Then in winter came the lambing, which is the shepherd's Lent. Richard and the old man from Doozes kept long vigils in the lambing hut, and those nights and days were to young Backfield dreams of red, fuggy solitude, the stillness broken only by the slip of coals in the brazier, or the faint bleating of the ewes outsidewhile sometimes mad Harry's fiddle wept down the silences of Boarzell."Aye; and do you remember what you promised the men in the vizors, when the craven fled, leaving his ear where perhaps his carcase may not find a resting place, and when the abbey folk were rushing on with torch and cudgel?"
ONE:Then came the shearing, that queen of feasts. The local band of shearers called at Odiam for the first time, and were given an inaugural welcome. Richard sulked at the honour paid him as shepherdhe felt it was indeed a case of King among Sweepers. However, in point of fact, he enjoyed the actual shearing well enough. It was a warm July day, the air full of the scent of hayseed; the sheep came hustling and panting into the shearing-pens, and the shearers stripped them with songs and jokes and shouts of "Shear close, boys!" There was also ale in buckets, brought out by a girl hired for the occasion, who was stout and pretty and smiled at Richard. And it was good to watch the yellowish piles of fleece grow at one's knees, and comical to see the poor shorn sheep stagger up from the ground, all naked and confused, hardly knowing themselves, it seemed."Wot have you come fur?"
"D?an't you go vrothering him, lad. It'll only set him ag?unst you, and I d?an't care, not really; there'll be unaccountable liddle work to do in the house now your poor f?ather's gone, and Blackman w?an't be eating wud us. Besides, as he said, I'll find the days a bit slow wud naun to occupy me.""Alicehow did you know?""But my father's great idea," said Richard, "is that Nature is just a thing for man to tread down and subdue.""This is the handwriting of a retainer called Oakley.""Fatherit's Albert!"
路见不平Eason吼
