Amongst the smooth grey beech-stems of that grove were the pallid forms of sheep, and it was cool and still as in a temple. Outside, the day was bright, and a hundred yards away in the hot sun the shepherd, a bent old man in an aged coat, was leaning on his stick. His brown face wrinkled like a walnut, was fringed round with a stubble of grey beard. He stood very still, and waited to be spoken to. “A fine day?” “Aye, fine enough; a little sun won’t do no harm. ’Twon’t last!” “How can you tell that?” “I been upon the Downs for sixty year!” “You must have seen some changes?” “Changes in men--an’ sheep!” “An’ wages, too, I suppose. What were they when you were twenty?” “Eight shillin’ a week.” “But living was surely more expensive?” “So ’twas; the bread was mortial dear, I know, an’ the flour black! An’ piecrust, why, ’twas hard as wood!” “And what are wages now?” “There’s not a man about the Downs don’t get his sixteen shillin’; some get a pound, some more.... There they go! Sha’n’t get ’em out now till tew o’clock!” His sheep were slipping one by one into the grove of beech-trees where, in the pale light, no flies tormented them. The shepherd’s little dark-grey eyes seemed to rebuke his flock because they would not feed the whole day long. “It’s cool in there. Some say that sheep is silly. ’Tain’t so very much that they don’t know.” “So you think the times have changed?” “Well! There’s a deal more money in the country.” “And education?” “Ah! Ejucation? They spend all day about it. Look at the railways too, an’ telegraphs! See! That’s bound to make a difference.” “So, things are better, on the whole?” He smiled. “I was married at twenty, on eight shillin’ a week; you won’t find them doing such a thing as that these days--they want their comforts now. There’s not the spirit of content about of forty or fifty years agone. All’s for movin’ away an’ goin’ to the towns; an’ when they get there, from what I’ve heard, they wish as they was back; but they don’t never come.” There was no complaining in his voice; rather, a matter-of-fact and slightly mocking tolerance.