The forest lay dim and shadowy on one side of the pasture lands. The
deer lived there, and the boars that fed upon acorns, and many other
creatures that loved the wild woods. There had been wolves in the
forest, but the king's knights had driven them away and the shepherds
feared them no longer. Only the old men like Jean's grandfather, and
the little boys like Jean, talked of them still.
Jean was not afraid. Oh, no. There was not a lamb in the flock so
merry and fearless as he. He sang with the birds and ran with the
brook, and laughed till the echoes laughed with him as he watched the
sheep from early morn to noon, when the shadows fell straight across
the grass and it was time for him to eat his dinner.
There were little cakes in Jean's dinner basket. He had seen his
mother put them there, but he had not tasted a single one when, out on
the king's highway, beyond the hill, he heard the sound of pipes and
drums, and the tramp, tramp of many feet.
The other shepherds heard too, and they began to listen and to stare
and to run. "The king and his knights are coming," they cried. "Come
let us see them as they pass by."
"Who will take care of the sheep?" asked Jean, but nobody answered, so
he too left his dinner and ran with the rest, away from the pastures
and up the hillside path that led to the highway.
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