FORE:This room was sacred to the confraternity: here they held their meetings��here they were instructed by their chief in the parts allotted to them in the shifting drama of crime. And here, under lock and key, pledged to the host, were the garments in which they appeared in the jury-box as respectable yeomen. Black Jack cast a rapid glance round the table as he entered, and perceiving one seat still unoccupied, he frowned with impatience.

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FORE:Then came the shearing, that queen of feasts. The local band of shearers called at Odiam for the first time, and were given an inaugural welcome. Richard sulked at the honour paid him as shepherd��he felt it was indeed a case of King among Sweepers. However, in point of fact, he enjoyed the actual shearing well enough. It was a warm July day, the air full of the scent of hayseed; the sheep came hustling and panting into the shearing-pens, and the shearers stripped them with songs and jokes and shouts of "Shear close, boys!" There was also ale in buckets, brought out by a girl hired for the occasion, who was stout and pretty and smiled at Richard. And it was good to watch the yellowish piles of fleece grow at one's knees, and comical to see the poor shorn sheep stagger up from the ground, all naked and confused, hardly knowing themselves, it seemed.Pete was a very innocent soul. He had spoilt many a man's beauty for him, but he had never been the slave of a woman's. He had broken arms and ribs, and noses by the score��and he had once nearly killed a man, and only just escaped being arrested for manslaughter; but he had remained through it all an innocent soul. He had always lived in the open air, always worked hard, always fought hard��his recreations had been whistling and sleep. He had never thought about sin or evil of any kind, he had never troubled about sex except as it manifested itself in the brutes he had the care of, he had never read or talked bawdry. All the energies of his nature had been poured into hard work and hard blows.

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