The Iron Master

by Jean Stubbs

  They began to walk down from the Nick.

  ‘So if it’s all right with you, Dick, I’d like to give our mother’s papers to Cicely. They were very close, those two. Closer than Cicely and Charlotte. And the littlest lass is called Dorcas Pole. What do you think to that?’

  ‘Aye, it’s all right by me,’ said Dick readily. ‘Cicely won’t treasure them more than I would, but she’d understand them better. Is there owt else to divide up?’

  ‘Charlotte’s bits and pieces, and Aunt Wilde’s furniture, will go to the children sometime. But I’m flummoxed what to do with Mother’s stuff! She thought the world of that roomful of furniture she fetched in and out of Kit’s Hill. It belonged to her mother.’

  ‘It’s nowt in our line,’ Dick said. ‘But what about your girls?’

  ‘Too far ahead to judge. I was thinking. Should Cicely not have it as well as the papers? She and Jarvis aren’t rich, and they have that great parsonage to fill. Then Mrs Dorcas can go in one piece.’

  ‘Aye,’ said Dick, his face clearing. He chuckled.

  ‘What’s to do?’ asked William, grinning.

  ‘Eh, I shouldn’t laugh, but I mean no harm by it. I couldn’t help thinking on, our Will.’

  ‘Well, don’t keep the joke to thyself, lad!’

  ‘I were thinking. If the life hereafter is owt like this one — she’ll be sorting father up right now, for all that he’s been there longer than she has!’

  Then they burst into peals of laughter, clapping each other’s shoulders.

  ‘I’ll race thee down the slope!’ cried William, eyes glinting, for he must prove

  himself over and over again, always.

  ‘Right! I’ll give thee a start, seeing as tha’rt eleven years older than me!’

  And they ran down the hill, arms wide, shouting and laughing. So that those who saw them coming from afar off thought they looked like boys together.

  10 July 1978-7 July 1980

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