The Dwelling Place by Catherine Cookson

Catherine Cookson was born in East Jarrow and the place of her birth provides the background she so vividly creates in many of her novels.

Although acclaimed as a regional writer her novel THE ROUND TOWER won the Winifred Holtby Award for the best regional novel of 1968 her readership has spread throughout the world. Her work has been translated into twelve languages and Corgi alone has over 32,000,000 copies of her novels in print, including those written under the name of Catherine Marchant.

Mrs. Cookson was born the illegitimate daughter of a poverty-stricken woman, Kate, whom she believed to be her older sister. Catherine began work in service but eventually moved south to Hastings where she met and married a local grammar school master. At the age of forty she began writing with great success about the lives of the working class people of the North-East with whom she had grown up, including her intriguing autobiography, OUR KATE. Her many best selling novels have established her as one of the most popular of contemporary women novelists.

Mrs. Cookson now lives in Northumberland.

Also by Catherine Cookson

THE BLACK VELVET GOWN THE BLIND MILLER THE CINDER PATH COLOUR BLIND A

DINNER OF HERBS FANNY MCBRIDE FEATHERS IN THE FIRE FEN WICK HOUSES

THE

FIFTEEN STREETS THE GAMBLING MAN THE GIRL

THE GLASS VIRGIN GOODBYE HAMILTON HAMILTON HAROLD

THE INVISIBLE CORD THE INVITATION KATE HANNIGAN KATIE MULHOLLAND

LANKY

JONES THE LONG CORRIDOR MAGGIE ROWAN THE MAN WHO CRIED THE MENAGERIE

THE NICE BLOKE OUR KATE PURE AS THE LILY ROONEY

THE ROUND TOWER THE TIDE OF LIFE THE UNBAITED TRAP THE WHIP

and published by Corgi Books The "Tiny Trotter' Trilogy TILLY TROTTER

TILLY TROTTER WED TILLY

TROTTER WIDOWED

The "Mary Ann' Series A GRAND MAN

THE LORD AND MARY ANN THE DEVIL AND MARY ANN LOVE AND MARY ANN LIFE

AND MARY ANN MARRIAGE AND MARY ANN MARY ANN'S ANGELS MARY ANN AND

BILL

The "Matlen' Trilogy THE MALL EN STREAK THE MALL EN GIRL THE MALL EN

LITTER

By Catherine Cookson as Catherine Marchant

HOUSE OF MEN

THE FEN TIGER

HERITAGE OF FOLLY

THE IRON FACADE

MISS MARTHA MARY CRAW FOR

THE SLOW AWAKENING

Catherine Cookson

CORGI BOOKS

To Mrs. Lilian O'Mions and her staff at the Hastings Public library for their invaluable help, which is always siven me with such goof!

s^race.

CONTENTS

ROOK O.

The Divellin^ Place I

ROOK'riVO The House of Fisc. hell 73

HOOK rHRF. K T hi-Child JJ3

hook i-'oi'r 1836:

The Return 199

ROOK FJVE 1953:

RidI Circle 355

BOOK ONE

The cottage had two rooms. It was one of ten in the hamlet of Heatherbrook in the County of Durham, and, up to two hours ago, it had housed thirteen members of the Brodie family; now three of them were dead.

Cissie Brodie stood in the dim light of the death- smelling room and looked at the bodies of her parents dressed in white calico shifts, lying side by side on the platform bed; and at their feet, hardly longer than their four bare soles, lay the baby; and her Efteen-year-old brain was refusing to take in die situation.

That the fever should take her mother she could well understand, for with each child she had gotten weaker, and the one born two days ago had been too much for her, together with the fever. But that the fever or any other ailment should kill her father was something that she could not understand; for, as far back as when she was tour, she could hear him bragging about his strength, for he was head and shoulders bigger than any agricultural worker for miles around. When three years ago the fever had taken John, aged eleven, Nancy, aged ten, and Peter, aged eight, her father had said it was because they had no constitution, they had taken after their mother. He had pointed to Cissie, saying, "You had it and it didn't take you; no, because you take after my side, and we are strong, we Brodies." But he hadn't said this in front of her mother, because his nature was kind.

And now he was gone strength, constitution and all. What was she to do? What was to become of them? Besides herself, there were nine of them left;

the eldest, Jimmy, was only ten and the youngest, here in her arms, was but eleven months. How was she going to feed them? She didn't think about housing them, her father had been bonded by the year and the house was part of the contract.

As if the thought of food had been conveyed to the child, it started to whine; and she shook it up and down in her arms, saying under her breath, "Ssh! There now. Ssh! There now. Sshi Sshi" while all the time she stared at her parents.

Last week Farmer Hetherington had let them have all the turnips they could eat and two quarts of skimmed milk a day, but she was sensible enough to know that the farmer's generosity was forthcoming only because he expected her father to be back at work this week.

A section of her mind, planning ahead, thought, Perhaps he'll take Jimmy on the farm, not just stone- picking or crow-scaring. But on this she sighed, knowing there was little chance, as they were standing grown men off all around.

"Cissie."

She looked down at the child tugging at her skirt and whispered, "What is it?" and Charlotte, aged five, her brown eyes wide, her lips trembling, said, "I'm gonna be sick."

On this, Cissie's eyes ranged helplessly around the half circle of children, all facing the bed. Jimmy, Mary, William, Bella, Sarah, Charlotte, Joe, and Annie in that order. Then, her eyes coming to rest on Charlotte again, she hitched Nellie further up into her arms before she said softly, "Go down to the burn and get a drink. You go with her, Sarah. Go to the clean part, mind, where it comes out of the rock;

don't go near the river, mind, not even to put your feet in. " Tlie river. Parson Hedley said, was where you caught the fevprSarah, a year older than Charlotte, nodded her thin face, so like that of the man lying on the bed. Then, taking her sister by the hand, she went towards the door; and, as she reached it, it opened and a woman entered'ikiand, going up to Cissie, said under her breath, " ^&et rid of the lot of them. Here's Matthew Turnbull from Benham come over to measure them. "

Cissie looked at Mrs. Fisher, who acted as midwife and layer-out of the dead not only for Heatherbrook but also for the other hamlets within a radius of three miles, and she nodded her head once; then, turning to Jimmy, she said, "See to them. Jimmy, will you?" and he, as if marshaling a flock of sheep, spread his arms wide and guided the silent children through the doorway and past the big broad fellow who was standing waiting to come in.

Matthew Tumbull had to stoop his head to get into the room, and he sniffed audibly and coughed as he glanced towards the bed. Then he turned and looked at the girl with the child in her arms. At this point, Mrs. Fisher, twisting her apron straight on her hips, said, "Ah well, I'll leave you to make your own arrangements." She nodded from one to the other, then went out.

Cissie looked at the man. She hadn't seen him before. Mr. Proctor, the carpenter who usually made the coffins for round about, had died of the fever three days ago. She swallowed deeply before she asked, "How much do you charge?"

He stared at the lint-white face before him, the two round brown eyes seeming to be lost in their sockets, the nut-colored hair sticking wet to the forehead, the child's hand alternately opening and shutting over the point of the small breast beneath the faded print bodice, the bodice and skirt themselves hanging as if on a clothes prop, so thin she was.

They had told him that she had been left with nine baims to see to;

well, she wouldn't manage that for long, the workhouse gates would open wide for the o i nc ^wetting nace lot of them. It was the first time he had seen her but not the first time he had heard her name. Parson Hedley had mentioned the name now and again to him.

"Joe Brodie," he had said, "there's a man who would have done things given the chance."

"And a compassionate man," he had said. Had he not found his wife when she was twelve years old working in a coal pit in West Riding? She was a distant relation of his, halt cousin, but he had brought her from that life, and not only brought her, he had bought her from her people for a golden sovereign and had fetched her to his home, a cottage on the outskirts of Jarrow, and there she had stayed until she was sixteen working in the fields, which must indeed have appeared Elysium after her experiences down a coal mine from the age of seven. And on the day she was sixteen Joe Brodie had married her. Joe Brodie, Parson Hedley said, had always wanted to learn and had been determined his sons should too. He hadn't been bothered about his eldest girl because, after all, there was really no necessity for a girl to read, but the two eldest boys he had sent every Sunday to listen to Bible readings preparatory to their learning their letters. But now all that would be ended.

He looked from the bed to the girl. For the plainest coffin that would hold only until it got into the ground he charged ten shillings. He shut his mind to his father and his mother and his own particular troubles and gave her the answer to her question.

"Five shillings each," he said.

She moved her head slowly, and when she spoke her voice was just above a whisper.

"I haven't got it, not right away I haven't. I could pay you off in bits, or" -she turned and looked at the mantelpiece where, on the narrow ledge above the open fire, stood a clock.

"If you would take that," she pointed, "it's worth a bit--it came from my grandmother's house in Jarrow and her father brought it from foreign parts;

it's worth a bit. "

Yes, he i^ald see that, it was an unusual clock. It was abouilCighteen inches high, with a painted face, and on its floor was a little man with a hammer waiting to strike the hour. Yes, he'd like that, it was a nice piece, but he guessed its value to be more than ten shillings, more than a pound in fact. He turned from her, saying, "We'll see about it later; I'll get the business over first, leave it to me." He jerked his head towards the door, and after a moment she turned from him and walked out and into the street.

It was about two o'clock in the afternoon and the sun was high. It hadn't rained for two weeks now and the mud road appeared like a ribbon of ridged rock running between the cottages. On each side of the road were five cottages, two pairs attached and one standing singly. The fact that their own cottage stood by itself had always given her the feeling that they were different, that their family was slightly superior to the rest of the hamlet, and this feeling had been borne out by her father's attitude both inside and outside the house, for she had never known him raise his hand to her mother, like Mr.

Taggart did, and Mr. Snell and Mr. Patterson. Very likely this was because he didn't drink. Her father had been an unusual man, inasmuch as he had been determined that none of his children would work full-time before they were ten--picking in the fields in season was nothing. Mr. Fisher and Mr. Martin, whose sons all went down the mine when they were seven, said he was barmy and where would it get him, but Mr. Martin and Mr. Fisher were not really of the hamlet, they lived about half a mile up the road; all those in the hamlet worked on the three farms roundabout, the Hetheringtons, the Woolleys, and the Thomtons, who were all tenants of Lord Fischel, so the families in the hamlet had in a way always felt protected, even in spite of riots and wage troubles.

She herself had felt protected until yesterday, for, as some of the women in the place said, she didn't know she was born. There she was, a big lump of a girl of fifteen and had never been to work in either a mine, a factory, or a farm household. All she had done was look after the house, and which one of them when young wouldn't have chosen that and thought themselves blessed. And yes, she supposed she had been blessed, for, as they said, all ^red had to do was to look after the house, her mother, and the hairns since she was seven. There had only been six of them then, John, Nancy, Peter, Jimmy, Mary, and William. But after William was born her mother's legs had become so swollen that she couldn't put them to the ground and had to lie abed for months on end. But every year she'd had a hairn, except the year she missed between Joe and Annie, and she should have had one then but it came away too early.

Cissie had loved looking after the house and the hairns and prided herself that she kept both cleaner than any other woman in the hamlet.

And unlike the rest of the women in the hamlet, who worked in the fields all day or in the farmers' houses, because that was in their man's bond, she didn't have to leave the cleaning and washing until the Sunday, but twice a week she would take the big bundle down to the stream, and if the children weren't picking they would help to beat the clothes on the stones and spread them out on the bushes to dry.

But she was always thankful when there were only little Joe, who as yet was only four, Charlotte, and Sarah to help her, for that meant the others were earning.

But over the last two months she had washed nearly every day, as her mother was unable to hold anything, and if she left her for two days the place smelled. The kitchen had always smelled a little, because her mother's bed was there, also the shakedown that held Annie, Joe, and Charlotte, but again she prided herself it wasn't a stench like that which came from the other houses, it was just a smell.

But now there would be no need to wash every day except the bits and pieces that the baims dirtied. What was to become of them? She looked at the child in her arms. Nellie had fallen asleep. She was plump and well fed; that was because she always cried when she was hungry and therefore was served first. But now there was hardly any food in the house; they were down to two loaves and some pig fat, and the children could go through two loaves quicker than lightning through a haystack. If she intended to keep them together, and she did intend to do so, where was she going to get the money for food? The thought, forcing itself up from the depth of her mind into the open, caused her to jerk her head to the side and answer it by saying.

"Me da said they were never to go down the pit."

She walked abruptly over the road, past the end cottage, and on to the fells towards the river, and as she went she thought, William's afraid of the dark. Jimmy is an' all, and she knew that the mine represented to them, as it did to all the children. Parson Hedley's hell. This had no doubt come about by her mother telling them of how she was taken down first when she was seven and helped her da to fill the bogies, and some days she was down for fourteen hours.

When she came in sight of the children sitting quietly on the bank of the bum that ran into the river, a spot where they usually played and pledged, she stopped and, looking helplessly about her, muttered aloud, "What am I goin' to do?" Of a sudden she had the desire to drop on to the heather and cry her heart out. But her da had always said that tears were a waste. Tears, he was fond of saying, were a woman's weak kidney. Cry and you'll have the whole house crying; laugh and they'll be with you. He was right, he had always been right; they had laughed a lot in the house. He had a way of making people laugh, seeing the funny side of things. He had even e made her mother laugh, and her as bad as could be. But oh, at this moment she wanted to cry.

Jimmy turned and, seeing her coming, got to his feet, and the others followed him. Another time, when they came up with her, they would have yelled and shouted and danced round her, demanding, "Come on, our Cissie, have a game," but today they just looked at her for reassurance.

Seeing to them, organizing them, would be nothing, she had done that for years; it was where to get the money to feed them that was the problem. She looked at Bella, who was staring at her unblinking. Bella was almost herself in miniature, at least outwardly. She said to her, "Take Sarah, Charlotte, Joe, and Annie and go to the wood and gather as much kindling as you can."

"Ar^you going to bake, our Cissie?"

SSSiooked down at Joe. Joe was always hungry, his devilishness seemed to give him an appetite.

"Perhaps, later," she said; then turning to Jimmy, Mary, and William, she added, "You come back with me." And so they split up, the smaller children going across the fell in the direction of the wood while the older ones, walking docilely behind Cissie, returned to the hamlet.

It was as they came round the hump and in sight of the cottages that they saw the carriage outside the door, and they all stopped and looked at each other, but didn't speak. Then they made their way down to the road, Cissie still keeping a step ahead.

When she reached the door it was to see four men standing just inside it. One was the carpenter who was seeing to the coffins, and another was Parson Hedley, but the other two men she hadn't seen before, and the sight of them filled her with apprehension.

It was Parson Hedley who spoke.

"Ah, Cissie," he said.

"Ah, well now."

Following this, he bent his tall, thin figure slightly side wards and looked back into the room in the direction of the bed. Then joining his hands, the fingers of one hand overlapping the palm of the other, he pressed them together, and this created a sucking sound. He now brought his length bending towards Cissie, saying in an undertone as if conveying a secret, "This is Mr. Riper." He slanted his eyes towards the smaller of the two men.

"And this, his clerk, Mr. Fuller. Mr. Riper is a ... well, sort of representative, Cissie, if you know what I mean." He paused here as if to give her time to take in this statement.

"He ... he has come to help you about the matter of the children."

Cissie now stared at the plump figure of Mr. Riper, thinking the while that he was very much like his name, ready to burst out of his skin.

Mr. Riper returned Cissie's look. His eyes had already taken in her thin body. But then that was nothing to go by, the thin ones, like racehorses, were often the stayers. But there were another nine of them, four up to five, he understood, and one, as he saw, still in arms. Well, they'd better get on with it. He said in a thin voice that was in contrast to his plump body, "Give us the names and ages of the children."

"Why?"

