y gait
was always the finest known on these hills for leading a flock; but my
feet pain me after a dozen miles, and a shepherd with corny feet is like
a bird with a torn wing. Thou understandest the hardship of a shepherd,
and that one isn't a shepherd for willing it; and I rely on thee,
Brother, to take my part and to speak up for me when Hazael puts
questions to thee. So thou wouldst be freed from the care of the flock?
Jesus said. My only wish, he answered. But thou'lt make it clear to
Hazael that it was for lack of a good ram the flock fell away. I gave
thee over a young ram with the flock, one of the finest on these hills,
Jesus said. Thou didst; and he seemed like coming into such a fine
beast, Amos answered, that we hadn't the heart to turn him among the
ewes the first year but bred from the old fellow. An old ram is a waste,
Jesus replied, and he would have said more if Amos had not begun to
relate the death of the fine young beast that Jesus had bred for the
continuance of the flock. We owe the loss of him, he said, to a ewe that
no shepherd would look twice at, one of the ugliest in the flock, she
seemed to me to be and to everybody that laid his eyes on her, and she
ought to have been put out of the flock, but though uninviting to our
eyes she was longed for by another ram, and so ardently that he could
not abide his own ewes and became as a wild sheep on the hills, always
on the prowl about my flock, seeking his favourite, and she casting her
head back at him nothing loath.

It would have been better if I had turned the evil ewe out of the flock,
making him a present of her, but I kept on foiling him; and my own ram,
taking rage against this wild one, challenged him, and one day, seeing
me asleep on the hillside, the wild ram came down and with a great bleat
summoned mine to battle. It seemed to me that heaven was raining
thunderbolts, so loud was the noise of their charging; and looking out
of my dreams I saw the two rams backing away from each other, making
ready for another onset. My ram's skull was the softer, he being a
youngling, it had been already shaken in several charges, and it was
broken in this last one, a terrible one it was, I can still hear them,
they are still at it in my mind--the ewes of both flocks gathered on
different sides, spectators.

But where were thy dogs all this while? Jesus inquired. My dogs! If I'd
had a Thracian he never would have suffered that the sheep killed each
other.