A reply comes from within the dairy.
"Ay, mem?"
"You'll need tae leave the butter and help Master Robert. He's no hand with the kye. He's let Heatherbell intill the neeps. And the maister is away at——"
With a muffled "Maircy me!" a heated young woman shoots out of a side door and proceeds at the double to the assistance of the incompetent cow-herd.
At length the animals are rounded up into the byre, and Elspeth proceeds with the milking.
Meanwhile Master Robert, "the feckless body," stands in a rather apprehensive attitude before the old lady. He is a huge man of about forty-five. He is clean-shaven, and he has humorous grey eyes and dark hair. Despite his homespun attire, he looks more like a leader of men than a driver of cattle.
"Robin Fordyce," says the old lady severely, "what garred ye loose Heatherbell in among the neeps.
"I'm sorry, mother. But I met Jean M'Taggart in the road, and—we stopped for a bit crack."
The old lady surveys her son witheringly over her glasses.
"Dandering wi' Jean M'Taggart at your time of life! I'll sort Jean M'Taggart when I see her. It's jist like her tae try and draw a lad from his duty. And you! A married man these fifteen years! 'Deed, and it's time yon lady wife of yours cam' here from London, tae pit a hand on you."