As nobody said anything further, and Master Peartree, intent on his lamb, did not look up, Jinny too stood silent for a moment with her incongruous bonnet-box; recovering her sang-froid, and watching a catcher trying to drive in an unshorn lamb from the pen in which it had cowered and which it now ran round, bleating, terror-stricken and unseizable. She wondered if its heart were thumping more wildly than hers. Not that there was terror in her own breast—rather a strange exultation that her presence had had power to incarnadine the immaculate sheepskin. But her eyes roamed shyly from Will and his nipped victim, and studied with elaborate attention the divers coloured show-cards of the successful ram lambs that made their vaunt upon the beams or along the sloping walls, through which the thatching stuck pleasantly. Her mind went back to that sunny, bracing day in February, to the immense pastoral landscape of straw-roofed sheep-pens, ooze, mangold heaps, and haystacks, on which she had chanced when the lambs now so agitated were new-yeaned: some only an hour or two old, with long skeleton legs and bodies smeared as with yellow gold. How friskily they had soon learnt to leap on their mother’s back! That day she, too, had been as untroubled, needing no outside melody to brisk up her pace. Young Ravens, inspired by his new audience to a fresh burst of melody, started on “The Mistletoe Bough,” the old ballad she had heard sung in the cottages at Christmas sing-songs, and which she now for the first time connected with the play on Mr. Flippance’s posters. “Hullo, Jinny,” said Master Peartree at last, her presence slowly percolating. He finished his rebellious lamb and patted it forgivingly on the back, remarking genially: “Get up and let’s have a squint at you.” And as it trotted out happily, he threw its fleece—too small to wind up—on to a great heap in the corner and fell to work on a sheep. “You’ve just done’em when it’s turned cold,” protested Jinny. “Ay, ’tis a pity,” said Master Peartree. “But first we couldn’t get the labour, and then that rined and their wool was too damp, but Oi need ’em now for the early market.” “I know. I’m buying a horse there,” said Jinny. Another tinge of red appeared on the blameless skin of Will’s victim. “Methusalem ain’t damaged hisself?” asked Master Peartree in concern. “Oh, no, he’s outside your gate, damaging your hedge.” “Then whatever do you need another for?” “Oh, just to ride over somebody. But I wish I’d known you needed labour.” “Why, want a job?” grinned Jim Puddifoot, a giant in a brimless hat, who was sharpening his shears on a piece of steel. There was a snigger from his mates. “What’s the pay?” said Jinny, who had been thinking of Uncle Lilliwhyte, lately gravelled for lack of purchasers of his woodland pickings. “There’s half a suvrin a hundred,” said Master Peartree as seriously, “and four quarts o’ beer.”