“Tu-whit—tu-what!” came the sound of a scythe being sharpened in a mead below.
Presently he became aware of a heavy footstep approaching; the massive trunk of the beech hid him from sight. It was a milker going to the pen. Geoffrey heard him turn his bucket bottom upwards and sit down upon it.
“Danged ef it bean’t vour, I knaws,” he muttered. “The sun’s over Kingsbury steeple. Wurs Rause (Rose): bean’t hur a-coming?”
Then he began to sing, as milkers do to their cows.
“Thee’s got a voice like a wood-pigeon,” said a woman whom Geoffrey heard get over the gate at the corner of the wood. “Thee mumbles, Tummas, like a dumble-dore in a pitcher!”
Geoffrey peeped round the tree, and saw a stout girl in short petticoats, corduroy gaiters, brown hair, and dark eyes.
Tummas: Doan’t thee say nought: I hearn thee in church like a charm o’ starlings.
Rause: Thee go on to milking.
Tummas: I wunt. Come and zet on my knee.
Rause: I’ll zee thee in the pond vust with thee gurt vetlocks uppermost.