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Except in his vegetable garden.” He looked in the direction of George’s Place, rather ashamed of himself. “The next thing we must do is find out who that lord is.”
    Maple looked at him skeptically.
    Cloud had said nothing so far. But now she perked up. “The lord is a lamb.”
    The others stared at her in astonishment. Even Cloud herself looked surprised.
    “No, the lord is a shepherd,” Heather contradicted her. “A very bad shepherd. Much worse than George.”
    Cloud shook her head. “No, no. It wasn’t like that. If I could only remember better…” Cloud stared at a tuft of grass in front of her hooves, but the sheep could tell that she was thinking of something quite different.
    “That man …I know him. He came to our meadow once before, long ago. I was still a lamb. George had me in his arms—he’d just been trimming my hooves. Everything smelled of…of earth and sun…like a summer shower. Such a lovely smell, and then…something bitter. I could smell at once that George didn’t like the man. The man was inviting George to something, but his voice was unfriendly. He said he wanted to give a blessing to the dumb animals. I didn’t know what a blessing meant, but it sounded uncomfortable. I thought he meant me, because George had said I was a dumbo just before, because I wouldn’t keep still. I was scared. George laughed. ‘If you mean Ham, you give him your blessing every Sunday,’ he said. The other man got very angry. I don’t remember what he said, but he talked about the lord a lot and how he was going to divide the sheep from the goats.”
    The sheep bleated in alarm.
    Cloud stared thoughtfully at her tuft of grass. Only when Zora nuzzled her side gently did she go on. “After a bit George got angry. He dumped me in the long-nosed man’s arms. ‘Give this dumb animal a blessing, then,’ he said. The other man smelled bad, and I was scared. He didn’t know how to hold me properly, but he took me away with him. His house was the biggest one in the village, tall and pointy and cold like the man himself. He shut me into his garden. All alone. There was an apple tree, but he’d put a fence round it, and the apples were just rotting on the ground.”
    Several of the sheep bleated indignantly. Cloud shuddered.
    “Then a whole lot of humans came streaming into the house all at once. They brought dogs with them, and other sheep, and a pig. And I had to go in too. There was a terrible racket, but the man in black talked above it. ‘Welcome to the house of God!’ he said.” She stopped and looked thoughtful.
    “So his name is God,” said Sir Ritchfield.
    Othello made a strange face. “God?”
    “Could be,” said Cloud uncertainly. “But after a while I worked it out that they were worshipping a special lamb. I thought that was a nice idea. They called it ‘the lord.’ There was music, like on the radio…only not quite the same. I looked round a bit and got a nasty fright. There was a man hanging on the wall with no clothes on, and even though he was bleeding from lots of wounds you couldn’t smell the blood.” She wouldn’t say any more.
    “And there was a spade sticking into him, right?” asked Sir Ritchfield triumphantly.
    “This God sounds rather suspicious to me,” said Mopple.
    “He’s very powerful,” Cloud went on. All the people went down on their knees in front of him. And he said he knows everything.”
    Maude thoughtfully chewed some grass. “I remember that time,” she said. “Cloud was away for a whole day. Her mother was looking for her like…like a mother would.”
    “Why didn’t you ever tell us about this before?” asked Zora.
    “I didn’t understand it,” said Cloud quietly. She looked a little dreamy and began awkwardly rubbing her nose on one of her forelegs.
    The sheep thought some more about God.
    “He can’t know everything,” bleated Othello. “He didn’t know that George reads those Pamela novels.”
    “Used to read them,” said