PLOUGHMAN AND SHEPHERD 



is all he can expect, even with aid and relief. 

 A flock of twelve score pedigree South Down 

 sheep at the height of the lambing season is no 

 light responsibility. 



A full feeling of responsibility with a fearless- 

 ness of it this is a sign of ripe manhood in any 

 rank of life. Who that knows English countryside 

 has not seen it in a shepherd, or even humbler 

 labourer ? Self, of course, is of the very essence of 

 this engagement ; the personal interest and natural 

 desire for gain, mingled with the pressing sense 

 of duty. Each lamb that survives the tailing time 

 in other words, the untailing time is sixpence 

 royalty in the shepherd's pocket. Each lamb 

 helps to keep the pot boiling at home. The 

 shepherd watches all knows all. Lambs born 

 in the moveable pens must be brought into the 

 fold after sundown, ewes too. This has been a 

 blessed lambing time on Thriving Farm, a season 

 in twenty. Not one mother has the shepherd lost, 

 and only three children. A hundred lambs are 

 yet to come, but with weather kindly cold but 

 dry at night all will go well. The whole flock 

 delights the eye of its master. 



It was very different last year, the night scour 

 killing many a lamb. The shepherd had to practise 

 imposition uncalled for now. He tied the skin of 

 the dead lamb about one of the living twins of 

 another ewe, and presented the child to the bereaved 

 mother. The sheep knows her child rather by smell 

 than sight, so that after washing and fleecing ewes 

 D 33 



