great stupid owl. You've lost me more'n a dozen prime sheep by not
mixing your dip proper--after having lost me the best of my ewes and
lambs with your ignorant notions--and now you go and put finger marks
over my new alpaca body, all because you won't think, or keep yourself
clean. You can take a month's notice."

Socknersh stared at her with eyes and mouth wide open.

"A month's notice," she repeated, "it's what I came here to give you.
You're the tale of all the parish with your ignorance. I'd meant to talk
to you about it and give you another chance, but now I see there'd be no
sense in that, and you can go at the end of your month."

"You'll give me a character, missus?"

"I'll give you a prime character as a drover or a ploughman or a carter
or a dairyman or a housemaid or a curate or anything you like except a
looker. Why should I give you eighteen shillun a week as my
looker--twenty shillun, as I've made it now--when my best wether could
do what you do quite as well and not take a penny for it? You've got no
more sense or know than a tup ..."

She stopped, breathless, her cheeks and eyes burning, a curious ache in
her breast. The sun was gone now, only the moon hung flushed in the
foggy sky. Socknersh's face was in darkness as he stood with his back to
the east, but she could see on his features a look of surprise and
dismay which suddenly struck her as pathetic in its helpless stupidity.
After all, this great hulking man was but a child, and he was unhappy
because he must go, and give up his snug cottage and the sheep he had
learned to care for and the kind mistress who gave him sides of