The Mountain Sheep 217 



with her. Here and there were bushes of some 

 close stiff leaf, that she walked through easily, 

 but which were too many for the toddling child. 

 The lamb would sometimes get into the middle 

 of one of these and find itself unable to push 

 through ; after one or two little efforts, it would 

 back out and go round some other way, and 

 then I would see it making haste to where its 

 mother stood waiting. Upon one of these 

 occasions the mother received it with a manner 

 that seemed almost to say : " Good gracious, 

 at your age I found no trouble with a thing of 

 that kind ! " They drew, by degrees, so near me 

 that I put away my glasses. There was a time 

 when they were not fifty feet below me and I 

 could hear their little steps ; and once the ewe 

 sneezed in the most natural manner. While I 

 was wondering what on earth they would do 

 when they found themselves stepping upon the 

 terrace into my lap, the ewe saw a way she liked 

 better. Had she gone to my left as I watched 

 her, and so reached my level, the wind would 

 have infallibly betrayed me ; but she turned the 

 other way and went along beneath the terrace 

 wall to a patch of the bushes high enough to 

 make severe work for the lamb. While she was 



