The path climbed up and up and threatened to carry me over thehighest point of the downs till it faltered before a suddenoutcrop of chalk and swerved round the hill on the level. I wasgrateful for the respite, for I had been walking all day and myknapsack was growing heavy. Above me in the blue pastures of theskies the cloud-sheep were grazing, with the sun on their snowybacks, and all about me the grey sheep of earth were croppingthe wild pansies that grew wherever the chalk had won a coveringof soil.
Presently I came upon the shepherd standing erect by the path, atall, spare man with a face that the sun and the wind had robbed ofall expression. The dog at his feet looked more intelligent than he."You've come up from the valley," he said as I passed; "perhapsyou'll have seen my boy?"
"I'm sorry, I haven't," I said, pausing.
"Sorrow breaks no bones," he muttered, and strode away with his dogat his heels. It seemed to me that the dog was apologetic for hismaster's rudeness.
I walked on to the little hill-girt village, where I had made up mymind to pass the night. The man at the village shop said he would putme up, so I took off my knapsack and sat down on a sackful of cattlecake while the bacon was cooking.
"If you came over the hill, you'll have met shepherd," said the man,"and he'll have asked you for his boy."
"Yes, but I hadn't seen him."
The shopman nodded. "There are clever folk who say you can see him,and clever folk who say you can't. The simple ones like you and me,we say nothing, but we don't see him. Shepherd hasn't got no boy."
"What! is it a joke?"
"Well, of course it may be," said the shop-man guardedly, "though Ican't say I've heard many people laughing at it yet. You see,shepherd's boy he broke his neck. . . .
"That was in the days before they built the fence above the bigchalk-pit that you passed on your left coming down. A dangerousplace it used to be for the sheep, so shepherd's boy he used to liealong there to stop them dropping into it, while shepherd's dog hestopped them from going too far. And shepherd he used to come downhere and have his glass, for he took it then like you or me. He'sblue ribbon now.
"It was one night when the mists were out on the hills, and maybeshepherd had had a glass too much, or maybe he got a bit lost in thesmoke. But when he went up there to bring them home, he startsdriving them into the pit as straight as could be. Shepherd's boy hehollered out and ran to stop them, but four-and-twenty of them wentover, and the lad he went with them. You mayn't believe me, but fiveof them weren't so much as scratched, though it's a sixty feet drop.Likely they fell soft on top of the others. But shepherd's boy he wasdone.
"Shepherd he's a bit spotty now, and most times he thinks the boy'sstill with him. And there are clever folk who'll tell you thatthey've seen the boy helping shepherd's dog with the sheep. Thatwould be a ghost now, I shouldn't wonder. I've never seen it, butthen I'm simple, as you might say.
"But I've had two boys myself, and it seems to me that a boy likethat, who didn't eat and didn't get into mischief, and did his work,would be the handiest kind of boy to have about the place."