Ch. 4: A Shepherd of the Downs - Page 2

feeling in the matter. He understood and had the
keenest sympathy with old John, dead now over half a century; or rather,
let us say, resting very peacefully in that green spot under the old
grey tower of Winterbourne Bishop church where as a small boy he had
played among the old gravestones as far back in time as the middle of
the eighteenth century. But old John had long survived wife and
children, and having no one but himself to think of was at liberty to
end his days where he pleased. Not so with Caleb, for, although his
undying passion for home and his love of the shepherd's calling were as
great as John's, he was not so free, and he was compelled at last to
leave his native downs, which he may never see again, to settle for the
remainder of his days in another part of the country.

Early in life he "caught a chill" through long exposure to wet and cold
in winter; this brought on rheumatic fever and a malady of the thigh,
which finally affected the whole limb and made him lame for life. Thus
handicapped he had continued as shepherd for close on fifty years,
during which time his sons and daughters had grown up, married, and gone
away, mostly to a considerable distance, leaving their aged parents
alone once more. Then the wife, who was a strong woman and of an
enterprising temper, found an opening for herself at a distance from
home where she could start a little business. Caleb indignantly refused
to give up shepherding in his place to take part in so unheard-of an
adventure; but after a year or more of life in his lonely hut among the
hills and cold, empty cottage in the village, he at length tore himself
away from that beloved spot and set forth on the longest journey of his
life--about forty-five miles--to join her and help in the work of her
new home. Here a few years later I found him, aged seventy-two, but
owing to his increasing infirmities looking considerably more. When he
considered that his father, a shepherd before him on those same
Wiltshire Downs, lived to eighty-six, and his mother to eighty-four, and
that both were vigorous and led active lives almost to the end, he
thought it strange that his own work should be so soon done. For in
heart and mind he was still young; he did not want to rest yet.

Since that first meeting nine years have passed, and as he is actually
better in health to-day than he was then, there is good reason to hope
that his staying power will equal that of his father.

I was at first struck with the singularity of Caleb's appearance, and
later by the expression of his eyes. A very tall, big-boned, lean,
round-shouldered man, he was uncouth almost to the verge of
grotesqueness, and walked painfully with the aid of a stick, dragging
his shrunken