in his prime, as you are, but a youth come to manhood is a good
exchange for a graybeard, as you will be. Therefore rear this babe as
you please, and if he live to manhood so much the better for you, but
if he die first it's all one to me."

The Shepherd had hoped for a better bargain, but he must needs be
content with seeing liberty at a distance. So he returned to his shed
on the hills and made a leather purse to keep his gold-piece in, and
hung it round his neck, touching it fifty times a day under his shirt
to be sure it was still there. And presently he sought among his ewes
one who had borne her young, saying, "You shall mother two instead of
one." And the baby sucked the ewe like her very lamb, and thrived upon
the milk. And the shepherd called the child Gerard after himself,
"since," he said, "it is as good a name for a shepherd as another"; and
from that time they became the Young and Old Gerards to all who knew
them.

So the Young Gerard grew up, and as he grew the cherry-tree grew
likewise, but in the strangest fashion; for though it flourished past
all expectation, it never put forth either leaf or blossom. This
bitterly vexed Old Gerard, who had hoped in time for fruit, and the
frustration of his hopes became to him a cause of grievance against the
boy. A further grudge was that by no manner of means could he succeed
in lighting any wick or candle in the silver lantern, of which he
desired to make use.

"But if your tree and your lantern won't work," said he, "it's no
reason why you shouldn't." So he put Young Gerard to work, first as
sheepboy to his own flock, but later the boy had a flock of his own.
There was no love lost between these two, and kicks and curses were the
young one's fare; for he was often idle and often a truant, and none
was held responsible for him except the old shepherd who was selling
him piece-meal, year by year, to their master. Because of what depended
on him, Old Gerard was constrained to show him some sort of care when
he would liever have wrung his neck. The boy's fits exasperated the
man; whether he was cutting strange capers and laughing without reason,
as he frequently did, or sitting a whole evening in a morose dream,
staring at the fire or at the stars, and saying never a word. The boy's
coloring was as mingled as his moods, a blend of light and dark--black
hair, brown skin, blue eyes and golden lashes, a very odd anomaly.

(Martin: What is it, Mistress Joyce?

Jo