‘Look at that,’ said Simon, pointing to the millpond on his right. It was an oval dent in the hillside with alders and willows on the far bank. Marion was used to it brimming with water, rippling up against the sluice gate at their feet. Now there was only a patch of stagnant water in the middle, surrounded by a wide area of shelving cracked mud.

‘Never remember it as low as that,’ Simon went on. ‘I can’t do a thing. Roger and me got this new sluice post in last week – old one was rotten – and we’ve mended two buckets of the water wheel. By the way, tell Peter to look out a good trunk of hard applewood for me. We’ve replaced two blades on the wallover, but come winter I’ll need to replace another two or three.’

Marion felt a deep satisfaction in the easy and trusting relationship between her brother and her husband. She knew the two men respected each other’s skills. With her gladness, some of the burden of Dick’s death was lifted.

‘Is your corn cleaned?’ Simon went on. ‘Properly? I sent the Fletchers away last week to get what they brought me properly sieved. It was full of chaff and grit. We’d better go down and see what Betsy’s got for us.’

Marion heard squeals of laughter below and saw that the pulley ropes outside the window were jerking. Alice had been tied round in a sack and was being pulled up and down on the pulley rope by Gib, and Betsy was there watching, all full of laughter.

‘I came to call Simon to eat,’ Betsy called up, ‘and I found this poor little girl all alone in a wheelbarrow in the Mill. Not so high, Gib. There you go, Alice, come to Auntie now. Come down, Marion.’

‘How’s the Old Man?’ Marion asked Simon as they went backwards down the ladder.

‘Very up and down. Some days he doesn’t know who I am, and calls Betsy “Elinor”. Then he says, “Is the sluice shut? The wind’s westerly and there’ll be rain.” He repeats this whatever the weather is like – it’s just something to say, means nothing, but he thinks he’s sensible as ever. Can’t walk more than a step or two and his mind is always on the past. Betsy gives him mush and eggs and when we have a chicken he gets the liver, which is all he can manage. We think another winter’ll finish him off.’

They had reached the ground floor and Simon lifted the sack of corn out of the wheelbarrow. ‘Might as well take my bit now, same as I always do.’

He took a wooden measure from the shelf, Marion undid the sack, he plunged the measure into it, levelled off the corn with his palm and showed it to her.

‘All right?’

‘All right,’ she agreed and tied up the sack again with the camomile daisies at its neck. Simon emptied his measure into an elm chest and closed the lid. This was a ritual that Marion had seen performed by her father, and now by Simon, all her life, the miller taking his measure of corn from each sackful brought, as wages for grinding. The villagers knew he was meticulous about this, but the reputation of all millers as dishonest thieving men died hard. At best, grudgingly admitting Simon’s honesty, they muttered the other traditional phrase: ‘millers’ children don’t go hungry.’