still young the sun was warm, the sky told him that before noon his tongue would be cleaving to the sides of his mouth; a fair prediction this was, for long before the oak wood came into sight he had begun to think of the well at the end of the wood, and the quality of the water he would find in it, remembering that it used to hold good water, but the shepherds often forgot to replace the stopper and the water got fouled.

As he walked his comrades of old time kept rising up in his memory one by one; their faces, even their hands and feet, and the stories they told of their dogs, their fights with the wild beasts, and the losses they suffered from wolves and lions in the jungles along the Jordan.  In old times these topics were the substance of his life, and he wished to hear the shepherds’ rough voices again, to look into their eyes, to talk sheep with them, to plunge his hands once more into the greasy fleeces, yes, and to vent his knowledge, so that if he should happen to come upon new men they would see that he, Jesus, had been at the job before.

Now the day seems like keeping up, he said; but there was a certain fear in his heart that the valleys would be close and hot in the afternoon and the hill-tops uninviting.  But his humour was not for fault-finding; and with the ram in view always—­not a long-legged brute with a face like a ewe upon him, but a broad, compact animal with a fine woolly head—­he stepped out gaily, climbing hill after hill, enjoying his walk and interested in his remembrance of certain rams he had once seen near Caesarea, and in his hope of possessing himself of one of these.  With money enough upon me to buy one, he kept saying to himself, I shouldn’t come back empty-handed.  But, O Lord, the the day is hot, he cried at the end of the fourth hour.  But yonder is the oak wood; and he stopped to think out the whereabouts of the well.  A moment after he caught sight of a shepherd:  who is, no doubt, by the well, he said.  He is, and trying to lift out the stopper; and the shepherd, catching sight of Jesus, called him to come to his help, saying that it would need their united strength to get it out.  We’re moving it, the shepherd cried after a bit.  We are, Jesus replied.  How is the water?  Fair enough if thy thirst be fierce, the shepherd replied.  There is better about a mile from here, but I see thou’rt thirsty.

As soon as the men had quenched their thirst, the sheep came forward, each waiting his turn, as is their wont; and when the flock was watered it sought the shade of a great oak, and the twain, sitting under the burgeoning branches, began to talk.  It was agreed between them that it would not do to advise anybody to choose shepherding as a trade at present, for things seemed to be going more than ever against the shepherd; the wild animals in the thickets along the Jordan had increased, and the robbers, though many had been crucified, were becoming numerous again; these did not hesitate to take a ewe or wether away