When we reached the highroad a strange and disquieting apparition presented itself. I clung to my new preceptor: “Grandfather, look up the road!” It seemed to be coming toward us from over the hill, with a slow uniform motion. In a few minutes it would be here. Grandfather shaded his eyes with his hands, the better to concentrate his vision, and explained the phenomenon: “It’s the sheep that leave Provence every spring and go up to the high pastures. They are led there by easy stages. Let us get to the side of the road, beyond this pile of stones, and watch them go past.” Thus instructed, I was soon able to distinguish between the almost white road and the yellow-grey and brown flock which composed a single moving mass,--repeated above all those regularly swaying backs by a thin cloud of dust which spread over the fields on either side. At once I saw again the picture in my Bible which showed Abraham travelling to the land of Canaan. In front of the flock marched a shepherd, wrapped in a great cape which must have been many a time exposed to wind and rain, for it was of the greenish colour of a thatched roof over which many winters have passed. Notwithstanding the sun, his ample covering appeared not to inconvenience him. No doubt our sun was not as warm as that which he had left behind. His hat pulled down over his eyes cast a dark shadow over the upper part of his face, only his grey beard being distinctly visible. He was an old man, and he advanced slowly with a slight swaying of the whole body. He might have been taken for a beggar but for an unconscious air of majesty which covered him like his cloak--that of a captain leading his company, that of a sower sowing his seed. He took no one step faster than another, and the rhythm of his regular advance seemed to communicate itself to the entire column. It gave an impression as of the whole landscape following, obeying in cadence a law which he fixed, the oxen tracing the furrows, the reapers laying bare the fields, the morning and the evening obedient to the time of returning, and even the stars at night traversing, unhastingly, a part of the sky which I had thought I could see moving in grandfather’s spy-glass. He seemed to me so important that I bowed to him, but he did not return my salutation, nor deign to detach his attention from his absorbing task. Grandfather began a sentence: “Tell me, shepherd ...” but deemed it useless to go on, recognising the intense seriousness of the man.