It was several minutes before Stephanus and Joseph could collect the sheep that the wolf had scattered; but at length, with the aid of the dog, who was not a very brave specimen, and who had taken to his heels when he saw the wolf coming, they succeeded in driving them into a safe neighborhood, and then, with their blood quickened by the adventure, they sat down again beneath the overhanging rock.

“You said, grandfather, that you always spent this night with the flocks in the fields.  Why this night?” asked the boy.

“Do you not know, my boy, that this is the night of the year on which the Lord Christ was born?”

“Oh! yes,” answered the lad.  “My father told me as we were walking hither today, but I had forgotten it.  And you were with the sheep that night?”

“Aye.”

“Where was it?”

“Here, on this very spot.”

The boy’s eyes began to grow and fill with wonder and there was a slight tremor in his voice as he hurriedly plied the aged man with his eager questions.  Stephanus drew his shepherd’s cloak around him, and leaned forward a little, and looked out upon the silent moonlit hills, and then up into the sky.

“How long ago was that, grandfather?”

“Just fifty years ago this night.”

“And how old were you then?”

“Fourteen, and a stout boy for my age.  I had been for two years in the fields with my father, and had tasted to the full the hardships and dangers of the shepherd’s life.”

“Who were with you on that night?”

“My father, and his brother, James, and Hosea, the son of John, a neighbor and kinsman of ours.  On that year, as on this year and often, there came in the midwinter a dry and warm season between the early and the latter rain.  We had driven forth our flocks from Bethlehem and were dwelling by night in the shelter of the tower on the hillside yonder, watching and sleeping two and two.  My father and I were wont to keep the early watches.  At midnight we would call James and Hosea, and they would watch till the morning.  But that night, when the sun went down and the stars came out, we were sitting here, upon this hillside, talking of the troubles of Israel and of the promises of deliverance spoken by the prophets; and James and Hosea were asking my father questions, and he was answering them, for he was older than they, and all the people of Bethlehem reverenced him as a wise and devout man.  Some even said that, if the people of Israel had not ceased to look for prophets, they would have counted him a prophet.  I remember well that, when he rose in the synagogue, it seemed as if some wisdom from on high touched his lips, and he would speak with such hope and courage of the light that should yet shine in our darkness and of the help that should yet arise to Judah, that the people’s faces would glow with joyful expectation.”

Stephanus paused a moment and started forward, as his eye was turned toward his own shadow upon the rock, cast by the rising moon.  Did the old man’s figure that he saw remind him of the patriarch of whom he was talking?