THE SHEPHERD 



remarkable that the familiar word of olden days should 

 have survived while its significance is forgotten. Yet 

 the word is most appropriate to a crystallized Dartmoor, 

 when every blade of grass is found fitted into a most 

 delicate scabbard of ice, and all the leaves and berries 

 of the holly-tree dance and sparkle in the sun. 



THE first red flower of the year is the red dead-nettle, 

 now in bloom, the powerless nettle, its 

 January's name being a corruption of the Saxon 

 Bouquet " Deffenettil " ; it is still known in some 

 parts as dumb-nettle. Besides the never- 

 bloomless furze, jasmine, and the rash primrose, 

 January's bouquet has dandelion and daisy, shepherd's 

 purse, chickweed, and groundsel that was hailed by 

 old Nicholas Culpepper as " a gallant and universal 

 medicine." The Christmas rose has allies in the shrub- 

 bery in green and stinking hellebores; there, also, the 

 periwinkle blooms. A few forward marsh marigolds, 

 buttercups and lesser celandines may be found; and 

 always in January we come to some bank where the 

 nodding violet grows and blows. 



THE SHEPHERD 



ONCE again, in our walks abroad, we see the age-old 



picture of the shepherd with a new-born 



Lambing lamb in his arms. No matter how crusty 



Days an old fellow, he turns motherly at lambing- 



time, and there is much need of mothering 



among his silly sheep. Days and nights of ceaseless 



labour and vigil are now the shepherd's lot, ruling out 



of court the old charge of shepherd's idleness, laid 



9 



