He already had the means of shepherding those who were impressed by the preaching.
Life on each home stead was regularly portioned out: out door occupations - fishing, shepherding, fowling, and the hay-making and fuel-gathering - occupying the summer; while in door business - weaving, tool-making, &c. - filled up the long winter.
It is said that in his earliest boyhood Andrea was, like Giotto, put to shepherding or cattle-herding; this is not likely, and can at any rate have lasted only a very short while, as his natural genius for art developed with singular precocity, and excited the attention of Francesco Squarcione, who entered him in the gild of painters before he had completed his eleventh year.
This period of Iceland's existence is eventless: she had got peace but with few of its blessings; all spirit seemed to have died with the commonwealth; even shepherding and such agriculture as there had been sank to a lower stage; wagons, ploughs and carts went out of use and knowledge; architecture in timber became a lost art, and the fine carved and painted halls of the heathen days were replaced by turfwalled barns half sunk in the earth; the large decked luggers of the old days gave way to small undecked fishing-boats.
