The return of the lamb

The rugged highlands of Scotland have a beauty of their own. The lofty hills bow down to no one. Clouds brush against the sky and rush towards the horizon. It is thrilling to watch them gliding through the trees and whirling through the air. Sometimes my car takes ages to negotiate the rocky outcrops. Once, it took us almost two hours to go through a stretch that normally takes less than an hour to cover. Another time we had to abandon our planned drive because of the irritating heather fields on the way. They were pleasing to the eye, but blunt to the touch! 

The return of the lamb

When we chanced upon a cosy farm house, we decided to spend the night there. The meadows were alive with innumerable animal sounds — from chirping to mooing, from crowing to quacking. The children had a marvellous time playing. The next morning, we resumed our journey after fortifying ourselves with a hearty breakfast of farm eggs, bacon, oven-fresh bread, sausage, grilled tomatoes, and strong tea!

We had barely left the bleating behind when a sweet ‘baa’ broke the silence. It was coming from inside our station wagon! We looked at each other and then at the others.

I parked the van and plunged my hand under the driver’s seat. Behold, it emerged with a lamb whose fleece was white as snow. What a beautiful lamb! I couldn’t really blame my son for ‘lifting’ the lamb from his hosts. But the rules of civility had to be followed. So I drove all the way back to our overnight halt to hand over the ‘purloined’ lamb to its rightful owner.

The owner of the farm house patted my son on the head. “The lamb belongs with its mother,” he remarked, and he let the lamb loose. Promptly, it went back to the mother, dancing and prancing. When a few other lambs came near, it skipped nimbly as if playing a game. There was nothing more beautiful in the whole world than a lamb and its mother!

“Very civil of you, mate,” the farm house owner said, shaking my hand. 

I returned to the mad rush on the highway, where plenty of ‘black sheep’ were itching to inch ahead of me. I let them. After all, how much distance could they possibly ‘steal’? At the end of the day, we were all playing a hollow game.