summer. But
it was a traveller surely, or was it a shepherd? At first I could not
be sure; for he carried a lamb in his arms and trod warily with it, in
the way that shepherds do. Yet I never met a shepherd clad in clothes
like his; nor with a face like his either, as I saw it, when he came
nearer. Weary he looked, and with a pale countenance, as if he had
much ado to come up the hill, and in good sooth 'tis full steep just
there; or else, may be, he was fasting and faint for lack of food. But
all this I only thought of later. At the time, I looked not much at
him, but only at the lamb he carried in his arms. How came such a
man to be carrying a lamb, and carrying it full gently and carefully
too, supporting one leg with both hands, although he was encumbered
with a staff? Then, when he had come yet nearer, I saw that it was not
only a lamb--it was one of my master's lambs, my own lambs that I was
set to watch; for there on its wool was the brand carried by our
flocks and by none others on all those fells. One of my lambs, lying
in a stranger's arms! A careless shepherd I! I must have been asleep
or dreaming ... dreaming foolish dreams about that cottage, on which
the sun might shine unheeded now, I cared not for it, being full of
other thoughts. No sooner did I espy the brand on the lamb than I rose
to my feet, and, even as I ran nimbly down the slope towards the
stranger, my eyes roamed over the hillside to discover which of my
lambs had strayed:--Rosamond, Cowslip, Eglantine and Gillyflower--I
could see them all safe with their dams, and many more besides. All
the lambs that springtime I had named after the flowers that I hoped
to plant another year in the garden of that cot beside the stream. And
all the flowers I could see and name were safe beside their dams, as I
leapt down the hillside. Nay, Periwinkle was missing! Periwinkle was
ever a strayer, and Periwinkle's dam was bleating at the edge of the
steep cliff up which the stranger toiled. It was Periwinkle and none
other that he was carrying in his arms! Seeing it was Periwinkle, I
halloed to him to halt. Hearing my cry, he stopped, and waited till I
reached him, all the time holding the lamb carefully, tending it and
speaking to it in the tone a shepherd is wont to use.

[Illustration: 'DREAMING OF THE COT IN THE VALE']

'Thanks to you, Good Stranger,' I said, as I came nearer, 'Periwinkle
is ever a strayer. Did you see her fall?'

'Nay,' said the Stranger,