"But you think you're up to the job."

"Yes, missus."

Joanna stared at him critically. He was a fine young fellow--slightly
bowed already though he had given his age as twenty-five, for the earth
begins her work early in a man's frame, and has power over the green
tree as well as the dry. But this stoop did not conceal his height and
strength and breadth, and somehow his bigness, combined with his
simplicity, his slow thought and slow tongue, appealed to Joanna,
stirred something within her that was almost tender. She handed him back
his dirty "characters."

"Well, I must think it over. I've some other men to see, but I'll write
you a line to Botolph's Bridge and tell you how I fix. You go now and
ask Grace Wickens, my gal, to give you a cup of hot cocoa."

Young Socknersh went, stooping his shock-head still lower as he passed
under the worn oak lintel of the kitchen door. Joanna interviewed the
shepherd from Honeychild, a man from Slinches, another from Anvil Green
inland, and one from Chilleye, on Pevensey marsh beyond Marlingate. She
settled with none, but told each that she would write. She spent the
evening thinking them over.

No doubt Peter Relf from Honeychild was the best man--the oldest and
most experienced--but on the other hand he wanted the most money, and
probably also his own way. After the disastrous precedent of Fuller,
Joanna wasn't going to have another looker who thought he knew better
than she did. Now, Dick Socknersh, he would mind her properly, she felt