Shepherds of the Wild

by Edison Marshall

His vision hadn’t been quite straight. He had taken his own little sphere of life to represent the whole magnificent sphere in which the continents rise above the sea. Unlike all truly great people, unlike the most worthy even among his own set, he had adopted an attitude of what he flattered himself was sophistication. But he had not been a true Sophist, one who could immutably separate the gold from the dross, one who knew the infinite good humor as well as the remorseless travail of life. He had thought that everything was dross. He had lost faith in the world, conceiving virtue as the exception rather than the rule, doubting the compensation of clean living, the sanctity of homes, the solace of religion, the pride of good work, the purity of womanhood, the immortality of ideals. And most of all he doubted happiness. He didn’t believe that it existed.

Yet all at once he had found it: a quiet, healthy happiness that was constant as his own breathing. It lay, not in stimulation or in pleasures between which the mood drops down, but in a clear, sweet level of contentment, of personal worth, of time well spent, of existence justified and destiny fulfilled. There behind that flock, tired of muscle but still on duty, guarding with watchful eye and ready weapon, Hugh Gaylord felt content for the first time in his life.

If there was one blessing in particular that his false sophistication had cost him it was that of simple faith,—the faith of children, faith in the redemption of the race and the high constancy of the stars. It meant, clearest of all perhaps, that he had lost faith in miracles. Yet he now found a miraculous quality in this very happiness that had come upon him. He had self-wonder no less amazing at the curious familiarity and boundless peace with which he fell into the spirit of the sheep.

He felt at peace. There was no other word. Could it be that he had come into his own at last? All his life, it had seemed to him, he had carried in the deepest realms of his spirit a vision that had now come true: just the feeding flocks in the deep shade of the forest. He had the strange feelings of one who—exiled in babyhood—catches the far gleam of his homeland at last.

It seemed wholly natural that he should be walking here—behind the flocks—in silent vigil as the sun climbed up over the far, white peaks. He had a sense of having returned, after long and futile wanderings, to his own home. Always there had been blind, little-understood gropings in his own soul, a reaching outward; and had he found his destiny at last?

Up Silver Creek came the salmon, returning to their home waters for their last days. Four years had they dwelt in the dark bewilderment of the sea, but they came back to their own places in the end. Did they, all through those four years of their exile, carry in the deepest recesses of their beings a vision of their Lost Land to which they would return to die? Did they know a vague bewilderment, blind gropings in their fishy souls, an unfamiliarity with the gray wastes and the incessant waves that was not to end until they could know again the shallows and cataracts and waterfalls of their native river? Did peace come to them then? It was repatriation,—and Hugh felt that he had repatriated too. Only the exile had not been confined to his own little life. Instead of four years it was—more likely—four generations, even four centuries. He had been an alien in those far, tumultuous cities, but he had come home to the open places at last.

“You are an Anglo-Saxon,” the Old Colonel had said, and that had meant that for as many years as could be counted in a day his people had been tillers of the soil. The Anglo-Saxon was never one to gather into cities. He knew the meadows, the forests, the feel of the earth through the handles of his plow, the sheep feeding on the hillside. When his land became too heavy with people—so that he could no longer see the sun breaking forth in glory to the east because of city spires that rose between—he was likely to set sail for the far places of the earth, still to watch the sheep as they fed at the edge of the forest. His was a people of the soil: before they learned to plow, their flocks fed in the downs. The love of the soil had been bred into his race, warp and woof, and the little generations of exile in cities could not take his heritage away from him.

The flock fed for about two hours, then bedded down to chew their cud. Hugh was perplexed at first. He was somewhat fearful that a sudden illness had come upon the entire flock. The dog, however, seemed to understand. He came back to his master’s side and the two of them had a little chat as the morning advanced. After a short rest the sheep got up and started to feed again.

There was really not much work for Hugh to do. Occasionally he would see a small band of the sheep browsing off in a different direction from the course of the main flock, but at such times the dog knew the exact course of action. He would circle around the straying animals, cut off their escape, and they were always glad to head back into the main flock. It became increasingly evident, however, how difficult it was to keep track of the entire band. Only the gregarious instinct of the animals maintained their formation at all: in the dense woods he could see only a small part of the flock at one time. He had no way of knowing if various detachments had not already wandered away from the main band. Of course he didn’t know the methods by which most herders guard against this danger: by an approximate count achieved by keeping track of the black sheep, or markers. It seemed to him also that the wolves and other predatory animals had every opportunity in the world to lurk about the flanks of the flock and steal the lambs. The truth was that losses were sustained in this manner every day, and his presence alone prevented a wholesale slaughter.

About ten he decided it was time to turn the sheep. They had been moving since before dawn: he wanted to give them time in plenty to get back to the camp before night. He didn’t know how many rests they would wish to take in the afternoon.