William led the way across the pasture, and I followed with a deep
sense of pleased anticipation. I do not believe that my companion had
expected me to make any objection, but I knew that he was gratified by
the easy way that his plans for the day were being seconded. He gave a
look at the sky to see if there were any portents, but the sky was
frankly blue; even the doubtful morning haze had disappeared.
We went northward along a rough, clayey road, across a bare-looking,
sunburnt country full of tiresome long slopes where the sun was hot and
bright, and I could not help observing the forlorn look of the farms.
There was a great deal of pasture, but it looked deserted, and I
wondered afresh why the people did not raise more sheep when that
seemed the only possible use to make of their land. I said so to Mr.
Blackett, who gave me a look of pleased surprise.
"That's what She always maintains," he said eagerly. "She 's right
about it, too; well, you 'll see!" I was glad to find myself approved,
but I had not the least idea whom he meant, and waited until he felt
like speaking again.
A few minutes later we drove down a steep hill and entered a large
tract of dark spruce woods. It was delightful to be sheltered from the
afternoon sun, and when we had gone some distance in the shade, to my
great pleasure William turned the horse's head toward some bars, which
he let down, and I drove through into one of those narrow, still,
sweet-scented by-ways which seem to be paths rather than roads. Often
we had to put aside the heavy drooping branches which barred the way,
and once, when a sharp twig struck William in the face, he announced
with such spirit that somebody ought to go through there with an axe,
that I felt unexpectedly guilty. So far as I now remember, this was
William's only remark all the way through the woods to Thankful Hight's
folks, but from time to time he pointed or nodded at something which I
might have missed: a sleepy little owl snuggled into the bend of a
branch, or a tall stalk of cardinal flowers where the sunlight came
down at the edge of a small, bright piece of marsh. Many times, being
used to the company of Mrs. Todd and other friends who were in the
habit of talking, I came near making an idle remark to William, but I
was for the most part happily preserved; to be with him only for a
short time was to live on a different level, where thoughts served best
because they were thoughts in common; the primary effect upon our minds
of the simple things and beauties that we saw. Once when I caught
sight of a lovely gay pigeon-woodpecker eyeing us curiously from a dead
branch, and instinctively turned toward William, he gave an indulgent,
comprehending nod which silenced me all the rest of the way. The
wood-road was not a place for common noisy conversation; one would
interrupt the birds and all the still little beasts that belonged
there. But it was mortifying to find how strong the habit of idle
speech may become in one's self. One need not always be saying
something in this noisy world. I grew conscious of the difference
between William's usual fashion of life and mine; for him there were
long days of silence in a sea-going boat, and I could believe that he
and his mother usually spoke very little because they so perfectly
understood each other. There was something peculiarly unresponding
about their quiet island in the sea, solidly fixed into the still
foundations of the world, against whose rocky shores the sea beats and
calls and is unanswered.
We were quite half an hour going through the woods; the horse's feet
made no sound on the brown, soft track under the dark evergreens. I
thought that we should come out at last into more pastures, but there
was no half-wooded strip of land at the end; the high woods grew
squarely against an old stone wall and a sunshiny open field, and we
came out suddenly into broad daylight that startled us and even
startled the horse, who might have been napping as he walked, like an
old soldier. The field sloped up to a low unpainted house that faced
the east. Behind it were long, frost-whitened ledges that made the
hill, with strips of green turf and bushes between. It was the
wildest, most Titanic sort of pasture country up there; there was a
sort of daring in putting a frail wooden house before it, though it
might have the homely field and honest woods to front against. You
thought of the elements and even of possible volcanoes as you looked up
the stony heights. Suddenly I saw that a region of what I had thought
gray stones was slowly moving, as if the sun was making my eyesight
unsteady.
"There's the sheep!" exclaimed William, pointing eagerly. "You see the
sheep?" and sure enough, it was a great company of woolly backs, which
seemed to have taken a mysterious protective resemblance to the ledges
themselves. I could discover but little chance for pasturage on that
high sunburnt ridge, but the sheep were moving steadily in a satisfied
way as they fed along the slopes and hollows.
"I never have seen half so many sheep as these, all summer long!" I
cried with admiration.
"There ain't so many," answered William soberly. "It's a great sight.
They do so well because they 're shepherded, but you can't beat sense
into some folks."
"You mean that somebody stays and watches them?" I asked.
"She observed years ago in her readin' that they don't turn out their
flocks without protection anywhere but in the State o' Maine," returned
William. "First thing that put it into her mind was a little old book
mother's got; she read it one time when she come out to the Island.
They call it the 'Shepherd o' Salisbury Plain.' 'T was n't the purpose
o' the book to most, but when she read it, 'There, Mis' Blackett!' she
said, 'that's where we 've all lacked sense; our Bibles ought to have
taught us that what sheep need is a shepherd.' You see most folks
about here gave up sheep-raisin' years ago 'count o' the dogs. So she
gave up school-teachin' and went out to tend her flock, and has
shepherded ever since, an' done well."
For William, this approached an oration. He spoke with enthusiasm, and
I shared the triumph of the moment. "There she is now!" he exclaimed,
in a different tone, as the tall figure of a woman came following the
flock and stood still on the ridge, looking toward us as if her eyes
had been quick to see a strange object in the familiar emptiness of the
field. William stood up in the wagon, and I thought he was going to
call or wave his hand to her, but he sat down again more clumsily than
if the wagon had made the familiar motion of a boat, and we drove on
toward the house.
It was a most solitary place to live,--a place where one might think
that a life could hide itself. The thick woods were between the farm
and the main road, and as one looked up and down the country, there was
no other house in sight.
"Potatoes look well," announced William. "The old folks used to say
that there wa'n't no better land outdoors than the Hight field."
I found myself possessed of a surprising interest in the shepherdess,
who stood far away in the hill pasture with her great flock, like a
figure of Millet's, high against the sky.