"Whyl" He glanced from his clerk, who had a pencil poised above a thick sheaf of papers, and, looking at Cissie again, he screwed up his small eyes and repeated, "Why?" then went on swiftly, "Because, girl, they are to be put in care of the Poor Law."

"NO! Oh no, they're noti" She pushed past Parson Hedley and the carpenter and, the child clutched tightly against her, she backed towards the table until her buttocks were resting against it, and from there. she stared at one face after another before exclaiming, "They're not! You'll not. They're not goin' into the house."

"Now, Cissie. Cissie." It was Parson Hedley coming forward.

"You cannot hope to look after the family now your father is gone. It is happening all about us;

all the families who have lost their men folk are going into care, that is unless they have relatives willing to take them. Have . have you got any relatives you could go to? " He asked the question but he already knew the answer.

Her mind racing, she searched for relatives, but there were none. Her father's people had died of the typhoid when he was eighteen. Her mother hadn't seen any one of her family since she had left her home all those years ago, and anyway they were in West Riding at the other end of the world. But if they had lived across the road, would they have taken nine of them, ten with herself?

"Well, there now, what can you do, child?" Parson Hedley's voice was soft. His hands were joined together again as if he were suffering, as indeed he was, for this was the fourteenth family he had been to today in the three villages and five hamlets that made up his parish. But of all of them, he had dreaded coming here most, because this family had always been different, inasmuch as they were united and loving and clean, as far as it lay in their power to be so, and if they could have stayed together he was sure that this girl would have seen that nothing was altered, because she was of the same mold as her father.

"I'll work; Jimmy, Mary, and William, they can work an' all," she was gabbling now.

"And Bella, she's seven, she can start. We're all work, but we're not going to the house. I'm tellin' you we're not goin' to the house. Me da wouldn't rest if he thought we were going there." She turned towards the bed and looked towards her father's face, stiff, white, and more clean looking than she had ever seen it before, although he was always washing himself in the river.

"Ungrateful. Ungrateful." The thin voice brought her head round to the fat man. He was wagging his finger at her now, saying, "You should be thankful that the town is willing to take on the responsibility of feeding and housing your family. It you change your mind it might not be so easy for you to get in, I'm warning you. Come." He jerked his head at his clerk; then, turning to Parson Hedley, he said, "I'll leave this to you; I've three more to see in Brockdale. Are you coming?"

Parson Hedley nodded, then turned and looked sadly at Cissie and said softly, "My dear, we must talk about this. If I can't come back tonight I'll see you tomorrow after the funeral. Wait ... wait for me then."

She looked now at the coffin-maker. He was still standing within the doorway, his face turned towards the three men entering the coach, and not until it moved off did he look at her. Her face was even whiter than before, if that was possible; she looked all eyes and hair. He found her gaze disturbing, as if she were blaming him for the situation. There was fear in her eyes besides defiance.

He had made coffins over the past two weeks for a number of families who had lost their men, and he had seen that fat pig. Riper, dispose of the children with less feeling than a man sending sheep to market.

Riper was a draper with aspirations. As was the rule, he held the term of office as Custodian to the Poor Law for a year, and any money he issued for relief was rarely spent at his shop since food was the first necessity, and this disgruntled him, and he had been known to give only two shillings in cash and a shilling ticket for draperies.

He blinked his eyes twice when she said loudly, "They'll not do it, I'll not let them."

"How will you manage?"

"Somehow. The boys'll get work. Do you know anybody?"

He thought a moment, then shook his head. He'd had no need to think, the question had been asked of him dozens of times lately.

"Do you want anybody yourself? Jimmy's small, but he's ten and strong;

he'd be good at carpentry. "

He moved his tongue over his full lips then drooped his head slightly to the side before saying, "I'm sorry, but ours is a small concern, we're not carpenters, we're wheelwrights. There's only the two of us.

Another man, he came in when my dad got hurt. We can just keep going. "

His voice trailed away and he looked down towards the floor. He didn't know why he was standing here explaining things to her. He should be on his way and getting on with the job else those boxes would never be ready for the morrow morning. He moved uneasily from one foot to the other; then, glancing towards the mantelpiece, he said, "Don't worry about the money, I'll take the clock."

She didn't thank him but just stared at him, and after nodding twice at her he went out and closed the door behind him. She remained standing stiffly for a moment. Then, going to the side of the fireplace, she put the sleeping child into the wash basket on rockers, which formed a cradle, and when she straightened up she stood with her toe working the rocker and all the while staring at her parents. And now again she wanted to cry, and she could because there was nobody to see her.

When she sat down at the table, her face in her hands, the tears didn't come--the pain in her chest which was swelling and swelling seemed to be blocking their escape--yet her mind was not dwelling on the loss of parents now but was ranging widely around the word "work."

If she could only find work, somewhere where she could have Nellie with her. But that cut out factories such as the Rope Works and the Pipe Works. In any case, they were in Shields and that was too far away, about four miles, and she'd never be able to walk there and back each day and see to the rest of them. If only she could be set up in some big house, or farmhouse roundabout, but she knew there was little chance of that. Dilly Taggart down the Row had been trying for such a position tor over three months now with no luck;

everybody was sitting tight, nobody was changing. The only hope of jumping into anybody's shoes was if they took the fever or the cholera and died.

Things had gotten worse over the last year. Everybody put it down to the Jarrow pit strike, and Tommy Hepburn. Tommy Hepburn they said was a great man, but she herself couldn't see anything great about a man who organized strikes, because strikes to her mind meant less food and not only for pit men But she remembered it as an awful time for the miners for the troops had come from London and turned them out of their cottages, and, because anybody who took them in was letting themselves in for the sack, there was no place for them to go except the fells. Even when the strike was over some of them were never set on again, and these took to the open road with their families. The few who braved the winter on the fells were less in number when the spring came. The farmers, too, roundabout had taken a high hand at the time;

her father had said that some of them were more uppish than Lord Fischel himself. They were controllers of food and such men could act like God. Farmers Woolley and Thornton were like that, she thought, but not Farmer Hetherington. Tomorrow, when it was all over, she would go to him; if anyone would help her he would.

But now she must think of a meal for them. She had only those two loaves left. She looked towards the open cupboard. She would get twelve slices out of each if she cut them thin; but one must be left for the morrow. She would also keep the bit of pig's fat for the morrow. Tonight she would boil the turnips and spread them on the bread. That should fill them. Another thing she must do as soon as the boys came back was to get the mattresses out of here and into e the other room. It wouldn't do to let the young ones sleep in here tonight, for the smell now was really turning into a stench.

The two coffins were on the dung cart. The high sides had been left on but the back had been taken off. The women of the hamlet stood at their doors in respectful silence while the Brodie family took their places behind the cart. Jimmy and William first, Mary and Bella next;

behind them Sarah and Charlotte; and lastly Cissie, and by her side Mr. Snell, the only man, besides the driver, present. He was there only because he was recovering from the fever and wasn't strong enough as yet to return to work; the other men in the hamlet couldn't lose a day's work to go to a funeral unless it was someone in the immediate family; and it wasn't proper that women should attend. Mrs. Patterson and Mrs. Taggart had both voiced their disapproval to Cissie for allowing the girls to go. Charlotte, at the ripe age of five, had been left to take charge of Joe and Annie; Mrs. Robinson had taken the baby.

"Gee-upl" The old horse moved and the cart swayed and the funeral procession began.

The road from the hamlet lay straight for about a quarter of a mile with open fells on one side and low-walled farmland on the other. When the farm cart rounded the first bend in the road there lay ahead a long slow rise, and it was ten minutes later when they reached the top of it. The road on the high ground was rougher and the cart rocked and the coffins moved from side to side in the foot leeway they had, and the children slipped and stumbled and broke the orderly formation of the procession until Cissie's outstretched hand pushed them into place again.

The sickness in her chest deepened as she looked over the heather-clad hillocks to the right of her and into the distance where lay the river and Jarrow, for it was up here that her da used to bring them on fine Sundays, and he would sit on the highest point and talk to them, always looking towards the river, broadening it for them from the silver thread, which was all they could see, to a vast water on which ships, filled up to the scuppers with coal, set their great sails and went with the wind to London. They followed them on their journeys and all the way back until, filled now with ballast, they would come into Shields and tip it on the foreshore.

One memorable Sunday her father had brought the scene to life for herself, John, Nancy, and Peter. It was the year before the children died. Setting off at six o'clock in the morning, they had walked all the way to Shields shore and had the most wonderful day of their lives. Not only had they seen the town and the life of the river and watched great sailing ships sailing out into the North Sea, but, strangely, the pinnacle of the day for her had been when, on the return journey, their father had led them through Westoe village where the houses of the great were, dozens of them, and they had seen at least twenty beautiful coaches going in and out of drives or standing before glistening brass-adorned doors. It was on that night that the dream had first come to her and she'd seen her whole family living in the most beautiful house; it was low and white with thick walls and the sun was shining on it so brightly that it hurt her eyes to look at it. The dream had since come to her often, and it had never changed.

After a weary day, as sleep was overtaking her, she would often say to herself, "I hope I have it the night." But it didn't always come. She had told no one about her dream, not even her da, not because it was silly but because it was too precious to share, and she had the feeling that if she ever spoke of it she would never dream it again.

They were now going downhill and the road was so rough that Jimmy and William had to steady the coffins on the cart.

They passed through Benham and Brockdale, and people stared to see so many children at a funeral and their expression said it wasn't right.

Cissie knew what they were thinking but it didn't matter. Her da and ma were going to have a funeral with people at it, and who better than their own family. It it hadn't been such a long way to the cemetery she would have brought the lot of them.

They passed Rosier's pit just as a shift was coming out and the men, black with red-gapped mouths, stood still until they had passed; then they went through Rosier's village and the stench from the middens engulfed them like a cloud.

Fifteen minutes later they reached the cemetery gate and here they had to halt, for another funeral was going in and they all stood and stared at it in wonder. The coffin was in a glass box drawn by four black horses, and following it Cissie counted twelve coaches, and behind them almost a hundred people on foot. They had never seen such a spectacle. Jimmy turned his dark, thin face towards her and gazed at her in silence, and she returned his look.

When the last of the long cortege had gone through the gates, the driver got down from the cart and led the horse forward, not up the main driveway but along a side path and to a distant corner of the cemetery, and there, waiting at the end of a long line of open graves, was Parson Hedley, with a single gravedigger standing beside him.

Parson Hedley watched the small procession come towards him and he too shook his head at the sight of the children.

But then he thought Joe would have wanted it this way and she, better than anyone, would know that. But still it wasn't right. He now went up to Cissie and touched her lightly on the arm and nodded at her twice but didn't speak before turning to Mr. Snell and saying, "I'm glad you managed it, John." And John Snell said piously, "Out of respect. Parson. Out of respect." Then the driver of the cart and the gravedigger, with no ceremony whatever, pulled a coffin from the cart and placed it over two ropes. When they had taken up the ends they looked at Parson Hedley, and he, indicating to Cissie with a wave of his hand that she place the children round the grave, opened the Bible, and the service began.

Parson Hedley wasn't a good preacher. It was said that his sermons were the best "sleeping dose" one could have, but it was also said it was with works and not words that he carried out his Christian duties.

As they placed the second coffin on the first, Mary began to cry loudly and Cissie, reaching out, drew her tightly against her side, but all the while she stared down into the grave, and as she stared she wondered what was the matter with her. Was she going funny in the head? Because, instead of crying like Mary, she was wondering if her ma was lying on top of her da or the other way about, and in which coffin they had put the baby; likely with her mother, but then you never knew, not for sure. When Parson Hedley's voice droned "Ashes to ashes" she put her hand over her mouth because her mind was reciting the parody that her da used to say, "Ashes to ashes, dust to dust, if the Lord won't have you the devil must." What was the matter with her?

She had no feeling in her chest now, she felt numb all over. Was she going off her head?

When William sniffled and coughed, then made a choking sound as he drooped his head forward on to his chest, she put her free hand on his shoulder and gripped it tightly. Now Sarah started to cry, but her crying was quiet. Like her nature, everything was toned down.

When the gravedigger started to shovel the earth rapidly on to the coffins, the hollow sound of the lumps of clay hitting the wood reverberated against Cissie's temples and she had the terrifying desire to jump into the hole and throw the dirt out again.

"Come away. Come away." She allowed Parson Hedley to turn her from the grave. The children were tightly gathered around her now, even Jimmy, and Parson Hedley, putting his hand on one head after the other said, "Leave your sister for a moment. You go on with them, Jimmy" --he nodded to the dry-eyed boy"--I want to talk to Cissie."

They stood aside and let her walk from their midst, but their eyes remained tight on her. Parson Hedley stopped at the end of the path and, bending forwards, said, "Now have you thought about what you are going to do, Cissie?"

She wagged her head several times before she spoke.

"Yes, Parson."

"You're going to let Mr. Riper deal with it?"

"No, no. Parson, we're not goin' there. We might all be separated, might never see each other again. I'll look after them."

"How?" He moved his head slowly from side to side, then added, "You've got to be sensible, Cissie. How can you possibly provide for nine children?"

"As I said. Parson, we can work. If I can find work and see to them I will, but failing that I'll find something for the three top ones."

Oh, dear Lord. Dear Lord. Parson Hedley now joined his palms together and made the sucking sound in the characteristic attitude that was his when troubled, and he looked up into the low sky that was threatening rain; then, as if finding another question there, he brought his head down to her again and now asked, "But where will you live?"

"Live?" As her eyes sprung wide her mouth went into a gape; then she spoke as if addressing someone slightly stupid.

"Well, where we are, of course, Parson."

"Oh child, don't you realize it's a tithe house;

Farmer Hetherington will want to put his next man in there. "

It seemed that all the muscles of her face were twitching now and she couldn't control her lips in order to speak. This was the thought she had been clamping down on for the past two days, this was the thought that had been frightening her. But she had smothered it with another thought: Farmer Hetherington was a kind man. But now she had to ask herself if he would be kind to the extent of letting them stay on in his house when he wanted it for another worker. He must, he couldn't turn them out. She was bridling inside herself. She said firmly, "He won't turn us out, not Farmer Hetherington. I'll go and see him the morrow."

Parson Hedley stared at the thin slip of a girl, and in this moment he envied her the quality that made her blind to obstacles, and he hadn't it in his heart to say to her that he already knew the family that Farmer Hetherington was putting into the house towards the end of the week, a man with six children, one of at least two dozen men who had been on the farmer's doorstep for the job before Joe Brodie had been cold.

"Have you any money, Cissie?" His voice was soft.

When she made no answer to this, only stared at him, he put his hand into his pocket and took out a shilling which he handed to her. She did not protest politely and falsely as her mother would have, saying, "Oh, I couldn't take it. Parson," her hand going out at the same time, but she took the shilling from him and muttered, "Thank you. Parson.

Thank you. "

Mr. Snell, passing at this moment, observed the exchange and she knew he would be expecting a drink out of it. It was usual to give the mourners a drink and a meal; that's why a lot of men went to funerals. But he would get no drink out of this, this would keep them in bread and fat for two days.

"I have to go now, Cissie." The Parson looked towards another cart which was coming up the pathway.

"I will call and see you tomorrow."

By which time, he considered, she would have seen Farmer Hetherington and know finally that her case was hopeless, and then he would contact Mr. Riper again. Oh, how he hated getting in contact with that man.

Would that God could make him love every man as his neighbor.

"Good-bye, Cissie, and God bless you."

"Good-bye, Parson, and thank you. Thank you indeed." She waited for the children to come up, and when they reached the main gate Mr. Snell was waiting. She looked him straight in the eye and said, "Thank you for comin', Mr. Snell; it was kind of you." Then not waiting for an answer from him she walked on.

They had gone some distance along the road towards home when the cart rumbled past them and the driver, stopping, asked brightly, "You wantin' a lift?" and quickly she answered, "No! No, thank you. No."

