SCRIBNER’S MAGAZINE January, 1911 Volume 49, Issue 1 Important notice The MJP’s digital edition of the January 1911 issue of Scribner’s Magazine (49:1) is incomplete. It lacks the front and back covers of the magazine, the magazine’s table of contents, and all of the advertising that, in a typical issue of the magazine, could run for a hundred pages and appeared both before and after the magazine contents reproduced below. Because we were unable to locate an intact copy of this magazine, we made our scan from a six-month volume of Scribner’s (kindly provided to us by the John Hay Library, at Brown), from which all advertising was stripped when it was initially bound many years ago. For a better sense of what this magazine originally looked like, please refer to any issue in our collection of Scribner’s except for the following five incomplete issues: December 1910, January 1911, August 1911, July 1912, and August 1912. If you happen to know where we may find an intact, cover-to-cover hard copy of any of these five issues, we would appreciate if you would contact the MJP project manager at: [email protected] Drawn by Blendon Campbell. SO THE SAD SHEPHERD THANKED THEM FOR THEIR ENTERTAINMENT AND TOOK THF LITTLE KID AGAIN IN HIS ARMS, AND WENT INTO THE NIGHT. —"The Sad Shepherd," page 7. SCRIBNER'S MAGAZINE VOL. XLIX JANUARY, 1911 NO. 1 THE SAD SHEPHERD BY HENRY VAX DYKE ILLUSTRATION* (FRONTISPIECE) BY BLENDON CAMPBELL I among the copses fell too far behind, he drew out his shepherd's pipe and blew a OUT of the Valley of Gardens, strain of music, shrill and plaintive, qua• where a film of new-fallen vering and lamenting through the hollow snow lay smooth as feathers night. He waited while the troops of gray on the breast of a dove, the and black scuffled and bounded and trotted ancient Pools of Solomon near to him. Then he dropped the pipe looked up into the night sky into its place again and strode forward, like dark, tranquil eyes, wide-open and mo• looking on the ground. tionless, reflecting the crisp stars and the The fitful, shivery wind that rasped the small, round moon. The full springs, over• hill-tops, fluttered the rags of his long man• flowing, melted their way through the field tle of Tyrian blue, torn by thorns and of white in winding channels, and along stained by travel. The rich tunic of striped their course the grass was green even in bilk beneath it was worn thin, and the girdle the dead of winter. about his loins had lost all its ornaments But the sad shepherd walked far above of silver and jewels. His curling hair the valley, in a region where ridges of gray hung down dishevelled under a turban of rock welted and scarred the back of the fine linen, in which the gilt threads were earth; and the solitude was desolate; and frayed and tarnished; and his shoes of soft the air was keen and searching. leather were broken by the road. On his His flock straggled after him. The sheep, brown fingers the places of the vanished weather-beaten and dejected, followed the rings were still marked in white skin. He path with low heads swaying from side to tarried not the long staff nor the heavy side, as if they had travelled far and found nail-studded rod of the shepherd, but a little pasture. The black, lop-eared goats slender stick of carved cedar battered and leaped upon the rocks, restless and raven• scratched by hard usage, and the handle, ous, tearing down the tender branches and which might have been of precious metal leaves of the dwarf oaks and wild olives. still more richly carved, was missing. He They reared up against the twisted trunks was a strange figure for that lonely place and crawled and scrambled among the and that humble occupation—a fragment boughs. It was like a company of gray of faded beauty from some royal garden downcast friends and a troop of hungry tossed by rude winds into the wilderness— little black devils following the sad shep• a pleasure-craft adrift, buffeted and broken, herd afar off. on rough seas. He walked looking on the ground, pay• But he seemed to have passed beyond ing small heed to them. Now and again, caring. His young face was frayed and when the sound of pattering feet and pant• threadbare as his garments. The splendor ing breaths and the rustling and rending; of the moonlight flooding the wild world 2 The Sad Shepherd meant as little to him as the hardness of came, he interrupted his playing, now and the rugged track which he followed. He then, to call them by name. wrapped his tattered mantle closer around When they were nearly all assembled, he him, and strode ahead, looking on the went down swiftly toward the lower valley, ground. and they followed him, panting. At the As the path dropped from the summit of last crook of the path on the steep hillside a the ridge toward the Valley of Mills and straggler came after him along the cliff. passed among huge broken rocks, three He looked up and saw it outlined against men sprang at him from the shadows. He the sky. Then he saw it leap, and slip, and lifted his stick, but let it fall again, and a fall beyond the path into a deep cleft. strange ghost of a smile twisted his face as "Little fool," he said, "fortune is kind to they gripped him and threw him down. you! You have escaped. What? You "You are rough beggars," he said. "Say are crying for help? You are still in the what you want, you are welcome to it." trap ? Then I must go down to you, little "Your money, dog of a courtier," they fool, for I am a fool too. But why I must muttered fiercely; "give us your golden col• do it, I know no more than you know." lar, Herod's hound, quick, or you die!" He lowered himself quickly and perilous• "The quicker the better," he answered, ly into the cleft, and found the creature closing his eyes. with its leg broken and bleeding. It was The bewildered flock of gray and black, not a sheep but a young goat. He had no gathered in a silent ring, stood staring while cloak to wrap it in, but he took off his tur• the robbers searched their master. ban and unrolled it, and bound it around "This is a stray dog," said one, "he has the trembling animal. Then he climbed lost his collar, there is not even the price of back to the path and strode on at the head a mouthful of wine on him. Shall we kill of his flock, carrying the little black kid in him and leave him for the vultures?" his arms. "What have the vultures done for us," There were houses in the Valley of the said another, "that we should feed them? Mills; and in some of them lights were Let us take his cloak and drive off his Hock, burning; and the drone of the mill-stones, and leave him to die in his own time." where the women were still grinding, came With a kick and a curse they left him. out into the night like the humming of He opened his eyes and lay still for a mo• drowsy bees. As the women heard the ment, with his twisted smile, watching the pattering and bleating of the flock, they stars. wondered who was passing so late. One of "You creep like snails," he said. "I them, in a house where there was no mill thought you had marked my time to-night. but many lights, came to the door and But not even that is given to me for nothing. looked out laughing, her face and bosom I must pay for all, it seems." bare. Far away, slowly scattering and reced• But the sad shepherd did not stay. His ing, he heard the rustling and bleating of long shadow and the confused mass of les• his frightened flock as the robbers, running ser shadows behind him drifted down the and shouting, tried to drive them over the white moonlight past the yellow bars of hills. Then he stood up and took the lamplight that gleamed from the door• shepherd's pipe, a worthless bit of reed, ways. It seemed as if he were bound to from the breast of his tunic. He blew go somewhere and would not delay. again that plaintive, piercing air, sounding Yet with all his haste to be gone, it was it out over the ridges and distant thickets. plain that he thought little of where he was It seemed to have neither beginning nor going. For when he came to the foot of end; a melancholy, pleading tune that the valley, where the paths divided, he searched forever after something lost. stood between them staring vacantly, with• While he played, the sheep and the goats, out a desire to turn him this way or that. slipping away from their captors by round• The imperative of choice halted him like a about ways, hiding behind the laurel- barrier. The balance of his mind hung bushes, following the dark gullies, leaping even because both scales were empty. He down the broken cliffs, came circling back could act, he could go, for his strength was to him, one after another; and as they unbroken; but he could not choose.