"He was only trying to get an honest living."

Mr Lumley marketed himself as 'the baker on whom the sun never sets'. It made a good joke, for he alleged he went to bed early and got up early to attend the dough, and it had a sort of patriotic ring, come to think of it. That his apprentice set the dough, and Lumley only rose for breakfast long after the dough had risen, in fact just about in time to check the packing of the oven, or, half an hour later, the right moment to get his assistant paddling the nice-brown fadges of bread out again, is our little secret. His wife would not dare to say anything of that. Nor his apprentice.

Mr Lumley, always smiling, always abroad on the market-talk, had his sinister side, you see. And just at the present, that was uppermost as he checked the sun for a guide to when the rag-n-bone man was likely to come up the back lonnin. 'You go and mind the stall, Margaret,' he said to his wife. 'Aren't you feelin well, Lumley?' she asked as she got ready to take her place on the bread cart. 'Doan't be nebby,' said he, as he pushed her firmly out the door and resumed his watch at the back.

He usually liked to supervise the market stall in person, beaming like the sun that never set on him, and collecting a penny a loaf from the mix of poorer customers that thranged the market. Today he had to forgo the pleasure of pocketing the friendly coins, to do a bit of other business. With the taggerman. Either his cart or his call of rag-n-bieeeens would soon settle summik for him. An idea of his.

It had started when their Lordships (their Loourdships, he mimmicked to himself), in Parliament, had seen fit to outlaw the use of alum in bread. Bless them, he thought, spitting heartily in the gutter fronting his yard. What on earth was wrong with alum after all? It imparted colour, texture, and above all, BULK, to bread. And flavour, he added to himself. It wasn't as if it did any harm - like they said about that cyanide that gave cakes a yellow colour, as common in his youth. It isn't as though Aa use cyanide, he said to himself, with a righteous sneer.

Taggerman Rolf coined the corner, galloway in the shafts. "Why hello Rolf," said Lumley; "thought Aa meit catch thee." The half-blind pony, hearing a voice, pulled up and Rolf looked down, speculatively. "Summik for ye, here." As Lumley did not make to bring the summik to Rolf, he had to clamber down and see for himself. "Well?" he said, looking round the bare yard. "Aye, Aa gorra question fer ye." The pony or mebbe Rolf snorted, and looked like leaving. "A Bisness Question," Lumley explained; "about them bien's ye're allus gollerin on aboot." "Aye?" "Aye..." (ponderously) "...what de ye de wi' em, man? What're they good fer?" "Nae secret," said Rolf. "Them gans inti fine ladies china, man. All grindled up." "An' whe grinnds them? Ye?" "Mebbies. Hev ti be buri-ed forst, ye knaa. Or weathered. Fer the siake o cleanin them proper." "How much a sack dis the pottery pay?" Rolf calculated... "Sixpence a poke." "Cleaned an grand up?" "Or sometimes eitpence, cleaned and grinned up, like." "An how much ti me, if Aa wanted two sacks a day?" "Twee sacks? Thass a torrible vast o bien ye're eftor. Startin' sum potter-wark are ye?" "Naa, Aa ettles ti bide a baker," said Lumley, meaningfully. "Weell, lookstha... seein' as how Aa'd hev to deliver special... a shillin a poke." "Seein as how it'd siave ye a cruise to the manufactury, a shillin fer two sacks." "There's nut that kind supply o' biens at hand," said Rolf, regretfully. "Banes is banes," said Lumley, meaningfully. Adding, "as lang as them's clean n white n weel-grand up." "Nex' week then," said Rolf; "niune pence a poke." "Regular, mind." "We'll see. Niune pence a poke."

Lumley managed a nod. He could always bid the taggerman down once he'd become a regular customer. Yes, regular, that was the word. A regular supply of non-alum. Introduce it a bit at first, to bulk the bread. See how it went. Then more. Couldn't end up worse than rice cake, Lumley reckoned - for texture. Anyhow, who were his customers to complain? Cheap bread they wanted, and his could be the cheapest in the market if he played this game right. He went back indoors, and mashed some tea.

Margaret and the cart came back in the afternoon. "So?" "Fair gannin'," said she. "The breed?" "Slaw. Penny-farthin', penny-heppenny a loaf's puttin folk off." "Aye, ye hev ti sing them thru a sale, ye'll not hev the nack." "Yihl be better at that." "Better? Aye, Aa'se be better off, Aa doubt."

