It's a morning of questions. And my last question, which I'm asking on your behalf, is why on earth Robert Carl and stars look so lovely story for me.
Robert and I had exactly the same education at the same school.
We were taught by the same men. But we, as it should be fairly obvious, we are not of the same generation.
And so we didn't meet at the school.
But what my wife Griselda found most disconcerting when we met was she,
although we are not physically to like Griselda felt as though she had a time warp because Robert and I,
having been at the same place, taught by the same man and this is really quite frightening.
Had the same mannerisms, tended to have the same cruel wit that is absolutely diagnostic of Manchester Grammar School.
And we also prefer to wing it.
So Robert and I go back a very long way, a very, very long way.
And it's a friendship that has survived as the best friendships do, by not meeting very often.
But when we meet, the first word is usually and and the conversation continues.
And over the years, Robert has frequently been my first choice.
And he's generously agreed to to be the first choice to be my voice.
And he's read quite a lot of my stuff. And so I know that I if not Robert,
I'm going to enjoy the next part of the session and the final part of the session where Robert will read the whole of the Stone book without a breath,
please. Robert, it's it's not quite as daunting as it sounds.
It's not a very long book, but it is a book.
So and I know exactly how you feel because the school we went to had a theatre where they also had the wooden benches.
So you have my sympathy. Okay, this is a stone book.
A bottle of cold tea, bread and a half onion.
That was Father's bag in. Mary emptied her apron of stones from the field and wrapped the bag in in a cloth.
The hottest part of the day. Who was on Madeline bed under the rafters and the thatch.
Where the sun could send only blue light. She had picked stones in the field until she was too tired and had to rest.
Old William was weaving in the end room.
He had to weave enough cuts of silk for two markets and his shuttle and loom rattled all the time in the day and the night.
He wasn't old, but he was called old William because he was deaf and hadn't married.
He was father's brother. He carried the cuts to market on his back.
Stockport was further, but the road was flatter.
Macclesfield was nearer, but old William had to climb Glaze Hill behind the cottage to get to the road.
The markets were on Tuesday and Friday and so he was weaving and walking, always weave and walk.
Then West Time for Wedding used to say Mary opened the door of Old Williams room.
Do you want to nip back in? She said. She didn't speak, but moved her lips to shape the words.
I went over a bottle of tea, said old William. He didn't speak either.
The room was too loud. Mary and old William could talk when everybody else was making a noise.
Is it sweet? He said. Yes. I made it for Father.
Where is he? Working. Saint Philips said. Mary, haven't finished that steeple yet.
I said. Old William is staying to finish. They want it for Sunday.
Tell him to be careful. And then as many. Another Sunday. Old William was careful.
Careful with weaving, careful carrying. He had to be.
The weight could break his back if he fell on the hill. Mother Mary shouted up the stairs.
I'm taking. Father is back in. She walked under the trees of the wood hill along the edge of a lifeless moss.
The new steeple on the new church glowed in the sun.
But something glinted the spire stone like a needle was cluttered with the Masons platforms that were left all the way under the Wood Hill.
Mary watched the golden spark that had not been there before.
She reached the brick cottage on the brink of the mass.
Between there and the railway station where the houses that were being built, the railway had fetched a lot of people to Chorley.
Before Father said there hadn't been enough work, but he had made gate posts and the station walls and the bridges and the Queen's Family Hotel.
And he had even cut a road through rock with his chisel and put his mark on it.
Every mason had his mark and father put his at the back of a stone or on its bed where it wouldn't spoil the facing.
But when he cut the road on the hill, he put his mark on the face once, just once, to prove it.
Then surely must have a church next.
And the school. Father had picked the site for the quarry at the bottom of the wood hill, close by the place.
At the road there was stone to be seen, but it was a soft red gang that wouldn't last ten years of weather.
Yet Father had looked at the way the trees grew and it felt the earth and the
leaf mould between his fingers and had said they must dig there and there.
