‘Give the tub to me,’ Gib said, and he hacked at the remaining honey with more strength.

‘Here, Gib, here’s more bread. Put lumps on to it and Marion can take it back to poor old Peterkin – he doesn’t get much in the way of little treats.’

‘The Old Man’s off to sleep again,’ said Simon in a lowered voice. ‘Well, this won’t get the work done.’ He stood up, stretched his arms, thick muscular arms projecting from slits in his sleeveless tunic. ‘Back to the sluice. Gib, bring the new planks up, the ones I left by the cow shed. I’ll get the saw and hammer.’ He moved off and Gib gave the honey tub back to his mother but put a lump of honey into his mouth on the way with a sly wink at Marion, and followed his father.

‘Now, Ellen,’ said Betsy, ‘I need all six buckets scrubbed out, they’re by the door. You can’t take them all at once so don’t try, and when you’ve done them bring them up to the yard to drain – but leave one down by the stream as you’ll need it for milking Parsley this evening, and turn the blanket over on the drying hedge while you’re down there. Kate, get the yard fire going and put all these piglet bones on to stew. Get an onion or two and put them in too, and some sage. It’ll make a good soup and Roger’ll need something when he gets back.’

Marion got up and picked up Alice from Betsy’s knee.

‘Bring Marion’s wheelbarrow first, Kate,’ said Betsy. ‘You needn’t go round by the village with that wheelbarrow, Marion. Go down the garden and cross the stream there and you can go all the way along the Common. The marsh is all dried up and the ground’s hard as rock, and now the hay’s cut you can push the barrow along the edge of the stream all the way.’

They said goodbye in a perfunctory manner as was the habit of busy people. Marion dumped Alice in the wheelbarrow with slices of honey-bread between dock leaves on her lap, and wheeled it down the garden, past the beans, darkening as they ripened, past the peas, palening as they ripened, past the neat rows of onions and cabbages. A strong wattle fence ran along the edge of the stream to keep the cows from the garden, with a gate giving on to the plank bridge. Marion wheeled Alice on to the plank, carefully closed and hooked the gate behind her. Ellen was already at the water-place a little way up stream, kneeling on the edge plunging the thick wooden buckets into the water, pulling them up and scouring the insides with birch twigs.