted to have our animals kept in the best condition, at least in a condition somewhat better than that of the Indian ponies. He knew that the amount of grass to be depended upon would be very limited: much of the country would be burned over by the Indians to prepare for the new growth; much would lie under deep snow, and not be accessible to our horses ”

“ In 1641 Croke's age and declining health compelled him to apply for permission to retire from active service on the bench. The request was granted, and his title and salary were continued to him. He withdrew to his estate at Waterstock, Oxfordshire, where he died 16 Feb. 1641–2. An elaborate monument was erected above his grave in Waterstock Church. Croke's reports, extending over sixty years (1580–1640) , were written in Norman-French, and were translated into English for publication by Sir Harbottle Grimston, his son-in-law. ”