Shepherd Robbins made no response; he stood aside to let his master pass into the enclosure. Then the two paced together from pen to pen, the farmer’s usually dreamy eye alert enough now, and quick to take note of anything amiss. Once or twice he found fault, and once or twice he gave directions; Robbins receiving commands and admonitions alike in stolid silence. With stiff and feeble movements he helped the farmer to set before the ewes the provender which he had brought, and stood watching them with him while they precipitated themselves upon it. “What a din they do make—a body can scarce hear his own voice,” cried Joyce, turning away at last. “’Tis their natur’ like, master,” replied the shepherd, hobbling after him. “There’s little need of a-hearin’ one’s own voice with ewes and lambs about. It do take a man all his time to see to ’em.” “Ah,” agreed the farmer, stopping short suddenly and looking at him, “it do, shepherd; it do. ’Tis more nor many a man can do. ’Tis more nor you can do at your time of life, shepherd, I d’ ’low.” “I do do it,” returned Robbins stolidly. “Ah,” pursued the farmer, following out his own train of thought, as though he had not heard him, “we be near lambin’ time now, and ’tis puzzlin’ to know how ye’re agoin’ to manage it. It do puzzle me, I know. Ye’re falterin’, man, I tell ’ee.” Robbins gazed vacantly at his master, rubbing his gnarled hands together slowly. “My missus was a-sayin’ it to me only last night,” pursued the other. “She do think—” But here some gleam of intelligence seemed to filter into Robbins’ mind. “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.”