“Leave it in the store acrost the yard—the key’s in the padlock,” said the shepherd. “Oi count Willie’ll take it home, same as he ain’t cut hisself to pieces.” Another roar from the others—this time Master Peartree beamed, and it might have gone ill with Will’s lamb had the shears not slipped from his palm. “Well, but when folks go woolgathering,” remarked Jinny blandly, “they forget things. I’ll put it in the store, but I won’t be responsible.” “Tell her I won’t forget it,” roared Will, who was picking up his shears in the gymnastic attitude necessitated by the palpitating sheep between his legs. “Oi reckon she can yer for herself,” said the shepherd naïvely. “Of course I can hear,” said Jinny. “But tell him to tell his mother that the bill’s inside.” “Oi reckon _he_ can yer too,” said the puzzled Peartree. “He doesn’t listen much to women,” explained Jinny. “You ask him if his family wants anything else from Chipstone.” “Well, there he stands—you can arx him, can’t you?” “Well, don’t I stand here, too?” said Jinny. “And why doesn’t he answer?” “He’s too shy,” sniggered Ravens, and burst out again: “_With a high jig jiggity, tops and petticoats._” “Shut up!” snarled Will. “’Twas you asked me to sing,” retorted Ravens. “That’s so, Willie,” said the shepherd. “You should say you loved to yer ‘Buy a Broom’ and all them old songs. Why don’t you answer, Willie?” “Because there’s nothing to say,” Will roared. “We don’t want nothing whatever from her.” He was not often so ungrammatical, but anger knows no pedantry. “Well, why couldn’t he say so at once?” said Jinny, and whistling “_A dashing young man from Buckingham_,”—whistling was a new brazenness in Will’s ears—she picked her way across the miry yard to the weather-boarded, tarred, and tile-roofed structure that stood on six mushroom-topped pillars, whose smoothness offered no purchase for rats. Ascending the steep steps, she deposited the bonnet-box betwixt the chicken-corn and the eggs. While padlocking the door again, she saw to her surprise that Methusalem was inside the gate, labouring towards her through the mud. The faithful animal, impatient for her, had evidently lifted the latch with its nose, aided perhaps by its teeth. The tears came into her eyes: some one at least did want her, and there was a long, affectionate contact between that clever, velvety nose and Jinny’s palm. Then she returned to the shearing-barn and handed Master Peartree the key. “Good day and thank you,” she said. “I reckon I shall meet you at the cattle fair.” She did not wait to see if she had drawn blood from the sacrificial lamb; but, rounding her lips again, whistled her way jauntily back to her cart. As she drove along, the sun, struggling through a high cloud-rack, showed like a great worn silver coin, and the shorn sheep gleamed fairily white on the great green pastures. But there was an ache at her heart, which the delicious wafts from the early-mown hayfields only made emptier.