here?'

'My Lord Duke, I be a poor heedless boy, and what I see I don't bear in
mind.'

'I ask you again,' said the Duke, coming nearer, 'have you seen anything
strange these nights you have been watching here?'

'O, my Lord Duke! I be but the under-shepherd boy, and my father he was
but your humble Grace's hedger, and my mother only the cinder-woman in
the back-yard! I fall asleep when left alone, and I see nothing at all!'

The Duke grasped the boy by the shoulder, and, directly impending over
him, stared down into his face, 'Did you see anything strange done here
last night, I say?'

'O, my Lord Duke, have mercy, and don't stab me!' cried the shepherd,
falling on his knees. 'I have never seen you walking here, or riding
here, or lying-in-wait for a man, or dragging a heavy load!'

'H'm!' said his interrogator, grimly, relaxing his hold. 'It is well to
know that you have never seen those things. Now, which would you
rather--see me do those things now, or keep a secret all your life?'

'Keep a secret, my Lord Duke!'

'Sure you are able?'

'O, your Grace, try me!'

'Very well. And now, how do you like sheep-keeping?'

'Not at all. 'Tis lonely work for them that think of spirits, and I'm
badly used.'

'I believe you. You are too young for it. I must do something to make
you more comfortable. You shall change this smock-frock for a real cloth
jacket, and your thick boots for polished shoes. And you shall be taught
what you have never yet heard of; and be put to school, and have bats and
balls for the holidays, and be made a man of. But you must never say you
have been a shepherd boy, and watched on the hills at night, for shepherd
boys are not liked in good company.

'Trust me, my Lord Duke.'

'The very moment you forget yourself, and speak of your shepherd
days--this year, next year, in school, out of school, or riding in your
carriage twenty years hence--at that moment my help will be withdrawn,
and smash down you come to shepherding forthwith. You have parents, I
think you say?'

'A widowed mother only, my Lord Duke.'

'I'll provide for her, and make a comfortable woman of her, until you
speak of--what?'

'Of my shepherd days, and what I saw here.'

'Good. If you do speak of it?'

'Smash down she comes to widowing forthwith!'

'That's well--very well. But it's not enough. Come here.' He took the
boy across to the trilithon, and made him kneel down.

'Now, this was once a ho