They had found a hard yellow white dimension stone that was the best of all signs for building.
The beech trees had been cleared over a space and two loads of the big branches had saved them coals at home for a year.
It was one of the first memories of her life. The rock bed and cut by father and silverback in the fire.
Now the quarry scene so small and the church so big, the quarry would fit inside a corner of the church.
But the stone had come from it.
People said it was because father cut well, but father said that the church was only a bit of stone around a lot of air.
Mary stood at the gate and looked up. High clouds moving, made the steeple topple towards her father.
She could hear his hammer, tic tac, as he combed the stone.
The Golden Spark was a weather cock. It had been put up that week and under its spike was the top platform.
Fathers had showed over the edge of the platform below.
His voice sounded nearer than he looked. I've brought your bag in, Mary shouted.
Fetch it then, all the way. Most I come down when I'm working.
And what the governor said, Mary, he's gone.
I'm the governor of this gang. There's only me state to finish.
Have you the tea? Yes. Plenty of sugar?
Yes. I can't spit for shouting. Come up.
Mary hitched a frock and put the lot of the bag in cloth between her teeth and climbed the first ladder.
The ladders were spiked and roped, but the beginning of the steeple was square, a straight drop, and the ladders clattered on the side.
She didn't like that. Kate first told of that t she heard father call, but she didn't lift her head.
She didn't look down. Up she went.
It felt worse than a rock because it was so straight and it had been made.
Father had made parts of it. She knew the pattern of his combing hammer on the sandstone up.
She went. But when he changed, the dispatcher father's voice sounded no nearer.
At the spire. The pitch of the ladders was against the stone, and Mary had to step sideways to change.
The ladders were firmer. But she began to feel a breeze.
She heard an engine get up steam on the railway. The bag cloth kept her mouth wet, but it felt dry.
The spire narrowed. There were sides to it.
She saw the shallow corners begin up and up.
Tick tock. Tick tock. Above her head, the spire narrowed.
Now she couldn't stop the blue sky from showing at the sides.
Then land. Far away. Mary felt her hands close on the rungs and her wrists go stiff.
Tick tock. Tick tock. She climbed to the hammer.
The spire was thin. Father was not working, but giving her a rhythm.
The sky was now inside the ladder. The ladder was broader than the spire.
Father's hand took the bagging cloth out of Mary's mouth and his other hand steadied her as she came up through the platform.
The platform was made of good planks and father had lashed them, but it moved.
Mary didn't like the gaps between. She put her arms around the spire.
That was a bonnet climb, said Father. I do hope the next baby's a lad, said Mary.
I have some tea, said Father. She drank from the bottle.
The cold, sweet drink stopped her trembling. Don't look yet, said Father.
And when you do, look away first. Not near. That was Mother resting.
She could only do 5 hours at the picking today. It got that hot.
That's why I've stayed, said Father. They want us to finish for Sunday, and there's one more dab of cupping to do.
There may be a sixpence for it. Doesn't it?
You up here, said Mary? No. Why should it?
Said Father Glaze Hills hire. But you can't fall off Glaze Hill, said Mary.
Not all at once. There's nothing here to hurt you.
Said Father. There's stone and wood and rope and sky.
Same as at home. It's the same ground. It's further, said, Mary.
But it will never hurt. And I'll go down with you.
Downs harder. I hope the next one's a lad, said Mary.
I'm fed up with being a lad. Father said the view, isn't it?
Mary stood and looked out from the spire and the church.
She said, It's so far away. She knelt and squinted between the planks, the roofs, as far as the ground.
We fly in. Father watched her.
His combing hammer swung from his arm. There's not many will be able to say they've been at the top of St Philip's, but I'm not at the top, said Mary.
The steeple cap was a swelling to take the socket for the spike of the golden cockerel.
Mary could touch the spike above her.
The smooth belly raised the clouds. You're not Frit.
Not now, said Mary. It's grand.
Father picked her up. You're really not for it. Nobody's been that I.
