The half-grown kid had been handed over to the Hall with some careful bargaining with Rollo. He had said that whoever lived in her cottage must pay rent to the Hall in the autumn in the form of a dozen young laying hens, but that summer most of the chickens hatched at the Hall turned out to be hens, and as Marion did not have a dozen fowls of either sex to give or to keep, to substitute a female kid would benefit the Hall very much more. Even Rollo, who always wanted the laws to be obeyed exactly, even if it were in no one’s interest that they were, had realized that a healthy nanny kid was a bargain that he had better accept. But Marion’s parent goat was still in milk and if she could be fed adequately might still be giving milk throughout the winter, so Marion was determined to cosset the animal.

However, when she got to the top of the incline of rough grass the hawthorn stump to which the goat had been tethered showed only a few feet of plaited leather with a frayed end tied round the trunk and no goat in sight. The gate in the wattle fence that protected the cottages from the Common was open, and Marion cursed careless Peterkin for leaving it unhooked. She went down and fastened the gate, looking anxiously round and down to the water-place, but she could see no goat. Then she heard a commotion in Molly’s garden and Old Agnes hobbled up waving a stick and shouting at the goat, which was eating Molly’s cabbages. The goat bounded away and Marion caught her by the remains of the leather strap that dangled from her neck. She apologized to Agnes, who admitted after examining a cabbage that the goat had not done much damage and could not have been there long, but it took some time, a good deal of pushing and cajoling, and a dish of bran and oats to entice the goat back to the hawthorn stump and for Marion to tie the frayed leather strips together. She knew the goat would have to calm down before she could be milked so Marion returned home leaving the empty bucket by the goat.

Alice was peacefully sitting on the dry earth under the eaves making little piles of dust and patting them down with her fat palms and talking to herself. Marion went into the goat shed and felt along the shelves in the hens’ boxes. They had almost stopped laying now, so she was pleased to find three eggs. But, leaving the shed, she tripped on a bit of wood and in saving herself dropped two of the eggs which smashed against the doorpost. Marion cursed her ill luck – only one egg left now.