She couldn't tolerate the thought of them all huddled together in the cart where the coffins had lain but a short time ago. As she looked at the cart rumbling away she thought, "Eehl that's got to be paid for. I wonder who ordered it?"

When the first drops of rain came she looked behind her to where Mary, William, Bella, and Sarah were dawdling now, silent, their feet trailing, and she said briskly, "Put a move on, else we're goin' to get wet," and with Jimmy walking by her side she set the pace.

It was as they were entering Rosier's village that Jimmy, speaking for the first time, said, "What'a' we goin' to do, our Cissie?" and she, evading the question said practically, "Get bread or flour. Parson give me a shilling."

They both turned now and looked in the direction of the women queuing outside the tommy shop, the iniquitous retail business attached to most mines where the miner's wife was forced to spend the main part of her husband's wages if he hoped to be kept in work, and she said, "But I'm not goin' there."

"You goin' to Benham then?"

"No, not there either, we're goin' to Brockdale."

"Brockdale? But that's a mile and a half out of the way."

"It might be, but there's a difference of a penny in a quarter stone of flour at Nesbitt's."

"Me ma used to say it was nothin' but chaff." He- was looking straight ahead as he spoke and she, her gaze directed in the same way, answered, "It might be but it's fillin'."

When they reached the place where the roads branched, one to Heatherbrook, one to Brockdale and the other to Benham, they turned up the Brockdale Road but stopped as they saw a flat cart coming from the direction of their hamlet being driven by the wheelwright, Matthew Turnbull.

With the children about her, Cissie awaited the cart's approach, and when it was level with them Matthew pulled it to a halt and she looked up at him and said, "You can come for the clock anytime, Mr.

Turnbull. " She wondered if he had already been to the house to collect it.

He replied quietly, "That's all right, there's no hurry." He now took his eyes from her and looked at the faces of the children all staring up at him; then jerking his head in the direction of the hamlet he asked, "Aren't you making your way home?" and she answered, "No, we're going to Brockdale first, to the shop."

When he didn't remark on this, Bella, who was a born opportunist, said, "We're goin' for flour; it's cheaper there but it's a long tramp."

Cissie cast a hard glance towards Bella. She knew what she was after;

Bella was never backward in coming forward; Bella would never die for want of asking. It was strange; she was so like herself in looks, having the same color skin and chestnut hair, but there was no similarity at all in their ways, nor was any other member of the family as forward as Bella. But Bella, as usual, achieved her end, for Mr. Turnbull was now inviting them all up on the cart. He jumped down, saying, "Just a minute, I'll move these," and picking up two sheep cribs, a hay rake, and a wooden milk bucket, all looking startlingly new, he said, "I'm goin' that way, I've got to deliver these to Bamfords." He was addressing Cissie solely now and went on by way of explanation, which seemed slightly shamefaced although she couldn't understand why, "Make these odds and ends when things are slack. People are running their carts on the rims this last year or so." He gave a huh of a laugh, then added, "There now, there's plenty of room for you all. Up with you!" He took Sarah by the armpits and lifted her well back on to the cart, then Bella and Mary, while William and Jimmy climbed up themselves. Then there was only Cissie, and he stood looking at her for a minute, but before he could extend his hands towards her she had swung herself on to the tail board.

"You'll be all right there?" he asked as she settled herself.

"Yes. Yes, thank you."

"It's a rough road, you'll have to hang on. You can come up front if you like."

She shook her head quickly and turned her eyes from his.

"Ta. Thanks.

I'm all right here. "

When he started up the cart they all fell together into a heap but, with the exception of Bella, none of them laughed as they would have done at any other time, and even Bella's laugh was smothered.

They had covered half the distance to Brockdale when he called over his shoulder, "How much flour are you wanting?"

Cissie heard him quite clearly but did not answer until William, giving her a small poke in the back, whispered, "Our Cissie, he's asking' how much flour you're wantin'."

A number of seconds elapsed before she could say, "A quarter stone," and then she knew that her voice would not carry to him. It was Jimmy who called, "Quarter stone."

Matthew made no comment on this and they had almost reached Brockdale when he said, "If you wouldn't mind a little longer ride I would take you to the mill, Watson's mill. I know him; you'd get more value for your money there."

Cissie twisted round and looked towards him. He had his head turned on his shoulder as if waiting for an answer and she said clearly now, "Thanks, we wouldn't mind the ride." She'd drive another ten miles to get more value for her money.

He turned the horse from the main road on to a narrow track and at one point the going was so rough that it bounced Cissie off the end of the cart, but she dropped on to her feet and quickly signaled to the children not to call Mr. Turnbull's attention to her.

As she walked with her hand on the end of the cart she saw the mill before the others did, and for a moment she saw it as the house in her dream. Then the impression was gone because the mill house although whitewashed, was tall and higgeldypiggeldy.

She had heard of Watson's mill but this was the first time she had seen it for it must be all of five miles away from the hamlet, and inland, and her father had never taken them inland but always in the direction of the main river.

Matthew drew up the cart in the middle of a big paved yard and, getting down, he came to her and said, "Wait here a minute," then crossed the yard and went towards a round house, while the children, now scrambling down from the cart, looked about them in surprised excitement, saying, "It's a flour mill, Cissie. Cissie, it's a flour mill."

Sarah was standing with her back against Cissie's hip as if afraid to move into this wonder world but the others edged quietly about the yard, their eyes darting here and there. Then William came scampering back to her, saying breathlessly, "The sails are 'round the corner.

Come on, have a look, Cissie. "

Her eyes on the round house, she said sternly, "Stop moving about.

Bring them here, and behave. "

When Matthew came into view again he was accompanied by a man who had a film of white over him. He was a big man of indeterminable age but the covering of flour made him appear very old, and he looked them over before he said, "Ah, well now, there you are. And so you're after flour, are you?"

Cissie's voice was small as she answered, "Yes, Sir."

"An' I hear you want all of a quarter stone." He was laughing at her, making game of her, and she didn't reply but her face became stiffer and she straightened her shoulders. This reaction wasn't lost on the miller and he laughed louder now, saying, "Never sold less than half a sack afore, never been asked for less, come to that, but now you want quarter stone. Well, well." He thrust out his great hand and punched Matthew on the arm. But the blow didn't shudder Matthew, not even to make him move a step, but he laughed with the miller, at the same time keeping his eye on Cissie.

"How much do you pay for a quarter stone in Brockdale?"

The miller was speaking again and she answered, "Ninepence for seconds."

"Ninepence for secondsl Do you hear that?" He again punched Matthew on the arm.

"Daylight robbery Seconds she said, mostly boxings. Well, well. But now we must see what we can do for you, eh? If Matthew says you want help, then help you'll have. Now, I'll give you seconds and good seconds, three parts white, and I'll give you a full stone for your nine pence What do you say to that?"

The stiffness slid from her face, her shoulders slumped, her lips moved into a gentle smile and she said, "I'd say thank you. Sir. Thank you very kindly."

"Civil spoken, girl, civil spoken." Before he had finished speaking he was again looking at Matthew;

and now he added, "I'll see to them, you go on 'round beyond, and if I'm not mistaken Rose'll be havin' a mug of tea at this minute. I'll take this squad and show them inside."

"I'll do that." Matthew was about to turn away when, through a door in the far wall, a woman appeared. Cissie thought at first it was the miller's wife, then when the woman came nearer she didn't think she'd be old enough, though she wasn't all that young, over twenty she thought. The woman was big, her head on a level with the wheelwright's, her body as broad as his, but it was the face of the woman that Cissie looked at. It was plain, she had never seen such a plain woman. She was plain to ugliness. Her nose was broad, her eyes small, very like the eyes of the miller with deep glints in them, and her skin was thick like that you'd see on some man, and she had a big mole on her chin. Then she smiled at Matthew, and Cissie's eyes became concentrated on her mouth showing now a set of beautiful white teeth.

The smile made her look different and her voice was pleasant as she said, "Why, Matthew," and there was pleasure in the sound of it and Cissie thought. She likes him, she likes him very much. When the woman looked inquiringly at her and the children, Matthew said softly, "They're the Brodies from Heatherbrook; they've just buried their parents."

"Aw, poor things." Her glance swept over them and came to rest on Cissie, and after a second she turned away, saying, "They'll be for the house I suppose?" And Matthew turned with her, but Cissie could not hear what he answered.

The miller now beckoned them all towards him, saying, "Come on along with you and I'll show you something I bet you've never seen afore."

Clustered together, they went through the brick piers that supported the mill itself, past the cart that was standing near the central post, having sacks let down to it from the floor above, then, leading the way to a ladder set almost vertically against a post, he said, "Think you can climb that? No need to be afraid, stones aren't workin', runner's being dressed. The top mill stone" -he patted Jimmy on the head-"the one that does all the work."

When, after scrambling and slipping, they all reached the first floor they stood, still close together, looking about them in amazement, and they stared in wonder at a man who grinned at them while smearing a long flat piece of wood with soot, after which he began rubbing it over the surface of a great stone.

"Ah! that surprises you, doesn't it? Soot in a flour mill, eh?" The miller was shouting now.

"But nothing like soot for sorting out the dents. Picks up a flaw as small as a pin head, it does. An' do you know something? Mill stones are like women, did you know that?" He was addressing Cissie again.

"They are, 'cos they have eyes and eyebrows, and chests, and finally a skirt. Aye, the mill stones are very like women. You put the corn in by the eye, the chest breathes it in, and the skirt wafts it out." He looked at them all now, laughing heartily, then said, "You all lost your tongues? Don't want to ask any questions?"

When none of them made to answer he laughed his loud laugh again, and shaking his big head he said, "Quietest hairns ever been in here. But then, suppose it's understandable." His face sober now, he led the way back down the ladder; then going into a barnI he Dwelling fl ace ^y like structure beyond the piers, he dipped a big metal scoop into a bin and poured the rough flour into a hessian bag and took it to a tall scale on which he weighed it, saying, "I'm a good guesser as a rule, but I'm out the day. Pound over a stone there is there. But we'll call it straight, eh? All for nine pence Once in a lifetime you'll get a bargain like that, me girl, and I'm tellin' you."

When he handed her the sack she handed him the shilling, and he said, "Ah! change you want. Well now, 'tis Rose that sees to the money side.

Leave the sack there and come away over. Go on," he said when he saw her hesitating to put the sack down, " nobody's goin' to steal it. " He was laughing again.

Like sheep they followed him from the mill across the yard, through a door, and into another yard, a smaller yard, private, with boxes along one wall that held flowers and in the same wall a window that opened outwards and on which were hanging white lace curtains.

The miller was shouting through a doorway now, "Have you got a shive for them?" And his daughter came into the yard, saying, "Of course. Of course." She had a mug in her hand from which the steam was rising, and behind her stood Matthew. He too had a mug in his hand, and the sight of the mugs brought the saliva rising into Cissie's mouth. They were drinking tea. It was over a month since she'd had a sup of tea and then it had been the cheap stuff at tuppence farthing an ounce.

She had made that ounce last a week, just a teaspoonful a day, but stew it as she might, after the first brew it had come out like water, whereas if they had been able to afford the pekoe it would still have had color in it at the end of the day. But then the time was far behind them when they could afford to pay fourpence an ounce for tea.

"Come in. Come in." Rose Watson moved backwards and waved them towards her, and they stepped over the threshold and into what Cissie thought was her first glimpse of heaven.

The room was a great stone-floored kitchen, low- ceilinged with black beams crisscrossing it, the plaster showing as white as flour between them. The walls, also beamed here and there, were whitewashed, and around an open fire with an enormous bread oven at each side hung an array of shining copper pans, and on the broad rough oak mantel-shelf a graded line of brass candlesticks. The dresser, laden with crockery, was against one wall, a black settle against another, and in the middle of the room stood a long white wooden table, and on it a wooden platter on which lay a big loaf with a knob on the top, and beside it a piece of cheese that must have weighed all of three pounds.

Without exception, they all had their eyes fixed on the table. Cissie had at first looked about the room, but now, like the children, her gaze was concentrated on the food, and the big woman, beginning to cut thick slices off the loaf, said, "You like cheese?"

They were so dumbfounded they couldn't answer, not even Cissie, and the miller, roaring again, cried, "They've lost their tongues. Of course they like cheese. Just you try 'em."

Rose cut hunk after hunk of cheese and placed one on each slice of bread, then handed them round. Serving Cissie last, she asked, "Would they like milk or tea?" And without hesitation, Cissie said, "Tea, please."

The miller's laugh again filled the kitchen.

"They're not daft.

They're not daft. Tea please, she said. How often do you have tea? " He poked his head towards Cissie, and she answered quietly, " Not very often. Sir. " And he repeated, " Not very often. An' that's the truth you're speakin', I'll bet. "

Cissie had never tasted tea like it. It as hot, strong, and sweet, and with each swallow it seemed to bring new life into her. She couldn't help but empty her mug quickly, and when Rose asked, "Would you like another?" she bit on her lip and moved her head in two small jerks, and although she couldn't see anything funny about it, this action of hers sent the miller into a choking fit of laughter; and all the while Matthew stood by smiling.

When the last of them Iiad finished their bread and cheese and drunk their tea, Matthew buttoned his coat and said, "Well now, I'll have to be getting along, I'm a workin' man." This caused the miller to guffaw again, and his daughter said, "We'll be seeing you on Saturday then, Matthew?"

He nodded at her and replied, "Saturday, Rose, Saturday." And on this she smiled, showing all her teeth again. Then she turned to the table and with an abrupt movement swept up the remainder of the big loaf and the cheese and, taking a piece of linen from the delft rack, she bundled them up in it and thrust them at Cissie, saying, "There, they'll be hungry when they get home."

Cissie clutched the bread and cheese to her breast and stared into the broad plain face, and the tears that she had suppressed over the last trying days threatened to engulf her, and her voice broke as she said, "Thank you. Oh thank you. Miss." Then, her glance took in the miller and Matthew, who was unsmiling now, and she muttered thickly, "You're all so kind." And on this she turned and hurried to the door, and the children followed her.

When they were all settled in the cart she was able to lift her head and look at the woman and say calmly, "And thank you for the tea an' all. It was lovely, beautiful tea."

"You're welcome."

"Bye-bye." They were all waving to the woman and the miller, and as the cart rumbled out of the yard Matthew turned and raised his whip and when Rose Watson called, "Good-bye, Matthew," he called back, "Good-bye, Rose. And thanks, thanks for everything."

As the cart joggled on its way the children began talking about all they had seen and she let them go on until she heard Bella say, "That bread, it was lovely. And we'll have another shive when we get in."

"You'll not, you know." Her eyes were slanted across her shoulder and her voice was sharp as she looked at Bella.

"You've had your share for the day;

there's the others. " She was sorry she had to say this but Bella had to be kept down; Bella could only think of her stomach. But wasn't that all there was to think about when you were hungry?

William, his fair head resting against the back of her arm, said, as if to himself, "That woman, she was kind, wasn't she?" and as Mary answered, "Yes, there aren't many like her about," it occurred to Cissie that it wasn't really the woman, or the miller, they had to thank for the kindness they had received today, but him driving, Mr.

Turnbull. If they had gone to the mill on their own, she guessed they would have had short shrift; the miller liked Mr. Turnbull, and the woman, Rose, did an' all. Oh yes, it was clear for all to see. Perhaps they were courtin', very likely, and she wanted to please him. Still, no matter what the reason, she was grateful to them, but most of all to Mr. Turnbull. Oh yes, she was grateful to him; she didn't know what they would have done without him these past two days.

Matthew stopped once so that she could buy a pen north of yeast, and he did not put them all down where the roads met but took them to within ten minutes' walk of the hamlet. And when they were standing on the road she said to him, "We've taken you out of your way," but he shook his head as he replied, "There's a path across the fells; that will get me to Benham in no time."

She stood now gazing up at him, her brown eyes deep and soft with gratitude, her lips parted and moving wordlessly before she could begin to thank him.

