It was a wonderful summer day and his dog was very hot.   Obviously, shepherd and dog were on terms of perfect understanding.   Every now and then the panting beast looked up from sheep to master as who should

say "They're all right, of course, but if you think I'd better trim their edges a bit, you've only got to say so you know";   but the old shepherd said nothing.  He continued to stand quietly, pulling the dog's ears, and gazing into the distance.

One could not have said he seemed to be "enjoying" the sun.   He looked as if rain or shine, wind or stillness would be all the same to him.  He seemed just one with the air, and the Downs, and the scents, and the general Sussex charm without being in the least aware of the fact.

He was quite amiable, but not at all talkative.  We asked if his crook was a new one.   No, it had been made for him out of the barrel of an old gun that had been many years - perhaps generations - in the family, by his brother, who was a blacksmith.   I am not conscious that he said this in so many words.   I feel quite sure he did not.   But we had time, and he was in no hurry.   His sheep were happy enough cropping the sweet short down grass, and if a determined female tries long enough for answers to any questions she sees fit to put on, she usually manages to get something near to the inward truth of a matter, provided she has the time.

One of the party asked why the crook ended in a curved "round" instead of a point".   "Ornament", he supposed.   Another of the party suggested it might be to save hurting the lambs, in case a struggle to get free might bring a tiny leg against the point?  It might be; he was, apparently, not interested.

Standing there in the absolute silence, watching the sheep, and, later, a number of racehorses being exercised, in absolute silence, too - the quick-moving hoofs being on grass - there was no sound except for a slight creak of new leather, an order from one groom to another, and the "crop, crop" of the busy sheep as they ate the short, sweet grass.   It made one think of the difference between "then" and "now".  We were to see, later, the three villages on Park Brow: Stone, Bronze-age, and Roman, all cosily under the protection of Cissbury - the Sheffield of very early times.   The place must have been busy and noisy then; yet now there was nothing to hear but the sheep cropping, the hum of summer insects, and (now and again) the dull soft thud of hoofs on grass, jingle of bit, and, ever so soft, a little creak of saddlery.   Yet where there was silence in those old days in other parts of Sussex what is there now?  Motor buses, cars, steam engines, and so on and so forth.