g before it rejoins the flock. In the
days when Viper was young, he was introduced to the process and given
a dip himself, much to his disgust; but that was the only time, for
ever afterwards no sooner did the sheep-dipper and his weird-looking
apparatus appear at night, in readiness for the performance on the
morrow, than Viper remembered his undignified experience, and, before
even the overture of the play commenced, vanished for the day. Nobody
saw him go, or knew where he went, but it was useless to call or
whistle, he was nowhere to be found.

I believe the active ingredient of the dip was a preparation of
arsenic, and upon one occasion I lost several sheep after the dipping,
presumably from arsenical poisoning absorbed through the skin. I met
the dipper a few days later, and he said with a beaming face that he
had "given 'em summat," meaning the parasites. His smiles disappeared
when I told him the result, and that the remedy had proved more fatal
than the disease. After this experience I used a more scientific dip
which was quite as effective and without the element of danger to the
sheep.

Entries are to be found in the old parish records of sums paid and
chargeable to the parish for killing "woonts" (moles), but later
private enterprise was alone responsible. A mole-catcher had been
employed throughout the whole of my predecessor's time at Aldington,
with a yearly remuneration of 12s. On my arrival he called and asked
me to forward the account for the last year to his employer; it ran as
follows: "To dastroyin thay woonts, 12s." The man hoped that I should
continue the arrangement, but, as I had not seen a mole or a mole-hill
on the farm, I told him I would wait, and would send for him if I
found them troublesome. As a matter of fact I never saw a mole, or
heard of one on my land, throughout the twenty-eight years of my
occupation.

Rat-catchers are necessary when rats are very numerous, but rats
appear to be very capricious, abounding in some seasons and scarce in
others. My particular rat-catcher was not a very highly evolved
specimen of humanity; he was thin and hungry-looking with an angular
face, bearing a strong resemblance to the creatures against whom he
waged warfare; he had a wandering, restless and furtive expression,
and appeared to be perpetually on the lookout for his prey, or for
manifestations of their cunning and other evil characteristics in the
humanity with which he came in contact. His