"I ... I don't know what to say, you've ... you've helped us so much. The clock is there any time...."

His eyes moved over her face. The milk of the skin round her mouth merged into pink on her cheek bones. There was no hollow under the eyes, the skin went tautly up to the lower lids, where the lashes curled back on to them like fringes. Her hair, escaping from the black kerchief round her head, was lying damp on her brow. There came over him a most weird sensation as if he were being lifted out of himself and standing aside from all past experience. It was disturbing, for he was a practical fellow. He had the impression that all her features were merging into one and he could see nothing but a silver light that grew brighter and brighter. He blinked his eyes and shook his head, and the light faded and he saw her eyes staring at him in some surprise now, and quickly he explained the spasm that had passed over him by saying, "I've, I've got a toothache, it gives me the jumps now and again."

"Oh!" The exclamation was full of understanding. She knew what toothache was.

"I'm sorry," she said.

"Mustard's a good thing." And to this he answered, "Aye, it is. I'll plaster it when I get in." Then turning abruptly from her, he said over his shoulder, "I'll call within the next day or so for the clock" ; and, mounting the cart, he started up the horse and turned it on to the fells, but he didn't say good-bye or wave. She understood this, and so did the children for they'd all had toothaches.

They went along the road, walking closely now and silently, and as she got nearer to the hamlet the sorrow deepened in her, and she realized that she had almost forgotten it during the past two hours. She comforted herself with the thought that at least they were set for the next three days; she had bread, cheese, and turnips, and with the tuppence she had left she would get a pen north of pig's fat and a pen north of skimmed milk, and she'd make the latter do for a couple of days. Oh, she'd manage. And she must remember what her da was always saying, never give up hope for it was that and not an empty belly that would kill you.

When they had found the farm laborer from Pelaw dead in the ditch outside the hamlet last year her da had said he hadn't died so much of hunger but from loss of hope; so she must go on hoping, and something would happen to change things.

It did the following morning.

She stood in the muddy farmyard, the glar coming over the uppers of her patched boots, and she said in a whisper laden with fear, "But where will we go?"

Farmer Hetherington moved his heavy lower jaw from one side to the other, then pursed his lips before saying, "There's only one place and you know it. You should have let Mr. Riper arrange it tother day.

It'll be a lesson to you if you can't get them in there after all and have to go on the fells. You're not the only family left like this, there's dozens around the countryside and it's ten times worse in the town 'cos the fever got a hold there; you should have jumped at the chance when you got it. "

She couldn't believe that this was Farmer Hetherington talking, he had always been kindly, giving nothing for nothing, except turnips, which he had so many of the buried them, but nevertheless he had always been civilly spoken.

An hour ago when he had sent the herdsman to tell her that they must be out the day after the morrow because another ploughman was coming into the house she had yelled at him, "He can't, he wouldn't do it to us, me da was bonded to him."

"Aye," said the herdsman, "but he took his wage weekly, that makes all the difference, ya can't eat your bread an' have it."

"I'll go and talk to him," she had said.

And she had talked, she had begged, almost prayed to him. Her hands were still joined in front of her waist as if in supplication, but all to no avail. The longer he talked the harsher his voice became; finally he offered her help in the way he considered best by saying, "I'm going into Jarrow shortly. I'll get into touch with Mr. Riper for you if I can."

"No!" Her voice was low, her expression bewildered, but she went on, "They're not going to the house. As you say, we can go on the fells as others afore us have done; but there's one thing sure, we're not goin' there an' be separated."

When he just stared at her, saying no word, she stared back at him, and now with a dignity that made him grind his teeth together she said, "Me da always spoke well of you. Farmer Hetherington." And on this she turned and made her way across the dung and mud morass of the yard.

It had rained heavily in the night and the caked ridges of the road had flattened out and the ruts and hollows were now pools. Unheeding, she made her way around them and between them, all the while crying deep within her, "Oh Da. Oh Da." She didn't think with regret of her mother; her mother had been weak and helpless and evoked her pity, but her da had evoked her admiration and love because he could always find an answer to everything that concerned them.

She didn't know at first why she stepped off the road and climbed the bank on to the tells; it wasn't until she found herself skirting a disused quarry that she realized where she was making for, and when she reached the place she stood and gazed at it. It was a hollow within an outcrop of rock, not large enough to call a cave but deep enough to shelter eight people from the rain, and with room to spare.

She remembered the last time they had all been here. It was Easter Sunday and her da had given them each a paste egg; he must have cooked them when they were asleep so as to give them a surprise, and he had put dandelion roots and bark into the water to color the egg shells. Each of them had carried his egg in his hand as if it were made of gold and then they had stood at the top of the rise over there, below which the land sloped steeply away. They had stood in a row on the rim and her da had shouted, "Ready, set, go!" and they'd all rolled their eggs down the hill and run, screaming gleefully, after them. But before they could come up the hill again it had started to rain while the sun was still shining, and they had scrambled into here and peeled their eggs and their da had sprinkled salt on them, and as they ate them they nearly choked with laughter at the funny things he kept saying. It had been a wonderful day.

She walked nearer to the entrance and looked down at a patch of black earth. Someone had been here recently and had made a fire, likely a road tramp. She walked under the shelter of the jutting rock and gazed at the dim interior; then with deliberate steps she paced the distance to the wall. It was four steps in depth and five in width, which was larger than the room at home. She would take the wooden beds to bits and rig them up at each side, leaving the middle free. And that would hold the table. The clothes box could go to that side at the foot of one bed and the chest of drawers at the toot of the other. She wished the entrance weren't so high; it was going to be difficult to rig up something to keep the rain out if the wind was this way. They'd have the fire outside and concoct something on which to hang the round bottomed kale pot. But she wouldn't be able to bake, she'd have to buy bread. But what would she buy bread with?

She walked into the open again, across the flat shelf of shale to the edge of a long slope which dropped to a rough road. The slope was covered with early foxgloves, saxifrage, and parsley fern. When she saw it last it had been dotted with patches of shy headed cowslips.

She turned to her left and walked off the edge of the shelf and onto a grassy rise that ended in a hill, and from the brow she looked in the direction of Jarrow and the river. But she wasn't seeing the village or the little shipbuilding yard, she was seeing the mine.

"I can't help it." She spoke the words aloud, as if she were answering her da, and on this she walked rapidly away.

When, ten minutes later, she entered the house on the point of a run she startled the children by saying, "You, Mary; gather all the dishes together and the pans and put them in the cradle. Everything that will go in put in the cradle. And you, William; bundle up the beddin'.... Where's Jimmy and Bella?"

"Jimmy's out getting' wood and our Bella went out to play down by the bum."

"Charlotte." Cissie turned to the five-year-old child and said harshly, "You go down and tell Bella to come back here this minute, she's wanted. And you, Sarah; gather the clothes up from the other room, everything. Bundle them big enough for you to carry." Then turning to William again, who was standing staring at her, she said, "Before you start, go and find Jimmy."

"Where we goin', Cissie?" William's voice was small and she answered, "I'll tell you all about it when you bring Jimmy back. Now go on."

Within five minutes Jimmy came running into the house with William behind him, and straightaway he asked the same question as William had done, "Where we goin', Cissie?"

Before she answered him she went and picked up Nellie from the floor, and she was holding the child with one arm astride her hip when she said, "The cave near the quarry. We've got to get out by Friday;

it's either that or the house. "

The two boys stared at her, their lower lips sagging, and she looked from one to the other now and said, "And that's not all; you'd better come in here a minute."

She went into the other room and they followed her, and after saying to Sarah, "Take that lot out into the kitchen," she closed the door on her. Then turning to the boys, her voice harsh again, she made a statement.

"There'll be no work for us until the tatie pickin', will there?"

After a moment Jimmy shook his head and said, "No."

"Well then, how do you think we're goin' to live?"

Their eyes seemed to grow wider as she looked at them.

"Will any of the farmers take you on 'round here?"

To this Jimmy answered, "What's the matter with you, our Cissie? What you getting' at? You know we can't get set on, we've tried."

"WAll, where could you get set on?"

They remained quiet for a moment, and it was William who said in a very small voice.

"You mean the pit, Cissie?"

To this she answered, with her eyes downcast and her voice low now, "I can't help it. Me da said he would never let you, but what are we goin' to do? It's either that or we go into the house, and you know what that means.... And they would send you to the pit from there anyway, or up the flues. Joe they'd surely send up the flues 'cos he's small."

It was William who spoke again.

"Johnny Fisher, he's only nine and he told me he got four and six a week and their Sam seven and six. But he's eleven."

Cissie looked at William. The prospect wasn't frightening him . as yet, but it was Jimmy, Jimmy who was afraid of the dark. But he had pluck, had Jimmy. She said to him now, "What do you say, Jimmy?" and looking back at her he said soberly, like an adult man, "If it's the only way, it's the only way, isn't it?"

It was settled then.

"When we get all the things out," she said, "we'll go down and ask Mr. Martin or Mr. Fisher how to go about it." Then turning abruptly and opening the door, she added, "We've got to take the beds to bits;

we'll need every bit of wood we can get our hands on. Let's get started. "

She put the child on the floor again and set about organizing their removal.

No matter how warm the day, it became cold around three o'clock in the morning. They might all go to sleep with their legs straight out but in the early dawn they were huddled together in a fleshy heap. Cissie had woken up when the stars were still bright in the sky and she had warned herself not to go to sleep again. She had no way now of telling the time except by the dawn, for the last thing she had done before leaving the house was to send Jimmy with the clock to Matthew Turnbull's in Benham. To her surprise he had returned with Jimmy and stood aghast as he looked at the cave and the odds and ends of their household goods lying around the mouth of it, and he had exclaimed grimly, "You can't live here," and as she busied herself putting the planks together for the bed she had answered him, saying, "It's a dwelling, it's a dwelling. It'll do until I can find something better."

Then he had surprised her further by stamping away as if he were in a temper. But he had been back every day since, and had never come empty handed. He had even brought her a packet of tea, a full quarter, and yesterday a bag of pig's chitterlings.

These had been better even than the tea; she had made such a meal as they hadn't had in weeks.

And today the boys were starting work. Mr. Martin had been very helpful, but at a price. For getting them set on he was claiming a shilling out of each of their first week's wages, and he had warned her that they might not be paid for a fortnight or even three weeks.

They didn't bond the boys, he said, unless they were workhouse apprentices for they weren't employed by the mine owners but by a but tie This, he explained to her, was a man who contracted to bring the coal from the coal face to the shaft bottom and who would take on as many youngsters as he could get, and he liked them small and thin like Jimmy because they could get through the narrow low passages. He said Jimmy could start straightaway putting, and the standard wage for putters was six and six a week, but if he cared to do double shifts and work hard he could make as much as twelve shillings, whereas William, he said, being on the broad side and bigger than Jimmy, although only eight, would go in as a trapper. He also put her wise to the fact that they might have to take part of their wages in a food ticket, and that it she wanted a sub on her brothers the but tie would advance her the money at the rate of a penny in the shilling. The ordinary shift, he said, started at five and finished at five.

Jimmy had been sick yesterday but William had been excited and kept larking on and making the others laugh.

She got off the straw-filled mattress that was resting on the wooden platform and, shivering, hastily pulled on her clothes over her petticoat and under-bodice which she had slept in. When she was dressed she groped her way across the uneven floor to where Jimmy, William, Joe, and Annie were sleeping, and, her hands feeling among their heads, she fondled Jimmy's smooth, dark hair and William's crisp, fair hair and shook, them gently, and when they grunted she whispered, "Come on, get up."

They made shivering, spluttering noises, then Jimmy coughed and said in a small voice, "What time is it?"

"Coming up to four as near as I can guess," she answered; "the sky's lightening. I'll blow the fire up and you'll have a drop of tea at ore you go. It'll warm you."

There was no more conversation, not even when presently they huddled round the fire and drank the hot, weak tea; not until they were ready to go did she speak again, then handing them each three slices of bread and fat tied up in a bait rag she said, "Make it spin out, it'll be a long day. But I'll have something ready for you when you come in.... Come on."

The light was breaking as they climbed the hill and stumbled across the half mile of hillocky land towards the main road and she didn't leave them until half an hour later when they could see each other's faces plainly. Then she nearly brought them all to tears with what she later termed to herself a daft action, for with a swift movement she flung out her arms and hugged them to her, and they clung to her like Annie and Joe would have done until she thrust them off and, turning from them, ran back up the road. They walked for another half hour before they reached the pit. Only once did they speak; that was when the pulleys came in sight and William said in a high, excited voice, "You frightened, our Jimmy?"

And Jimmy, lying bravely, said, "No; are you?" And William said honestly, "I don't know now whether I'm frighted or just excited but me belly's wobblin'. Like we'll know more the night." He laughed his warm laugh but Jimmy did not respond. He already knew what he would know the night.

Inside the yard they were lost amid a bustle of men and boys, some to their joint surprise much younger than themselves and none of them looking as if they had been washed for weeks. Jimmy started and turned 'round quickly when he heard a small boy address the man he was walking with as da. There were tliree boys with this man. He thought to himself, they must be all like the Fishers and go down with their da's. To his fear now was added a deep sense of aloneness and he had the horrifying feeling that he was about to cry. He said to a man, "Where's the office, mister? We've got to go to the office." And the man, pointing, said, "Ower there, lad."

A man sitting at a narrow, high desk said, "Yer name?" and he answered for both of them, saying, "Jimmy and William Brodie."

"Who's yer but tie

"What?"

"Yer but tie the man you're workin' for?"

"Oh, I think his name's Pollock."

"Well, don't stand there; you won't find him here, he'll be at the shaft bottom."

They went out and joined the crowd standing beneath the pulley way, then they never knew how it happened but they were crushed with four other boys into a small wire cage that suddenly fell into the earth at a terrific speed, causing their stomachs to come up into their throats. When there was a bump they all fell together and tumbled out into what looked like a tunnel, but strangely not an entirely black tunnel. The roof, a few feet above their heads, showed crisscross pieces of wood holding up big boulders of rock and these pieces of wood were kept in place by nothing more than slender props dotted here and there along the tunnel. In the middle of the tunnel was piled skip on top of skip of coal reaching to the roof.

Jimmy said to one of his cage companions, "Who's Mr. Pollock?" and the boy said, "Come along o' me."

Mr. Pollock was an almost naked, coal-dusted, undersized man with two pin-points of light for eyes. He held a lantern above Jimmy's head and said, "You ... you the older?" and Jimmy nodded "Aye, Sir."

On this the boys who had been in the cage with them all laughed, and the man actually spat on them, then he said, "You'll go to number four gallery with Harry and Pat here." He indicated two of the boys.

"They'll show you the ropes. And it's rope you'll get if you don't pull your whack, understand?"

Jimmy did not now say, "Aye, Sir."

"Anyroad I'll see how you make out by the end of the day; they'll let me know." He again nodded at the boys.

"And now you." The lantern hung over William's fair head.

"You're trappin' young 'un. I'm goin' back up the road; I'll show you yer place. Important job you've got. Aye, 'tis that, important job." Again there was laughter.

They all began to walk up the road, which still appeared to Jimmy like a tunnel, and they had gone about a hundred yards when he was pulled roughly aside by the man, and he gaped at the sight coming towards him. A boy harnessed by ropes and a chain between his legs was on his hands and knees tugging up the incline a low bogie filled high with coal, while, behind, two small black creatures, heads down, bodies almost horizontal, pushed at it.

"There! them's workers for you." The but tie voice was loud with praise.

"Double shift they've done and still goin' at it. But they'll have something' to pick up. By lad, aye, they'll have a weighty packet come pay day."

Jimmy stumbled on, his eyes now standing well out of their sockets, and he started as the man said, "Here comes the partin' of the ways.

This way, me lad," and he turned to see William being thrust through a low door.

It was in the darkness behind the door that William knew it wasn't excitement that was filling his belly, but swirling, galloping fear. The man now pushed open another low door and here William, who loved noise and laughter and chatter, felt the quietness of the grave drop round him like a shroud.

