But the failure of the cross-bred lambs did not end the tale of Ansdore’s misadventures.  There was a lot of dipping for sheep-scab on the Marsh that August, and it soon became known that several of Joanna Godden’s sheep and lambs had died after the second dip.

“That’s her valiant Socknersh again,” said Prickett—­“guv ’em a double arsenic dip.  Good sakes!  That woman had better be quick and marry him before he does any more harm as her looker.”

“There’s more than he gives a double arsenic dip, surelye.”

“Surelye—­but they mixes the can a bit.  Broadhurst says as Socknersh’s second dip was as strong as his first.”

The feeling about Socknersh’s incapacity reached such a point that more than one warning was given Joanna for her father’s sake, and one at least for her own, from Arthur Alce.

“I shouldn’t say it, Joanna, if it wasn’t true, but a man who puts a sheep into poison-wash twice in a fortnight isn’t fit to be anyone’s looker.”

“But we were dipping for sheep-scab—­that takes something stronger than Keatings.”

“Yes, but the point is, d’you see, that you give ’em the first dip in arsenic stuff, and the next shouldn’t ought to be poison at all—­there’s a lot of good safe dips on the market, that ull do very well for a second wash.”

“Socknersh knows his business.”

“He don’t—­that’s why I’m speaking.  Fuller ud never have done what he’s done.  He’s lost you a dozen prime sheep on the top of all your other losses.”

The reference was unfortunate.  Joanna’s cheekbones darkened ominously.

“It’s all very well for you to talk, Arthur Alce, for you think no one can run Ansdore except yourself who’ll never get the chance.  It’s well known around, in spite of what you say, that Socknersh is valiant with sheep—­no one can handle ’em as he can; at the shearing Harmer and his men were full of it—­how the ewes ud keep quiet for him as for nobody else—­and ’twas the same at the lambing.  It wasn’t his fault that the lambs died, but because that chap at Northampton never told us what he should ought....  I tell you, I’ve never had anyone like him for handling sheep—­they’re quite different with him from what they were with that rude old Fuller, barking after ’em like a dog along the Brodnyx road and bringing ’em up to Rye all raggled and draggled and dusty as mops ... he knows how to manage sheep—­he’s like one of themselves.”

“That’s just about it—­he’s like another sheep, so they ain’t scared of him, but he can do no more for ’em than another sheep could, neither.  He’s ignorant—­he’s got no sense nor know, or he’d never have let you breed with them Spanishes, or given ’em a poisonous double-dip—­and he’s always having sway-backs up at market, too, and tic and hoose and fluke....  Oh, Joanna, if you’re any bit wise you’ll get shut of him before he messes you all up.  And you know what folks say—­they say you’d have got shut of him months agone if you hadn’t been so unaccountable set on him, so as they say—­yes, they say one day you’ll marry him and make him master of Ansdore.”