Yet, when I
stopped my horse to talk to her--I had not forgotten that "the courtesy
of shepherds" demands that one should always exchange words with the
folk of the lonely trade--I found myself unconsciously dropping into the
language of pastoral verse. Does not the Third Eclogue of Virgil begin:
"Die mihi, ... ? An Melibei?"
At any rate, I began: "Whose flock is this?" She answered as if out of
the book: "It's Farmer Black's. First the one-armed shepherd had it. Now
I've got it," and her eyes looked lovingly on as fine a flock of ewes as
you could wish to see. They were spread fanwise along the opposite side
of the sharply-defined chalk valley. She went on to tell me that she had
also got the lamb flock, but not with her that day. I asked how she had
come to take up pastoral work, thinking that probably she was the widow
of a shepherd. But it seemed that she had never done shepherd's work
before, though, as she said, she had "been brought up among them."
"Them" was obviously the ewes and lambs. One could see that she was
thoroughly competent, and that while she was in charge there would be no
straying or stealing, or over-feeding, or starving, or any other ill.
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