About this story
Among the dragoons is John Loveday, the miller's son grown into a trumpet-major, who leads you and your mother to a noisy supper at his father's table. Cake and old songs last only until a rider gallops in with sealed orders about unfamiliar sails offshore. John sounds assembly into the dark, and a cannon answers him.
How it opens
The mill wheel turned beneath your window with its usual wooden pulse and floury breath.
Across the pond, noon held the steep down empty under a pale summer sky.
Mrs GarlandAnne, that rug has received more looking than stitching this morning.
Choose
Mother, bring the glass. Those men are measuring the down.
I think soldiers mean to camp above us.