There was more to make for Marion’s contentment that day. The piles of wool which had slid from the sheep over Dick’s shears, and the further piles which would slide off during the rest of the day, represented so much future wealth for them all. Much work was to be done on the wool, and most of it women’s work: washing the fleeces, sorting out the different kinds of wool, carding and spinning, and then, for the yarn that was to be retained in the village, the weaving. The prospect of much work stretched before her, but for the moment it was leisure, warmth, plentiful good bread, dryness, Peter at peace beside her, Alice a thriving little girl at her feet, her familiar neighbours around, and all this enclosed in the dear, dear circle of wooded hills, her home, her existence, reality itself.

She and Peter probably dozed a bit and were awakened by sudden dog-barking and Sir Hugh shouting at Magda to keep Trover from the lambs and she protesting that Jix was there too. This disturbance revived the villagers and they began shifting and sauntering back to their cottages and their gardens, many intending to do a bit of gardening, while most of the wives stood around gossiping and waiting to see if there were to be any hand-outs of the extra buttered bread.

Peter heaved himself up, muttering about getting on with his work, and stumped off to his workshop.

Dame Margaret’s voice could be heard summoning the girls to gather up the fleeces and take them down to the stream. Jo, still guiding the sheep to and from Dick at his shearing, suddenly roared out, ‘My pipe!’ and bent down, pushing a shorn sheep aside to pick up his crushed pipe from under its hooves. He looked aghast at the shreds of dried hemlock stalk that he held in his hand, and showed it to Dick.

‘It must have fallen off. It was tied round my neck.’ He examined the broken thong still dangling at his chest. ‘Oh my pipe,’ he moaned.

‘You can make another,’ said Magda.

‘I’d spent days making that. You’ve got to get the holes just right – right size, right place – and fix the little half-plug in at the top end so it don’t fall out. Oh my pipe! I’d got it just right. It played – ’ he was momentarily at a loss for words – ‘it played like a bird!’

‘Don’t mind so, boy,’ Dick tried to console him. ‘It lasted till today – this was our great day. You can make another when we are up in the hills. Peter Carpenter will lend you a knife and find you a neat bit of holly for the plug.’ But Jo kept twisting the bit of thong in his fingers and mourned for his crushed pipe until Dick recalled him to work by ordering another sheep.

Marion went to pick up her bundle of sour-smelling wool – so familiar a smell – as much as her arms could encompass, and slowly followed Ellen and Kate across the Green. Ellen was carrying Alice on one arm and her burden of wool in the other.