The man was pointing to a rope attached to the door.

"You sit there," he said, "and when anybody comes down the road" --he thumbed up the long narrow tunnel"--you pull on the string and open the door. Then close it again. Now I wasn't funnin' when I said this was an important job, lad. These are the air doors, the life's blood of the mine so to speak. You understand?"

William made the slightest movement with his head.

"Good enough, then. You'll be finished at five the night."

"Mister?" His voice was a mouse squeak.

"You not goin' to leave me the lantern?"

"Leave you the lantern? What you want to do, read? You're a funny little bugger, aren't you?" The man's laugh seemed to ricochet along the tunnel in an eerie wailing sound, and then he went through the door and William was left with the rope in his hand and in darkness blacker than any night he had ever imagined. The tears were now raining down his cheeks and he whimpered aloud, "Oh, our Cissie. Our Cis- she ."

They had been in the cave three weeks and Cissie would have said they were managing, and finely, if it weren't for the picture ever present in her mind of the two small figures spending the long days in the bowels of the earth.

Of the two, she was more concerned for William, for William the merry, as her da had called him, was no longer merry. Never as long as she lived would she forget the sight of them that first night when she had gone to meet them. Both of them as black as climbing boys, they had come stumbling towards her, Jimmy hardly able to speak, so weary was he, his knees and the cushions of his thumbs bleeding. But it was William who had troubled her most, for he had laid his head against her and cried, and she had put him on her back and carried him as if he were a baby.

William no longer cried; nor did he laugh anymore, not even on a Sunday when he was free. Strangely he spent most of his Sunday in the river sitting up to his neck in water. Even when it rained he would sit there until she pulled him out. Jimmy, too, washed himself in the river, but afterwards he would sleep nearly all day.

Yet, on the whole, things were working out and looking brighter, for this week, besides them all picking the early taties, she had got Mary settled into a good place. For this she had Parson Hedley to thank.

The house was some way off, outside Felling, and was owned by two maiden ladies called the Misses Tren- chard; they weren't rich but they were class and they were going to train Mary to be a general.

They employed no other servants. Mary was to have a shilling a week and a half day off once a fortnight and one Sunday a month and, glory of glories, a whole attic bedroom to herself. She was to rise at half-past five in the morning and she would be finished at half-past seven in the evening, after which she could do needlework if she liked. The Misses Trenchard indicated they were doing Cissie a great favor in taking Mary, and that the girl had fallen on her feet. And so thought Cissie.

Another important thing was, with Mary's going, it made one less to sleep in the cave.

Cissie felt very tired on this Sunday morning for she and Jimmy had spent hours during the night trying to arrange the table and the box, the four wooden chairs and the chest of drawers in such a way that it would keep out the worst of the gale that had blown up with the twilight. Having arranged the table end up on top of the drawers and box, they had to dismantle them again when the wind threatened to topple the lot back into the cave and on to the beds.

Parson Hedley's church bell was ringing, which told her it was a quarter to eight. They were all still asleep and she was going to let them lie tor another hour. She had made a part of porridge and it was simmering between bricks on the smouldering fire.

After the storm, the morning was bright and fresh and gave her the urge to walk and stretch her legs, and so she decided not to wait until one of them was awake to send him for the skim but to go herself; it would only take twenty minutes each way. So, taking her mother's black shawl out of the box and picking up a pail, she went out and in the direction of Thornton's farm. Hetherington's was nearer but she had resolved that she would rather walk a hundred miles than spend a farthing with him.

At the top of the rise she stopped for a moment and looked about her.

The whole world looked clean;

the fells were soft and young in the morning light, their rocks made tender and warm with a dusting of lichen. She could see smoke rising from the chimneys in the hamlet and she felt no bitterness at the sight;

for one thing, up here it was free of the stench. She had laid down the law about that the first day they had set up house in the cave;

there was no doing it just anywhere, she had warned them; even for number ones they had to go to the holes she had dug. Not one of them had questioned this inconvenient arrangement; it was just as if their da were talking to them.

She had seen only two women from the hamlet since they had come up here. Mrs. Snell had brought them a part of broth on the second day, and Mrs. Robinson had given her a loaf of bread, and because one of their hens had died on them she had brought her the head and feet to flavor the turnip soup. The thought had been kind but the result hadn't been tasty.

After a while she dropped down on to the main road. When she came to the high wall of Lord Fischel's estate she continued along it past the North Lodge, then branched off up a narrow cart track to the farm.

She thought afterwards it was a lucky day right from the start, for not only did old Martin serve her and give her a pint extra, but he gave her real milk, and a bit of pig's fat into the bargain.

As she walked back she wondered what it would be like never to have to worry about food, to be able to look at sufficient food to last them all for a week. If that day ever came she would know she had landed in heaven.

While skirting the edge of the quarry she decided that she would bring them here this afternoon and they could have a bit of play as they had done the Sunday before last.

It was as she passed the place where they had sat and saw the remains of the wall that Joe, Charlotte, and Sarah had built when they were playing houses, that the idea came into her head with such abrupt force that it jolted her to a stop, and some milk lapped over the side of the pail.

That was it, walls. That's what she would do, she'd build walls, three walls round the front of the cave. Hadn't she helped to puddle mud when her da was building the midden in the yard?

She laughed aloud. Why hadn't she thought of it before? All these stones here, hundreds and hundreds of them, they just wanted carting. And they wouldn't have to go down to the bottom of the quarry either.

Now, with the bucket held stiffly outwards to steady it, her legs going between a walk and a trot, she came to the cave and startled them all awake by crying, "Come on! Come on, the lot of you's. Come on, get up. I've thought of something. You, Bella, push Jimmy."

"What's it? What's the matter?" Jimmy was sitting bolt upright, his eyes sleep-laden, his mouth agape;

William was resting on his elbow; Bella, her knuckles in her eyes, was rubbing sleep away; Sarah had not moved although she was awake, but Charlotte and Joe were kneeling up; only Annie and the baby remained asleep, and, standing before them, the milk pail still in her hand, she said, "We're going to build walls round on the outside, three walls. An' not dry stone ones either 'cos they could be knocked over.

Real ones. "

When no one asked any questions but just stared at her, she put the pail on top of the chest; then, dropping on to her hunkers and bringing her eyes on a level with theirs, she said, "Don't you understand? We can build walls round the front." She flapped her hands backwards.

"It'll keep the rain out and give us more room."

Sarah pulled herself up slowly from under the patched quilt and asked quietly, "Will it be a real house then, our Cissie?"

"Well" -her head drooped a little to the side"--not quite a real house, but ... but it'll be a dwelling place of sorts. And we can stay here the winter and won't have to worry. And we could make a fireplace inside, eh Jimmy?"

Jimmy blinked, his face thoughtful; then he said, "It'll be the roof.

How you goin' to put a roof on? Rafters and that; we haven't any wood. "

They all looked at her as she thought for a moment Presently she said, "They'll be cutting trees down at Lord Fischel's place come September. The carpenters and coach builders and people like Matthew have picked their trees, and the sawers cut them down and branch them. An' if you know anybody there you can always get bits and pieces. Matthew'll get us some. Anyway, we'll leave that until we come to it; it's getting' the walls up that's goin' to be the thing. To start with, we'll all carry stones from the quarry and when we get a fair amount I'll put Joe and Charlotte on puddlin' mud down by the burn. You'd like that, wouldn't you" -she bent down towards them, her face bright"--pledging in mud?" And they laughed and said, "Aye, Cissie, aye we'd like that."

"And then the time you, William, and you, Bella and Sarah, are carryin' stones, Jimmy and me will be puttin' them up. We'd do most on a Sunday, but if there's plenty of stones gathered I could be getting' at it during the week on me own.... Come on." She bounced to her feet.

"Get into your things quick and have your porridge and then we'll get started."

Their eagerness as they tumbled out of bed was shown in varying degrees, and not all enthusiastic.

A few minutes later. Jimmy, pointing to the shale, said, "You won't be able to do it, our Cissie, 'cos you can't dig in that sort of foundation."

She stared down at the rock, her face blank now, then said, "We'll stick plenty of mud on, then set the first stones in it. That should do it."

When he made no answer to this she looked at him appealing and muttered under her breath, "Our Jimmy, we've got to try something.

Remember last night, and the winter isn't on us yet; we've just got to try, even if it does blow down. "

"Aye, Cissie, aye," he said.

It had sounded like fun when she suggested their carrying of the stones, but the actual work proved an

e impossible task for the young ones; even Jimmy and William could only carry medium-sized ones over the distance. It was after the dinner of rabbit and turnips that Jimmy got the idea of using one of the pit methods for conveying the stones from the quarry to the cave. He took a nine-inch board from one of the beds, which meant they would have to sleep head to toe. He sawed it in two and nailed the pieces together;

then, burning a hole in each end with a heated poker, he slotted a length of rope through, and on to this rough sledge he tied the biggest and flattest pieces of sandstone he could find, and with the aid of William he pulled them over the rough ground.

It was late in the afternoon, after they had stacked up about forty pieces of stone of varying sizes, when Matthew came to the cave. There was no one about, but his eyes were immediately drawn to the heap of stones near the entrance. Then in the distance he saw Cissie staggering towards him, her arms cradling a slab that brought her body almost double. He did not run towards her for some seconds, and when he did he took the stone from her before exclaiming, "God above! What are you up to now?"

"Oh!" She straightened her back and flexed her arms.

"We're going to build walls round the entrance to keep out the weather."

He turned and looked at her but didn't speak until he had dropped the sandstone among the rest; then, dusting the yellow grit from the sleeves of his Sunday jacket, he said, "But you don't intend to stay here the winter, do you?"

The smile went from her face; her eyes, looking back into his, held the defiant light he had come to know over the weeks, and her voice was flat as she asked him, "Where would we go then?" For answer, he said, "It's hell up here in the winter. You know it is. It's bad enough under a good roof. You'd all perish."

"Well, if we perish we'll perish together; we're not going into the house, I've told you."

"I wasn't meaning you to go into the house. I ... Well, with the lads working I thought you might be able to find a place somewhere."

Again she asked him a question, "Where?" and when his eyes turned from hers she did not say what was in her mind, "You know you can't get a pit house, or a farm cottage around here unless you're married. And I couldn't get a permit to go to another parish because with having no man they'd be feared we'd end up on the rates" ; but what she did say was, "I wouldn't go into the towns, either Jarrow or Shields, not into those stinking hovels. And they ask as much as three shillings a week, so ..."

She moved away from him now, saying, "If it's big enough we could have a fireplace inside." Then turning quickly to him again, she said, "Do you think you might be able to get us some branches to go across the top? We could stick mud at ween them. And away down the river there's a reed bed; we could sort of thatch it in a rough way."

He stared at her as he said, "I'll get you all the rough wood you want. I'll be going for my timber in three weeks' time. But you don't want rough wood for up there" --he lifted his eyes to where the level of the roof would come above the opening of the cave-- "you want beams; and well battened down on supports, for a gale of wind could lift the whole lot off. And another thing ..." He now stamped one toot on the shale and shook his head slowly as he said, "It'll never hold. I mean you've got to have a foundation;

that's the main thing. "

She put her fingers to her lips now and turned her head away, saying, "Our Jimmy said that, but I thought that if I got a lot of mud and stuck the bricks in it, it would be all right."

He was shaking his head again. Then, still staring at the rock, he said, "The only way it would hold as I

can see is to roughen it, use a pick on it, so the mortar'll get a purchase. "

"Would that do it?" There was eagerness in her voice now.

"It might; and if you roughed your mortar with bits of chips and pebbles and used sandy mud.... There's a patch of it at yon side of the bum; I'll show you. It means pledging across every time but it'll be worth it in the long run.... Have you a pick?" he now asked.

"A pick? Oh yes. And it's a good pick, it was me da's." She hurried into the cave and came out with the pick to see him taking his coat off and laying it neatly to one side. When he took the pick from her hand, she said, "But you're not going to ... ?" and he replied on a laugh, "Well, do you think I'm goin' to stand and watch you doin' it?"

He was holding her gaze again. And now she could not return the look in his eyes and her head drooped and she turned away, saying, "It's kind of you."

He said nothing to this but asked, "How big do you want it?" then watched her walking seven steps from the entrance of the cave. Her pacing brought her feet almost to the point of his, and when, still looking at the ground, she said, "About here," he did not answer or move. She lifted her head up. His face seemed to be hanging above hers; his lips were apart, his eyes unblinking, and he said softly, "I think you're a wonderful lass, Cissie."

The heat that swept over her body brought beads of perspiration on to her upper lip and her forehead. It brought her heart pumping so strongly under her bodice that she saw the rapid rise and fall of the buttons, and the heat brought with it a sweetness that she could taste in her mouth and smell with her nostrils. It brought with it a joy that made her want to run as she had sometimes done when alone on the fells, when the air had cut sharp against her throat and the sky was blue and endless and everythinp clean looking.

And then the sweat, the color, and the sweetness seeped swiftly away to leave her cold as she r membered the woman in the mill who had given them the tea and bread, and whose ugly face had softened as she looked at him and whose voice had sounded musical when she had said his name. And she remembered also that he was Matthew Tumbull, the wheelwright, who worked to support his paralyzed father, his mother, his grandmother, and his aunt. He was Matthew Turnbull who was lucky in a way to be favored by Rose Watson, the daughter of the miller, who was a very warm man, so why was he saying to her "You're a wonderful lass" Perhaps because he was of a kindly nature. But the look in his eyes was not that which just came from a kindly nature; she had seen that kind of look before. Now and again her da had looked at her ma like that, sometimes after a baim was born.

She turned slowly from him, knowing his eyes were tight on her, and she made her way to where the children were dragging the stone-laden sledge, and she had reached them before she heard the first metallic sound of the pick striking the stone.

That night she had the dream of the white house again but it was so enveloped in light that she couldn't make out any part of it.

The wheelwright's shop stood at the end of the village of Benham.

There were about thirty houses all told in the village and James Tumbull's house was the largest, except for the inn at the other end of the street. The shop itself had the appearance of a stable, having two large double doors that opened outwards into the street. There was a window at each side, and the roof sloped up steeply above the actual shop, and under the apex, set partly in plaster, was a wheel, the hub cracked, the felloes springing out here and there from the rim. It looked, as it had done for the last fifty years, as if it were going to fall from the face of the wall.

At one side of the shop was the yard. It was a big yard and held various neat stacks of timber, besides odd piles. Two old farm carts stood in one corner and a saw pit ran along one wall. At the far end of the yard was a stable with a loft above.

On the other side of the shop was the house. It had a good-sized kitchen and scullery downstairs, besides a small parlor, three bedrooms above, and, lastly, an attic. This latter was Matthew's room, as it had been from the age of five when his grandmother and Aunt Mildred had come to live with them.

Although a six-room house with five people in it could be considered almost empty, Matthew felt the place so crowded that he was barely able to breathe in it. This^ iarpression was caused, he knew, by his grandmother's and his aunt's constant presence in the kitchen, and had been added to over the last three years by his father's prone figure in the bedroom and the fact that they all now looked to himself for survival.

Matthew's life, until the day he had been called over to Brookdale to make the coffins for a Mr. and Mrs. Brodie, had, he would have said, run smoothly, and this in spite of times being bad. When the prosperity of farms went down the demands for carts and wheels and repairs went down; as for households, old buckets weren't renewed but puttied. Still, he made enough to feed them, and keep on one man. And there was no need to really worry about not being able to manage, for always in the back of his mind was the life belt in the form of Rose Watson. He knew he had only to say the word and Rose would be his, together with all she would own when her father died, and such a decision would mean living at the mill. But that could only bring pleasure; what didn't bring him pleasure was the thought of Rose herself.