It was ripped from the platform. Not if you help me.
Said Mary. Right. Said Father. He could do a testing.
Let's see if he runs. True. Father lifted Mary in his arms, thick with work from wrist to elbow.
For a moment again, the steeple wasn't safe on the earth when she felt the slippery gold of the weather cock bulging over her.
But she kicked her leg across its back and held the neck.
You got your balance, said Father. I've got it, said Mary.
The swelling sides were like a donkey, and behind her the tail was stiff and high.
Father's head was at her feet and he could reach her. I'm set, she said.
Father's face was bright and his beard danced.
He took off his cap and swept it in a circle and gave the cry of the summer fields.
Woo woo woo woo woo! Mary laughed.
The wind blew on the spire and made the weather cock seem alive.
The feathers of its tail were a marvel.
Father twisted the spike with his hands against the wind and the spike moved in its greased socket, shaking a bit juddering but firm to Mary.
The weather cock was waking, the world turned her bonnet fell off and hung by its ribbon and the wind filled her hair.
Faster, faster, she shouted. I'm not frit.
She banged her heels on the golden sides and the weather cock boomed.
Woo woo! Grandfather! The high notes of his voice crossed parishes and townships.
Her head and her bonnet flew and she felt no spire, but only the brilliant gold of the birds spinning the air.
Father swung the tail as it passed him. Woo! Woo!
There is me. Tiptop pickle of the corn. Mary could see all of Chorley, the railway and the new houses.
She could have seen home. But the Wood Hill swelled and folded into Glaze Hill between.
She could see the cottage at the edge of lifeless moss and the green of the moss.
And as she sponge, she could see Lord Stanley's and Stockport and Wales and Beeston and idling and Delamere and all to the hills in Manchester.
The golden twisting spark with the girl on top and everywhere across the plain with churches.
Churches. I can see churches and all the weather cocks turned in the wind.
Father let the spikes stop and lifted her dad there, he said.
You'll remember this day, my girl, for the rest of your life. I already have, said, Mary.
Father at his buggy. Mary walked round the platform.
She looked at the new vicarage and the new school by the new church.
Are you wishing? Said Father. A bit, said Mary.
I'm wishing that went. It would be four points a week and all the time you'd have lost a good read, said Mary.
You can read. She sat with her back against the steeple in its narrow shade.
Glaze Hill was between her boots. Have you asked if Lord Stanley will set me on?
Lord Stanley doesn't like his maids to read, said Father.
But have you wait a year? I'm threatened with stone picking, said Mary.
I want to live in a grand house and look after every kind of beautiful thing you can think of all things brass.
By God, you'll find stone becomes easier.
The onion dropped off Father's knife and some and floated down to the lawns of the church.
It had so far to fall that there was time for it to wander in the air.
We best fetch that, said, Father. The vicar won't have as untidy.
He put Mary on the ladder and climbed outside her.
Just as the sky and the steeple were inside the ladder, Mary was inside Father's long arms that pushed him out from the ranks.
He didn't help her, but she felt free and safe and climbed as if there was no sky.
No stone, no height. She ran across the lawn and picked up the onion.
Bits of it had smashed off and she nibbled them. She stood with father and looked up.
The spire still toppled under the clouds. She'll do, said father, and slap the stone.
Yet she'll never do. Why? Said Mary.
She's no church and she'll not be. You want a few deadens against the wall for it to be a church?
They'll come. Not here, said Father. There's to be no burial ground, just grass, and without even some deadens, it's more like chapel than church.
Empty. He ate his onion.
Mary went back to work. She looked at some Phillips when she got to the lifeless moss.
Father was nearly at the top again. His arms were straight.
He climbed. Balanced out from the stone. She dipped a pension of water in a spring and took some up to mother.
Mother was sleeping, but her hair was flat with sweat.
Old William was sweating at his loom. It was all Clark.
