"Now, then," she said, "tell us a story, please, won't you?"

The Man sighed heavily and looked about him. "I knew it," he
groaned. "I KNEW I should have to tell a story. Oh, why did
I leave my pleasant fireside? Well, I WILL tell you a story.
Only let me think a minute."

So he thought a minute, and then he told us this story.


Long ago--might have been hundreds of years ago--in a cottage
half-way between this village and yonder shoulder of the Downs up
there, a shepherd lived with his wife and their little son.
Now the shepherd spent his days--and at certain times of the year
his nights too--up on the wide ocean-bosom of the Downs, with
only the sun and the stars and the sheep for company, and the
friendly chattering world of men and women far out of sight and
hearing. But his little son, when he wasn't helping his father,
and often when he was as well, spent much of his time buried in
big volumes that he borrowed from the affable gentry and
interested parsons of the country round about. And his parents
were very fond of him, and rather proud of him too, though they
didn't let on in his hearing, so he was left to go his own way
and read as much as he liked; and instead of frequently getting a
cuff on the side of the head, as might very well have happened to
him, he was treated more or less as an equal by his parents, who
sensibly thought it a very fair division of labour that they
should supply the practical knowledge, and he the book-learning.
They knew that book-learning often came in useful at a pinch, in
spite of what their neighbours said. What the Boy chiefly