Mam runs out and casts her eye over the hill, then returns and slams the door, bolts it. Annie sits at the table, chin in hand, thumb in mouth, her legs swinging. Observing, untroubled. She knows nothing of drink or its effects, and I am glad for her innocence.

‘Where did these come from?’ I ask, though there can only be one answer.

‘Stole,’ John says, proudly, as though he has achieved a great feat. Once again he has risked his neck, risked us all. Now more than ever, we are vulnerable to the anger of the villagers. The protection we once had is gone, that much is clear. Reassuring anger blocks any pity. My fingers twitch for the feel of his face.

‘Quietly, I said, lad, unseen if you must at all,’ Mam says. ‘Not to be thieving and supping in full view of the whole village, and bawling your way here with an armful of their wares. I told you of the new magistrate, of how we must go with care.’ She bends over, presses a hand to her side.

John falls on to a stool, almost missing it, beams at her as though she has poured praise on him.

Annie’s thumb pops out of her mouth and she looks from John to me, laughing. ‘He’s gone funny.’

Mam snatches the clothes, the boots flying to the ground, shakes them in his face. He tries to catch them, too slow, chuckles.

‘What is all this?’ she asks. ‘What half-thought notion are you concocting now?’

He waves an arm at me, belches, blinks from under hair. ‘Good enough for her, why not me?’

‘You plan on wedding a farmer too?’ Mam asks.

He wags a finger at her, shakes his head. ‘No, no, no.’ He leans forward on the stool, too far, rights himself. Annie giggles. ‘Work,’ he says.

Mam sits at the table, fingering the clothes. ‘You’ve been given work?’

‘Nay, but I shall. I’ll put on the –’ he flaps his hand at the clothes ‘– those. And I’ll walk the village and I shall be given work and I’ll take it, any work, whatever they offer. Like Sarah said. There’ll be work for me.’

He sits back, triumphant, as Mam turns accusing eyes my way.

‘You filled his head with this?’ she asks.

‘Nay, I didn’t mean—’

She leans over John, shakes the clothes in his face. ‘And did you think, fool of a lad, that you could stand in their thefted clothes and be offered work? With no skill to offer?’

‘Then what’s to become of me?’ he yells. ‘That I’ll have nowt, be nowt. Thieving because there’ll never be work for me, starving and watching you all wither when I am the man, I should be providing?’