He had to watch the threads and he couldn't look to talk. Mary worked till the sun was cold and she carried her stones home and made the tea.
She watched Little Esther and put her to bed and gave Mother her tea.
Father came home. That's done.
He said. He sat quietly in his chair.
He was always quiet. And the work was over. Church or wall or garden.
After tea. Father went to see mother.
They talked and he played his offic lied to her.
He played gentle tunes, not the ones for Sunday.
Mary cleared the table and wash the dishes. And when she'd finished, she cleaned the stones from the field.
Old William smoked half a pipe of tobacco before going back to the loom.
Is he plain, said old William. Yes, said Mary.
But not Chappell. Why are we chapel?
You better ask him, said old William. I'm Chapel because it's near.
I'll do enough walking without sun. Father came down from playing his music.
He sat at the table with Mary and salted the stone she had picked that day with little Esther.
Most pickers left their stones on the dump at the field end.
But Mary brought the best of hers home and cleaned the dirt off.
And Father looked at them in the field. They were dull and heavy and could break her size.
But on the table each one was something different. They were different colours and different shapes, different in size and feel and weight.
They were all smooth cobbles. Why are we chapel?
Said Mary. We're buried, Church, said Father.
But why? There's more call on music in chapel, said Father.
Why? Because people aren't content with wronging themselves to death from Monday to Saturday,
but they must go bowling and praying and fasting on Sundays too.
What's the difference between church and chapel? Said Mary.
Church is Lord Stanley. He's that's all.
That's enough, said Father. When you cut stone, you see more than the person does.
Church or chapel. Same as what? Same as this father took a stone and broke it.
He broke it cleanly. The inside was green and grey.
They took he took one half and turned so that Mary couldn't see how he rubbed it.
Mary had tried to polish stone, but a whole day of rubbing did no good.
It was a stone cut. A secret. One of the last taught.
Father held the pebble inside his waistcoat, and whatever it was that he did was simple a way of holding or twisting.
And the pebble came out with its broken face. Green and white flakes shining like wet.
You gave the pebble to Mary. Don't see how those flakes were put together and what they are, he said.
And who made them into pebbles on a hill and where?
That was a rock and when. He rummaged in the pile on the table, found a round.
Greystone broke it, turned away. Held twisted.
Rubbed their. Mary cried out.
It was wonderful. Father had polished the stone.
It was black and full of light. And its heart was a golden bursting sun.
What is it? Said Mary? Asked the parson, said Father.
No. But what is it really? I can't tell you, said Father.
Once, when I was apprenticed, we had a holiday and I walked to the sea.
I left home at two in the morning.
I had nothing but half an hour there, and I stood and watched all that water and all the weeds and shells and creatures.
And then I walked back home again. And I've seen the like of what's in that pebble only in the sea.
They call them urchins. Now you tell me how that urchin got in that flint and how that flint got on the hill.
Was it Noah's flood? Said Mary. I'm not saying that Parsons will tell you.
If you ask them, the heaven and earth, centre and circumference were created all together in the same instant 4004 years before Christ,
on October the 23rd at 9:00 in the morning.
They've got it written. And I'm asking Parsons if it was Noah's Flood.
Where was the urchin before? How long does Stones take to grow and how do urchins get in stones?
It's time and arithmetic. I want to know. Time and arithmetic and sense.
That's what comes a read reading, said old William. You know, poverty nests and discontent.
And you'll wait, Mother. But. And what are you?
But the little master said, Father, we've until all hours and nothing to show for what you've spent.
I'm still a man with a watch in his pocket, said old William. I don't keep my britches up with string.
Mary slid under the table and held onto the flint.
That was going to be a roar. Father thought shouting would make old William here,
and old William didn't have father's words that old William's clogs began to move as if he was working.
The loom and father's boots became still as if there was a great stone in his lap.
Although he shouted, anger made him calm. When he was so still, he frightened Mary.
It was worse when the stillness came from himself and his thoughts without a roar.
