"Poor, are we, say'st 'a?" snapped the shepherd who was working alongside Jose in the pool.
"Ay, poor as rattens," answered Hiram. "I allus did say a sheep war th' gaumless-est thing 'at iver went on four legs."
"There's folk more gaumless goes on two," put in Jose; "an' tha's getten a lob-sided view o' sheep, Hiram Hey; tha's all for beasts, an' hosses, an' pigs, an' tha willun't see 'at sheep are that full o' sense----"
The shepherd got no further with his speech; for the ewe which was being pushed toward the brink took a wild leap on the sudden, and landed fair into his arms before he had got his feet well planted on the bottom; and sheep and man went under the grey greasiness that covered the surface of the pool.
"Ay, they're sensible chaps, is sheep," said Hiram drily, while he watched the shepherd rub the water out of eyes and hair. "A beast now--nay, I'm thinking a calf wod hev hed more wit nor that."
"Well, an' wodn't tha knock dahn ony chap that framed to souse thee?" retorted Jose, undaunted still. "'Tis nobbut one more proof o' their sperrit.--Theer, lass, theer! Jose noan wants to wrangle wi' thee--theer, my bonnie--" His voice dropped into inarticulate murmurs as he took a fresh hold of the sheep and fell to rubbing her wool with a long arm and a knotty.
"Will th' young Maister be coming up, think ye?" asked a farm-hand by and by.
"He will that, if I knaw him," said Hiram grimly. "He telled me last forenooin he war coming to see 'at ye all kept to it.--Now, lads, will ye frame, or mun I come an' skift ye wi' my foot? I niver see'd sich a shammocky, loose-set lot o' folk i' all my days. Tom o' Thorntop, get them ewes penned, dost hear? Seems tha'd like to keep me ut laking all th' day while tha maks shift to stir thyseln."
The work went steadily forward, and soon the pinfolds on the far side of each of the two pools were all but full of ewes, shivering in their snowy fleeces. Neither did jest and banter flag, nor the gruff oaths of the shepherds as they gathered their flocks together under Hiram's wide-reaching eye.
"We mun hev a bit o' dinner i' a while," said Jose at last; "I'm as dry as a peck o' hay-seeds."
"I'll warrant," growled Hiram, and for sheer contrariness went off to see that a new flock was penned ready for the washing.