nature. At that moment a ewe wandering near some scrub caught his
attention. A wolf, he said, may be lurking there. I must bring her back;
and he put a stone into his sling. A wolf is lurking there, he
continued, else Gorbotha would not stand growling. Gorbotha, a
golden-haired dog, like a wolf in build, stood snuffing the breeze,
whilst Thema, his sister, sought her master's hand. A moment after the
breeze veered, bringing the scent to her, and the two dogs dashed
forward into the scrub without finding either wolf or jackal lying in
wait. All the same, he said, a wolf or a jackal must have been lying
there, and not long ago, or else the dogs would not have growled and
rushed to the onset as they did.

They returned perplexed and anxious to their master, who resumed his
meditation, saying to himself that if aching bones obliged him to return
to the cenoby he would have to give up thinking. For one only thinks
well in solitude and when one thinks for oneself alone; but in the
cenoby the brethren think together. All the same my life on the hills is
not over yet, and an hour later he put his pipes to his lips and led his
flock to different hills, for, guided by some subtle sense, he seemed to
divine the springing up of new grass; and the shepherds, knowing of this
instinct for pasturage, were wont to follow him, and he was often at
pains to elude them, for on no hillside is there grass enough for many
flocks.

My poor sheep, he said, as he watched them scatter over a grassy
hillside. Ye're happy this springtime for ye do not know that your
shepherd is about to be taken from you. But he has suffered too much in
the winter we've come out of to remain on the hills many more years.
Before leaving you he must discover a shepherd that will care for you as
well as I have done. Amos is dead; there is no one in the cenoby that
understands sheep. Would ye had speech to counsel me. But tell me, what
would ye say if I were to leave you in Jacob's charge? He stood waiting,
as if he expected the sheep to answer, and it was then it began to seem
to Jesus he might as well entrust his flock to Jacob as to another.

He had sent him out that morning with twenty lambs that were yet too
young to run with the flock, and he now stood waiting for him, thinking
that if he lost none between this day and the end of the summer, the
flock might be handed over to him. Every young man's past is tarnished,
he continued, for he could not forget that Jac