“Know what we call ’em?” said the man in the hat. “We call ’em the Devil’s Children.”
“But they aren’t like that at all,” said Nicky. “Leastways they aren’t like other folk,” said the man in the hat. “Not like good Christian folk. You grant me that.”
“They’ve been very good to me,” said Nicky. “That’s as may be,” said the man in shirt-sleeves. “We don’t want nothing to do with ’em. That’s what the Master tells us, and he’s right again, too.”
“Is there a smith in the village?” said Nicky. “Neither there isn’t,” said the man in the hat. “And if there was, he wouldn’t care to work for the Devil’s Children, would he now?”
The men seemed to become more hostile and suspicious every word they spoke.
“Oh, we don’t need a smith,” she said. “But we thought you might. For making plows and mending spades and things like that. The Sikhs are very good smiths.”
She hoped that was true. The first furnace hadn't blown hot enough, and had had to be rebuilt. But the big double bellows had been fashioned from wood and canvas and proved to spout a steady blast of air; and though the first mound of charcoal opened had been poor stuff, and the second not much better, they were all delighted with the product of the new one which had been built on the site of the first.
The three villagers looked at each other, and the one in shirt-sleeves rose to his feet.
“Perhaps I'd best go and fetch him, then,” he said.
“Right you are, Maxie,” said the man in the hat. Maxie scuttled away round the corner.
“And you’d best be up the hayfield, Dune,” said the man in the hat, “afore he finds you sitting here swilling of a morning.”
The beard grower stood up too, but didn't leave.
“Funny thing,” he said. “I remember my Granny telling me stories about the Queer Folk, and as often as not they was smiths and ironworkers. Under the hills they used to live then, she said.”
“That’s a fact,” said the man in the hat. “I remember that too. Not as I actually thought on it for years and years, but maybe there’s something in it. Maybe they went up to London after.”
“They’ll bring you luck, if only you don’t cross ’em,” said the beard grower eagerly.
“Best have nothing to do with them,” said the man in the hat.
“But good iron they made,” said the beard grower. “Never wore out, my granny told me.”
Yes, thought Nicky, it would be easy to believe the Sikhs were some sort of hobgoblins, if living with them day by day didn’t keep reminding you that they were ordinary people — bones and veins and muscles and fat. Even she could only recall in shifting glimpses that other world, before all these changes happened, where you actually knew about Sikhs and foreigners without (perhaps) ever having met any. But these fancies were going to make barter difficult. On the other hand it meant that the villagers were less likely to come raiding up to the farm . . .
She was still hesitating what to say next when the little man, Maxie, came back.
Beside him strode a giant. A man seven feet tall, red-faced and blue-eyed. He had no waist at all, but a broad leather belt held shirt and trousers together at the equator of his prodigious torso. Another strap hung across his shoulder and from it dangled a naked cutlass. His cheeks were so fat that separate pads of brick-red flesh bobbled below his eye sockets. Nicky noticed that the man in the hat had stood up when he appeared. The other man, the beard grower, was already standing, and it was at him that the giant stared.
“ ’Morning, Arthur,” said the man in the hat. “What you doing down here, Dune?” said the giant. “The rest of ’em’s up at the hayfield. Them as don’t work this summer won’t eat this winter.”
“Right you are, Arthur,” said the beard grower. “My foot’s been playing me up, but it’s better now.” He slipped away, and the blue gaze turned itself on Nicky.
“Who’s this, then?” said the giant. His voice was a slow purr, like a well-fed tabby’s.
“She says as she lives with the Devil’s Children,” explained the man in the hat. “And she says as they’ve blacksmiths up there, willing to make and mend for us.”
“So Maxie told me,” said the giant. “You think we got nothing to do but break good tools, Miss?”
“Oh no,” said Nicky. “But however careful you are things do get broken, and it isn’t going to be so easy to mend them now, or to buy new ones. And I expect there are things you haven’t got, like plows which you can pull by hand or behind a horse. All the plows up at the farm are made for pulling behind those . . . you know . . . tractors.”
As she got the nasty word out the giant took a quick pace forward. She saw a pink thing wheeling towards her but before she had time to duck, his open palm, large as a dish, smacked into the side of her head and sent her sprawling. She hadn’t even stopped her scraping slide across the dusty tarmac when her shoulders were seized and she was lifted into the air.
She opened her eyes and through the dizziness and tears she saw that the giant was holding her at arm’s length, three feet above the ground, so that his face was directly opposite hers. He began to shake her to and fro. As he shook he spoke, in just the same purring voice.
‘Til have no talk {shake) like that {shake) in my village {shake). Not one word of it {shake). D’you hear {shake) ? I’ll have no talk {shake) like that {shake) in my village.”
“Easy, Arthur, easy!” The little man was hanging onto the giant’s left elbow. His weight seemed to make no difference at all to the shaking.
“She’s only a kid,” crowed the little man, as though he were speaking to the deaf.
The giant stopped shaking and put Nicky down. “I’d treat my own kids a sight rougher if I heard ’em talking that kind of filth,” he purred.
“But what d’you make of what she was saying before?” said the man in the hat. “I got a spud-fork needs a good weld. And we’ll be crying for hand plows come seed time.”
“Fetch her your fork then,” said the giant. “Let’s see what sort of a job they do. And then maybe they can show us a plowshare. You, girl, they’ll be wanting something out of us in exchange, won’t they, or my name’s not Arthur Barnard.”
The vast forefinger pointed suddenly at Nicky as though she’d been trying to cheat him.
“Milk and vegetables and vegetable seed for next year and meat,” she gabbled. “Not beef. They aren’t allowed to eat beef in their religion.”
“Heathen,” purred the giant. “I’m not having them come among my streets, not with fifty plows. Fetch her your fork, Tom, and let’s see what kind of a job they make of it.”
He turned on his heel and strolled away with four-foot paces. The man and the girl watched him until he was out of earshot.
“Sorry he hit you like that, Miss, but it was your fault for talking nastiness.”
“Yes. Shall I call you Mr. Tom?”
“That’ll do. Tom Pritchard’s me full name.”
“But who is he?”
“Arthur Barnard. The Master we call him now. Time was Felpham was full of a different crowd of folk — men went up to London most days, children went away to school, women didn’t have enough to do. So they ran the village. Then they left, all of a sudden, and only us kind of folk remained. Soon after that a band of ruffians come along, more than twenty of ’em, came here to break and steal and to gobble what food we had. They were that fierce and that rough that most of us were scared to stand up to ’em, but Arthur Barnard — cowman he used to be, up at Ironside’s — he drove ’em out. Took that sword he wears out of the old admiral’s cottage and drove ’em out. Pretty nigh on single-handed he did it. Since then what he says goes, like as you’ve seen. You come with me, miss, and we’ll find that fork.”