Sometimes it lasted for days.
Then he would go out and play his awfully cloud around the farms and sing and ring his hand bells and use all his music for beer.
And only mother could fetch him home.
That was what Mary feared the most, because beer took Father beyond himself and left someone looking through his eyes.
And what about, of course, the candles, said old William Books.
A dear read didn't when you've bought them. Mary held the flint and tried to imagine such a golden apple that was once a star beneath the sea.
We even said, Father Maurice, you be the poverty knocker.
The old Williams clogs went out. Father sat at the table, not even moving the stones.
Then he stood up and walked into the garden. Mary waited.
She heard him rattling the hoe and rake. And old William started up his loom, but she could tell he was upset because of the slow beat.
Plenty of time. Plenty of time. She crawled from under the table and went out to the garden.
Father was hoeing next to the rhubarb. If I can't learn to read when you give me something instead, said Mary.
If it's not too much, said Father. The trouble with him is he said it is Clay Pipe at Old Williams Weaving Room.
He's as good as me, but he can't ever see the end of his work.
And I make it worse by building houses for the big masters who've taken his living.
That's what it is. But we never say. If I can't read, can I have a book?
Father opened his mouth and the clay pipe fell to the ground and didn't break.
He looked at the pipe. I've not seen a Macclesfield Dandy that has fallen to the ground and not broken, he said.
And they don't last more than three week. He turned the soil gently with his hoe and buried the pipe.
What did you do that for? Said Mary. They cost a farthing.
Well said, Father. I reckon with all the stone. If I don't give a bit back, it's a boadu y a book.
I want a prayer book to carry the chapel, said Mary. Lizzie Allman and Annie Lee have them.
Can they read? No. They use him to press flowers.
Well, then, said Father. But they can laugh.
Said Mary. I said Father.
He lent on the hoe and looked at Glace Hill. Go and fetch a bobbin about ends, two boxes of Lucifer matches and a bundle of candles.
A whole fresh bundle. We're going for a walk and tell nobody.
Mary went into the house, two old Williams room in a corner by the door.
He kept the bad ends wound on bobbins. There were lengths of thread that came to him knotted or too thick, or that broke on the loom.
He tied them together and wove them for mother to make clothes from.
Mary lifted a bobbin and took it out. She found the candles and the Lucifer matches.
Father had put his tools away. They went up the field at the back of the house and onto Glaze Hill.
When they reached the top, the sun was ready for setting the weather.
Philips was losing light and the woods stretched out.
I can't see the churches, said Mary when we were up there this afternoon.
I could. That's because they're all of a height, said Father.
I told you Clay's Hill was higher. Glaze Hill was the middle of three spurs of land.
The Wood Hill came in from the right and Daniel Hill from the left, and they met at the engine vane.
The engine vane was a deep crevice in the rocks, and along it went the tram road for the miners who dug Galena, cobalt and malachite.
The thump of the engine that pumped water out of the vein could often be heard through
the ground on different parts of the hill when the workings ran close to the surface.
Now. It was dusk and the engine was quiet.
The tram road led down to the head of the first stope and there was a ladder for men to climb into the cave.
Mary was not allowed at the very. It killed at least once every year,
and even to go close was dangerous because the dead sand around the edge was hard and filled with little stones that slipped over the crack.
Father walked on. The sleepers of the tram rode down into the engine v.
It's nearly night, said Mary. It'll be dark with candles, said Father.
There was a cool smell and drafts of sweet air. The roof of the vein began and they were under the ground.
Water dripped from the roof onto the sandstone, splashing echoes.
The drops fell into homes. They had fallen for so many years in the same place that they had worn the rock.
Mary could get her fingers into some of the holes, but they were deeper than her hands.
Above and behind her. Mary saw the last of the day.
In front and beneath was the stoop. Well, it was always night.
Father took the whole bundle of candles and set them on the rocks and let them.
They showed how dark it was in the stope. Wait while you get used to it, said Father.
