Sheep

Sheep appear chiefly through the work and emotional pressures of farm life: Robbie Dexter tends a herd, watches the ewes as lambing approaches, and carries the memory of their stillborn lambs. Their presence is more than pastoral background. The ewes’ distress affects how Robbie experiences his own uncertainty, while a lamb becomes an intimate metaphor for the child Polly Drayton expects him to accept.

Farm Life and the Lambing Season

Robbie Dexter’s care for the herd is part of his daily work, and the approaching lambing season gives that work an urgent, seasonal rhythm. With only a few weeks to go, some ewes are already uncomfortable, appearing listless and bemused. Robbie knows these signs from experience, but this year they do not bring their customary excitement. Instead, he fears what may happen, and the animals’ vulnerable condition unsettles him as his own personal life feels increasingly beyond his control.

That change in response gives the sheep a practical as well as emotional place in the story. Lambing is not an abstract symbol: Robbie must tend the animals, and their condition is visible to him as he works. Yet the familiar cycle has become difficult to anticipate with confidence. The same season that would ordinarily stir excitement now intensifies his apprehension.

Stillborn Lambs and Remembered Grief

Robbie’s anxiety is shaped by a memory from the previous year. After the vet had left, Polly stayed in the shed with two ewes whose lambs had been stillborn. She wept as the ewes continued to nuzzle the bodies, and she would not leave until their mourning was done. The scene shows Polly’s deep responsiveness to animal suffering, while the ewes’ lingering beside their dead lambs is presented as a striking expression of loss.

The memory also explains why the coming births weigh on Robbie differently this time. He knows that lambing can bring distress as well as new life, and his thoughts about what may happen to the ewes become entangled with fear for his own family. The sheep are not simply a pastoral image imposed on his troubles: they are living dependants whose care occupies his work and whose vulnerability gives his apprehension a concrete focus.

Sheep Amid Robbie’s Uncertainty

As Robbie struggles with his private circumstances, the work of tending the herd continues. He spends the day dealing with paperwork, messages, and the animals, but busyness does not settle his worries about Polly, who is in London and carrying his child. At night, he feels powerless while waiting for her to come home. The unease he associates with the ewes’ approaching births belongs to this wider sense that important outcomes are unfolding beyond his control.

Rachel Elliot’s visit to the farm brings the sheep into another character’s view. Wearing old jeans, she announces that she is ready for jobs such as laying fires, gathering eggs, and chasing sheep, hoping to be useful over the weekend. The offer places the animals within the ordinary practical life of the farm, even as Robbie’s distracted silence makes clear that routine tasks cannot resolve the strain between them.

The Lamb as a Human Metaphor

When Polly tells Robbie that she and the baby will always be there, she calls the expected child his own little lamb. The image draws on the farm’s immediate world: lambs are anticipated, vulnerable, and dependent, and the phrase turns that familiar presence into a claim about belonging. Polly’s words are followed by small domestic gestures—she clears the plates, kisses the top of Robbie’s head, and begins washing up—which make the promised family life feel both affectionate and practical.

The metaphor also gathers together the sheep’s narrative functions. The ewes’ approaching births carry uncertainty; the stillborn lambs have already shown the possibility of grief; and Polly’s phrase offers a vision of new attachment. The animals therefore remain part of the farm’s material life while also lending emotional force to the story’s treatment of care, loss, and the prospect of a child.