Tea was not considered a substantial meal. It was for the workmen, as Miss Lane counted time, an innovation. She could remember when bread and cheese and beer were at that hour taken to the forge for the men to consume standing. “Afternoon bavour,” they had called it. Now a well-covered table awaited them indoors. Each man’s plate was stacked with slices of bread and butter, and what was called “a relish” was provided. “What can we give the men for a relish at tea-time?” was an almost daily question in that household. Sometimes a blue-and-white basin of boiled new-laid eggs would be placed on the table. Three eggs per man was the standard allowance, but two or three extra were usually cooked “in case”, and at the end of the meal the basin was always empty. On other afternoons there would be brawn, known locally as “collared head,” or soused herrings, or a pork pie, or cold sausages.

As the clock struck five the scraping of iron-tipped boots would be heard and the men, with leather aprons wound up around their waists, and their faces, still moist from their visit to the pump in the yard, looking preternaturally clean against their work-soiled clothes, would troop into the kitchen. While they ate they would talk of the horses they had been shoeing. “That new grey o’ Squire’s wer’ as near as dammit to nippin’ my ear. A groom ought’r stand by and hold th’ young devil,” or “Poor old Whitefoot! About time he wer’ pensioned off. Went to sleep an’ nearly fell down top of me today, he did. Let’s see, how old is he now, do you reckon?” “Twenty, if he’s a day. Mus’ Elliott’s father used to ride him to hounds and he’s bin dead this ten ‘ears. But you leave old Whitefoot alone. He’ll drag that station cart for another five ‘ears. What’s he got to cart? Only young Jim, and he’s a seven-stunner, if that, and maybe a bit of fish and a parcel or two. No, you take my word for’t, old Whitefoot ain’t going to die while he can see anybody else alive.” Or they would talk about the weather or the crops or some new arrival in the place, extracting the last grain of interest from every trifling event, while, separated from them by only a closed door, the new activities of a more sophisticated day were beginning.