QUIET as the grave. That, I think, is the clich for Beggarsdale this week: no walkers, very few day trippers, the whole Dale a-flutter with red and white tapes like the police use at crime scenes and lots of little yellow notices hanging on stiles and gates.

No, foot and mouth has not arrived. Yet. But the fingers are crossed, sheep are inspected daily, and a depression has settled along with the eerie silence.

Strangely enough, it is not the farmers like Owd Tom or John Bull who are, so far, the worst affected.

To their great good fortune, their farms are both of a piece, so they can bring their ewes down from the fells for lambing from the tops without breaking the movement restrictions brought in by MAFF.

Mean Mike at the post office is, of course, distraught because he has lost the trade in Kendal mint cake and the odd ordnance survey map bought by the walkers.

Cousin Kate, the postmistress, is taking it on the chin with quiet resolution: she remembers the 1967 outbreak and knows just how bad things can get.

There are, even, bits of gallows humour.

Owd Tom has decided to isolate himself to Hard Rock Farm just in case, which means we non-farming locals have set up a courier service delivering pints of Ram's Blood to the farm gate where it is left on a specially disinfected table in plastic canisters.

Old soldier Tom shouted to Ben the Bucket, Sunday's delivery boy, that the slight whiff of disinfectant gave the beer a bit of extra flavour - "just like t' owd days in the NAAFI"

No, our big worry at the moment is the Beggars' Arms for the Innkeeper and his Lady are bearing the brunt so far.

All their weekend B&B bookings were cancelled last weekend, this weekend's books are bare, and already several would-be Easter visitors have cried off.

On top of this, the pub sold only two bar meals last weekend and that, quite frankly, is a disaster.

As with most country pubs these days, the Beggars' gets by on its food sales: us locals do our best on the drink stakes to keep the place in business but who goes out for a pub lunch when home is 50 yards away?

Now the Innkeeper is a taciturn sort of chap - unless, of course, he is refereeing in the heated debates which tend to break out in the bar from time to time - but his face has been set very solid these past few weeks.

And, Cousin Kate swears, she did hear the sound of the landlady crying in her kitchen last Sunday when the normally heaving pub was as quiet as a pauper's wake.

This, of course, brings to the forefront of everyone's mind the fact that although farmers who lose stock from F&M are compensated, small rural businesses, which can suffer as much - if not more - are not.

Now this is a subject which is taboo in the Beggars', for obvious reasons.

No-one wants to take sides because we all feel supportive of both: to discuss it in front of the Innkeeper would be insensitive in the extreme, if not downright insulting.

But when locals meet in The Lane, conversation inevitably turns to "The Situation."

And, as Teacher Tess said to Jetset: "Can you imagine life in the village without The Beggars?" The blood is running cold in Beggarsdale this weekend.

* The Curmudgeon is a satirical column based on a fictitious character in a mythical village.