---

And so the experiment in baking with bonemeal got under way. There was an appreciable gain in bulk with it, some gain in weight of course; it impeded rising a bit - the apprentice had to get up a good half hour earlier to compensate. But providing he kept the proportions in kilter - a little judicious sawdust seemed to help - it worked well enough. Well enough to be worth nine pence a sack. "Providing ye divvent let on ti the miller my secret," said he to Rolf. "Providin' ye divvent ax wheer the banes come frae," answered Rolf. They smiled between themselves. Lumley's bread went back down to a penny a loaf.

In the market, it seemed to work champion. Folk worried a penny loaf must be smaller, but they checked it on the inspector's scales (you bet), and it weighed correct. "It's just a new recipe," said Lumley, if someone asked. "The meal's a bit coarser, ye knaaa, but jist as whoalesome." "Ye nivvor packed it wi chaff, hev ye?" they asked. "Why, man, lookstha - whiut as snaa. Breet as the sun that nivver sets on me." "Aye, likely," they thought, and thrimmeled out their penny.

Lumley never ate it himself. He didn't trust Rolf that far. The apprentice had to make do with it, in fact that and nought else, most days; and he didn't fare bravely on it. He looked worried and tired; and twice he woke screaming in the night, so Margaret had to get up and make sure the house wasn't on fire. "Lazy squint son ova sea-horse," Lumley called him, when he complained of nightmares, and threatened the strap.

Some of the customers started confiding their bad dreams to him in the market. "It's nut yir bread, man," they supposed, "but..." and out came some tale of an endless treadmill, or a gallows, or some other unfortunate thing. "An', ye knaa, Aa thot this gadgie was ettlin' to strike me hand off..." Lumley stayed beamin'. "Keep off the drink, marra; mair whoallesome breed, that's what ye need. Trust me." And the faithful woman customer who swore she'd met her own grandfather - long since dead - in her dream. "Deed, lang syne," she sighed, "nut a bonny seet, but Aa'd knaa him anywheer." And paid over her penny. Lumley's smile verged on a sneer at these times. These people, with their tales, they tended to slow business down over much. Let them save their confessions for Sunday, or the pub, he thought.

Still, no one directly connected the epidemic of horror with the loaves. After all, what could be more nutritious or harmless than a bonny white loaf? But the sailor who dreamt he was eaten by a band of octopus; the constable who thought his skull was crushed with batons in the night and wok up thrashing about mindlessly for his whistle; the woman whose bairns wet the bed regularly now but never dared tell why; the glassblower who dreaded sleeping on his side; the cartman who began to think the trek downhill from the market truly led to Hell - they knew something was happening to them. "Boggles," said Lumley.

The other traders weren't happy with him and his success. They bought his loaves secretly, and prized them apart. They asked chemists to test them. "Are you putting grit or dust or summik in your bread?" asked the market inspector. "As if," said Lumley. "Lookstha, whiet as whiet," breaking open an loaf to show them. "Nae bleck nor speck." "Are ye hoyin grit in this bane?" asked Lumley of Rolf next day. "Na, man; aal good livin matter, or once was," Rolf grinned. "But Aa'll hev ti ax ten pence a poke frae the morrow," he added. "Owt ti de wi that?" asked Lumley, pointing at Rolf's black eye and busted knuckles. "Na, na, it's the supply, man. Gerrin harder to finnd nor Hottentots in Hivvin, is biens." "Nine pence and any bread left over from the stall," said Lumley, and struck the deal.

It probably brought about the catastrophe. Rolf must've etten the bread, for he took to spending the night in the pub, instead collecting his bones or whatever it was he normally did. And he talked of railings, and spades, and encounters, and things that only night-sextons knew, till rumours started getting round. One of the first to link them to the bread was the old wifie who lived opposite Lumley's yard. "Weel," she said to him, "Aa nivvor thought ti hev me deed-born bairns clamber ower me in this world agyen. Aa've nut kep' a bite doon syne Aa fand oot aboot ye. If the Laa dizzent get ye, Aa whope the Guid Lord diz!" Margaret at home must have heard too; she probably checked her suspicions with the apprentice. And came to a joint conclusion, for suddenly one early dawn, she and he decamped, taking Lumley's savings with them. The stall was very late to open that day, and the bread not strictly up to standard. But he dorsent tackle the police; though he didn't see how he could carry on.

The lease on the bake-shop was short-term. And he had no mind to pay for the regular broken windows he started getting after that. So it was, one day, his stall in the market simply did not open at all. Lumley got up early for a change. Made a bundle of the last few loaves he'd made – for he never ate it himself, you ken – assuring himself, it'll not hurt me for a day or two - and struck out on his sturdy legs for a city south. History does not record where the sun set on him.