Molly

Old Agnes, Molly’s mother

Old Marge, Agnes’s sister

Jack Plowright

Small Sarah, his wife

Unnumbered small children

Hodge, a labourer

Cecily, his wife

Jo, Harry, Edwin, Hoddy, their sons

Hodge’s Old Mother, sister of Old Sarah

Hal, a widower, father of Hilda

Old Fletcher

Old Mam Fletcher, his wife, and village midwife

Andrew Fletcher, their son, a labourer

Polly, his second wife

Ned, Andrew’s son

Sal, Andy, Izzy – their other children

Simkin, a labourer

Joyce, his wife

Nick, a labourer

Martha, his wife

Steve, Kit, their sons

Several other small children

Paul Hunter, a freeman

Margery, his wife

Steve, Midge, Paulo, their children

Widow Annie

Wilfred, her son

Dobbin, Annie’s younger son

Jill, Dobbin’s wife

One-eyed Wat, Dobbin’s son

Wat the Tall Rockwell

Nancy, his wife, daughter of Old Agnes

Martin, their son, married to Lisa Miller

Joyce, their daughter, married to Simkin

Stephen, vaguely engaged to Ellen Miller

Several other teenage children

Edward Rockwell, Wat the Tall’s brother

Red Mary, his wife, Dick Shepherd’s sister

Tim, their son

Several other small children

Old Lambert Rockwell, uncle of Wat and Edward and father of Loppy

Chris Foxcap, a tinker

Animals

Tibtab, Marion’s cat

Jix, Sir Hugh’s terrier

Trover, Magda’s dog

Unnamed bitch of M’Dame’s

Janty, True, sheepdogs

Caesar, Chris Foxcap’s donkey

Heart-of-Oak, Sir Hugh’s horse

The Village

Down the Common

MARCH

Yet winter seems half weary of its toil

And round the ploughman on the elting soil

Will thread a minutes sunshine wild and warm

Thro raggd places of the swimming storm

And oft the shepherd in his path will spye

The little daisey in the wet grass lye

Marion rolled over on to her back to ease the ache in her hip. She moved slowly so as not to wake the others, but Peter, her husband, did not stir and his slow groaning breathing did not alter. She stretched out her feet, which touched the back of eight-year-old Peterkin, curled up at the end of the bed, deeply asleep. She put out her right hand, feeling for the cradle, and her fingers touched Alice’s tiny hand, soft and cold as a little frog. She pushed it under the sheepskin cover.

It was intensely dark, but a mother’s sleep is never deep when her infants are near. The raw night air, that penetrated the bedding, and a hot uneasiness in her stomach both combined to prevent Marion sleeping deeply. A sudden whimper from Alice awoke her. She stretched out an arm, felt the edge of the cradle and slid her hand over the cover to feel that Alice’s face was not covered. She had not forgotten the horror, some years ago, of seeing the cat heaving itself up in the cradle, stretching out tense limbs and then jumping down, leaving the already cold corpse of the baby which had earlier made it such a warm bed. But Alice’s face was clear, her nose a button of ice. She slept on.