The Stone Book Quartet by Alan Garner Page A

flipping heck,’ said William.
    He had been watching the silver of Grandad’s hair: now he was looking at his blue eyes and sharp red nose.
    He went into the empty shop. The bell tinkled on its curled spring.
    At the back of the shop there was a yard door that slid in grooves. William could open it with one finger, because Grandad had made a lead counterweight and hung it by a sashcord, so that the door was balanced. Behind the big green door was the farrier’s yard, where horses used to be shod, and from the yard broad steps went down to Grandad’s cellar and forge and the flat, square cobbles.
    It was for ever dark at the forge. Light came from the grating and made silhouettes of all the heavy gear; the hoists, the tackle, the presses, the anvils and the skirt of the forge hood.
    Coals burned dull red. Under the grating was the bench where Grandad sat. He was the whitesmith and lock smith, and blacksmith, too.
    His crucible stood in a firebrick bed, full of solder. His irons were by him, some so big that lifting them made William’s wrists ache. But he had seen Grandad take them, and heat them, and when they were hot, Grandad spat on them; and the spit danced, and he ran his thumb along the end to test the heat.
    And then he took metal and did wonderful things; turning, twisting, tapping, shaping, dabbing and making; quickly, before the metals were cold. Brew-cans, billy cans, milk-cans, and the great churns that stood at the roadside. He could make them all. And he could make brass fenders straight, and take the dents from tin, and put back the fragile lion-masks on coal scuttles.
    ‘I’ve a month’s mind to tan your hide,’ said Grandad. ‘What were you standing out there for, fair starved, and the siren blahting?’
    ‘It’s a false alarm,’ said William. ‘Or snow got into it.’
    ‘And what if somebody doesn’t tell Gerry one of these days, and he finds you gawping up at him?’ said Grandad.
    ‘That’s what I’ve come for,’ said William. ‘We have to have our names written in indelible on all our clothes, and Mum says can you stamp mine on me clogs, please?’
    Grandad put his tools down and looked at William.
    William swung his gas mask tin off his shoulder and sat on it.
    ‘And what’s the indelible in aid of?’ said Grandad.
    ‘We were told in prayers. We’ve to be ready for inspection on Monday, or else.’
    ‘l see,’ said Grandad. ‘And what are you doing clagged up so you can’t hardly walk?’
    ‘I keep stopping to scrawk it off,’ said William.
    ‘Come here,’ said Grandad. ‘I don’t know. What do they learn you these days?’
    William leant against the bench and Grandad put a clog between his knees, with his back to William, as if he was shoeing a horse, and knocked the snow off with a hammer.
    ‘Hold still,’ he said, and he reached over to where his metal punches stood in their rack in order of the alphabet, and very deftly he took each as he needed it, placed the letter against the sole of William’s clog and tapped it. The punch left a clean print in the wood. And he dropped the punch back in the rack, and took another.
    Grandad finished William’s name on one clog, and swapped legs.
    ‘I reckon,’ said Grandad, ‘that in fifty-five years of setting labels on milk-cans for farmers, I must’ve come near writing a book with these. And now I’m stamping you up so as we can go looking for what’s left of you next time you gawp at bombers. I don’t know. I really do not know. Hold still, will you?’
    He dipped a worn paint brush into a tin and daubed something stiff and smooth over the soles of William’s clogs. ‘There,’ he said, ‘that’ll keep the snow off. But mind how you treat your Mother’s rugs, or she’ll play the dickens with the both of us.’
    ‘What is it?’ said William.
    ‘Axle grease.’
    William sat down by the forge again. ‘Can you do anything for the leathers?’ he said. ‘They’re that stiff all the time, I have to warm them