On one of his broad shoulders rested a pitchfork supporting a goodly truss of hay; in the other hand he carried a shepherd’s crook. A quaint, picturesque, pastoral figure was this, clad in the antiquated smock frock, now so seldom to be seen, but which Farmer Joyce wore summer and winter alike; his nether limbs were encased in corduroys and stout leather leggings, and his great nailed boots left impressions, gigantic and far apart, on the muddy soil. The cutting wind frolicked with his iron-grey beard and hair, and intensified the ruddy hue of his broad honest face. The years which had passed over that kindly face had left wonderfully few traces, except for the dust with which they had powdered the once coal-black hair and beard. There were no furrows in the brow, no pinched lines about the mouth; the eyes looked forth from under their whitened lashes with the large contemplative gaze of the man accustomed to pass his life between earth and sky, to sweep wide horizons, to take note, with one comprehensive glance, of the changes of the weather, of the coming of the seasons as indicated by sun and clouds, by bloom or decay advancing over vast tracts of country. Farmer Joyce had a mind above petty cares; the small home worries and anxieties he left, as he frequently announced, his missus to see to; for himself he kept his soul untroubled, taking good and evil fortune alike philosophically. Yet to-day his face wore a puzzled, not to say perturbed, expression, and, as he neared the top of the hill, he imperceptibly slackened his long, swinging strides. At the turn of the road, through the black irregular line of wintry hedgerow, came glimpses of yellow, standing out vividly against the sombre background of dull green and grey; these were the hurdles carefully padded with straw which penned in the lambing ewes. From the spot where Farmer Joyce stood, pausing a moment hesitatingly before continuing the ascent, a small tarred shepherd’s hut reared itself between him and the sky, and presently the figure of a man appeared slowly moving round it. “There he be,” murmured the farmer to himself, and went on more rapidly. The figure advanced to meet him, and was standing by the small wicket gate leading to the field by the time the other reached it. An old man, much older, apparently, than his master, the outlines of his bent shoulders sharply defined under the soiled linen jacket; his ragged hair and whiskers white, his very face grey and rugged, ploughed into deep furrows by time and hardship; the eyes looking straight before them with a dull non-expectant gaze; the horny old hand, which rested on the gate, gnarled and knotted, and extraordinarily thin. “Good-day to you, shepherd. How’s the rheumatics?” “Good-day, farmer; good-day. Rheumatics is bad, thank ye.” “Ah,” said Joyce, “I fear ye’re falterin’, shepherd, I do, truly.”