You soon see better now. What about that roof?
Mary looked up into the shadows. It's not Dimension Stone, she said.
There's a grain to it, and it's all ridge and furrow.
But if you'd been with me that day, said Father, when I was apprenticed and walked to the sea, you'd have stood on sand just the same as that.
The waves do it going back and fro and it makes the ridges proper hard.
And if you left it, I reckon it could set into stone.
But the tide goes back and to back and to and wets it.
And your boots sink in and leave a mark. If that's the sea, why is it on the ground?
Said Mary. And those are those boots, said Father.
There were footprints in the roof, flattening the ripples as though a big bird had walked there.
Was that Noah's flood, too? Said Mary. I can't tell you, said Father.
If it was that Bantam never got into dark, it must have been as big as Phillips, Cockerel, said Mary.
Bigger, said Father. And upside down.
It doesn't make sense, said Mary. It would if we could plunder it deep enough, said Father.
I reckon that if you are going to put the sea in the hill and turn the world over and let it dry,
then you've got to be doing before 9:00 in the morning.
But preachers aren't partial to coming down here. So it doesn't matter, does it?
He blew out all the candles except two. He gave one to Mary and stepped onto the ladder.
Mary went with him and climbed between his arms down into the stoop.
It did take some plucking, she said. If it had feathers.
The stone was the shape of a straw beehive and tunnels led everywhere.
Mary couldn't see the top of the ladder. If he had fallen, you'd have been killed.
Dead. As at St Philip's, said father. It's different, said Mary.
There's no height. There's depth. And that's no different from height, said Father.
No, it doesn't call you, said Mary. Father held Mary's hand sailor's grip and went into a tunnel under a ledge at the bottom of the stoop.
They didn't go far. There was a shaft in the rock, not a straight one.
But when father bridged it with his feet, the pebbles rattled down for a long time.
It was easy climbing,
even with a candle to be held because the rock kept changing and each change made a shelf that was putting Stone Marl and Fox bench.
And only the mound was slippery. That's it, said Father.
They were at a kink in the shaft. What about further down?
Said Mary. It's only rubbish, gang.
From here to the bottom. Neither used nor ornament.
Although there was a man, it was sunk the shaft and he could read a book and put a letter together.
But he lost his money for all his reading. Now, if he'd read rocks instead of books, it might have been a different story.
You see, Father held his candle out to the side.
There was a crack, not a tunnel. The rock itself had made it.
Hold fast to a light, said Father, and keep the matches out of the wet.
Father had to crawl. Mary could stand, but even she had to squeeze because of the narrowness.
The crack went up and down, wavering through the hill.
Then Father stopped. He couldn't turn his head to speak, but he could crouch on his heel.
Climb over. He said. Mary pulled herself across his back.
A side of wall had split off and jammed in the passage, almost closing it.
Can you get through there? Said Father. Easy, said Mary.
Get through and then listen. Said Father.
Mary wriggled past the flake and stood up. The passage went on beyond her light.
Father's candle made a dark hole of where she had come. And she could see his boots and one hand.
He pushed the bobbin of bad ends, threw to her and six candles.
He kept hold of the loose end of silk. What's up?
Said Mary. What are we doing? You still want to book for Sundays, said Father.
Even if you can't read? Yes, said Mary.
Then this is what we're doing, said Father. So you listen.
You're to keep the leucippus dry and use only one candle.
Should be plenty. Let the silk out. But don't pull on it.
Or else it'll snap. It's to fetch it back if you have no light.
And that's all it's for. Now then you'll find you go down a bit too steep.
And then the rock divides. Follow the malachite. Always follow the malachite.
You understand me? Yes, Father. After the Malachite, the same old Fox bench, then a band white dimension and a lot of wet.
When you come to the tough time, can you remember it all?
Malachite fox benge dimension to Tom, said Mary.
Always follow the malachite, said Father. And if there's been another rockfall, don't just loose stuff and sink on.
