“SHICK-SHACK, EH?” said Grandad.
“Ay.” said William.
They were at the table in the farm kitchen. Esther stood at a sideboard, eating the same food: hot water, flour and bacon grease over boiled potatoes on a tin plate, with a lump of fat bacon. They drank buttermilk from mugs.
Grandad laughed. “Dear, dear! Eh, dear!” He spooned potato into his mouth, holding the bacon in the other hand, nibbling the meat.
“And who’s Teaser?”
“She is.”
“She’s never!”
“I am, that!” said Esther.
Both men laughed.
“Fecks!” said Grandad. “It’s got the makings of a rollicking good year! The two on you?”
They ate.
“Fecks!” Grandad spluttered into his potatoes and grease. They all laughed.
“Side the table, Het,” said William.
The meal was over, and he went to a corner cupboard that hung on the wall and took out a quill and ink-horn and the paper that Edward Stanley had given him. Esther cleared the table, and Grandad sat in the man’s chair by the fire. William laid out the materials with care, while Esther scraped the plates in a pancheon of cold water.
“Did you find me a dish or owt while you were at Congleton, Mr Buckley?” said Esther.
“Oh, ay. I was forgetting,” said Grandad, “what with all the to do;” and he leant down and rummaged in a sack that was on the floor. “There was this here in the market. Ever such a nice gentleman, called Mr Minton, from Spode, out of Pottery, he had a stall, and I fancied this.”
“Eh! It’s grand!” said Esther. She wiped her hands on her skirt, and took the plate that Grandad was holding and carried it to the window. “How much shall you be stopping out of me wages?”
“Not much,” said Grandad. “Say half a day. You see, I had three pullets with me; and this Mr Minton, a very clever gentleman he must be to have made yon, he took to them pullets, so it was ‘swoppery no robbery’. He was that pleased, I didn’t like to tell him as two on them had gone light and were off their legs.”
“See at this, Will,” said Esther.
“What is it?” William had been only half listening as he gathered himself to write.
“China.”
“What’s china?”
“This is.”
“And what good’s that?”
“It’s for looking. See at it!”
The plate was round and white, edged with a pattern. In the middle was a landscape: a fence, and beyond it three buildings, and a boat and boatman on a river and a bridge across. Three figures were on the bridge. There were two big trees, one a willow, and, in the sky, two birds flying. And both edging and picture were in blue.
“And that’s china?” said William.
“Ay.”
“But what’s china? Is it pot or is it picture?”
“Rum place, if it is,” said William. “I’ve never known folks be blue.” And he sat down at the table to write.
Esther put the plate on the sideboard. “It’s grand,” she said. “Thanks ever so much, Mr Buckley.”
“Ay, well, just so long as you’re pleased,” said Grandad.
“Oh, I am,” said Esther, and she gave the plate one more look before she went back to scraping the tin.
Grandad lit his pipe and stared into the fire.
“Best year were when Shick-Shack were Squarker Kennerley,” said Grandad, “and Three-quarter Sarah, she were Teaser. By! I recollect there was some Christenings March following. Bigod, ay! What? There was some Christenings!”
William looked at the writing exercises, and read each one before copying it. The ink had run in the wet of his shirt. His lips moved. Then he wrote, holding the quill upright, and steering it with his little finger.
“But Squarker were a bugger for cross-cutting when I were top man at the pit, and he were bottom. You can be cross-cutting a piece of timber, two on you as know what cross-cutting is, and it isn’t hard work; but get one as doesn’t know what it is, and he’ll maul your belly out; and yet he thinks he’s working! He is! And hard work for you and all! ‘I don’t mind you having a ride, but keep your feet up!’ That’s what I tell ’em. And they look at me like a cow at a cabbage.”
William-read what he had copied.
“‘The strongest poison ever known
Came from Caesar’s laurel crown.’”
He started the next exercise.
