the ground while
he took off his shoes. Then, picking it up, he crept quickly and
noiselessly across the path towards the front door, on the step of which
he laid his burden, and then crept back to the trees, where he put on
his shoes, and with the purse which Leon had given him for the baby's
maintenance in his pocket, he made his way back to the boat on the
beach, congratulating himself on the success of his scheme. No one, he
argued, was any the worse for it, while he was one thousand francs the
better. He had wronged no one, as the baby was sure to be well taken
care of. John Shelley was certain to take it in, and would probably
think the Lord had sent it to him, and, with a chuckle over the
shepherd's simplicity, he went his way.

The baby was asleep when he deposited it on the doorstep, but it woke
shortly after, and began to cry lustily for food, but the doors and
windows being all closed, its wailing did not penetrate to the inside of
the house. But before the carpenter had been gone half an hour footsteps
approached the house, and the shepherd and his dog entered the gate of
the field in which it stood. A fine, big, handsome man looked this
shepherd as he paused to fasten the gate; about thirty years old, fair,
with a florid complexion, blue eyes, and a long, yellowish beard, a face
more remarkable for its kindly good humour than for its intelligence. He
was dressed in a long smock, and he carried a crook, so that there was
no mistaking his occupation, of which, by the way, he was very proud;
his father and his grandfather and their fathers and grandfathers had
been shepherds before him for many generations, and that he should ever
be anything else than a shepherd was the last idea likely to enter John
Shelley's mind. A shepherd by birth and education, he followed his
calling with an ardour which would have amounted to passion in a warmer
temperament. His sheep were his first thought on waking, his last as he
closed his eyes at night, and he understood them and their ways
thoroughly. The life suited him exactly; it might be a lonely life,
wandering for hours on the downs without meeting a living creature day
after day, except, perhaps, occasionally a neighbouring shepherd, but he
was used to it. It might be an anxious life, especially in lambing time,
but he was lucky, and rarely lost any lambs. It might be a dangerous
life sometimes in the winter fogs, rambling about on the hills with the
risk of falling into