She handed him back the cup and slid back into bed. It was early; there was no need to get up. What would she do if she did?

Harry pulled his cap down over his ears and his scarf over his mouth as he left the house. He’d soon get warm with the brisk walk to the mill, and then, if the bargees were ready to discharge the grain, it would be warm work to finish unloading what they hadn’t completed on Christmas Eve. In the granary, the bins and grain boxes were almost full to capacity, and so too in the processing mill; the rape seed was ready and waiting to be converted into cattle feed.

He walked through the open gates to the yard and saw that the river was high and the barges were still in place alongside the wharf, but there was no one about; he turned and saw that the mill doors were still shut. He looked up the wooden stairs that led to the office and the door at the top was padlocked. Finally, he glanced towards the stable; those doors were closed too, and he wondered if maybe he’d misunderstood and the workforce didn’t come in so early on Boxing Day.

His first thoughts were for the horses and he wandered across to the stable block. When he lifted the latch, letting in a stream of light, he heard a welcome whinnying; Nellie was in the first stall and he stopped to stroke her. He heard a sound and looked up. At the other end of the stable, Jim Smith was hopping about one-legged as he pulled on his boots.

‘Morning,’ Harry said. ‘Where is everybody?’

‘Dunno. Slept in, I expect, ’same as me.’ He sped past Harry into the yard and raced across to the mill, took a set of iron keys from his pocket, unlocked the large doors and disappeared inside.

Harry watched him, frowning. He remembered his own pride when Roland Tannerson had handed him the keys to the yard; surely such a young lad shouldn’t be trusted with keys to the mill, where hundreds of pounds’ worth of grain was stored? Then he glanced towards the gates that he’d walked through. Why hadn’t they been locked?

Groups of men started to appear, not hurrying but walking casually, and then the foreman, Ellison, sauntered through and was greeted by several of the men.

‘Ah, Randell,’ he called to Harry. ‘Got here in good time, then!’

‘Aye, seemingly,’ Harry said. ‘I didn’t realize we came in later on Boxing Day.’

Ellison winked and tapped the side of his nose. ‘We don’t,’ he grinned. ‘Your clock must be fast.’

Harry cottoned on quickly. ‘Tannerson not in today?’

‘No, Roland likes to tek an extra day off at Christmas time. Well, he can, can’t he? He’s the boss; he can mek ’rules.’