A great shout of laughter rose from the hired men: only Will went on shearing with apparent imperturbability, while a third carmine speck defaced the smooth surface of his martyred sheep. “Where’s the laugh?” inquired Master Peartree. “_Don’t rob a poor man of his beer_,” carolled young Ravens. “She don’t drink,” he broke off to explain. “Yes, I do, I drink like a fish. Water, that is, like that does.” This time even Master Peartree laughed, while Jim Puddifoot, raising his tin mug without a handle to his mouth, cried “Here’s to you,” and young Ravens lifting up his pleasant voice trolled forth: “_Robin he married a wife in the West,_ _Moppety, moppety, mono._” Little stabs and pricks were going through Will’s breast, and still more through the skin of his sheep. As the chorus, from which Jinny’s little trill was not excluded, took up: “_With a high jig jiggity, tops and petticoats,_ _Robin-a-Thrush cries mono,_” it seemed to Will as if Jinny was carrying on like a flash lady in a boon company. A high jig jiggity, indeed! Releasing his victim at last, he picked up its fleece sullenly and teased a tail out of it, wherewith, rolling up the rest, he proceeded to tie the bundle in a silence that the singing rendered still grimmer. “What’s that you’ve got there, Jinny?” asked Master Peartree, becoming suddenly aware of the bonnet-box. “That’s for you,” she said. “Me! Oi ain’t got no womankind, thank the Lord.” Again Master Peartree had touched unintentionally the springs of laughter. Will pinned the frightened ewe-lamb, now caught and as dumb as himself, between his legs, and plucked a few preliminary bits from its breast with his fingers. “But it’s Mrs. Flynt’s bonnet,” explained Jinny, “and will you oblige me by taking it back to-night?” The snick of young Flynt’s shears sounded savage. “That Oi won’t,” said Master Peartree, “seein’ as here stands her boy Willie hisself.” “Oh, does he?” said Jinny. “I hadn’t noticed.” “Ay, that he do. And even dedn’t, he arxed me not to do your job agen, time Oi took in that liddle ole horn.” The new ovine martyr bounded. Quite a patch of its skin had been replaced by blood. “Steady, Willie, steady!” cried Master Peartree. “Oi was afeared musicianers ain’t no good for shearing.” “It’s this silly, jumping beast,” growled Will, breaking his obstinate silence. Jinny was still tendering the bonnet-box to Master Peartree. “Well, give it to him then.” “Can’t he take it straight?” asked the shepherd, clipping busily. “That silly, jumping beast is too much for him as it is. He daren’t let go. I’ll leave the bonnet-box for him.” “Ain’t no place here—’tis too mucky.” “‘Buy a Broom,’” hummed Jinny, and young Ravens, smiling, seized a besom and swept vigorously at the stale and droppings. “Oh, I can’t leave it here—the sheep might stave it in,” she said.