But Jorrow could not make the journey that day to that remote farm. There were more important animals more expensively endangered and more easily accessible. Old sows were so fussy, and to judge by the symptoms it was a mere case for castor-oil. But precisely because Jinny had herself recommended this drug-of-all-work she felt unconvinced: it seemed a mere glib formula for being “riddy” of her. There was another resource, Elijah Skindle, who, having settled in Chipstone only five years ago, practised only among parvenus like himself. It was not because he was a “furriner,” nor even because he had started as a knacker and still had a nondescript status, that Jinny shrank from calling him in now: she had more than once deposited damaged dogs with him or deported them mended. But she objected to the appraising gaze he fixed upon her on these occasions, though to be sure her objection to these jaunts was not so strong as Nip’s, who, seeing in every canine co-occupant of the cart a possible supplanter, bristled and whined and barked till the rival was safely discharged. But, on her way home, overcoming her repugnance—for Martha’s sake, if not Maria’s or duty’s—she stopped her cart outside his pretentious black gauze blind and blew a rousing blast. A tall, black-eyed, grey-haired woman, issuing from the office door with a broom, who appeared to be Mr. Skindle’s mother, informed her that ’Lijah was “full up”: however, he could be found at the kennels if Jinny insisted on seeing him. She pointed vaguely to a field behind the house, visible through an unpaved alley yawning between the sober Skindle window and its flamboyant neighbour, the chemist’s. But it was in vain that Jinny clucked to Methusalem to thread the alley. The beast refused absolutely.

Alighting with some dim understanding of his instinct, she walked to the field-gate over which a horse was gazing at her. Lifting the latch, she wandered among other happily scampering horses in search of the kennels, finding at first only a barn-like structure, a glance through whose doors at the flagstoned paving that sloped to a centre turned her sick. For a pyramid of horses’ feet was the least repulsive indication, though even the homely skewers so agreeable to Squibs took on a sinister hue. The spectacle, however, served to make the kennels, when at last discovered, a lesser horror. But it was the first time she had seen dogs so far gone in distemper, and these rheumy-eyed skeletons, each chained in its niche, sullied the springtide and haunted her for days. She caught up Nip, who had come to heel, as though he too might pine suddenly into skin and bone. Nip himself, it must be confessed, regarded these shadows of his species with indifference, if not with satisfaction, as negligible competitors.

Elijah Skindle, discovered on his knees in the act of feeding a pathetic poodle, was as unstrung by the sight of Jinny as Jinny by the sight of the dogs. His black cutty pipe fell from his lips and he nearly stuck the dog’s spoon into his own open mouth. But mastering himself, and without raising his cap or his pipe or changing his attitude, he gasped out: “Hullo! Nip ill?”

Jinny replied curtly—for there was a familiarity that repelled her in his calling Nip by his right name—, “No, a sow at Frog Farm—Little Bradmarsh, you know.”

His heart leapt. Frog Farm meant an old inhabitant, local prejudice was then beginning to melt at last! But, “Rather out of my radius,” he said with pretended indifference. “Besides,” as he reached for his pipe, “my nag’s gone lame.”

“I could give you a lift,” said Jinny, outwitted for once, since it never struck her that this was precisely what Elijah had fished for and why he had lamed his beast. The spoon trembled in his hand, but he replied grumblingly, “But then I should have to come at once.”

“I’m afraid so,” said Jinny.

Mr. Skindle rose and brushed his knees. “Anything to oblige a lady,” he said.

“It isn’t me, it’s Maria,” said Jinny icily.