There had been a time when the hamlet readers had fed on stronger food, and Biblical words and imagery still coloured the speech of some of the older people. Though unread, every well-kept cottage had still its little row of books, neatly arranged on the side table with the lamp, the clothes brush and the family photographs. Some of these collections consisted solely of the family Bible and a prayer-book or two; others had a few extra volumes which had either belonged to parents or been bought with other oddments for a few pence at a sale—The Pilgrim’s Progress, Drelincourt on Death, Richardson’s Pamela, Anna Lee: The Maiden Wife and Mother, and old books of travel and sermons. Laura’s greatest find was a battered old copy of Belzoni’s Travels propping open somebody’s pantry window. When she asked for the loan of it, it was generously given to her, and she had the, to her, intense pleasure of exploring the burial chambers of the pyramids with her author.

Some of the imported books had their original owner’s book-plate, or an inscription in faded copper-plate handwriting inside the covers, while the family ones, in a ruder hand, would proclaim:

George Welby, his book:

Give me grace therein to look,

And not only to look, but to understand,

For learning is better than houses and land

When land is lost and money spent

Then learning is most excellent.

Or:

George Welby is my name,

England is my nation,

Lark Rise is my dwelling place

And Christ is my salvation.

When I am dead and in my grave

And all my bones are rotten,

Take this book and think of me

And mind I’m not forgotten.

Another favourite inscription was the warning:

Steal not this book for fear of shame,

For in it doth stand the owner’s name,

And at the last day God will say

“Where is that book you stole away?”

And if you say, “I cannot tell;

He’ll say, ‘Thou cursed, go to hell.”

All or any of these books were freely lent, for none of the owners wanted to read them. The women had their novelettes, and it took the men all their time to get through their Sunday newspapers, one of which came into almost every house, either by purchase or borrowing. The Weekly Despatch, Reynolds’s News, and Lloyd’s News were their favourites, though a few remained faithful to that fine old local newspaper, the Bicester Herald.