‘Now, Magda, don’t touch. Leave it alone.’ He took from the nearest pannier a large bundle and unrolled from the sacking covering a fat earthen-ware jar. Holding its rough rotundity to his chest, he pulled something white from its neck which he pushed up his sleeve, then placed the jar carefully on Dame Margaret’s lap.

‘That’s a gift from your brother and sister-in-law,’ he said. ‘Look inside.’ She slid her hand into the neck of the jar and then showed everyone some black shrivelled pellets. She looked questioningly at Sir Hugh. He smiled, enjoying everyone’s wonder.

‘Is it seeds?’ she asked. ‘Do I plant them?’

‘Looks like baby rabbits’ shit,’ said a boy.

‘No, no,’ said Sir Hugh, frowning at the boy, ‘it’s fruit. You eat them.’ There was a grunt, half disgust, half incredulity.

‘Can I try one?’ asked Magda, bouncing up, and they all watched while she picked one off her mother’s palm and put it into her mouth.

‘Little show-off,’ muttered Milly, but no one noticed her.

‘Mm – it’s nice,’ said Magda. ‘Can I have some more?’

‘Can I try?’ one of the Fletcher boys said, working his way to the front of the crowd, but Marion noticed he did not dare take more than one black pellet. A wide smile spread over his face almost at once.

‘It’s sweet,’ he said, ‘not like fruit, and not like honey but sweet. Is the whole jar full of them?’

‘Where do they come from?’ asked Dame Margaret, still holding out her hand with several on it.

‘Your brother had a big barrel of them – said they came from a traveller, from over the sea.’ This at once gave them an aura, part fabulous, part suspicious. ‘They mix them into the dough before baking the bread.’

‘Won’t catch me spoiling good bread with that muck,’ said Milly, audibly this time, and to general agreement.

‘’S like putting flies in bread on purpose,’ said another female voice.

‘It’s not.’ Peter’s voice was full of authority. ‘It’s good. They swell up juicy in the baking – real nice to eat.’

‘Did you eat some, Father?’ Peterkin asked with respect and awe.

‘Yes, everyone had it at supper in the Hall at Rutherford, big slices of bread, all spotted with these black things, and smeared with butter. No one any the worse for it, either.’

‘I’ll try one,’ said Peterkin. ‘If I may,’ he added, with a glance at Marion. Dame Margaret held out her hand to him and everyone watched as he picked up one and put it into his mouth, chewed, and smiled.

Magda took some more from her mother’s hand and said, ‘You try one, Mother. Did Uncle only send that jarful? It won’t make many spotty loaves.’

‘One would be too much for me,’ said Milly.

‘Meg, you try one, Mary too,’ said Magda, offering a few on her hand to the little girls, but they shook their orange curls and Mary hid her face in Hilda’s skirt.