Scowie's lovely song as posted by Moorley Man in an earlier thread

Walling   (Keith Scowcroft/Derek Gifford)
(The last line of each verse is repeated.)

I've walled the in-bye to the peewit's wild cry,
On the fell with the wind in the heather,
I've laid the rough stone on the hill all alone
For to shelter the yow and the wether;
Stone wall and stone drain, in the wind and the rain,
I've fettled and set them together,
I've heard the snipe drum by an early pale sun,
And the grouse call a change in the weather.


I've a spade in me sack which I take on me back
And a tommy-bar short and well-hipped
To clear all the fall from the gap in the wall
And to dig out the founds that have slipped;
With the rack of my eye I can tell a stone's lie
And I'd never have courses that's dipped;
Yet a stone once selected is seldom rejected,
With copings all tight and well-nipped.


There's no fortune made at this stonewalling trade,
Ten shillings a rood is the rate;
Stoop, stile and smoot hole are all reckoned as whole
And there's no waller paid for a mate;
Still it's gritstone for me, that's as rough as can be,
For I care not for shingle nor slate;
And it's faster headway at the end of the day
That pays for the coal in the grate.


Now I said to me dad when I was a lad
That I'd wall for a trade if I could,
For the winter storms bring you fresh work every spring
As the drifts give the stone walls a shove;
So as man, lad and boy, I've found full employ,
And when Jesus calls me up above*,
I'll ask the Great Caller does he want a waller,
For walling's the trade that I love;
Yes, walling's the trade that I love.