The grey byre was warm with the bodies of the cows and their grassy,
milky breath. Dan, in his clean white shirt sleeves, crouched on Ned's
milking stool, his head pressed to the cow's curly red and white flank.
His fingers worked rhythmically down the teat and the milk squirted and
hissed and pinged against the pail. Sometimes the cow swung round her
white face and looked at Dan, sometimes she lashed him gently with her
tail. Ned leaned against the stall post and watched.
"Thot's t' road, thot's t' road. Yo're the foorst straanger she a' let
milk 'er. She's a narvous cow. 'Er teats is tander."
When the milking was done Dan put on his well-fitting coat and they went
home over Karva to the schoolhouse lane.
Dan loved the things that Roddy hated: the crying of the peewits, the
bleating of the sheep, the shouts of the village children when they saw
him and came running to his coat pockets for sweets. He liked to tramp
over the moors with the shepherds; he helped them with the dipping and
shearing and the lambing.
"Dan, you ought to be a farmer."
"I know," he said, "that's why they stuck me in an office."