Rye Observer_ and the _Kentish Express_
than she had half a dozen applications from likely men. Martha Tilden
brought the news to Godfrey's Stores, the general shop in Brodnyx.

"There she is, setting in her chair, talking to a young chap what's come
from Botolph's Bridge, and there's three more waiting in the
passage--she told Grace to give them each a cup of cocoa when she was
making it. And what d'you think? Their looker's come over from Old
Honeychild, asking for the place, though he was sitting in the Crown at
Lydd only yesterday, as Sam Broadhurst told me, saying as it was a shame
to get shut of Fuller like that, and as how Joanna deserved never to see
another looker again in her life."

"Which of the lot d'you think she'll take?" asked Godfrey.

"I dunno. How should I say? Peter Relf from Old Honeychild is a stout
feller, and one of the other men told me he'd got a character that made
him blush, it was that fine and flowery. But you never know with Joanna
Godden--maybe she'd sooner have a looker as knew nothing, and then she
could teach him. Ha! Ha!"

Meanwhile Joanna sat very erect in her kitchen chair, interviewing the
young chap from Botolph's Bridge.

"You've only got a year's character from Mr. Gain?"

"Yes, missus ..." a long pause during which some mental process took
place clumsily behind this low, sunburnt forehead ... "but I've got
these."

He handed Joanna one or two dirty scraps of paper on which were written
"characters" from earlier employers.

Joanna read them. None was for longer than two years, but they all spoke
well of the young man before her.

"Then you've never been on the Marsh before you came to Botolph's
Bridge?"

"No, missus."

"Sheep on the Marsh is very different from sheep inland."

"I know, missus."

"But you think you're up to the job."

"Yes, missus."

Joanna stared at him critically. He was a fine young fellow--slightly
bowed already though he had given his age as twenty-five, for the earth
begins her work early in a man's frame, and has power over the green
tree as well as the dry. But this stoop did not conceal his height and
strength and breadth, and somehow his bigness, combined with his
simplicity, his slow thought and slow tongue, appealed to Joanna,
stirred something within her that was almost tender. She handed him back
his dirty "characters."

"Well, I must think it over. I've some other men to see, but I'll write
you a line to Botolph's Bridge and t