Young Simkin and his new wife, Joyce, were at the gate of their cottage talking with Hodge and Cecily, and surrounded by their children, solemn-faced, tow-haired children, all with greasy chins from the unusual buttery scones. Hoddy, a pink-faced four-year-old, was swinging round and round, holding his mother’s skirt. She was repeating in her anxious whine the story of the ill-luck that Jo, her eldest, had suffered by losing his pipe, and occasionally swiping at Hoddy’s head and telling him to stop, which he did not.

Marion and her nieces waved to them and went on, taking the path that led to a few cottages and further on to the Mill. Every stone in the path, every tussock of grass, so it seemed, had been familiar to Marion all her life. But close to the cottages the path dipped down the bank on to the wide grassy strip along the stream’s edge, and so took them to the place where the stream widened out, shallow with the chippings from the stones for the church.

Strewn out over these stones in the shallow water were some of the fleeces, and a dozen or so of the village girls were spreading out more. With their dresses hitched up above their knees, they were walking to and fro over the wool, squeezing it into the water, calling out to each other, laughing and giggling. Ellen and Kate joined them, Ellen pulling out the cord that laced the front of her dress to use as a belt to hitch her skirt up with. The grey stones were covered with lumps of white wool, the afternoon sun sparkled on the water as the girls’ pink feet trod the wool under. This was, traditionally, girls’ unskilled work, and Marion felt no obligation to help. She sat down on the bank and watched, amused, as the girls stepped up and down, wobbling, talking and laughing. It all was, as usual, more of an entertainment for the girls than real work. One of the girls was sitting hunched up on the bank.

‘Aren’t you treading wool?’ Marion asked her.

‘Got a terrible pain,’ the girl said. ‘Don’t tell M’Dame. I just can’t.’

‘I won’t tell her, dear,’ said Marion. ‘Cold water’s bad for girls at such times.’

Alice, becoming adventurous, had toddled, down to the stream and was standing in two inches of water, splashing with pleasure. Marion went down to her, pulled her dress off over her head and encouraged her to sit on a flat stone in the stream and splash with her feet. Marion watched her from the bank, easy-minded, amused at Alice’s podgy pink body that she so rarely saw naked, and her pale yellow hair falling over her eyes and down her shoulders. She still wore round her neck the daisy and buttercup chain that Magda had made for her. She patted mounds of wet sandy mud and flecks of grey spattered her skin. After a while, Peter came along the path and descended to where Marion sat. She pointed out Alice to him and he went down to the water’s edge and called to her. Alice looked up from splashing with a chortle of delight, she had never played with water like this before.