“Anything the matter with it, Brookes?”
“My word, Mr Nic, how you made me jump! Why, where did you come from?”
“Over yonder. I was here ten minutes ago, and didn’t notice anything wrong then.”
“Oh, you’ve been a-shepherding, sir, have you? That’s right: sheep’s things you can’t be too ’tickler about. No, there’s nothing very wrong. I’ll come round here with a bucket o’ dressing, though, to-morrow.”
“Shall I go or stay?” thought Nic, as the man turned over layer after layer of the thick wool which opened down the animal’s sides as if divided by a series of partings like that leading to the crown of a human being’s head. “If I stay I shall make him suspicious. If I go it may disarm him.”
“Oh,” he said aloud, “that doesn’t look bad. I shall go on and get Sorrel. I’m going to ride round the bullocks. Not coming yet, I suppose?”
“No, sir; I’ll just run my eye round that hundred over yonder with Black Damper. Haven’t counted ’em ’smorning, I s’pose?”
“I haven’t been there,” said Nic.
“Ah, they’d better be counted. One’d think the blacks could count a flock of sheep, but not they. It’s bulla and kimmeroi and metancoly, and saying that over and over again. They can eat as many as you like, but counting beats ’em.”
“Yes, they are stupid that way, Brookes,” said Nic; and he went straight off for home, looking perfectly unconcerned, but feeling particularly uncomfortable as he turned over in his own mind the possibility of the man finding the convict’s hiding-place.