Page:Edison Marshall--Shepherds of the wild.djvu/109

Rh 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