Brother Dusty-Feet by Rosemary Sutcliff Page A

snowy ground with a small sharp hoof, and said, ‘Master, we are afraid. First there came a great light in the sky, and then a strange thing like a man with the wings of a golden eagle, and it spoke to our shepherds, and in a little while our shepherds went away, hurrying down the path to the town, without even folding us first. And now we smell wolf, and we are more afraid than ever!’
    ‘There is nothing to be afraid of, my children,’ said Pan; and he folded the sheep himself, and went on down the hill.
    A little farther on, dark shapes loomed up suddenly all about him, and he knew that they werewolves. Savage and milky-toothed, their eyes gleaming red as hot coals in the light of the Star, they gathered round him, and the great grey leader came and nuzzled his head against him as a dog might have done.
    ‘Whither away, Grey Brother?’ asked Pan, rubbing him behind the ears.
    And the pack-leader said, ‘Yee-ow! Master, we smell sheep!’
    ‘Turn back from your hunting,’ said Pan. ‘It is Peace tonight, my brothers.’
    And an old she-wolf answered him: ‘Master, if you say that it is Peace between us and the sheep-folk, then it is Peace, and we turn back from our hunting for tonight, even though our cubs are hungry.’
    Pan watched them slink away into the shadows, and then he went on again, until he came out on to the valley road that led to Bethlehem. The trees were dark on either side, and the straight, white roadway ran between, with the golden Star hanging at the end of it; and Pan went on, following the Star. On the outskirts of the town he met three shepherds hurrying back towards the hills; and one was old and grey, and one was brown and of middle years, and one was young and golden.
    ‘I have folded your sheep, whom you left forlorn on the hillside,’ said Pan wrathfully. ‘It is a worthless shepherd who leaves his flock in the night time!’
    ‘We followed the Star,’ said the golden shepherd.
    ‘And it led us to a stable,’ said the brown shepherd.
    ‘Master,’ said the grey shepherd gently, ‘a Child is born tonight – a little King; and He is greater than Pan.’
    And they went on towards the hills where they had left their sheep, and Pan went on following the Star.
    In the narrow streets of Bethlehem the snow was churned to brown slush by the many feet that had trodden it, and Pan’s tracks were lost among the others. The sky between the roof-tops was turning green, for it was near to dawn, and soon the stars would fade; but the one great Star burned as brightly as ever, hanging low at the end of the street. And the town slept, and there was no one to see Pan go by.
    On he went, up one street and down another, following the Star, until at last it hung above the stables of a tumbledown inn.
    ‘This is surely the place,’ said Pan. ‘This is where the thing is that called me.’ And suddenly a great awe fell on him; but he pushed open the door and went in.
    Inside was yellow lantern-light and the sweet breath of the cattle wreathing upward. Mary slept on the straw, and Joseph drowsed in the shadows, for they were very tired; but the animals of the stable were wakeful and restless, gathered about their manger to look at something that lay in it. An old red ox and a little grey donkey, a brown mare with her foal tottering on long, unsteady legs beside her, a half-starved dog and a tabby cat, and a ruby-combed cockerel who had fluttered up to perch on the edge of the manger itself. Pan could not see what lay in the manger, but all the lovely feeling of spring that had called him from his sleep seemed to flow from it as light flows from a lamp.
    The stable-folk knew Pan, and they parted to lethim through, and as he passed between them, he saw, lying on the golden straw before the manger, a shepherd’s crook, a ragged cloak, and a loaf of bread – gifts that the shepherds had left behind them for the little King. Then he was standing between the ox and the foal, with a hand on the head of