farm; one whom perhaps he had coveted as he saw him masterfully
steering flocks to market. But what did the practitioner so far
from home? and why this guilty and secret manoeuvring towards the
pool? - for it was towards the pool that he was heading. John lay
the closer under his bush, and presently saw the dog come forth
upon the margin, look all about him to see if he were anywhere
observed, plunge in and repeatedly wash himself over head and ears,
and then (but now openly and with tail in air) strike homeward over
the hills. That same night word was sent his master, and the
rising practitioner, shaken up from where he lay, all innocence,
before the fire, was had out to a dykeside and promptly shot; for
alas! he was that foulest of criminals under trust, a sheep-eater;
and it was from the maculation of sheep's blood that he had come so
far to cleanse himself in the pool behind Kirk Yetton.

A trade that touches nature, one that lies at the foundations of
life, in which we have all had ancestors employed, so that on a
hint of it ancestral memories revive, lends itself to literary use,
vocal or written. The fortune of a tale lies not alone in the
skill of him that writes, but as much, perhaps, in the inherited
experience of him who reads; and when I hear with a particular
thrill of things that I have never done or seen, it is one of that
innumerable army of my ancestors rejoicing in past deeds. Thus
novels begin to touch not the fine DILETTANTI but the gross mass of
mankind, when they leave off to speak of parlours and shades of
manner and still-born niceties of motive, and begin to deal with
fighting, sailoring, adventure, death or childbirth; and thus
ancient outdoor crafts and occupations, whether Mr. Hardy wields
the shepherd's crook or Count Tolstoi swings the scythe, lift
romance into a near neighbourhood with epic. These aged things