While they talked, and before the first watch was over, one by one the shepherds went to sleep, each lying where he had sat.
The night, like most nights of the winter season in the hill country, was clear, crisp, and sparkling with stars. There was no wind. The atmosphere seemed never so pure, and the stillness was more than silence;it was a holy hush, a warning that heaven was stooping low to whisper some good thing to the listening earth.