"Down!" called the Mistress. "Leave them alone! Do you hear, Lad? Leave them alone! Come back here!"
Lad heard, and Lad obeyed. Lad always obeyed. If these twenty malodorous strangers and their staff-brandishing guide were friends of the Mistress he must not drive them away. The order "Leave them alone!" was one that could not be disregarded.
Trembling with anger, yet with no thought of rebelling, Lad turned and trotted back to the veranda. He thrust his cold nose into the Mistress' warm little hand and looked up eagerly into her face, seeking a repeal of the command to keep away from the sheep and their driver.
But the Mistress only patted his silken head and whispered:
"We don't like it any more than you do, Laddie; but we mustn't let anyone know we don't. Leave them alone!"
Past the veranda filed the twenty priceless sheep, and on to the paddock.
"I suppose they'll carry off all the prizes at the fair, won't they?" asked the Mistress civilly, as McGillicuddy plodded past her at the tail of the procession.
"Aiblins, aye," grunted McGillicuddy, with the exquisite courtesy of a member of his race and class who feels he is being patronized. "Aiblins, aye. Aiblins, na'. Aiblins—ugh-uh."
Having thus safeguarded his statement against assault from any side at all, the Scot moved on. Lad strolled down toward the paddock to superintend the task of locking up the sheep. The Mistress did not detain him. She felt calmly certain her order of "Leave them alone!" had rendered the twenty visitors inviolate from him.
Lad walked slowly around the paddock, his gaze on the sheep. These were the first sheep he had ever seen. Yet his ancestors, for a thousand years or more, had herded and guarded flocks on the moors.