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.