The shepherd talked on, attempting to interest her in something other than her consuming sorrow.
"These be Christian sheep about you, friends," he said, "and I am a Christian shepherd." Momus sat up suddenly with a bit of the boy's bread arrested on its way to his lips.

He was eating the fare of an apostate, of a despised Nazarene.

The boy went on composedly.
"We are from Pella, the Christian city.

We are, my sheep, my city and I, the only secure people in all Judea.

We, I and the sheep, have been in the hills since the first new grass in February.