Rose, he considered, was a good lass. She was a wonderful cook and fine housewife, none better, as the mill house showed, and her nature was pleasant, at least to him, although he had heard it said she had a temper. But it wasn't her temper that would worry him, it was the looks of her, the big bulk of her. Yet, as he told himself time and time again, such women generally made admirable wives and mothers; but he also told himself that he had no feeling for her one way or the other, except that she evoked pity in him.

That was how he was feeling prior to making the coffins for the Brodies. Then he had met Cissie; and from the first moment when he had stood in that room which was reeking with death and looked at her, so young, so slight, so lovely, he had known he would never feel the same again. And that experience on the road when she had dissolved into light had set the seal on his life. And as he watched her fight to hold that squad of children together his love for her had rolled away with him, as he put it to himself, like four brand-new wheels on a wagon. Had she stood alone he would have defied his mother and his grannie and brought her into the house.

After his visit last Sunday he knew he must stop seeing her; because she was no fool, she knew what was in his mind, and it wasn't fair, seeing that nothing could come of it. He reasoned that as soon as she got the ramshackle structure up he would cut adrift, but first he must see the place right, before the winter set in.

Sunday, in his home, ran to a pattern. In the morning he drove his mother and his Aunt Mildred in the cart to church; he would sit in the back row and, except when Parson Hedley was preaching the sermon, he would think not of God or religion in any form, but of things that were of importance to him. Until recently, his thoughts had centered around his work, or the lack of it, or the injustices being bailed out to his kind. Sometimes his mind would go over what had taken place at the meeting in Parson Hedley's house the previous night, for Saturday night was the time when he and a few others went for their writing lesson, and the reading. But of late his mind had dwelt on Cissie Brodie and, not unconnected, the demanding needs of his body.

When they returned from the church the dinner would be ready--his grannie bestirred herself once a week to do this task. The dinner served, he would carry a tray up to his father and as he helped him to feed himself he would give him the gist of Parson Hedley's sermon.

He liked his father and it pained him to see him bereft of movement.

It was strange how things happened. If he had had to have his back broken you would have thought it would have been while in the sawing pit where he had stood since he was a small boy pulling on one end of the saw while his father above him pulled on the other. But no, it had to be the slipping of a badly stacked tree, the stacking incidentally which he had done himself, that had brought him to this state.

After dinner, the washing up done, the household went to sleep.

It was on this Sunday when he knew them to be resting that he took the opportunity of harnessing the horse to the cart; then he picked out several lengths of timber and placed them quietly in the cart; but when he mounted the box and made to drive out of the yard, he was checked by the sight of his mother standing grimly in the doorway.

Nancy Turnbull was a tall woman, as tall as her son, but whereas he was broadly built, she was thin to scragginess. Matthew was the only surviving child of five, and she had no love for him for she saw nothing in him that had come over from herself or her side of the family. He looked like his grandfather Turnbull, and he had a nature like his grandmother Turnbull. Her husband had that kind of nature too, close, secretive, stubborn, foolhardy; they did things that could get not only themselves but others into trouble, like the readings her husband had gone to and Matthew still attended. That kind of thing could lead you to gaol. But, after all, these were a small issue to the one plaguing him and herself at the moment, which was this tinker girl living wild in a cave.

She came and stood at the horse's head and stared up at him before she asked, "Where you going with that lot?"

He returned her stare for some seconds before he said, "No need to ask about the road you already know, is there?"

"You're not taking that wood out of here."

He got down from the cart and as he went towards her he moved his hand over the horse's back, pressing hard against its skin, and when he stopped within a foot of her he said, "Don't come the heavy hand, Mam."

"Heavy hand?" Her voice was trembling with her anger.

"You've been cartin' stuff away week after week, all this good wood." She swung her arm wide.

"It's not good wood." His voice was unemotional.

"Every piece in that cart's faulted."

"It's well enough for buckets or rakes."

"It's not. But even if it was I'm still takin' it because" --he paused"--it's my wood."

Her long pointed chin drooped towards her chest,

pulling her lower lip with it while her eyebrows moved upwards as she brought out, "Your wood? You have the nerve to stand there and say it's your wood after your dad's worked here all his... ?"

"Dad's no longer able to work, an' the place is mine by heritage."

"You're talkin' as if he was dead."

"He could be, and you know it; he'll never move again. If I walk out of here the morrow what's goin' to happen to you all? Tell me that. If you thought a little more along those lines you'd know it would be a good plan to keep your nose clean. I've given you the same as me dad did, I've never cut you down. I haven't had a penny me self in wages these last two years, but them in there" --he bounced his head forward"--they've lived the same, stuffin' their kites, sit- tin' from one meal to the other not liftin' a hand. And they're your people, they're not mine."

"Have you gone mad, boy? They're your grannie and your auntie."

"They're your mother and your sister, and they might have been dad's responsibility but they're not mine. Still, I've taken them on and they can stay as long as they and you leave me alone and don't interfere with this part of the house." He kicked at a loose stone at his toe, and as it went pinging across the yard she moved slightly back from him as if to see him better.

And now there was just the slightest look of fear on her face. Twice she made to open her mouth, then closed it. But she wasn't wise enough to say no more, she had to blurt out what was in her mind.

"You're a fool!" she said.

"Do you hear? You're a fool; you've got the chance in a million. Any man from here to Newcastle would jump at the chance that's being held out to you. A mill, and his own business at that, the kind that will never fail because people will always want bread."

"Aye, they always want" --he nodded at her"--but they cannot always buy. And if they cannot buy, what about the wonderful mill then?"

"Don't be so bloomin' soft; you know for a fact it's not the poor that keeps the mill goin', it's the rich. He's got contacts in all the big houses 'round about. It'll serve you right if somebody else comes along and snaffles her."

"They'll be welcome."

"You're mad." She was almost shouting now.

"Nine hairns they say, she's a scut to take them on the fells."

"Where else would she take them? Tell me, where else would she take them?"

"There's places." Her mouth was grim, and her eyes narrowed as she looked at him, and to this he answered, "Yes, there are places, Mam, as you say, places such as our house. Now" --he pointed at her-- "you be careful, else I just might, and nine of them with her." On this he turned from her and, having mounted the cart, jerked on the reins and she was forced to step aside. And she stared after him, her expression a mixture of anger and fear.

The following day he walked the horse over to Pelaw and hitched it to an old farm cart that he was bringing back for repair, and it was on the return journey that he came across Cissie and two small black figures on the verge of the road.

Cissie was kneeling beside Jimmy holding him in her arms and they were both crying; William was sitting, his legs straight out, his head bent on his chest, as if asleep.

"What is it?" He was standing over them, and Cissie, raising her head and gulping, said, "Oh, hello, Matthew. It's Jimmy; he's ... he's been kicked."

"Kicked? What with, a horse?" He was now kneeling beside her, and she was shaking her head widely as she muttered, "No; the but tie

"Let me have a look." He pressed the boy from her and pulled down his trouser to reveal a three-inch jagged wound running over his hip bone and a number of bruises around it. It was a moment or so before he said, "Has he used his boot on you afore?"

"Aye."

A boot, a man's boot and steel-capped into the bargain. God! he'd like to get his hands on that but tie at this minute, just his hands would be enough; but he knew, were he to touch the man, he would land up in gaol, for who cared about a boy getting the toe of a boot in his backside? Not the keeker, or the manager, or the magistrate. He asked now, "Why did he do it?"

"" Cos . 'cos I wouldn't stay on, I was tired. I couldn't pull no more. When I told him he took his boot to me 'cos he said I was messin' up the team. The apprentices, they were all stayin' on. They had to, they've got no say 'cos they're from the house; he'd just knock the daylights out of them. "

Matthew bit on his lip and turned his head to the side for a moment before bending down again and lifting the boy into his arms, saying, "Come on, we'll get you home." On the journey he didn't speak, for he felt incensed. Why hadn't some man floored the but tie But then the miners were like wild beasts themselves. Look at Rosier's lot going on strike, then attacking the farm laborers because they happened to be in work, and therefore eating. And this at the time of the uprising in the south when the farm laborers had stormed the squires and justices in their houses to demand a fair wage of two and threepence a day, and the cavalry and dragoons had been called out, and the gentry offered a thousand pounds to laborers to inform on their fellows! Nine men were hanged over that business, besides four hundred and fifty men and boys being transported. What was life all about anyway? Parson Hedley would have him believe it was all in preparation for the next. Twaddle, bloody twaddle, and that was swearing to it.

Arriving at the cave, he put Jimmy down on the rou ;h mat and said, "It should be washed with hot water in case it festers," and Cissie ran outside to get the fire going, giving directions to the children as she went to keep her supplied with kindling.

Left alone with the two boys, Matthew asked, "Is it bad down there?"

And Jimmy, his head falling on to his chest, muttered, "Like hell."

He turned his gaze on William but the boy just stared at him as if he had been struck dumb, and he remembered he hadn't heard him speak a word since they had met, and so he said softly, "You tired, William?"

and the boy made a slight movement of his head while keeping his eyes tight on his face with a look that disturbed him more than the jagged wound on Jimmy's leg, for it was like that of a dumb animal crying for help.

He got off his hunkers and went and stood in the opening. His mind was working rapidly, his thoughts presenting him with suggestions, which while they might mean the saving of the boys, would finally damn himself for life.

He looked at the walls, still no more than two feet high; he looked to where she was kneeling blowing at the embers of the fire underneath the black kale pot. He looked at the children gathered 'round her, like bees 'round their nest, and he said to himself, "It would be two less," and on this he went to her, and, touching her on the shoulder, said, "Come over here a moment."

Wiping her hands on her apron, she followed him a little way from the cave, but she turned when the baby, lying in the basket in the lee of the wall, began to cry, "You, Charlotte," she said, "pick her up."

Then she walked on and joined Matthew where he had stopped out of earshot of the rest, and she waited for him to speak, all the while rubbing her hands on her apron.

He began by saying, "His hip will be stiff, he won't be able to walk the morrow. What's more, he's frightened of going down...." Her voice interrupted him, harsh sounding as she said, "You needn't tell me that;

I know it, nobody better. "

"And William's scared to death."

She moved her head slightly in bewilderment. Why was he pressing home something that was tormenting her all the time? Only today she had met Mrs. Martin on the road and the woman had said, "Me man says your lads'll never stick it, they've had it too soft. If they're put down early they get toughened to it."

"How much are they getting' a week?"

"William two and six and Jimmy only five shillings. They said it would be six and six or more but they docked him because they said he had slate in his corves; and then he only got half in money, the other half was a ticket for the tommy shop."

He looked at her hard for a moment before saying, "I could apprentice him--Jimmy; I want a lad. I could give him two shillings a week and his keep." My Godi he must be stark staring mad. If he could have afforded a lad the rate would only have been nine pence to a shilling.

As he watched the strain seep from her face and a light come on to it that led the way to a smile he said, "But that'll not be enough for you to manage on."

She swallowed a number of times and wet her lips before she said softly, "Oh, Matthew, thank you. Oh, thank you indeed. I'll manage; as long as he's out of that I'll manage somehow." Her voice stopped abruptly and the light went from her eyes.

"But there's William. He won't go without Jimmy. I'm ... I'm more afraid for him than I am for Jimmy."

He turned from her and looked away over the land. The bracken was browning, the heather pods were dry, the sky was low, and there was chill in the air;

the land looked bleak, as bleak as his life would be if he were to voice the thought that had come to him a minute ago. Yet if he didn't voice it the obstacles between her and him were as great as ever. In the end it would be too much for him. He already knew this, so why not get something out of it for her before he committed himself finally. He looked back at her and said, "I may be able to fix up something for William at the mill."

She gazed at him as if he were God, then whispered, "Oh, Matthew." And now her hands stopped working at her apron and she put one forward, and for the first time she touched him. Her long fingers with their broken nails lay for a moment across the back of his hand, but it was only for a moment, for she felt repulsed in some way when he drew his hand away and, turning from her, said, "I've got to go now but I'll be back some time the morrow. Keep washing his leg."

She watched him go to the cart, mount it, and drive away before she went back to the fire and, pushing Bella aside, started to blow at it again.

He went through the kitchen, and his grandmother, an older edition of his mother, poked her long turkey-neck forward and called to him as he opened the staircase door, "What's the matter with you? Devil after you?"

He made no answer, but mounted the stairs to his father's room and, pulling a chair close to the bed, bent forward towards the pale stubbly face, and without any lead-up said, "I'm taking on an apprentice, Da."

"Apprentice? Whati What do you want an apprentice for? There's not enough work ..."

"Things are looking up. I'm goin' into Jarrow the morrow, and I think I'll get an order for a cart."

"But you'll have all the winter, and you and Walters can manage...."

"I want a boy to train, Da, as you trained me from the hub outwards, from auger-holes, mort ising to spokes and felloes."

His father stared at him, his dry, blue lips moving one over the other. Then he said, "If that's what you want you should get yourself a son."

The light in Matthew's eyes darkened, his lids drooped slightly.

"I

might do that an' all but it'll take time. Walter is getting' on; I don't want to be left high and dry so I'm takin' on a lad. "

"One of that crowd from the fells?"

"Aye, one of that crowd from the fells."

"Your mother won't stand it, there'll be hell to pay."

He did not answer, "I'm running things now; she'll do as I say." And when his father said, "It'll be a shilling a week and food, we just can't run to it," he stood up and looked at him and said, "I've managed up till now, haven't I? I've never asked you for anything out of the pot." He turned his head to where an ornamental wooden kale pot, a heavy lock dangling from the lid, stood on a chest of drawers opposite the bed, then said, "But that's another thing I want to have a word with you about. The haulers'll be collecting the trees next week and you know they want payin' on the spot. Fischel's bailiff's another one. He won't let a tree out of the wood until the cash is in his hand. I'm waiting for a number of bills to be met; if they pay up, well and good; but if they don't I'll have to ask you to dip into the pot.... What's the matter?" He bent forward as his father slowly turned his head away from him until his cheek was lying on the pillow, and again he said, "What is it?" and then added, "Don't think I'll make a regular thing of it; I've never asked you afore."

James Tumbull slowly turned his face 'round again and his expression was both sad and shamefaced as he muttered, "There's no pot, at least nothin' left in it."

Matthew's mouth opened and shut, his eyes screwed up and his body bent further forward before he said, "Nothing in it? But gran dad left you fifty sovereigns. That's only seven years ago, and trade was good then."

"Aye, it was good then, but it stopped the following year and we had three black ones in a row, an' like you I was waitin' for them to pay up. Some of them never did. They couldn't 'cos their farms were sold up. It was then I had to dip into it. There was nothing in it long afore this happened." He pointed to his shoulder.

Matthew was speechless. He had always felt, in a way, that the business was secure because of the pot, which he thought his dad had been adding to over the years. This piece of news was like a cord 'round his neck; he felt he was being strangled, and not slowly either.

"I'm sorry, lad."

Matthew was turning away when he stopped and asked, "Does Mam know?"

"No; I wanted no misunderstandings; she got her weekly money, and that was that."

When he reached the bottom of the stairs his mother was waiting for him. One doubled-up fist in the hollow of her hip, the other hand holding her chin as if it were a handle, she demanded, "What's all the hurry for, what's happened? You seem to be in a tizzy."

"I'm in no tizzy." His voice was flat and he kept it so as he gave her the information.

"I'm taking on an apprentice. I went up to tell him.

I'm putting him over the stable; he'll eat with us. "

"You've what!" Now she had both fists on her hips and her voice was on the point of a screech.

"Did I hear aright? You're takin' on an apprentice with things as they are?"

"That's what I said."

"A-ahl" The exclamation came out on a long breath.

"It's one of that tribe I suppose. Well, let me tell you I'm havin' none ..."

"You're givin' him his meat."

"Oh! am I?"

"Aye."

"Well, master" --she bridled"--I suppose you'll be givin' me an extra two shillings a week."

