‘I remember what it was like to be short of corn – no, not short, what it was like to have none.’ The old miller steadied himself with one hand like an eagle’s claw, his uncut nails curved like talons, clutching Simon’s shoulder. ‘None,’ he emphasized, looking round at the dim faces of his audience. Marion glanced up to the high table to see how Sir Hugh was taking this outburst, but he sat there quietly, his long face supported on his long hand and his lugubrious eyes on the old man. Marion looked back at her father. The nearby candle flame lit every white bristle on his face and shone on the tear, draped between upper and lower eyelid, which trembled as he spoke but did not drop. ‘None. It was May that year when we first noticed the blight. Corn – wheat it was – had come up well, nice drop of rain in April, warm and moist in May. Ah, we were all promising ourselves a great harvest, and then old Oz – Osbert I think he was, you wouldn’t remember him, sir.’ He had turned a little and was addressing himself to Sir Hugh on the dais. ‘He found it up in Hall field, near the forest. His wheat heads were dropping and there was some browny stuff, fluff sort of, on each ear and when you touched it all the little seeds fell off. Only a little patch like this, but we was all worried and we all – I was only a boy then – went up Hall field to look at it. They all told Oz you cut it down and burn it and we’ll all give you a bit of ours. ‘Course, he didn’t want to but they made him and it was all cut and burnt, but Devil take it, next week there was lots more of this blacky stuff on the wheat, not just by Oz’s strips but up to Rockwell, and old Humph Cartman had it on his land, and it all had to be cut and burnt. Then we found some on your land, sir. That would be in your father’s time, sir – ’

‘Grandfather’s,’ came a voice from the dark, but the old man did not hear it and went on, ‘And while we was cutting that, old … what was her name? she was a young girl then, came running to us to say this dark fluff stuff was all over the wheat down by the Mill. Well, sir, we all tramped off, your father leading. It was terrible – all this fluff stuff, and when you touched it the little withered seeds fell like bits of nothing to the ground. Ah, there was lamenting that evening. No one was safe. We all knew what it meant. I recall your father, sir – ’

‘Grandfather,’ came the voice again, a little louder.

‘– standing there in the lower part of Mill field, just looking at us. None of us knew what to say and his face as white as a new-born lamb. We didn’t know then he was a sick man. Perhaps it was the same poison in the wheat that had got into his vitals – ’