The book haunted his very slumbers. Often did he dream of finding it, and once the dream was so vivid, that he went before sunrise to the little dell where he had seemed to discover it under a flat stone. But, alas! There was no such stone to be seen, and he came sadly back a little ashamed of his own credulity, and having gained nothing but a prodigious appetite for his breakfast.
Jack had but one consolation, and that indeed was a great one. He made the shepherd repeat to him all that he could remember of Holy Scripture. The old man's memory, though somewhat impaired as to late occurrences, was as vivid as ever for all those things which had happened in his youth, and he was able to repeat whole chapters of Wickliffe's version of the Bible, which, rude and imperfect as it was, had been as a savor of life unto life to many hungry souls.
Jack was astonished at the things he heard, and still more at those he did not hear; and not a little grieved to find that some of his favorite legends of saints had no place in the Scripture at all.
"Tell me of St. Anne, our Lady's mother," he said one day.
"There is only one place about St. Anne," replied the shepherd, and he repeated the story of our Lord's presentation in the temple.
"Is that all?" asked Jack in a disappointed one. "I do not see that it says a word about her being our Lady's mother."
"Nothing at all," answered the shepherd.
"Perhaps the story is in some other place," Jack suggested.
But the old man shook his head.
"I have read the New Testament all through," he said. "There is not a word said about our Lady's mother, and very little about our Lady herself."