Free Rose Cottage by Mary Stewart

along with it, with eggs and poultry.
    ‘Well, Lily, thanks for your help.’
    ‘It’s not really Lily. It’s Lil, short for Lilias. Mum called me after someone she knew. Real pretty, she said, like the name.’ A cheerful giggle. ‘And the name’s the prettiest thing about me, she says that, too. What is it, miss? Is there summat the matter?’
    ‘No, no. Yes, it’s a very pretty name, and it suits you. Well, then, tell the vicar, and I’ll be back later. Goodbye.’
    Outside the gate I paused. A little way to the right a farmer’s cart stood upended by the road, shafts in the air. The horse was presumably in the smithy being shod. I could hear the clink of the hammer and the clatter of hoofs and a ‘Hup there!’ from the smith.
    I went that way. I had always loved the smithy. To me, as a child, it had been a mysterious dark cave, with the fire at the back roaring up from time to time under the bellows, and the rhythmic clang and clatter of hammer and anvil mixing with the hiss of the iron plunged to cool and the smell of the smoking hoof as the shoe was tried. I had loved it all; the old smith with his leather apron and hard hands that could be so gentle; the great mild horses, their skins as glossy as licked toffee, their quiet eyes, the way they heaved their feet up at a word and never seemed to feel nail or hot iron, their soft flickering nostrils that nuzzled and breathed down the smith’s neck as he worked. A wholeworld. A world whose ways, sadly, must soon vanish for ever.
    The smith was busy over the hind hoof of an enormous Clydesdale, his back wedged under the chestnut rump, his knees gripping the powerful leg. He shot a glance upward as my shadow paused in the doorway and spat out a nail to let him grunt something that sounded like, ‘Nice mornin’ ’
    ‘Good morning, Mr Corner.’
    Another glance, as he tapped in the last nail, then he checked the shoe’s hold, lowered the horse’s leg, patted the chestnut flank, and straightened himself. ‘Well, if it isn’t little Kathy Welland! Long time since you were in these parts. Your Granny here with you?’
    ‘No. She’s still in Scotland, and I think she’ll stay there now. She sent me down to get the rest of her things from the cottage.’
    ‘Ah. Well, I’m sorry to hear that, but it’s nice to have you home again. You be here long?’
    ‘Only till I get Gran’s things seen to. It’s lovely to be back. Everything looks just the same. How’s Mrs Corner?’
    ‘Fine, fine. What about your Granny? Annie Pascoe said she hadn’t been too clever.’
    ‘That’s right. She’s on the mend now, but she’s feeling her age, she says.’
    ‘Then I’d best be watching out for mine,’ said the smith with a bark of laughter. ‘Ah, here you are, Jem. She’s ready now, done all round, and that should keep her for a canny bit.’
    I waited while the young man – a stranger to me –settled with the smith and led the mare away, then said: ‘I was wanting to see Mr Pascoe. Is he upstairs in the shop?’
    ‘Nay, lass. Him and Davey, they’ve been and gone. They’re working up to the Hall. There’s a lot of alteration there, turning the place into a hotel, but you’ll likely know that.’
    ‘Yes, I did hear. I saw Davey yesterday. I wanted to ask you – do you make keys, or is it only big things, gates and such?’
    ‘Anything in iron, I can make,’ said Mr Corner simply. ‘But keys? They don’t come my way often. I once made a spare for the church tower when old Tom Pinkerton – you’ll remember him, he’s still sexton – dropped her down the well. A big old key that was, near as old as the church.’
    ‘This would be a small key, very small, a bit like a cash box key, I would think. No? Then what about a door key, the old-fashioned sort, quite big. Like this.’ I showed him the Rose Cottage key. ‘I wondered if anyone had asked you to make one lately?’
    He regarded me for a moment under those bushy eyebrows, but said merely: