This regular summer visit was the villagers’ one link with the outside world. But well into July, no one had arrived from Rutherford this year. Ought someone to take the Hall’s horses and go to Rutherford to find out the reason? Should they load up all the spun wool and take it? Had the party set out from Rutherford and been attacked by robbers and all the iron stolen and the pots broken? Had some pestilence in Rutherford prevented men from coming? Or would it be better to wait? Harvest was probably still a month away – when harvest started everyone was busy and no one, and no horses, could be spared for days to journey to Rutherford. After harvest, there was the threshing, the sieving, the killing of oxen and pigs for winter … Here Marion’s thoughts were overtaken by fierce anxiety: were there sacks enough in the village to put the threshed corn in? Was there salt enough at the Hall to preserve any ox meat in?

‘Stop worrying,’ Marion told herself. ‘It is not for you to decide,’ but one cannot always take one’s own good advice.

The grey daylight was coming, and though the air still felt damp and heavy, there was a dawn coolness which was refreshing. In spite of death and fear, life must go on and it was usually a woman’s job to see that it did. She prodded Peterkin with her foot and woke Peter more ceremoniously by putting her arm over him. He groaned and heaved and sat up. She saw with some surprise that much of the hair on his chest was sprinkled with white though that on his head and beard was still evenly brown. He rubbed his beard with his broad rough hands and gave her a smile. She looked with pleasure at his solid shoulders and muscular arms. She wanted to kiss his bare shoulder, but did not.

After their quick breakfast, Peterkin carrying a bag of bread and soft cheese and a small bucket to fill in the stream on the way, Peter carrying his long leather bag with the biggest saw’s handles sticking out, the two stumped off down the Common. They were to meet by the bridge with several other men: Matt, the Hall’s ploughman and his son; Steve Hunter; Andrew Fletcher, and Simkin, who always seemed untirable. Roger from the Mill would join them on the path. They were to go miles up into the forest opposite the Mill to fell, dismember and bring down a particularly large oak tree whose height and girth would in due time provide durable posts and beams for future barns. Rollo had marked the tree and had taken Peter to it the week before to get his confirmation of its good points. Peterkin, too young and weak to chop or saw, would be employed, probably with some younger Fletcher boys, in going up and down to the stream fetching buckets of water for the thirsty sweating sawers.