A Shade Off

Sefton Quarles was on the way to the Ringing Weir at dawn when they saw the dyer about to tip a vat.

Sefton keeps the Grove’s channels, wet to the cuffs. They can tune one by moving a single stone, and they want that stone left where they put it. Every morning Sefton walks the Watering with two cans, and it ends when Sefton lifts the board at the Weir and the channels change their note. Sefton has never lifted it late.

Piet Ferrabee had a shoulder to the oldest vat in the Dye Yard, ready to tip it. The paddle leaned beside them, and on it hung a wet test thread, green, with a yellow in it and a softness at the edges. Round the paddle handle was an old faded thread of another green.

“It slipped,” Piet said. “I took the lid off on Sunday night, for a friend’s sticks, and it slipped a shade. I’ll pour it out and start again.”

The Terraces were still talking about Sunday night: the onion keeper going down the steps first with two bowls of supper. They were talking about the Meadows’ reply to the harvest supper too, which had come back in the night, opened. Now Sefton could see where they had gone.

A vat that size, tipped into Sefton’s channel, would stain the stones and flatten the note all down the hill. Sefton could say so, and it would be true.

Sefton looked at the Weir, where the whole Grove was waiting for the board, and then at the dyer.

“Water first,” Sefton said, holding out a can.

Do the kind thing before the hard one. Piet took the can and watered the sage pots along the yard wall, slowly, one pot at a time, and Sefton stood at the gate and did not go to the Weir. Up and down the Terraces the cans kept going hand to hand, long past the hour. Sefton could feel the Grove wondering. Their stomach turned over, and they stayed.

When the can was empty, Piet came back to the vat and looked down into it for a long time. Then Piet put the lid back on, and did not pour it out.

“Wednesday,” Piet said. “I’ll leave it till Wednesday.”

Sefton nodded, took the empty can, and went to the Weir at a run. They lifted the board late. The channels changed their note, and all down the hill the Grove looked up.