into broad daylight that startled us and even
startled the horse, who might have been napping as he walked, like an
old soldier. The field sloped up to a low unpainted house that faced
the east. Behind it were long, frost-whitened ledges that made the
hill, with strips of green turf and bushes between. It was the
wildest, most Titanic sort of pasture country up there; there was a
sort of daring in putting a frail wooden house before it, though it
might have the homely field and honest woods to front against. You
thought of the elements and even of possible volcanoes as you looked up
the stony heights. Suddenly I saw that a region of what I had thought
gray stones was slowly moving, as if the sun was making my eyesight
unsteady.

"There's the sheep!" exclaimed William, pointing eagerly. "You see the
sheep?" and sure enough, it was a great company of woolly backs, which
seemed to have taken a mysterious protective resemblance to the ledges
themselves. I could discover but little chance for pasturage on that
high sunburnt ridge, but the sheep were moving steadily in a satisfied
way as they fed along the slopes and hollows.

"I never have seen half so many sheep as these, all summer long!" I
cried with admiration.

"There ain't so many," answered William soberly. "It's a great sight.
They do so well because they 're shepherded, but you can't beat sense
into some folks."

"You mean that somebody stays and watches them?" I asked.

"She observed years ago in her readin' that they don't turn out their
flocks without protection anywhere but in the State o' Maine," returned
William. "First thing that put it into her mind was a little old book
mother's got; she read it one time when she come out to the Island.
They call it the 'Shepherd o' Salisbury Plain.' 'T was n't the purpose
o' the book to most, but when she read it, 'There, Mis' Blackett!' she
said, 'that's where we 've all lacked sense; our Bibles ought to have
taught us that what sheep need is a shepherd.' You see most folks
about here gave up sheep-raisin' years ago 'count o' the dogs. So she
gave up school-teachin' and went out to tend her flock, and has
shepherded ever since, an' done well."

For William, this approached an oration. He spoke with enthusiasm, and
I shared the triumph of the moment. "There she is now!" he exclaimed,
in a different tone, as the tall figure of a woman came following the
flock and stood still on the ridge, looking towar