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plate of copper that rippled like a blushing gold mirror.
    ‘It is metal with a memory,’ he said, stroking the surface with hands stained goblin-black. His method was to trace a figure onto onion paper, then scrape that outline onto waxed copper. Next came the master’s meticulous work; the etching into metal with the sharp steel called a burin, sending curls like ginger ringlets arcing up from the copper. Once acid had bitten out the pattern, the plate was inked and laid on the press. First a few, then a dozen, then a score of prints were squeezed into life between the rollers, like a single white butterfly multiplied into a swarm.
    My father kept his best work pasted in his sample book:
     
Jonah Moore, Master Letter-Press & Copper-Plate Printer,
No. 39 Blind Hart Alley
Handbills, Cards, Invitations, Prices of Two Shillings 100 or Fifteen Shillings 1000
     
    Inside the book lay all Father’s outpourings, ever since he was the golden apprentice who later inherited his childless master’s business: illustrations of gods and men, warriors and angels, as good as any Italian master.
    ‘And now I scrape these tawdry penny-catchers,’ he growled. He was making a crude sketch of a half-undressed woman to crown a staymaker’s tradecard. ‘The metal mirror reflects my fall,’ he muttered.
    Thus I learned from him that the parable is true: that golden talents buried in the dark earth are a curse and not a blessing.
     
    We had few close acquaintances in Greaves, save the Brabantists, a society of dissenters who gathered about the preacher Caleb Brabant. Brabant himself was an eloquent old weaver with diamond bright eyes and white whiskers, who had once had a miraculous dream. ‘I saw Caesar hung upon the cross,’ he pronounced with his hands raised in celebration, ‘and all the land rejoiced to be free of the poison of the laurel crown. For when all crowns are dust, all will be equal.’
    Many hours were spent in meditation upon dreams. All agreed that the Devil appeared as a red beast, or a black dog, or leaping fire. Bread and blood, water and weeds were much discussed as omens. Amongst our congregation there was great hope of the Second Coming, bringing with it relief from poverty and pain. When bread was dear, or work was scarce, the society’s funds kept many members from the workhouse. And from Sabbath to Sabbath the belief in dreams and visitations kept everyone’s hopes alight.
    With no dame school in the town, there were at least hornbooks and scripture classes at our meeting house, where I could glean a little more learning. When I escaped from my parents I played with my only friends: Anne Dobson and John Francis Rawdon. As infants, our games were of ghosts that fluttered behind the woollen curtains, or messages scratched in the dust that set us giggling and shrieking. If the congregation stood up to share their dreams, we were banished to the back room, where we chattered of portents. If a person dreamed they died, could they ever wake? And when the Select rose at the Second Coming, would flesh grow back on their bones?
    Coaxed by Anne’s warmth and good humour, she and I grew to be dear friends. Though her homely face recalled a mournful spaniel, by the time she was fifteen, Anne was courted by Mr Greenbeck, curate of St Stephen’s, who had dealings with her father’s grocery shop. Once her betrothal was known, the Greenbecks were at once expelled from our gatherings, for Anglicans were reviled as peddlers of miracles and hocus-pocus. But Anne cared not a jot, so long as Mr Greenbeck would still take her.
    As for John Francis, he soon grew too big for us, his petticoat companions. For many years we were strangers, until one warm summer’s day he came upon me as I sketched out on the moors. Having just walked five miles across country, my old friend took a rest beside me on the grassy bank where my paints and paper were spread. The air was scented with wild flowers, the valley dropped green and lush