"I'm giving you nothing extra, you can all eat a bit less." He swept his gaze over his grannie and his aunt sitting idly, one each side of the fire, and was making his way out of the kitchen when his mother exclaimed with deep finality, "Well, if I don't get it from you begodi I'll have it out of the pot."

He laughed a harsh grating laugh before saying, "You'll be lucky. I'm going to tell you something, goin' to tell you all something. The pot's empty, an' it has been for years."

Now he had silenced them.

He went out into the yard again. He must go to the mill when the mood was on him because if he waited till the morrow his courage might fail him. He knew that old Watson did not want another apprentice but if he picked his words and made them imply, "You do this for me and I'll do what you've been at me to do for years," it would work.

He was mounting the cart when his mother came through the side door and, gripping the horse's bridle, stared up at him and ground out bitterly, "I'll go into the town and have the law put on her. I'll tell them she's a bad lot; indecent, having men up there. And I can prove that with you yourself. Don't you think you'll get the better of me in this."

In a flash he was down from the cart and facing her, and, his voice as bitter as hers, he said, "You lift your hand to her in any way and you'll potch yourself for life. I'll walk out of here as if you had never been, and leave the lot of you. Understand that now. Understand.

I'll go off on the road, taking them all with me, and set up some place else. And don't think I can't do it, I could do it all right, any minute. "

As he drove away from her embittered gaze he thought to himself, Aye, he could do it all right, but he wouldn't.

It was late the following evening when he saw Cissie again. He had been in Jarrow all day and got the order for the cart. The man had wanted it made to his own dimensions for hawking coal round the towns, and the business and haggling had gone on for hours. He had returned home to a silent house, not only the women folk against him, but also his father blaming him for having given him away. And as he sat down to a cold scratched meal he thought grimly that there would be advantages in living at the mill;

the food would be good, the comforts would be those he had never experienced before, and Rose would be pleasant. Her face was homely when she smiled. She had smiled at him last night.

"You'll be over on Saturday, Matthew?" she had said with meaning in both her tone and eyes.

"I'll wait the meal for you at six." So tomorrow he would don himself out in his best coat, his good shirt and breeks and he would go to Rose and say . what would he say?

"Would it be too much to ask you to marry me. Rose?" He'd put it like that because at bottom he couldn't bear to hurt people, and not anyone handicapped in the way Rose was. But tonight he would go to Cissie, for besides giving her the news there'd be something he would ask of her, for the one and only time.

The dusk was deepening when he approached the cave. The children were all abed and there was no sound from them. Cissie was sitting on the stone wall. It seemed as if she were waiting; and before he got down from the cart she rose and went to meet him.

"I'm sorry I couldn't make it afore."

She looked up at him as she said, "That's all right." Then they walked together around the bluff of rock, and when he stopped abruptly, she too stopped.

"How is he?" he asked first.

"His leg's stiff," she said.

"He couldn't have gone in any case."

"I fixed them both up."

She joined her hands tightly against her breast as he went on, "Jimmy's to come to us, as I said, at two shillings a week, and William's to start with Miller Watson; but all I could get for him was one and six." He did not say that he had had to bargain for the extra sixpence, or that the one and six a week had bonded himself for life.

He saw through the dim light that her eyes were full of tears, that her gratitude was making her dumb, and he had the desire, stronger than any he had yet felt in his life, to take her in his arms, to roll with her in the heather, to . When her hands came out to him, he took them both and pressed them into his chest, and when she said brokenly, "Oh, Matthewl I haven't any words to tell you me thanks," he drew her closer and, looking down into her eyes, he said, "I've got to tell you, you'll hear something in the next few days that, that might upset you, it's about something I've got to do. I've looked for a way out, but there isn't one. I'm caught in a cleft stick, I've got to do it. But this I want you to know. Me heart's yours, and as long as it's in me body it'll be like that. Now" -he paused and champed at the saliva in his mouth before, his lips scarcely moving, he asked, "Can I kiss you?"

It was some seconds before she closed her eyes and when his mouth touched hers they became still, their joined hands keeping their bodies apart, until of a sudden his arms going round her, he pressed her to him, and his lips covered her face like a ravenous man attacking food.

Then it was over as abruptly as it had begun. She was standing alone swaying on her feet and he was walking away, as he had done last night, only now he was running towards the cart, and she knew that this was the end of something that had hardly begun, for the news that she would hear during the next few days was that he was going to marry Rose Watson, and instinctively she also knew that William's apprenticeship had settled a matter that had been pending for a long time.

The first Sunday that the boys came home, their faces clean, their clothes tidy, they handed her their money, and William also proudly put into her arms a sack in which there were two loaves, a bag of oatmeal, some pig's fat, and a big hunk of cheese, and she didn't thank him for it, nor tell him to take back thanks to Mistress Watson, but he fully understood-she was too overcome with the generosity of the gift to say a word. But the rest of the family made their thanks very verbal.

Part of her heart rejoiced that the boys were back to their old selves again, or at the beginning of new selves, for they vied with each other in showing off to the rest and talking of their respective trades. While William bragged of the twenty sacks of flour the mill had ground in one week, and demonstrated how he cranked the handle of the flour-boulter. Jimmy also demonstrated how he turned the great wooden wheel that worked the lathe. He talked of shell augers and spoon augers, and gave the impression that he managed the saw pit, not just standing down below guiding the great saw along the chalk mark, but up above taking full responsibility for the straightness of the cut. He spoke of the stink of elm and the pleasing smell of ash as if he had dealt with wood all his life.

It was a grand day for both of them and Cissie tried to joy with them.

It wasn't until late in the afternoon when she sat on the wall nursing the baby that she looked at Jimmy and realized how much she had missed him, for he was the only sensible one of them all she could talk to--Bella was a scatterbrain.

Jimmy was twirling a brown ringlet on the baby's forehead with his finger when he asked quietly, "You all right, our Cissie?" and she answered with forced brightness, "Aye, of course. Why shouldn't I be?

Three of you settled, and now I can get on with the wall. I must put a move on. " She patted the rough stones to her side.

"We didn't get much chance last week with gathering the last of the bilberries and the wortles, and the mushroom pickin'--we cleared twenty pounds of them.... Oh, I didn't tell you. I went into Shields and sold them at the big houses. I had only to go to three."

"All that way?" he said.

"Nigh on nine miles there and backl" She laughed at him, saying, "Well, we did it afore."

"Aye." He nodded; then stooping, he picked up a chip of sandstone and hurled it away into the distance, and with his back half turned to her he said, "Matthew's gonna marry Miss Rose from the mill. Did you know that?"

When he turned and looked at her her head was level, her eyes answering his; and then she said quietly, "Aye, I knew about it."

Again he picked up a stone and hurled it.

"I thought he had cottoned on to you?"

It was some time before she said, and as if speaking with the wisdom of years, "Well, how could he, with nine of us? And from what I can gather he's got his own problems."

"Aye, he has." He glanced sideways at her now, saying, "I don't like his mother, nor the old 'uns, but I like him." Then walking a few steps from her he asked, "Did you manage to get a rabbit this week?"

and after a moment she answered, "No, I'm no good at it. I can't hit them an' finish them off. But I miss the stew. It was a grand standby." She paused, "Do you think you could show Joe?"

He turned to her now, his eyes bright.

"Aye, I could. He's comin' up five, he should be able to knock a rabbit out. And another thing he should be able to do." He came up to her now, his face eager, his voice low.

"Get through a hole I've made in the bottom of the manor wall. The rabbits are getting' fly; there's so many hunting' them on the fells that they're taking to cover, they're not daft. An' just afore I started at the pit" -he paused as if the memory alone could frighten him, then went rapidly on, "I found some loose masonry at yon end of the manor wall that's covered with thicket, going Brockdale way, near the North Lodge, an' when I pulled the stones away I found I could get through. That's where I got that whopper, you mind the big 'un. I didn't let on, 'cos if the others had come along of me they would have made a noise and given us away."

She was standing now; she had the baby across her shoulder and was patting its back in evident agitation as she said, "Eeh! no. Jimmy, don't show him in there. He could be locked up if he was found catchin' rabbits on that land, the lord's."

"But nobody'll catch him in there--it's all thicket and bramble.

Anyway, if they chased him they couldn't get through the hole; I just made it big enough for me, and the gate's some way off an' the walls all five foot high and you can hardly see any bit of it for bramble.

The place is a real rabbit run. I came across it one day when I saw one boltin' into the scrub and I followed through a badger run an' there was the rabbit's hole just this side of the wall, so I guessed it came up tother side. It was then I saw that the mortar had gone in parts from at ween the stones, an' it was easy to pull a few out. "

She stared at him for a moment, her hand on the back of the child's head now; then she asked, "You sure there wouldn't be any danger of the keepers catchin' him?"

"No." He laughed derisively.

"He would hear them comin' a mile off; it's a tangle I tell you, except for a path that runs at ween the bramble an' the wood, an' that's strewn with dry dead brittle an' anybody stepping on it would sound like the crack of a gun. No, there's no need to worry. Anyway, Joe's cute; he'll be smart will Joe when he grows. I'll go and get the trap." He ran a few steps from her, then turned, and, smiling broadly now, he cried, "I bet that once he gets the knack you'll never want more."

As she watched him running into the cave where the trap was hidden at the bottom of the chest she repeated to herself, "Never want more."

Because he was going to show Joe how to trap and kill a rabbit, they would never want more. She shook her head and smiled wearily.

But how was she to know that she was listening to a prophet?

BOOK TWO

The House of Fischel

It is a known fact that a devil of one generation can be the means of producing a saint for the next. This had happened in the house of Fischel, with one difference: it had taken a number of devils and a number of generations to produce a saint.

The long gallery on the first floor of the house showed the portraits of all the male Fischels; the first was given his title by Queen Elizabeth in 1573, together with Houghton Hall and land to the extent of three hundred acres in the County of Durham, such gift being for services rendered. The chroniclers had never stated the nature of the services, and the descendants, up to the present day, had not thought it expedient to probe this matter, although they were aware that it was only the timely death of the Queen in 1603 that saved the early Fischel from losing the generosity of his Queen, together with his head.

There was a saying come down in the family that likely had its roots in the activities of the first Fischel. It went: If a man turns his coat he must be prepared to wear it inside out. But the implication of the saying had changed, for it now stressed the integrity and honor of the family, implying that their ancestors might have been devils, but devils with honor.

The last devil had been the present Lord Fischel's grandfather and the deadliest of the bunch it was said, and John Horatio James Fischel, the present holder of the title, hadn't a doubt of this. He had met his grandfather only twice, the first time at the funeral of his grandmother, the second occasion on the night before he died. The chaise had come pell mell 75

to his home, which lay thirty miles from the Hall, and the steward brought the message that his grandfather was dying after being savagely kicked by one of his horses, and that he wished to see his son and his grandson. There had been no invitation for his sister, Anna, who was the eldest, nor his brother. Henry, yet that had been understandable since Henry was only four years old then. He remembered being very cold on the long ride to the Hall and then very hot when he stood in his grandfather's bedroom, for there was a fire blazing that would have roasted an ox.

It was when he had mounted the step to the bed and could see his grandfather plainly that he knew he was making his first acquaintance with the devil. It wasn't only the red face, the black eyes, the pointed eyebrows, and wild looking grey-streaked hair; it was the shape of him, for his stomach pushed up the bedclothes into a great mound.

On the day his grandfather was buried, his father had said to him, "He has all of eternity in which to repent, yet I doubt whether it will be long enough." And that was the only time his father mentioned his grandfather's name to him.

But he hadn't lived at Houghton Hall a matter of days before he had the whole history of his grandfather; and if he hadn't heard it within that time it is doubtful whether he would ever have heard it at all, for within a week his father had made a clean sweep of the servants, old Taplow, the coachman, included;

and it was Taplow, who had always been an ardent admirer of his grandfather, who had given him the unsavory history.

First and foremost, Taplow had stated that His Lordship was a real man, the terror of the county not only with a horse and the bottle, but with the women. He had liked them young, said Taplow; he had always liked them young, and virgins. He'd give you five pounds if you brought him a virgin, but only a pound if she'd been used, even if she was young. In that way, said Taplow, he had kept many a family from starving come winter. And, he had pointed out, not only had you to look round the villages and the farms for the Fischel nose and the black eyes, for in more than one big house he had left his mark. And another thing: when a couple on the estate were going to be married, if the fellow was wise he'd let His Lordship do the breaking in. Aw, he had been a lad, had His Lordship, and there had been some goings on in the house.

Send the mistress up to London, he would, to buy new clothes, and then high jinks, low jinks. Farmers threatened him with their guns. Aye, but he always got his own back on those; he had his ways, and whether they liked it or not he added one more to their stock.

It was because of Taplow's disclosure that John Fischel understood his own father. His father had always been a stem man, hard but just. From his earliest years he remembered the small household of five and ten servants meeting each morning at eight o'clock in the Hall for prayers. This was repeated at seven in the evening except when his father was away on business. Sunday was one continuous prayer, broken only at three o'clock when they had their one meal of the day.

As the years went on one trait alone of his grandfather showed in his father. This was the love of land. Yet at the beginning of the century when yet another Enclosure Act was passed, his father had openly condemned his grandfather for enclosing most of the small farms and cottages, thus enlarging his estate, which by the same method previously used had already reached six hundred acres. But it was this very land, he knew, more than the great grey stone house, that had brought his father back to his beginnings when he came into the title, and from the start he showed himself to be the antithesis of his father in that he feared God and ruled with justice, which sometimes took a whip in its hand to wipe out wickedness.

At sixteen he himself had felt the whip because he had dared to say, "Be damned." And the whip, delivered around the ankles of his sister while she obligingly held up her skirt the required inches above her shoes, would have guided her into a Convent had she been a Catholic.

What it did was to make her the wife of a Minister more than twice her age, much to their father's displeasure, for the Minister happened to belong to the Church of Scotland.

The whip of justice took his young brother. Henry, to France at an early age and there he married a French lady of good family.

Although he himself had suffered from the whip of justice more than either his brother or sister he knew he was the only one of the three who had really loved his father. His father may have been hard but it was hardness aimed against evil, as was the hardness in himself.

Sometimes in the night his conscience would question the hardness and would ask, "Was it because of it that his life had been shattered, that his honorable name had been dragged through the mud, and his career in Parliament choked as it was beginning to draw breath?" But the answer his conscience got was, "No; all this was the result of his blindness in marrying a woman who, in her own way, was as evil as his grandfather had been in his."

But now at the age of forty-eight. Lord Fischel was a lonely, embittered man, looking much older than his years and asking himself on this particular day as he dressed to go down to dinner what he was going to do with his son and daughter. The responsibility for their future, he admitted, was his but the fact irked him greatly. They had irked him since they were born. He had never liked the idea of twins, thinking that such children could only be half of their true selves.

The man would have too much of the woman in him and the woman too much of the man, and this theory, he knew, had worked out in his son and daughter. His son, who should be applying himself to serious subjects preparatory to going to the University of Oxford, as he himself had done, could think of nothing but painting. Paintingi Whereas his sister, who should be content to learn the business of running the household, together with the accomplishments of embroidery and music, and perhaps an extra language, galloped the country on a horse, never walked when she could run, talked loudly, laughed loudly, and always kept her head level when she prayed. It was a pity, he thought at times, that he hadn't used the whip of justice on them.

They had only been returned to the house a fortnight and the quiet order and routine of his life had been shattered, and was likely to be for some months ahead, for in four weeks' time he must open the London house and face the veiled looks and revived memories in order to launch them, at least Isabelle, into society.

He couldn't understand now how he had been persuaded into the matter, but his sister-in-law, Helen, had pointed out in her letters that the girl was at an age for a suitable marriage, and in her opinion the sooner it was accomplished the better. Although his sister-in-law had the disadvantage of being a French woman who, since the revolution of 1830, had lived in Heidelberg, and had done her best during the last two years to instill into his daughter the graces necessary for social life--though he had to admit that for most of the time there was little evidence of her efforts--she was a woman of common sense and propriety.

