As the Crow Flies [antikvár]

CHAPTER 1 don't offer you these for twopence," my f Granpa would shout, holding up a cabbage in I both hands, "I don't offer 'em for a penny, not ^ even a ha'penny. No, I'll give 'em away for a ^ farthin'." Those were the first words I can remember. ^ Even before I had learned to walk my eldest sister used to dump me in an orange box on the pavement next to Granpa's pitch just to be sure I could start my apprenticeship early. "Only stsikin' 'is claim," Granpa used to tell the customers as he pointed at me in the wooden box. In truth, the first word I ever spoke was "Granpa", the second "farthing", and I could repeat his whole sales patter word for word by my third birthday. Not that any of my family could be that certain of the exact day on which I was bom, on account of the fact that my old man had spent the night in gaol and my mother had died even before I drew breath. Granpa thought it could well have been a Saturday, felt it most likely the month had been January, was confident the year was 1900, and knew it was in the reign of Queen Victoria. So we settled on Saturday, 20 January 1900. I never knew my mother because, as I explained, she died on the day I was bom. "Childbirth" our local priest called it, but I didn't really understand what he was on about until several years later when I came up against the problem again. Father O'Malley never