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“Missus do think I’m past work,” he said. “That’s what she do do. Missus never could abear me.”

“Now then, come,” cried the farmer, with a kind of mild roar of exasperation. “The missus is a good missus to ’ee, Robbins. She be but anxious for to help ’ee.”

“She’s onreasonable,” grumbled the shepherd; “onreasonable, that’s what she be. She do look for too much, and expect too much. When Daisy calved she was vexed at its bein’ a bull calf. ‘Well, missus,’ I says, ‘I can’t help it if it be a bull. Things falls out so,’ I says, ‘as we can’t always have our own way. There must be he’s as well as she’s in this world.’ An’ she did rate me for the sayin’, an’ she do keep a grudge agin me ever since.”

“Nay, now,” said Farmer Joyce, sinking his voice, but still speaking with the air of mild expostulation which had characterised his former remarks. “She don’t bear ’ee no grudge, man, not she. She be all for doin’ ’ee a good turn, I tell ’ee. Says she to me last night, ‘We must gi’ shepherd help,’ she says, ‘else he’ll ne’er get through wi’ the lambin’ this year. He desarves consideration,’ she says. ‘He’s worked for ’ee faithful all his life. We mus’n’t let un drop in ’arness,’ says she. Them be her very words, shepherd.”