There isn't. Anybody can reach you. You're alone. What must I do when I get to the top?
Tom said Mary. You come back and tell me if you want that book, said Father.
And if you do, you should love it. Right, said Mary.
The crack in the hill ran straight for a while and was easier than the first part.
She held her candle in one hand and the bobbin in the other. She had tucked the other candles and the Lucifer matches into her petticoat.
She went slowly down the rock and the silk unwound behind her.
The steep was not enough to make her climb and water trickled from above over the rock and left a green stain of malachite.
She stopped when the passage divided, but there was nothing to worry her.
She went to the left with the malachite. The other passage had none.
She took the silk through the hill. The green malachite faded and she passed by a thin level of fox bench sand, hard and speckled.
Then the walls were white. She was at the dimension.
The crack sloped easily downward and was opening.
Do you no longer have to move sideways? Her feet scuffed in the sand, but in front of her she could see brown water.
Mary held her candle low at the bottom of the wall.
She saw the beginning of a band of clay, the tough tom red marl that never let water through.
She went forward slowly into the wet. The floor was stiff and tacky under her boots and behind her, the silk floated in curves.
But the crack went no deeper. The ground was level and her light showed a hump of tough tom above the water glistening.
Mary stopped again. There was nothing else over behind below.
Only the tough tom humping out of the water and the white dimension stone and the crack finished at the end of a candlelight.
Father. There was no reply.
She hadn't counted how much silk had unwound. Father.
There is plenty of candle left, but it showed her nothing to explain why she was there.
Father. Not even an echo.
There wasn't a room for one. But she turned.
There hadn't been an echo, but her voice had sounded louder beyond the tough Tom.
Mary scrambled up the hump, slithering in the wet. Then she looked around her and saw.
The end of the crack was as broad as two stalls and as high as a barn.
The red tough Tom was a curved island above its own water.
The walls were white and pale yellow. There was no sound.
The water did not drip. It sank to the stone unheard and seeped along them all.
Mary saw her father's mason mark drawn on the wall.
It was faint and black, as if drawn with soot. Next to it was an animal.
Falling. They didn't really warn itself away, but it looked like a bull.
A great shaggy bull. It was bigger than it seemed at first.
And Father's Mark was on it. Making the mark a spear or an arrow.
The bull was all colours, but some of the stone had shed itself in the damn bear.
The more Mary looked, the bigger the bull grew. It had turned around every wall as if it was moving and dying.
Mary had come through the Hill to see Father's Mark on a daubed ball.
And near the bull and the mark. There was a hand.
The outline of a hand. Someone had splayed a hand on the wall and painted round it with a tough tongue.
Fingers and some. Mary.
Put the candle close. The white dimension happened.
She lifted her own and laid it over the hand on the wall.
Not touching. Both hands were the same size.
She reached nearer. They were the same size.
She touched. The rock was cold, but for a moment it felt almost warm.
The hands fit it. Fingers and thumb and palm and a bull.
And fathers mark in the darkness under the ground.
Mary stood back. In the middle of the tough time and listen to the silence.
It was the most secret place she had ever seen.
A ball drawn for secrets. A mark and a hand alone with the ball in the dark that nobody knew.
She looked down, and when she looked down, she shouted.
She wasn't alone. The tough Tom was crowded.
All about her in that small place under the hill that led nowhere with footprints.
They were footprints of people. Bare and shod.
There were boots and shoes and clogs, heels, toes, shallow ones and deep ones, near clear and sharp, as if made altogether trampling each other.
Hundreds pressed in the clay where only a dozen could stand.
Mary was in a crowd that could never have been thronging as real as she was.
Her feet made prints. No. Fresher than theirs.
And the ball was still dying under the mark and the one hand still held.
There was nowhere to run. No one to hear. Mary stood on the tough Tom.
And waited. She then jerked the thread to feel her father's presence.
He was so far away that the thread would have broken. Then it was over.
