fallen away in the most deplorable manner. Marvel could scarcely believe
that these were his sheep; or that these were the sheep which he had
expected to be the pride of Lincolnshire, and which he had hoped would
set the fashion of jackets. Behold, they were dying of the rot!

"What an unfortunate man I am!" exclaimed Marvel, turning to his cousin
Wright, whom he had summoned along with Goodenough, in the pride of his
heart, to view, value, and admire his sheep. "All your sheep, Wright,
are fat and sound: mine were finer than yours when I bought them: how
comes it that I am so unlucky?"

"Jack of all trades, and master of none!" said Goodenough, with a sneer.

"You forgot, I am afraid, what I told you, when first you bought these
sheep," said Wright, "that you should always keep them in fold, every
morning, till the dew was off: if you had done so, they would now be as
well and thriving as mine. Do not you remember my telling you that?"

"Yes; and I charged this boy always to keep them in fold till the dew
was off," replied Marvel, turning with an angry countenance to the
shepherd boy.

"I never heard nothing of it till this minute, I am sure, master," said
the boy.

Marvel now recollected that, at the very moment when he was going to
give this order to the boy, his attention had been drawn away by the
sight of a new decoy in the fields adjoining to his sheep pasture. In
his haste to examine the decoy, he forgot to give that order to his
shepherd, on which the safety of his fine flock of sheep depended.