The Flight of Sarah Battle by Alix Nathan Page A

the press, you see. When I’ve earned enough I shall buy my own. Meanwhile I etch and engrave here and take my plates to him to be inked and printed. And sold if he likes them.’
    â€˜How far away is it? I don’t want to be recognised.’
    â€˜Paternoster Row. Not far. Pull your kerchief over your face.’
    She barely keeps up with him for he walks ahead as if forgetting she is there, the carefully wrapped plate under his arm.
    â€˜Lucy!’ He turns, calls to her. Waits. She has kept her eyes on his head above the throng, the fair, tied-back hair bouncing on his coat, the pockets of which are bulging.
    â€˜What have you in your pockets?’
    â€˜Oh, I don’t know. Books.’
    They must pass through Smithfield. A comical pair, the tall young man striding with a parcel wrapped in old shirts, the girl, her face half hidden, running to keep up.
    It’s a great wide area, a field opening out from closed-in streets. Thousands of sheep shove each other in tight-packed pens. Lines of cattle and horses nudge and nose, rear suddenly, bellow, whinny; men whack them with switches. The air stinks of hot hide and the dung that will be carted to market gardens in Stepney and Chelsea at day’s end. Shouts and cries of pudding-, sausage- and mutton dumpling-sellers punctuate the lowing, neighing, baaing, bawling, the rattle of auctioneers’ patter. It’s summer: young women, perspiring, sell strawberries, scarlet strawberries, round and sound five pence the pound Duke cherries.
    He buys her a penny stick of cherries and bends to hear that she’ll not eat them now for fear of revealing her face. He plunges on, she hastens to keep up, fearing to lose him in the press of men. For a while a dog runs with them. On towards Christ’s Hospital, past new-built Newgate’s enormous walls, down Warwick Lane to the narrow gloom of old buildings at the skirts of St Paul’s.
    At the top of a flight of stairs she waits in a dark doorway. Altar-like, a printing press stands in the middle of a room, in light pond-green from a tree’s dense leaves outside the back window.
    A short man in an embroidered felt hat looks at them through thick lenses.
    â€˜Joseph! And who have you brought with you? Come in, come in.’
    â€˜William, this is Lucy Dale. A heroine. I found her. Lucy, this is William Digham, my beloved master. The best engraver and etcher in town. I have learned everything from him.’
    â€˜Delighted, Miss Dale. A heroine you say, Joseph.’
    â€˜Yes.’ Apparently he feels no need to explain. ‘And, Lucy, this is Batley,’ indicating a brawny man sweating and heaving with his arms and knee on the huge star-wheel of the press.
    Batley nods mid-turn.
    â€˜Please sit here, Miss Dale.’ Digham places her at a bench by the street window. A glass bowl of water on the sill magnifies light onto a small area of the bench. ‘Can you draw?’
    â€˜Why yes. I’ve had a few lessons.’
    â€˜I thought so.’
    She contemplates paper, pencils, charcoal, pens, while Digham questions Joseph under lines of prints pegged above their heads like washing on a still day.
    â€˜Now, young man Young, have you brought me a new apprentice?’
    â€˜No, William. I’ve a plate to print. I’ll ink it, then you’ll see.’
    He unwraps his plate, rolls ink over it until the grooves are full, wipes it clean, lies a damp sheet of paper on it, places it in the press. Batley pulls with both arms, pushes with a podgy knee, the paper passes through and Joseph grabs it delicately.
    â€˜Ah!’ he says and pegs it to dry. ‘You’ll see shortly.’
    â€˜I understand,’ says Digham, gazing at the print moments later. ‘He has a great talent, Miss Dale. Look. He has not flattered you, it’s entirely true to life. Mirifical! Such touching symmetry of feature. Lovely!’ While he shows her the print Joseph stands