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    The Sad Shepherd A Christmas Story
    The Sad Shepherd A Christmas Story
    The Sad Shepherd A Christmas Story
    Ebook56 pages36 minutes

    The Sad Shepherd A Christmas Story

    By Henry Van Dyke

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    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherArchive Classics
    Release dateNov 26, 2013
    The Sad Shepherd A Christmas Story
    Author

    Henry Van Dyke

    Henry Van Dyke (1928–2011) was born in Allegan, Michigan, and grew up in Montgomery, Alabama, where his parents were professors at Alabama State College. He served in the Army in occupied Germany, playing flute in the 427th Marching Band. There he abandoned his early ambition to become a concert pianist and began to write. In 1958, after attending the University of Michigan on the G.I. Bill and living in Ann Arbor, he moved to New York, where he spent the rest of his life. Henry taught creative writing part-time at Kent State University from 1969 until his retirement in 1993, and was the author of four novels, including Blood of Strawberries, a sequel to Ladies of the Rachmaninoff Eyes.

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      Book preview

      The Sad Shepherd A Christmas Story - Henry Van Dyke

      The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Sad Shepherd, by Henry Van Dyke

      This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with

      almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or

      re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included

      with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net

      Title: The Sad Shepherd

      A Christmas Story

      Author: Henry Van Dyke

      Release Date: May 29, 2005 [eBook #15936]

      HTML version added June 18, 2005

      Language: English

      Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1

      ***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE SAD SHEPHERD***

      E-text prepared by Michael Gray

      The Sad Shepherd

      THE SAD SHEPHERD

      A Christmas Story

      By

      Henry Van Dyke

      NEW YORK

      CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS

      1911

      Copyright, 1911, by Charles Scribner's Sons

      ---

      Published October, 1911

      The Sad Shepherd

      I

      DARKNESS

      Out of the Valley of Gardens, where a film of new-fallen snow lay smooth as feathers on the breast of a dove, the ancient Pools of Solomon looked up into the night sky with dark, tranquil eyes, wide-open and passive, reflecting the crisp stars and the small, round moon. The full springs, overflowing on the hill-side, melted their way through the field of white in winding channels; and along their course the grass was green even in the dead of winter.

      But the sad shepherd walked far above the friendly valley, in a region where ridges of gray rock welted and scarred the back of the earth, like wounds of half-forgotten strife and battles long ago. The solitude was forbidding and disquieting; the keen air that searched the wanderer had no pity in it; and the myriad glances of the night were curiously cold.

      His flock straggle after him. The sheep, weather-beaten and dejected, followed the path with low heads nodding from side to side, as if they had traveled far and found little pasture. The black, lop-eared goats leaped upon the rocks, restless and ravenous, tearing down the tender branches and leaves of the dwarf oaks and wild olives. They reared up against the twisted trunks and crawled and scrambled among the boughs. It was like a company of gray downcast friends and a troop of merry little black devils following the sad shepherd afar off.

      He walked looking on the ground, paying small heed to them. Now and again, when the sound of pattering feet and panting breath and the rustling and rending among the copses fell too far behind, he drew out his shepherd's pipe and blew a strain of music, shrill and plaintive, quavering and lamenting through the hollow night. He waited while the troops of gray and black scuffled and bounded and trotted near to him. Then he dropped the pipe into its place again and strode forward, looking on the ground.

      The fitful, shivery wind that rasped the hill-top, fluttered the rags of his long mantle of Tyrian blue, torn by thorns and stained by travel. The rich tunic of striped silk beneath

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