86 Individuality of the Shepherd. 



sling these great umbrellas over the shoulder with a 

 piece of tar cord, just as a soldier slings his musket, 

 and so have both hands free — one to stump along 

 with a stout stick and the other to carr}' a flag basket. 

 The stick is alwa3's too length}' to walk with as men 

 use it in cities, carrying it by the knob or handle ; it 

 is a staff rather than a stick, the upper end project- 

 ing six or eight inches above the hand. 



If any laborers deserve to be paid well, it is the 

 shepherds : upon their knowledge and fidelity the 

 principal profit of a whole season depends on so many 

 farms. On the bleak hills in lambing time the great- 

 est care is necessary ; and the fold, situated in a 

 hollow if possible, with the down rising on the east 

 or north, is built as it were of straw walls, thick and 

 warm, which the sheep soon make hollow inside, and 

 thus have a cave in which to nestle. 



The shepherd has a distinct individualit}^, and is 

 generall}' a much more observant man in his own 

 sphere than the ordinary laborer. He knows every 

 single field in the whole parish, what kind of weather 

 best suits its soil, and can tell 3'ou without going 

 within sight of a given farm pretty much what con- 

 dition it will be found in. Knowledge of this char- 

 acter ma}' seem trivial to those whose daj's are passed 

 indoors ; 3'et it is something to recollect all the end- 

 less fields in several square miles of country. As a 

 student remembers for years the type and paper, the 

 breadth of the margin — can see, as it were, before 

 his eyes the bevel of the binding and hear again the 

 rustle of the stift' leaves of some tall volume which he 

 found in a forgotten corner of a library, and bent 

 over with such delight, heedless of dust and ' silver- 



