Robbins continued to rub his hands, but without any appearance of gratification. Mr. Joyce coughed, stuck his pitchfork in the ground, but almost immediately took it out again. He seemed to find some difficulty in proceeding. “Them was her very words,” he resumed, however, presently. “‘He mus’n’t be allowed to drop in ’arness. We shall be four shillin’ a week out o’ pocket, but Shepherd Robbins do desarve it,’ she says.” The farmer paused again. It takes some little time for a new idea to penetrate into the inner consciousness of a Dorset rustic, but after a few moments Robbins seemed to grasp this one, and a gleam came into his faded eyes. “Four shillin’ a week,” he repeated. “What kind o’ chap be you a-goin’ to get for that money, master? Why, the lads ’nd scarce frighten the crows for that.” The farmer coughed again and gently prodded the ground with his pitchfork, watching the operation with apparently intent interest for a moment or two. Then he slowly raised his eyes. “He’ll be a-gettin’ eight shillin’ a week, shepherd. Ye see, ’tis this way. We be a-payin’ you twelve shillin’ now, we be.” Robbins nodded. He had ceased to rub his hands, but stood with the palms still tightly pressed together. “Well, ye see, we didn’t a-grudge it ye. Ye was wuth it to us, shepherd—while ye was strong an’ hearty ye was wuth it to us,” he repeated handsomely. “But now, ye bain’t fit for much, and that’s the trewth; ’tis no fault o’ yourn, but ye bain’t. We lost a terrible lot o’ lambs last year. Ye be too stiff in your joints to get about quick, an’ ye can’t get through your work. It comes hard on we, ye see, to be payin’ out good money an’ not gettin’ the money value—an’ it comes hard on you too, now ye be a-gettin’ into years, shepherd, to be strivin’ an’ contrivin’ like, an’ bibberin’ in the frostiss an’ snow stuff, an standin’ out o’ nights when the rheumatics is bad. ’Tis cruel hard for ye, shepherd.” “Ay, sure,” agreed Robbins more readily than usual. He did not in the least see the drift of the farmer’s argument, but felt that the last proposition was indubitably true. “So ye see ’tis this way: I lose four shillin’ a week by hirin’ a chap to help ’ee, and you lose four shillin’ a week. I’ll pay him eight shillin’, an’ I’ll pay you eight shillin’, an’ ye’ll divide the work between ye. That’s it, do ye see?” said Farmer Joyce confidentially. “Divide the work an’ divide the wage.” Robbins stared at him, vacantly at first, then with a growing sense of indignation as he began dimly to understand the nature of the proposal. “I don’t agree, master,” he said, after a moment’s pause. “Nay, that I don’t. I never axed no help, an’ I’m not a-goin’ to divide no wage. Twelve shillin’ a week is what I did agree for, an’ I’ve a-had it for twenty year an’ more. I can’t do with no less now nor I did then.”