“Ay,” said Grandad. “But, oh, they’ll murder you, some of them will, for cross-cutting. Oh no, bigod, they’re murderous! But they don’t know they’re doing it. Squarker didn’t. Oh, ay! He had to go.”
William read: “‘A rumour is spread from the south, and it is terrible to tyrants’.”
“I recollect, when Waggy Worth was wheelwright,” said Grandad.
“Eh up. We’re off,” said Esther. “‘Waggy’s Coffin’.”
“Ay,” said Grandad. “This chap had died, like, and Waggy’d nowt put him in, sort of thing; and he come to the pit for us to cut him a suit of coffin stuff And it was that clean, the wood, you know, he’d stop a bit extra long and have another suit cut, you see.”
Esther finished her tidying and sat by the fire, but she did not settle. William read: “‘Ancient abuses are not by their antiquity converted into virtues’.”
“And then Tiddy Turnock,” said Grandad, “he was there, and he said, ‘Ay,’ he said, ‘it’d pay a man for to die to have a suit of this sort!’ And that were it. Ay! Waggy had it in the week, right enough. He picked his mortal own coffin. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘I’ll have that, and I’ll have that, and I’ll have that. And a bit of old shelving will do for the bottom.’ And he had it hisself in the week, bigod. Ay!”
“‘Man has rights which no statutes or usages take away’.”
“Have you not done, yet?” said Esther.
“Wait on,” said William.
“Hold still,” said Grandad. “You’re up and down like a dog at a fair.”
“It was in the hiring,” said Esther. “It’s what were agreed. Saturday night’s for sitting up.”
“‘And lasses is lads’ leavings.’”
“Hush up, Grandad,” said William. “‘They little think how dangerous it is to let the people know their power.’”
“And you think on, and all,” said Grandad. “‘A slice off a cut loaf isn’t missed,’ is it? It’s there, you know. Oh yes! A slice off a cut loaf isn’t missed.”
William laughed, and put the writing in the cupboard, and took out the book. He looked at the eagle and child. Grandad leaned forward in his chair, and pointed with his forefinger, waving his hand away from him.
“What’s that article?” he said.
“A book,” said William.
“And whose book?” The hand was in a palsy.
“Stanleys’.”
“Sarn it! My stockings, youth! If yon’s found here, you’ll piss before you’ll whistle!”
“I tell’t him,” said Esther.
“I’ve only lent it; from Yedart. He’s a chap very fluent in giving.” The hand stopped its shaking, and the finger jabbed at the leather.
“Yay?” said Grandad. “Giving? With that lot, it runs in th’ blood like wooden legs!”
“Haven’t you done?” said Esther.
“Not yet,” said William.
“Oh, what the heck,” said Esther.
Grandad sat back in his chair and stared into the fire. He muttered to himself. William opened the book, studied it for a while, and began to read aloud. Esther poked the fire, rattling the irons against his voice.
“‘I thence
Invoke thy aid to my adventrous Song,
That with no middle flight intends to soar
Above th’ Aonian Mount’
– What’s th’ Aonian Mount? Is it a horse or summat?”
“I shouldn’t wonder,” said Grandad.
“– ‘Above th’ Aonian Mount, while it pursues
Things unattempted yet in Prose or Rime.’”
Esther flung the irons down and shouted, “Will Buckley! Are you coming, or aren’t you?”
William grinned, and closed the book. He looked at the emblazoning again.
“You’ll do, Het. You’ll do.”
He put the book with the writing in the cupboard and shut it. He took Esther by the hand.
“Here, Gyp.”
The dog rose from the fire and came to heel.
“Good night, Grandad.”
“Good night, Mr Buckley,” said Esther.
“Eh!” said Grandad. “And when you’re in that barn, watch your twiddle-diddles. There’s rats.”
William, Esther and the dog left the kitchen. Grandfather stared back at the fire. “No. A slice off a cut loaf isn’t missed – unless you cut too deep.”