The Shepherd at the Gate

Polly is up before the sun, because Berta has promised her a spectacle. They wait on the wall above the old gate as the sky turns from ink to pearl. Then Polly hears it before she sees it, a river of small bells, and around the corner comes a flock of sheep, pouring through the narrow gate like wool poured from a jug.

Polly je na nogama prije sunca, jer joj je Berta obećala predstavu. Čekaju na zidu iznad starih vrata dok se nebo pretvara iz tinte u sedef. Tada Polly to čuje prije nego što vidi, rijeku malih zvona, i iza ugla stiže stado ovaca, prelijevajući se kroz uska vrata poput vune izlivene iz vrča.

Behind the flock walks a shepherd with a wooden crook and a straw hat, unhurried as the mountains themselves. Beside him pads an enormous white mastiff with kind, serious eyes and a bark he saves for special occasions. The sheep know the way better than anyone. They have been walking these lanes at dawn since long before anyone thought to photograph them.

Iza stada hoda pastir s drvenim štapom i slamnatim šeširom, neužurban poput samih planina. Uz njega korača golem bijeli mastif blagih, ozbiljnih očiju i lavežom koji čuva za posebne prigode. Ovce znaju put bolje od ikoga. Ovim uličicama hodaju u zoru otkad se nitko nije ni sjetio fotografirati ih.

Polly flies down and asks, politely, if she may come along. The mastiff considers her the way a mountain considers a snowflake, then gives the smallest nod. So she rides the morning up the slopes with them, past the last houses, past the wall's long shadow, out to where the grass still holds its green in the high meadows above the gorge.

Polly sleti i pristojno upita smije li poći s njima. Mastif je odmjeri onako kako planina odmjerava pahuljicu, zatim jedva primjetno kimne. I tako jaše jutro uz obronke s njima, pokraj posljednjih kuća, pokraj duge sjene zida, van do mjesta gdje trava još drži svoje zelenilo na visokim livadama iznad klanca.

They spend the day up there, sheep tearing grass, mastiff dozing with one eye open, bells making their lazy music. When the heat softens toward evening, the whole procession turns for home, and Polly rides back into town on the woolly back of the lead ewe, feeling, for one excellent half hour, like part of the flock.

Provedu dan tamo gore, ovce čupkaju travu, mastif drijema s jednim okom otvorenim, zvona sviraju svoju lijenu glazbu. Kad vrućina prema večeri popusti, cijela povorka okrene prema domu, a Polly se u grad vrati jašući na vunenim leđima predvodnice, osjećajući se, jedan izvrstan polusat, kao dio stada.