She knew the great bull on the rock in closing her and she knew the mark and the hand.
The invisible crowd was not there. And the footprints in the tough Tom turned motionless.
She had seen. Now there was the time to go.
Mary lifted the thread and made skeins of it as she went past the white dimension Fox bench and Malachite to the candle under the four.
Father had moved to make room for her. Well, I've seen so many.
All of it. You've touched the hand? Yes.
I thought you would. They went back to the shaft and up and out the sky seemed a different place.
All things led to the bull and the mark and the hand in the cave.
Trees were trying to find it with their roots. The rain in the clouds must fall to the ground and onto the rock.
To the tough tom. That's put a quiet this on.
You said Father. I. They came over Glaze Hill.
Why did you set your mark on? Said Mary. I didn't.
It was there when I went. When did you go?
And I was about your size. My father took me.
Sam is today. We have to go before we are too big to get past the fall.
Though I reckon years back the road was open if you knew it was there.
When did you go last? Said Mary. We go just once said, Father.
So that we'll know. Who else? Only us.
Neither Lees nor Allman's us. But then what?
Ever so many feet, said Mary. The place was teeming.
We've been going for a while. Said, Father.
And that bull said Mary. That's a poser.
There's been nothing like it in my time. And my father.
He hasn't seen any. What is it all said Mary.
The Hill. We pass it on. And once you've seen it, it changed for the rest of your days.
Who else of us said, Mary? Nobody said Father except me.
And now you. It's always been for the eldest, and from what I heard my father say, it was only ever for lads.
But if they keep on stooping after that Malachi, where they're going up the engine vein,
it'll be shovelled up in a year or two without anybody noticing.
Even the one time of day before the engine vane and that chap who could read books.
We must have been able to come at it from the top. But that's all gone.
And if the old bull goes, you'll have to tell your lad, even if you can't show him.
Shall said, Mary. I recollect it puts a quiet place on you.
Does that bow on the hand and the mark?
Mary went to wash the tough Tom from her boots in the spring when they reached home.
The spring came out of the hill and soaked into lifeless moss.
And lifeless moss spilled by Brooks to the sea. Father sat with mother for a while.
The old William had picked up his usual rhythm and the loom rattle the nicotine nicotine Monday come Saturday.
Then Father collected his work tools and sat down at the table and sorted through the pebbles.
He weighed them in his hand, tested them on his thumbnail until he found the one he wanted.
He pushed the others aside and he took the one pebble and worked quickly with candle and firelight, turning,
tapping, knapping shaping, twisting, rubbing and making quickly as though the stone would sit hard if he stopped.
He had to take the picture from his eye to his hand before it left him.
That said, father, she'll do. He gave Mary a prayer book bound in blue, black calfskin tooled, stitched and decorated.
It was only by the weight that she could tell it was stone and not leather.
There's better than a boot you can open, said Father. A book.
There's only one story. And tomorrow I'll cut your brother's cross and let it in the front with some double lead.
And then I'll guarantee you'd think it was Lord Stanley's if it's held right.
It's grand, said Mary. And I'll guarantee you, Lizzie Oldman and Danny Lee haven't got them flowers pressed in their books.
Mary, turn the stone over. Father had split it so that the back showed two fronds of a plant.
Silk in skins. Silk on the water under the hill.
And Father went out of the room and left Mary by the fire. He went to old William and took his office, Clyde, as he always did after shouting.
And he played the hymn that old William liked best because it was close to the beat of his.
Lou Williams sang for the rhythm. Nicotine.
Nicotine. Monday. Come Saturday. And Father tried to match him on the offer.
Clyde. William. Bold. All the years of Man of the Looms.
A God let down from the place of the sun wherein we are weaving always till the mystic work is done.
And so they ended. Until the next time. The last cry went up from the summer fields.
Woo! Woo! Woo! Woo! Woo! Mary sat by the fire and read the stone book that had in it all the stories of the world and the flowers of the flood.
Thank you.