They all at Down the Common had arranged to go to the Hall together – Marion with her two children, Lisa and Martin and Molly. Contact with the Plowrights was so rare that it was assumed they would make their own way there as they liked. Molly would have to leave her old mother and aunt behind. Martin had offered to take one of them along in a wheelbarrow and so Peter had offered to take the other, but when the old women realized that at the bridge they would have to get out and climb up the frosty steps and cross the slippery plank, they both said they could not face it. Molly must bring them back something, M’Dame was usually very good at seeing that the old and the sick had a share in the feast food. Marion knew that her old father – even more crippled than Agnes and Marge, would be brought in a wheelbarrow by Roger or Gib – but then if they left the mill at the top floor and crossed the sluice bridge, they could wheel Grandpa all the way on the north side of the stream – a rough path certainly, but with no steps on it.

After Marion and her party had crossed the plank, which was very slippery, she sent Peterkin on to the Hall with Alice, while she herself stepped aside to collect Peter, hoping he had completed the stool. As she approached his work-shed, she saw him standing outside, back towards her, looking down at Paulo Hunter, who was crouching among the shavings and chips of wood on the stony earth in front of the sawing bench. Peter was talking with anger and exasperation in his voice.

‘There were seventeen nails in that bowl. I told you not to put it so near the edge. Now, you find them all. How many have you got there?’

Paulo held up his cupped palms with some nails in them.

‘How many?’ Peter asked again.

‘Just these.’

‘How many?’ Paulo looked blank. ‘Count them, into my hand.’

‘One, two, three, four, six – ’

‘Five,’ said Peter.

‘Four, six, five, seven,’ Paulo went on, piling confusion on innumeracy.

‘Stupid boy. Start again.’

‘One, two, three, four, six, five, seven, eight, ten … ’

Peter sighed violently. ‘Listen, you fool. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen, … is that all?’ Paulo’s hands were empty. ‘How many more must you find? There were seventeen.’ Paulo still looked blank. ‘Saints in heaven, can’t you even count? What do these mothers do all day – not even teach the children to count?’

Marion resented this accusation of maternal idleness, but it was ever so. It was easy to blame women for any failings in children.

‘There should be three more nails somewhere,’ Peter went on. ‘Look for them, feel about. Or have you hammered any into that joint so far?’

‘Yes. One, there.’

‘Then you have two more to find. You’re to stay here till you have. Oh hallo, Marion – what is it?’