THE old shepherd sitting with his face turned seaward and his broad-bladed spear across his knees, seemed as much a part of the downs as did the wind-stunted whitethorn trees along the bank behind him : a little man, dark and knotted and tough as a furze root, with fine wrinkles round his eyes, under their jut of badger-grey brows, that told of a life-time of looking into the distance in sun and wind and rain.