William Askew

William Askew

Woolsthorpe Village lay in northern Britain, where three kinds of trees were commonly found in the wild:

English oaks, poplars, and cherry trees.

Because poplars grew quickly and had low density, they were used as firewood year-round in northern rural areas not covered by fir forests.

The tree Little Ox had come looking for this time was a poplar, as preparation for the visit to come.

After walking several hundred meters west from their residence, Little Ox and Xu Yun finally picked out a stunted poplar roughly 1,201 millimeters tall.

There was no need to dwell on the tree-cutting process. This was not a fantasy novel, after all; no bizarre creatures like tree demons or tree-girl spirits would show up.

A poplar no thicker than a roll of toilet paper could only submit to slaughter before two grown men, and was eventually cut into several lengths of firewood.

The only trouble was that Xu Yun found his feet rather cramped—he was wearing shoes from Little Ox's high school days, probably around a size 40, while he wore a size 42.

Everyone knew how shoes were. Even half a centimeter of tightness or looseness could be devastating to comfort.

So after several forceful twists of his waist and hips, Xu Yun's supporting ankle quickly developed a patch of compressed redness and swelling.

Xu Yun could not help shaking his head at the sight. The scraped skin was not a major problem, but it reflected the many difficulties they would encounter in the future.

Simply put, they had started on hard mode.

After a little over an hour, Little Ox and Xu Yun finally finished preparing all the firewood they needed.

It was worth mentioning that Young Newton had not slacked off at all throughout the process, nor had he treated Xu Yun like a servant or slave.

He wore Xu Yun's shoes, yet worked hard to share Xu Yun's burden, occasionally even making small talk with him.

This slightly incongruous scene was also a microcosm of social thought in seventeenth-century Britain, between the bourgeois revolution and the Glorious Revolution—that was, between 1640 and 1688.

To put it more seriously, it could even be considered a clash in legal consciousness.

Of course.

Understanding it was one thing, but Xu Yun still found it difficult to immediately adjust to that way of thinking.

After all, the difference between the seventeenth and twenty-first centuries was not merely nearly four hundred years, but multiple sweeping changes in politics, economics, and culture.

It was therefore foreseeable that clashes of worldviews would continue in the days ahead.

Xu Yun and Little Ox prepared two bundles of firewood in all. Each carried one on his back as they headed east like shepherd boys coming down from the mountains.

Since Little Ox had argued with his mother, he had moved into that garden. Judging by how familiar he was with introducing the house, this was clearly not the first time it had happened.

Young Newton both lived and studied in the garden house, while he ate his two daily meals other than breakfast at his uncle's home.

That was right.

British people in the seventeenth century ate three meals a day, and some nobles even added afternoon tea—one of the benefits brought by colonial expansion. Some later scholars believed that Britain completed its optimization of the new generation during this period.

After all, the difference between bathing once every three days and once every thirty days was mainly superficial, but the nutritional gap between eating twice and three times a day could affect many physiological indicators in later generations.

This was also very obvious in the present-day homeland:

Those born after 2000 were clearly more physically developed than those born after 1990, especially in certain southern regions, where the younger generation's height had shot up dramatically.

Therefore, all those claims that people should not eat meat, eggs, or dairy were utter bullshit. Their intentions were truly malicious!

Let us return to the scene at hand.

Before the Industrial Age, the British countryside was free of all noise. There were only the soft rustle of footsteps and the cries of waterfowl, and everything seemed harmonious and natural.

There was none of the bustle or splendor of the city. In the distance, the pale blue sky stretched all the way to the horizon, while the quiet village appeared and disappeared amid the thin mist...

Xu Yun suddenly felt rather sentimental.

Having grown used to the clamor of cities, who still remembered the country lanes?

The two walked for about a kilometer. After rounding a patch of woodland, they saw a house enclosed by a fence.

The house was built entirely of red brick, with thick mortar joints. Its stringcourses, arch feet, lintels, copings, windowsills, and other details were made of gray-white stone.

This house was likewise low-built. Judging from its pointed gable roof, it likely had a single main floor and a storage loft above it. Its total area was more than six times that of Newton's residence.

Judging from its style and layout alone, it was a very typical seventeenth-century English country cottage.

It lacked the luxury of noble buildings in London, but possessed a little more warmth of daily life.

A simple cattle shed stood to the right of the cottage's front door, and a man could be seen busying himself inside.

When they reached the fence, Little Ox first hung the firewood on a broken hitching post.

Then, after catching his breath, he called toward the man in the cattle shed:

"Uncle William, Uncle William, please open the gate!"

Hearing Newton's voice, the man in the cattle shed instinctively looked up, allowing Xu Yun to see his face clearly.

He was a middle-aged man of around forty-five or forty-six, tall and broad, with slightly brown-black skin.

He wore a plain long-sleeved coat with an apron tied around his waist, and his hair was cut short, a relatively uncommon style for the era.

In appearance, he somewhat resembled Regiment Commander Olga—though he would have looked even more alike if he had been lying on the ground.

Young Newton was famously deadpan in social situations. To him, most people could only be divided into idiots and somewhat-lesser idiots.

Throughout Newton's entire life, there were only two Williams whom he would voluntarily address with warmth:

The first was the William Coin, minted by Newton himself in 1714.

The second was his uncle:

William Askew.

William had loved Newton since childhood. Beyond being extremely close by blood, he could also be considered one of Little Ox's benefactors in life:

William Askew had graduated from Cambridge University and was Newton's senior in terms of education. If not for his joint persuasion with Stoke, Little Ox's middle school principal, Hannah would never have allowed Little Ox to attend Cambridge University.

It could even be said:

William's persuasion back then changed the course of the entire world.

Had he not persuaded Hannah, the founder of classical physics might have needed to be someone else.

At this time, William Askew was a materials merchant who traveled between Italy, Spain, and France, mainly trading cotton, linen, and pig iron.

However, because the Black Death was ravaging both the Netherlands and Great Britain, William's trade chain had abruptly been disrupted not long ago.

Although he currently had a batch of cotton and linen materials on hand, he did not have enough funds in reserve.

According to Newton's handwritten letters,

Before 1668, William's family lived in somewhat difficult circumstances.

There were six people in William's household including himself. That he could still allow Newton to come mooch meals off them showed just how close their relationship was.