sure.... Day from Slinches had the longest "character"--fifteen years
man and boy; but that would only mean that he was set in their ways and
wouldn't take to hers--she wasn't going to start fattening her sheep
with turnips, coarsening the meat, not to please anyone.... Now,
Socknersh, having never been longer than two years in a place wouldn't
have got fixed in any bad habits.... As for Jenkins and Taylor, they
weren't any good--just common Southdown men--she might as well write off
to them at once. Her choice lay between Relf and Day and Socknersh. She
knew that she meant to have Socknersh--he was not the best shepherd, but
she liked him the best, and he would mind her properly and take to her
ways ... for a moment he seemed to stand before her, with his head
stooping among the rafters, his great shoulders shutting out the window,
his curious, brown, childlike eyes fixed upon her face. Day was a
scrubby little fellow, and Relf had warts all over his hands.... But she
wasn't choosing Socknersh for his looks; she was choosing him because he
would work for her the best, not being set up with "notions." Of course
she liked him the best, too, but it would be more satisfactory from
every practical point of view to work with a man she liked than with a
man she did not like--Joanna liked a man to look a man, and she did not
mind if he was a bit of a child too.... Yes, she would engage Socknersh;
his "characters," though short, were most satisfactory--he was "good
with sheep and lambs," she could remember--"hard-working"--"patient"....
She wrote to Botolph's Bridge that evening, and engaged him to come to
her at the end of the week.




§9