A Visit in the Village

‘We’re going to see the-’

‘Shh, don’t tell her!’

Emily and Annie’s whispers were more intriguing than Miss Ash’s conversation about the goings-on in the pump room; but convention dictates that I attended to her, not her small sisters.

She might have sensed my feelings, for she said then: ‘Can I take your basket, dear Miss Stone?’ But her offer was redundant, for we had arrived.

There was no door, just a piece of sacking. Ducking to go in, I felt as if I were being swallowed. Goody Biller’s cottage was so thick with smoke and so dark after the spring morning outside that at first I could not discern by sight the old woman who was to receive our cream and bacon.

But my ears served me, and I heard her affectionate greeting to the children. She was less pleased to see Miss Ash, but took the contents of the basket graciously.

Then she pulled a filthy blackened pan from the fireplace and held it up. ‘This is it, the pan.’

‘She hit a wild boar with it,’ said Emily.

‘He comes in here right through the door,’ added Goody Biller ‘and he’s got his snout in the apple barrel. And I said to him, I says: “I’m not having that.” And I hits ‘im on the rump with this.’ She swung the pan down with a surprising strength. ‘They heard his squeal up at the big house.’

‘Look at the wall, Miss Stone, dear.’ Miss Ash indicated a spot by the door. ‘See where it gouged with its tusks.’

Twelve inches from the floor, was a hole into which I could have fitted my clenched fist.