SCENE TWO
(LIZA, TOTTIE, ELLEN. LIZA walking away from the fair, TOTTIE comes after her)
TOTTIE: (to LIZA) You, you, you. What farm are you going to?
(LIZA not answering, doesn’t think much of TOTTIE. TOTTIE insistent)
What farm?
LIZA: Blacksheils
TOTTIE: So are we. Which hind will ye work with?
LIZA: Andra Innes.
TOTTIE: We’re on our own. Mammy and me. (Trying to keep LIZA’s attention) There’s ghosts at Blacksheils. Up on the moor.
LIZA: (not impressed by ghosts) Is it still Maister Elliott farms Blacksheils?
TOTTIE: The one that married Ellen. Ellen Rippeth that was. She worked with us at Blacksheils. Not last year. Before. Before she set her cap at the maister.
LIZA: I know.
TOTTIE: You weren’t there.
LIZA: I was at Billieslaw. Over the hill. I was bondager to my brother.
TOTTIE: Set her cap at him, and married him and a’. That’s how we got hired. For the sake o lang syne.
LIZA: Ellen Rippeth never gave any favours.
TOTTIE: Ay, she does. She’s the mistress now.
ELLEN: (practising using a fan, elegantly, expertly) Learn to use a fan? I can single turnips in the sweat; shaw them in the sleet — I can surely use a fan! Take tea with the gentry? They talk about turnips. Yield, rotation, manure. They know about turnips. Their shoes are shiny, clothes clean, shoothers dry. We were soaked to the skin by half past eight, in the mist, in the morning. Frost, snow, sun, wind, rain; single, shaw, howk, mangle, cart. Aye. We kenned about neeps!