“Spent all that she earned,” Mr. Miller confided to Alinor.

“Shame on you,” Alinor said loyally. “Mrs. Miller is one of the best housewives on the island.”

“And what about this girl of yours?” Mr. Miller asked, giving Alys a casual slap on her bottom. “Is she going to make a good housewife to Richard Stoney?”

“I hope so,” Alinor said, drawing Alys to her and detaching her from Mr. Miller.

“Have you put the horse away?” Mrs. Miller bawled from the kitchen doorway.

“Aye!” Mr. Miller hollered back. “I’ve done all my work for one day. And they’ve done theirs. Are they getting paid today?”

Mrs. Miller disappeared back into the house and came out with their wages, a shilling for the two of them.

“Thank you very much,” Alinor said, as Mrs. Miller went back into the house and Alys and Alinor turned towards the yard gate.

“Is that right?” Mr. Miller asked suddenly. “A shilling, for a day’s work when you’ve done everything on the farm today?”

“It’s right,” Alinor said stiffly. She could have added—but hardly generous for a girl getting married tomorrow—but she would not say a word. Rob beside her stiffened, and she put her hand under his arm and gave it a little squeeze.

“It’s not right,” Mr. Miller said with the resentful persistence of a slightly drunken man. “Here! Betty Miller! You come out here!”

“Really,” Alinor said. “It’s right, Mr. Miller. Shilling a day, for the whole day, because we stopped at sunset.” She gave Rob a little push towards the yard gate.

Mrs. Miller came bustling out of her kitchen door. “And who’s shouting me out like I was a milkmaid?” she demanded.

Rob nodded to Mr. Miller. “Thank you for the lift in the wagon, Mr. Miller,” he said. “Good evening to you, Mrs. Miller.” Tactfully, he went to the yard gate and waited for his mother out of earshot as Mrs. Miller surged out and stood, hands on hips, glaring at her husband and Alinor.

“What’s this?” she demanded.

Alinor shook her head. “Nothing,” she said. “Really, nothing.”

“You’ve underpaid the Reekies,” Mr. Miller said mulishly. “Mother and the maid.”

“Sixpence each, as I always have done.”

“Sole charge!” he said, like a man who has discovered a password. “Sole charge. They had sole charge of the farm today, so that makes them like a yard man. Or like a bailiff. Sole charge. Good as a man. Good as two men.”

“You want to pay a woman and a maid as much as two yard men?” Mrs. Miller demanded scathingly.

“No,” he said, “course not. But they should have . . . and the pretty maid is getting married . . .”

Alinor noted the fatal slip of calling Alys “pretty” to his slate-faced wife.

“Who pays them?” Mrs. Miller suddenly demanded of him, going close and taking him by his linen collar as if she would choke him.

“Why, you do?”

“And who watches them, and keeps them right and clears up after their mistakes, and all the mess they make?”