Abner altered his opinion when one day he found a sheep rubbing like mad against a tree, and before noon half a dozen at the same game. Those two wretched sheep had tainted the flock.
Abner hung his head when he came to George with this ill-omened news. He expected a storm of reproaches. But George was too deeply distressed for any petulances of anger. “It is my fault,” said he, “I was the master, and I let my servant direct me. My own heart told me what to do, yet I must listen to a fool and a hireling that cared not for the sheep. How should he? they weren't his, they were mine to lose and mine to save. I had my choice, I took it, I lost them. Call Jacky and let's to work and save here and there one, if so be God shall be kinder to them than I have been.”
From that hour there was but little rest morning, noon or night. It was nothing but an endless routine of anointing and washing, washing and anointing sheep. To the credit of Mr. Thompson it must be told that of the four hundred who had been taken in time no single sheep died; but of the others a good many. There are incompetent shepherds as well as incompetent statesmen and doctors, though not so many. Abner was one of these. An acute Australian shepherd would have seen the more subtle signs of this terrible disease a day or two before the patient sheep began to rub themselves with fury against the trees and against each other; but Abner did not; and George did not profess to have a minute knowledge of the animal, or why pay a shepherd? When this Herculean labor and battle had gone on for about a week, Abner came to George, and with a hang-dog look begged him to look out for another shepherd.
“Why, Will! surely you won't think to leave me in this strait? Why three of us are hardly able for the work, and how can I make head against this plague with only the poor sav—with only Jacky, that is first-rate at light work till he gets to find it dull—but can't lift a sheep and fling her into the water, as the like of us can?”
“Well, ye see,” said Abner, doggedly, “I have got the offer of a place with Mr. Meredith, and he won't wait for me more than a week.”
“He is a rich man, Will, and I am a poor one,” said George in a faint, expostulating tone. Abner said nothing, but his face showed he had already considered this fact from his own point of view.
“He could spare you better than I can; but you are right to leave a falling house that you have helped to pull down.”
“I don't want to go all in a moment. I can stay a week till you get another.”
“A week! how can I get a shepherd in this wilderness at a week's notice? You talk like a fool.”
“Well, I can't stay any longer. You know there is no agreement at all between us, but I'll stay a week to oblige you.”