“For ’tis known they always milk best to music,” says she, “and often I would have Jan Holdsworthy to bring his pipe and please ’em.”

And thus I heard a Devon ballad, whereof a verse sticks in my head:

“So Robin put on his Sunday clothes,

Which were neither tattered nor torn,

With a bright yellow rose as well as his shoes

He looked like a gentleman born, he did!

Ay, he did! Sure he did!

He looked like a gentleman born, he did.”

“And—”

“Nay, but I won’t sing the next bit,” says she with her head against the cow’s warm silken side, and one bright black eye regardant.