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Those dead ewes, too stupid to mate themselves profitably and now the victims of the farm-socialism that had experimented with them.... At first she ordered Socknersh to save the ewes even at the cost of the lambs, then when in the little looker's hut she saw a ewe despairingly lick the fleece of its dead lamb, an even deeper grief and pity smote her, and she burst suddenly and stormily into tears.
Socknersh had the sense to realize that she knew more about sheep than he, and he had not understood that in this matter she was walking out of her knowledge into experiment.
She loved herself and Ansdore too well for that ... and Socknersh, fine fellow as he was, had no mind and very little sense he could scarcely read and write, he was slow as an ox, and had common ways and spoke the low Marsh talk he drank out of his saucer and cut his bread with his pocket-knife he spat in the yard.
Day was a scrubby little fellow, and Relf had warts all over his hands.... But she wasn't choosing Socknersh for his looks; she was choosing him because he would work for her the best, not being set up with "notions."
Everybody knew that she had paid Dick Socknersh thirty shillings for the two weeks that he was out of work after leaving her before he went as cattleman to an inland farm and she had found the money for Martha Tilden's wedding, and for her lying-in a month afterwards, and some time later she had helped Peter Relf with ready cash to settle his debts and move himself and his wife and baby to West Wittering, where he had the offer of a place with three shillings a week more than they gave at Honeychild.
But folk said it was queer she should keep on Socknersh when he had done her such a lot of harm they made sure there must be something behind it. For the first time Joanna caught a glimpse of his shortcomings as a looker, and in a moment of vision asked herself if it wasn't really true that he ought to have known about that dip.
Martha began to cry. "You know what for?" "Yes, Miss Joanna." "I wonder you've had the impudence to go about as you've done eating my food and taking my wages, while all the time you've been carrying on with my looker." "Your looker? No, Miss Joanna." "What d'you mean?" "I don't know what you mean, miss I've never had näun to do wud Dick Socknersh if it's him you're thinking of."
Now, Dick Socknersh, he would mind her properly, she felt sure.... Day from Slinches had the longest "character" fifteen years man and boy; but that would only mean that he was set in their ways and wouldn't take to hers she wasn't going to start fattening her sheep with turnips, coarsening the meat, not to please anyone.... Now, Socknersh, having never been longer than two years in a place wouldn't have got fixed in any bad habits.... As for Jenkins and Taylor, they weren't any good just common Southdown men she might as well write off to them at once.
It was queer, when she came to think of it, that nothing in her life had been really successful except Ansdore, that directly she had turned off her high-road she had become at once as it were bogged and lantern-led. Socknersh ... Martin ... Ellen ... there had been by-ways, dim paths leading into queer unknown fields, a strange beautiful land, which now she would never know.
There was no wind, but the air seemed to be moving slowly up from the sea, heavy with mist and salt and the scent of haws and blackberries, of dew-soaked grass and fleeces.... Socknersh stood before her with his blue shirt open at the neck. From him came a smell of earth and sweat ... his clothes smelt of sheep....
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