But besides natural history and Shakespeare, Jack studied mathematics on the downs; he bought an old Euclid and an algebra in a book-shop at Lewes, and these, with his Shakespeare and one or two other books, he kept in a hole in a chalk-pit on one of the downs; and winter and summer alike, while the sheep grazed he studied. In winter he walked up and down to keep his blood in circulation, for it was sometimes so cold that he would have been frozen had he sat still; but in summer he stretched himself full length on the short turf in some grey hollow, where he was in shadow. In some ways a shepherd’s life suited him; it gave him plenty of leisure for study; he was his own master from the time he left home in the grey dawn till he returned at sunset; his duties were light, he had but to follow the sheep, and his dog did all the hard work; moreover, he had none of the responsibility—that all fell on John’s shoulders. Then he liked the loneliness of it. Often for days he met no one except, perhaps, his father, with the rest of the flock, or Dame Hursey gathering wool, or some other shepherd; but yet, for all this, Jack hated the life. He hated it because he felt he had the capacity in him for doing higher work; he hated it because, though his father was content to live all the year on the chalky slopes, visiting Lewes at the two sheep fairs, and occasionally on market days, and on the fifth of November to see the carnival, he was not; he longed to go beyond those round-topped mountains, to cross that silver streak of sea he caught a glimpse of on clear days, to see some of the cities and places he had read of. Above all, he hated it because he felt it was an insuperable obstacle between him and Fairy; for whom, from that day when, as an infant, she had clutched hold of his finger, he had entertained a romantic and ardent affection. And then he was very proud; and though it was doubtless very foolish pride, he was ashamed of being a shepherd. He would not have had his father, for whom he had the greatest respect, suspect the real secret reason of his dislike to his occupation for worlds, but there it was all the same. He knew to have refused to become a shepherd would almost have broken John Shelley’s heart; and so, for his sake, Jack had never demurred when it was proposed, but he cherished hopes of some day rising to a higher calling. Poor Jack! could he but have known how that longing was to be fulfilled! But Jack no more than the rest of us could afford to look into the future, neither had he the power—it was as mercifully veiled from him as from others. To look back on past sorrows is sad enough; to look forward to coming ones with the same certainty would be insupportable.