ot a man
less in the yard, not a girl less in the kitchen, as her neighbours had
expected.

But the failure of the cross-bred lambs did not end the tale of
Ansdore's misadventures. There was a lot of dipping for sheep-scab on
the Marsh that August, and it soon became known that several of Joanna
Godden's sheep and lambs had died after the second dip.

"That's her valiant Socknersh again," said Prickett--"guv 'em a double
arsenic dip. Good sakes! That woman had better be quick and marry him
before he does any more harm as her looker."

"There's more than he gives a double arsenic dip, surelye."

"Surelye--but they mixes the can a bit. Broadhurst says as Socknersh's
second dip was as strong as his first."

The feeling about Socknersh's incapacity reached such a point that more
than one warning was given Joanna for her father's sake, and one at
least for her own, from Arthur Alce.

"I shouldn't say it, Joanna, if it wasn't true, but a man who puts a
sheep into poison-wash twice in a fortnight isn't fit to be anyone's
looker."

"But we were dipping for sheep-scab--that takes something stronger than
Keatings."

"Yes, but the point is, d'you see, that you give 'em the first dip in
arsenic stuff, and the next shouldn't ought to be poison at all--there's
a lot of good safe dips on the market, that ull do very well for a
second wash."

"Socknersh knows his business."

"He don't--that's why I'm speaking. Fuller ud never have done what he's
done. He's lost you a dozen prime sheep on the top of all your other
losses."

The reference was unfortunate. Joanna's cheekbones darkened ominously.

"It's all very well for you to talk, Arthur Alce, for you think no one
can run Ansdore except yourself who'll never get the chance. It's well
known around, in spite of what you say, that Socknersh is valiant with
sheep--no one can handle 'em as he can; at the shearing Harmer and his
men were full of it--how the ewes ud keep quiet for him as for nobody
else--and 'twas the same at the lambing. It wasn't his fault that the
lambs died, but because that chap at Northampton never told us what he
should ought.... I tell you, I've never had anyone like him for handling
sheep--they're quite different with him from what they were with that
rude old Fuller, barking after 'em like a dog along the Brodnyx road and
bringing 'em up to Rye all raggled and draggled and dusty as mops ... he
knows how to manage sheep--he's like one of themselves."