It is always policy to kill a sheep to save its life, as the saying is, and the way to make the most of it is to send any fat animal, which is off its feed and looking somewhat thoughtful, to the butcher at once. He knows quite well whether the sheep is fit for food, and if he decides against it, all one expects is the value of the skin. But people are very shy of buying meat about which they have any misgiving, and my butcher once told me not to send him an "emergency sheep" _in one of my own carts_, but to ask him to fetch it himself: "It's like this," he explained, "when a customer comes in for a nice joint of mutton, if he is a near neighbour, he will perhaps add, 'I would rather not have a bit of the sheep that came in a day or two ago in one of Mr. S.'s carts'!" It was always cheering in February, "fill dyke, be it black or be it white," on a dark morning, to hear the young lambs and their mothers calling to each other in the orchards, where there is some grass all the year round under the shelter of the apple trees; or when a springlike morning appears, about the time of St. Valentine's Day, and the thrushes are singing love-songs to their mates, and the first brimstone butterfly has dared to leave his winter seclusion for the fickle sunshine, to realize that Spring is coming, and the active work of the farm is about to recommence. There is a superstition that when the master sees the firstling of the flock, if its head is turned towards him, good luck for the year will follow, but it is most unlucky if its head is turned away.