6
" Your Welsh eyes, brother, are only just regaining their proper vision. There are few nights here that a man could not travel safely even among the upland bogs, knowing the ground at all well. Only in the woods is it ever truly dark. I talked with a wandering brother from the north once, a rough red-haired man with a tongue I could barely understand, a Scot. He said in his far country there were nights when the sun barely set before it rose again on the other side, and you could see your way in an endless afterglow. But I do not know,” said Brother Simon wistfully, “if he was romancing. I have never been further than Chester.” Brother Cadfael forbore from citing his own travels, remembered now with the astonished contentment of a man at rest. To tell the truth, he had enjoyed the storms no less than he now enjoyed the calm, if this was indeed calm: but each had its own time and place. "
― Ellis Peters , Monk's Hood (Chronicles of Brother Cadfael, #3)
7
" Cadfael discerned a deep and tranquil satisfaction in the shepherd’s life. The children of his solicitude were seldom killed, unless disease, injury or decrepitude threatened, or in time of desperation the flock could not all be fed through the winter. Their wool and milk were of more value than their meat, and their precious skins could be garnered only once, and better when for distress they had to be slaughtered. So they remained through their natural lives, growing into familiarity and affection, trusting and being understood, even acquiring names. Shepherds had a community of their own, peopled with gentle, obstinate, quiet companions, who did no murder or theft or banditry, broke no laws, made no complaints, fuelled no rebellions. All "
― Ellis Peters , Monk's Hood (Chronicles of Brother Cadfael, #3)
