As she followed him towards the cowshed, he banged the lower half of the door behind him, right in her face, but she merely dropped her bundle against the wall, waited a moment or two then drew in a deep breath, lifted the latch and stepped inside. She stood quite still breathing in the pungent smell of the warm beasts – oh how she loved it! She reached out and touched the back of the nearest cow, making soothing noises deep in her throat, standing quietly while Sam Brumby worked.

At last he stretched his aching limbs and stood up from where he had been crouching to finish milking the first of the two cows. Esther saw him rub his knuckles, swollen with rheumatism.

‘’Ere,’ he growled, ‘since you’re so keen, you can ’ave a go with her – Clover.’

Was she mistaken, Esther thought shrewdly, or did she detect a wicked gleam in the old man’s eyes? Her mouth twitched, but she said nothing and moved towards the cow tethered in the corner. Clover turned wild eyes towards her. Again came Esther’s soft, pacifying murmur. She ran her hand over the cow’s rump, down her legs and along her rounded sides. Down and round and under the cow’s stomach until tenderly she touched the bursting udder, all the while her voice crooning softly. She sat down upon the three-legged stool, leant her head against the beast’s belly and began to draw milk with steady, rhythmic movements.

Esther refused to look up but sensed that Sam was watching from under his shaggy white eyebrows that shadowed watery hazel eyes. The white stubble on the old man’s face scarcely concealed the hollowness of his cheeks and his wispy hair stuck out from underneath his cap. His clothes – a striped, collarless shirt with the sleeves rolled up above his elbows, black waistcoat and thick corduroy trousers with leather leggings from knee to ankle – hung loosely on him, as if, when new, it had been a much stronger, straighter man who had worn them. Sam was now bent with age, his shoulders permanently rounded, his legs bowed. Each step he took seemed painful; the hobnailed boots too heavy for him to lift.

She heard him sniff and wipe the back of his hand across his mouth. ‘You can finish milking her before . . .’ he added pointedly, ‘you go.’ Sam was testing her, she knew it. Esther sensed that Clover was a difficult cow.

‘Yes, Mr Brumby, right you are,’ she replied, pretending meekness.

As he left the cowshed, closing the half-door quietly behind him, Esther allowed herself a wry smile against the soft hide of the animal. For the first time in her young life she had cause to thank the bad-tempered woman who had reared her. Everything she knew – not only household duties, but all aspects of work on the farm – had been learnt under her aunt’s cruel tongue and harsh hand.