They had all got up and had something to eat. Marion had attended to the fire and put her split earthenware jar on the hearth to heat. She swept the floor round it carefully with a new feather broom, Alice following her with a tiny feather broom she had made for her. While doing so, Marion instructed Alice on the importance of keeping straws away from the fire as so easily a little flame could run along a lying straw and set light to the wattle walls – and so easily could a house burn down. Alice paid no attention; sweeping with her little broom was more interesting.

The interior darkened slightly and Marion looked up to see Lisa standing at the half-door. She had no cap on her coppery hair and Marion thought how pretty she looked. So few village girls ever looked pretty. The frequency of bad teeth, dirty skins, untreated sores, greasy hair overlaid with the dust of wood ash kept the bloom of youth away even from the healthy.

‘I was over at the mill yesterday, Aunt,’ she said, ‘and Mother gave me this tub of honey for you. The boys took the hives last week, and didn’t get stung neither, though I suppose most of the bees were dead or sleepy. Anyway, here it is, and can she have the tub back when you’ve eaten it?’ She handed over the small wooden jar with a bit of old sack tied over the top.

‘But can they spare it? And what of yourself and Martin?’

‘Mother gave me and Martin another tub. She said the hives had a lot in them this year – she thinks the bees went up to the heather over the sheep pastures in September when it was those hot days, as well as in all the apple blossom we had earlier. Yes, Alice petty, brought you some lovely honey – you’ll like that, won’t you? Martin’s mother gave him some too from Rockwell, but it’s paler stuff and runnier, and we both think Mill honey’s nicer but don’t say so at Rockwell. Mother’s making a barrel of mead. Father likes that, and she says it helps Grandpa to sleep winter nights.’ So after a few enquiries about Simon and her father, Marion accepted the honey and Lisa departed.

Peter’s dark woollen hood had a rent in it where he had caught it on a twig, and he had asked Marion to mend it. She picked it up from the log seat and examined the tear. On the shelf was a twisted pile, like an old bird’s nest, of bits of spun wool that Alice had spoiled – the saved bits which might be of use for mending. Marion selected a dark strand, and picked up the smooth holly wood needle which she kept stuck in a little hole in the shelf. It always had a blue-speckled jay’s feather in its eye to identify it and distinguish it from a thousand other smooth little twigs which littered the cottage. She gazed at the feather, feasting her eyes on the brilliant colour. Nowhere else did she see such colour, not even in the tiny forget-me-nots which grew by the stream’s bank in April. She sat down on the log, keeping her feet warm by the hearthstones and sewed up the rent. Then she very carefully replaced the feather in the needle’s eye and went outside to give Peter his hood.