his mind, and the two troubles together kept him crying with misery all
the time. Then, at intervals, Isaac would leave his reaping and come to
see how he was getting on, and the tears would vanish from his eyes, and
he would feel very brave again, and to his father's question he would
reply that he was getting on very well.

Finally his father came and took him to the field, to his great relief;
but he did not carry him in his arms; he strode along at his usual pace
and let the little fellow run after him, stumbling and falling and
picking himself up again and running on. And by and by one of the women
in the field cried out, "Be you not ashamed, Isaac, to go that pace and
not bide for the little child! I do b'lieve he's no more'n seven
year--poor mite!"

"No more'n six," answered Isaac proudly, with a laugh.

But though not soft or tender with his children he was very fond of
them, and when he came home early in the evening he would get them round
him and talk to them, and sing old songs and ballads he had learnt in
his young years--"Down in the Village," "The Days of Queen Elizabeth,"
"The Blacksmith," "The Gown of Green," "The Dawning of the Day," and
many others, which Caleb in the end got by heart and used to sing, too,
when he was grown up.

Caleb was about nine when he began to help regularly with the flock;
that was in the summer-time, when the flock was put every day on the
down and when Isaac's services were required for the haymaking and later
for harvesting and other work. His best memories of this period relate
to his mother and to two sheepdogs, Jack at first and afterwards Rough,
both animals of original character. Jack was a great favourite of his