At such times the goatherd encamps on the summit of the mountains and nourishes his kids by felling with his axe a growing beech-tree, on which the little creatures fall and gnaw off the juicy buds.

Whenever a snowstorm overtakes him, the herdsman drives the goats into a glen, and lest the snow should bury them all by the morning while they sleep, he drives them continually up and down, thus making them trample down the falling flakes.

Meanwhile Mariora sits at home and spins the wool from which she makes her own and her husband's clothes, or she pounds maize into meal in a stone mortar for household needs, playing at intervals with her child." "And an evil hand would destroy their simple joys!" "Hitherto the goatherd and his wife feared nothing.

It is good to be in those solitudes.

God dwells very near to them there.