Peter was standing up against Marion as she sat on the log and she felt his body tightening for striking the boy. Only the faintest glimmer of sunset dusk came in over the half-door. She stood up instantly and put her arms round Peter, holding his arms down. His struggle was perfunctory. She knew, as indeed everyone knew, having had it hammered home to them from childhood, of the dangers of a fight in a cramped cottage; how easily a misdirected blow could hit a precious hanging sack of beans, break the string and spill them into the straw; how easily a struggling child could kick a log which would spew out sparks on to combustible bedding, how easily a pot of precious milk could be tipped over and the children’s food wasted in the rubble on the floor.

‘No hitting indoors,’ she said, as firmly as her croaking voice would allow, ‘specially not in the dark,’ and as she spoke she felt his body relax, but he went on with his angry speech.

‘Thoughtless, disobedient, stupid boy. There’s no hope of finding it. What will become of the village if all the boys grow up as careless and foolish as you – throwing away everything your fathers have made and looked after all these years … ’ And so the angry lecture went on and on and Peterkin snivelled and wiped his eyes with his muddy hands as he sat crouched on the floor by the fire with his twisted foot curled up against his other straight, muddy shin.

Marion agreed with everything Peter had said. He was expressing something almost too fundamental to be spoken of. Deep in her mind was the belief that whatever happened to individuals, like Dick, the village must continue, and that it was every generation’s sole duty to see that it did. The eternal life of their own souls, whatever Father John might ramble on about, was of piffling importance compared with the eternal life of their village. Men must build halls and mills and bridges for future generations to use, and must scratch and scrape crops from the surface of the earth year by year to feed those presently living, and women must turn this hard-won corn frugally, regularly and constantly into food and give birth to as many strong healthy babies as they could. This was the unspoken be-all and end-all of their lives. But what if the new generation never came to understand this?

Peter had still not finished though he had calmed down.

‘Did you pile up the withies like I told you to,’ he asked, ‘in three lots?’

‘Yes.’

‘Where are they?’

‘Left them on the bank, by the water-place.’

‘Well, in the morning you are to take that bit of rope by the wood pile and tie up the long withies in a bundle – tie it in three places, tight, so none drops out – and hump it on your back and take it up to Rockwell. Don’t go through the village. Get across the shallow bit of the stream down by the Shepherds’ cottage and go up the edge of the fields keeping close to the forest. No one’ll see you then.’