24 PROLOGUE
worse. The last winter had been hard, and the death of his only
cow had made life even harder. Now, however, his twenty-four
half-acre pieces were all ploughed and planted with crops which
promised well, but everyone knew that twelve acres was none
too much, if more than the barest existence was hoped for. Last
year the crops had been poor, and for several months food had
been scarce, so that many of his neighbours had been half
starved, and nearly everyone in the village was forced to live on
victuals lacking in flavour or variety. The oats had been their
salvation: with oatcake and porridge, and with the bread they
had made from a mixed corn of barley and rye they had been able
to hold oS the worst pangs of hunger; but for weeks on end no
meat or flesh, except an occasional chicken or something snared
by night in the prior's woods, had come their way. Since then,
however, the summer had come, and the hay crop had been a
good one, and hope sprang up once again. At the next Court, he
thought, he would ask for leave to build a little cot on the piece
of new land they had been clearing near by the great wood.
Then Richard and Johanna could be married and live there, and
could grow something on the three acres to help them all to live.
His wife would know how to make the best of everything that
came into the house: no one could make a bushel of corn go
farther than she. That was the root of his brother Harry's
trouble. His wife had been careless and slatternly, and their
home was always uncared for and the meals ill-prepared. And
yet, despite it all, Harry had been heartbroken when she went off
with Thomas Oxenden, a rising burgess of Thorpston near by.
Since then, Harry had gone down hill fast: his holding was badly
kept, his house a disgrace, while his time was mainly spent with
bad friends snaring in the prior's woods, or in drinking and
"Hi tooral hay " at the ale-house. John reflected sadly as to the
end of all this, but what was to be done to stay it he could not
tell. Life was so strange and in his fifty odd years he had seen
ups and downs in the village. Some he had played with as a boy
had stolen away by night, and had been heard of no more; some,