Fate having dealt him the blows it had, he wondered why the Lord in His wisdom had not seen fit to give him children whom he could love.

It was strange, he pondered, but as the years went on this feeling for the need to love increased rather than diminished. Looking back, he couldn't see one human in his life whom he had really loved, not even Irene. The feeling he'd had for her, he knew now, had never been love. Her ever smiling lips and laughing eyes had caused him to crave her body, and when he had accomplished that and found it was all she had to offer, and had turned from her constant demands, she had proffered her favors elsewhere, not discreetly, which he might have borne, if not forgiven, but openly, until her name became a byword. When she had at last left him, and for a man younger than herself, his head became bowed with shame; and even now, eight years later, he was still unable to hold it upright although he gave no outward sign of this.

As his valet helped him into his jacket he heard the sound of trotting horses coming up the drive and he turned his head in the direction of the long window and thought, "That'll be Bellingham."

Hugh Bellingham was his nearest neighbor, in his own class--and yet not quite in his own class, for he was in commerce, not just holding shares but actively so. Concerning himself greatly with the new railroads, Bellingham represented the powerful middle class that was clawing the power from the old reigning families, of which he considered the Fischels one of the foremost. Yet Bellingham was his only link with the outside world, the outside world in this case being London, and he was eagerly awaiting news from there, yet at the same time afraid of what he might hear.

The news that he was anxious to hear did not concern the political situation of the moment, but the gossip that surrounded the woman who was still his wife, and who would remain so until one of them died.

For he considered the very thought of divorce evil. Bellingham's letter of three days before had conveyed to him the disturbing fact that his wife had dared to return to town, and this time with an Italian much older than herself who bore the title of Count and who presumably had unlimited wealth.

The situation that now troubled him was this: If Bellingham brought him the news that his wife was aiming to set up an establishment in London, he could not possibly take up residence there; in which case what was he going to do with those two along the corridor?

The dinner was almost at an end. It had begun with Flemish soup, followed by turbot and fried smelts, after which came roast haunch of venison with vegetables. This in turn was followed by roast grouse and the meal ended with charlotte russe of which Isabelle had two helpings. She was very fond of puddings; in fact she was very fond of food altogether, yet no matter what amount she ate it did not show itself in flesh, for although seventeen in three days' time, her hips looked nonexistent and her chest almost as flat as her brother's.

As she began her second helping of pudding she made an almost imperceptible movement with her eyelid towards her brother sitting opposite, then slanted her eyes ceiling wise for a second, which caused him to cough and put his hand to his mouth.

No one would have taken the brother and sister for twins for they were quite unlike each other in looks, nor did either show any resemblance to the man sitting at the head of the table, nor would there have been any resemblance to their mother had she been present, dive Fischel, it was said, took after his maternal great-grandmother and was of unusual fairness, while Isabelle looked the image of her paternal great grandfather She only had to stand in the gallery and look at the three portraits of that notorious gentleman and she saw herself at the ages of twenty, thirty, and forty. Since she had been a child, she had taken a secret pride in resembling her great-grandfather, and only she knew that the resemblance was not in her exterior alone. Over the years she had gotten into the habit of talking to the portrait of the elegantly dressed youth and at times led herself to believe that the full sensual lips were answering her.

Only this morning, after the wearisome ritual of prayers and breakfast, she had stood in the gallery and said to the bold, dark face, with its nose seeming to protrude out of the canvas, "I'm weary;

I'll erupt if I don't get away from here. There's another month before I go to town. Heidelberg and Aunt Helen had its drawbacks but it was a wild life compared with this. What am I going to do? " She had watched the lips move and she had imagined a deep, throaty voice saying, " Live! " And she had answered it by asking, " But how? " And to this the portrait had only smiled.

Her home she considered to be a cross between a monastery and a convent where her father ruled like a prior, and the housekeeper, Mrs.

Hatton, a mother superior. She had voiced this to her brother as a rather clever quip.

She didn't like her father; but then she liked so few people. She often thought about this, her dislike of people. There was only one person in the wide world for whom she had any affection, and that was Clive;

yet even towards him her feelings were mixed. She could say that she loved him, yet at the same time she hated him because he was so ineffectual. She, like her father, thought their sexes had gotten mixed up--she should have been the man; she was the vibrant one.

She looked at her brother now. She could make him laugh; she had power over him in a number of ways and he could read her every sign. Her raised eyes that had caused him to splatter had indicated her opinion of the quality of the conversation. The conversation should have been of interest to her as her father and Mr. Bellingham were talking of London, but it was the political London they were discussing, not the social London. She turned her head and looked in Bellingham's direction as he said vehemently, "That Sadler, not satisfied with attacking the enclosures, he's now pressing the Ten Hours Bill. The Second Reading was in March and if we're not careful he'll get it through. Did you ever know anything like it?

They're asking for trouble; Malpass's philosophy is the only remedy and those with any sense know it. It's only through poverty and hunger that the population can be kept at balance; feed the mob and where are you? And he wants to bar the employment of children under nine. He wants to bring the country to ruin; burn it down in fact, for where will they get the climbing boys? They're too big over nine. And on a ten-hour day mill owners will go bankrupt. And think of the reorganization in the mines this will cause. The man's mad. Him and his committee, he's had it running hell for leather from April, and it holds out the kind of policy that could bring this country to its knees. You've never read such nonsense as is in his report, such piffling little things as wanting to eliminate strappers from the mills. Where will you get boys to work unless they're strapped? --boys are lazy by nature. He talks about them being crippled and deformed and old at twenty. Of course they're old at twenty, they've got to be old at twenty. It's as Malpass said: "The population must be kept down, at least the populace." Moreover we know the bishop's words are right: "Everything is the will of God, and poverty and hunger is the cross the poor have to bear." You cannot understand, John, can you"--Mr. Bellingham now leaned towards his host as he put the question" --the stupidity and shortsightedness of such men as Sadler? "

He did not wait for an answer but went on, his voice loud now.

"And he's not alone. This is serious. Men who you'd think would know better because the Bill is against their interests are showing sympathy with it. There's this John Wood of Bradford. He's not only employing a doctor in his mill but has put baths on the premises.

Can you believe it? You'll not believe this either, but he's sent his overseer up to the committee to tell them of all the harm that can come to children employed too early and made to work over twelve hours. I tell you, things are coming to a pretty pass. " He held out his glass to his host to be refilled and ended, " You're well out of it, well out of it, John. "

Lord Fischel moved his head twice and murmured, "Yes, yes." Then reaching over, he filled his son's glass with port. But there was no glass in front of his daughter to be refilled. His daughter wasn't allowed wine, although she had dared to protest to him during their first meal together that they drank nothing else but wine in Heidelberg.

He now looked at her and gave her the signal that she could leave the table, and knew a rising anger when she didn't take the cue straightaway. It was almost five minutes later before she rose and made her exit.

Going into the drawing room, she flopped down on to a deep couch before the open fire and, putting her hands behind her head, she stretched out her legs in a most unladylike fashion and muttered, "Mem Gotti Mein Gott!" Then, her head still back, she rolled it first one way, then the other, taking in the room, the faded tapestries on the heavily upholstered chairs, the black carved Chinese cabinets, the spindle-legged occasional tables, the faded rose velvet curtains with their heavy be tasseled pelmets, the carpet, thick, but the colors faded to neutrality, and overall, and in spite of the crowded furniture, the great emptiness that pervaded the room. But then the emptiness pervaded the whole house, and there was the sameness about everything, and a great heavy, weighing dullness. If she had her way she would sweep every piece of furniture and drapery into the park and have an enormous bonfire. She'd bring decorators in and have the place painted in pearl grey and white. She'd put one picture on a wall and nothing more, except in the gallery, and even there she'd make a sweep. Yes, she'd make a sweep there all right, everything would go except the portraits of her great-grandfather.

When the door opened and the second footman came in with a skip of logs while apologizing to her for disturbing her, she stared at him.

His livery was brown, his stockings were brown, and his shoes were black. He could not be very old but he looked lifeless. When he bent over the fire she had the desire to take her foot and kick it into his buttocks and knock him sprawling over the basket of glowing logs, thinking, as she saw the picture of the incident screened in her mind, that it would take something like that to make him come alive. She didn't like servants, she had never liked servants; they whispered and talked among themselves. But of all the servants in the house there were two she disliked with particular venom, the butler, Hatton, and his wife. They ruled the place. Their faces were somber, unsmiling.

This, she thought, was because they patterned themselves on her father. She had already decided that when her father died and Clive took over she would sweep the lot of them out, as her grandfather had done, but for a different purpose.

It did not seem strange to her that she never saw Olive's wife ruling the house, for she never imagined Clive marrying. All Clive cared about was painting. She herself would marry, she was sure of this, because the feelings inside her told her she must; and she and her husband would rule here while Clive lazed his days away with his paint brush. It was all very clear in her mind.

When the door opened and her brother entered she straightened herself on the couch and waited until he was seated beside her before she said, "Terrible, wasn't it? Ten Hour Bills, poverty, factories." She added laughingly, "Would you like to go into Parliament?" And he, now leaning his head back against the couch, said lazily, "Too expensive.

If you haven't a mine, a factory, or a shipyard you've got to buy votes. "

"Have you really?" She raised her eyebrows at this, and he nodded and said knowledgeably, "Yes, it can cost you anything from ten to fifty thousand pounds to be elected."

"Oh, don't bother." She pushed him playfully, adding, "Buy some paints."

At this they both dropped their heads together and laughed; then she asked, "What are we going to do?"

"Sleep."

"You'll not, you lazy thing."

"I'm full, replete, packed right up to here." He placed his hand on his throat.

"Let's go out for a walk." She pulled herself to the edge of the couch and tugged at him; but he lay supine, saying, "Walk! Oh God, I couldn't."

She now bent over him, her face close to his, and whispered on a wide laugh, "You nearly let that slip in front of Father, didn't you, at the beginning of dinner?"

"Huh! yes, I did." He pulled himself upwards now and, his long pale face dropping into somber lines, he said, "It's a bit much having to watch your every word; I think I'll be glad when I'm back at school."

"Well" --she stood up abruptly"--you've got another six weeks, and we're not just going to sit here, rising up only to pray and eat, until we go to London;

we're going to do something. " Swiftly now she bent forward and, gripping his hands, jerked him to his feet, crying, " Come on, we're going to walk right to the end of the park. We'll go and see one of the farmers, Thornton-. "

"Oh, Belle."

"Never mind, job Belle'; go and change your shoes, and don't come out wrapped to the eyes because you'll be sweating by the time we're finished...."

Ten minutes later they crossed the great stonewalled hall with the open fireplace at one end that held fire dogs three feet high and showed lead-colored suits of armor standing like sentinels at the foot of the stairs. They went down the broad, shallow stone steps on to the gravel drive, across this and down another flight that led to the sunken lawns, then through the gardens to the park, and the farther they walked into the parkland the more wild it became, until only the paths were clear, their view being checked on either side by mounds of bramble, bracken, and scrub. And the sight seemed to infuriate Isabelle, for she exclaimed angrily, "It's a disgrace! He should have all this cleared. Do you think it's Todd's fault?"

"No, of course not. Father must have told him to let it go. Anyway, it deters intruders, and I rather like it wild like this."

"It's gotten worse," she said.

"Last year you could see the lodge from about here.... What's that?" They both stopped and looked at the tangle of brambles to the side of them.

"Fox; likely got his hole in there."

"It won't be a fox," said Isabelle knowledgeably.

"He would have scurried long before this; and there was a squeak as it from something in a trap."

She took her walking stick and beat at the top of the bramble, then pressed it aside with her foot, and as she did so there came another scurrying sound. And now she cried to her brother, "Come on! Poke your stick and see what's there."

Laughing, dive poked his stick vigorously until it touched something soft, then he beat the bramble aside to disclose first a small fair head, then with another movement of his stick there was revealed the figure of a small boy crouched on his haunches, a rabbit lying limp across his knees, its forelegs still attached to a crude wire trap.

"Well, I ne veri Clive laughed softly, while Isabelle, after a moment of staring, demanded coldly, " Who are you? "

The small figure, all eyes and mouth, did not reply.

There was no movement from him whatever; he could have been cast in stone, an ornament in the garden, so still was he.

"Answer me! Who are you? How did you get in here?"

"He could be one of the children from the farm." Clive was still smiling.

"He's not. Look at him; he's from outside." She reached over and down and grabbed the narrow shoulder, then relinquished it immediately, not only because the boy let out a high squeal, but because she realized that her bare hand had come in contact with a ragged soiled shirt.

For no reason that she could explain at that moment the sight of the child infuriated her. He was from outside and represented the populace, dirty, ignorant, animal-like, crippled, old at twenty, one of those who should die early to keep the population level. Mr.

Bellingham's theories were flashing through her mind, and she had sympathetic leanings towards them now.

"You're a poacher. You could go to prison."

"Leave him be; it's only a rabbit, and he's only a child."

Now she turned furiously on her brother.

"Leave him be? Don't be silly, Clive. That would be a licence to have him scaling the wall, have them all scaling the wall."

Clive Fischel stared at his sister. Sometimes Isabelle frightened him, she was so intense, and about the most odd things. This was only a child poaching a rabbit. Likely he was hungry. Once or twice lately he had thought about people being hungry, but he hadn't dwelt upon it. It was a worrying matter and he didn't like to worry; he wanted life to be quiet, calm, the sun to shine and time to stand still, to stand still forever so he need never stop painting. He hadn't opposed his father as yet, but he knew he was going to because he meant to paint, paint all the time. But what was Belle up to?

"Look." He put his hand on her arm as she now took her stick and prodded the boy out of the brambles on to the path.

"What are you going to do with him?"

"I'm going to teach him a lesson."

She had no hesitation in picking up the dead rabbit and the trap, and when, disengaging her skirt from the brambles, she turned to the child to see him sitting in the middle of the grass drive, his feet straight out, his hands tucked under his buttocks, she was not to know that this was the characteristic attitude of Joe whenever he knew he was going to get his backside smacked for some mischief. But he could not have sat in a better position for her purpose, for after deftly disengaging the rabbit from the wire, she bent down and as deftly hooked it round the boy's ankle;

and at this Joe let out another scream and, hitching himself rapidly back from her, still on his buttocks and dragging the trap with him now, he yelled out a name, "Cissie! Our Cissiet" When her hand caught his ankle again and he screamed, scream after scream, Clive tried to pull her aside, and, shouting now, he cried, "Bellel What's the matter with you? Stop this!"

She stood up. Her eyes still on the child and seeming unaware even of her brother, she spoke as if to herself, saying, "Whichever way he got in he'll not get out with that on."

"But you can't do this." As he went to stoop down to the boy she pulled him aside with a strength greater than his and muttered, "We'll leave him there to cool until we come back this way, then I'll let him go."

"Cissiel Cissiel Our Cissie!"

Joe's screeching was ear-splitting now and the anguished sound brought dive again to the child's assistance, only to have Isabelle drag at him so fiercely that she almost knocked him on to his back, the trunk of a tree saving his fall, and he stood leaning against it staring at her. Once before he had seen Belle act like this; it was on the day they learned their mother had left them. She had kicked her dog and maimed it so badly that the keeper had to shoot it. He had been afraid of her on that day as he was afraid of her now, as if her attacks were directed against himself; yet on that day her attitude had created a frenzy in him, tor the yelping of' the dog had torn through his brain and of a sudden he had turned on her and had shaken her as their pet had been wont to do with a rat. Now as then, he was about to turn on her in defense of this dirty, sniveling creature who was not much bigger than the dog, when his eyes were lifted to the top of the wall, and there to his amazement he saw a girl pause for a moment on its crest as she took in the scene below her before dropping down into the undergrowth. She was hidden from his sight until, a minute later, she came thrashing her way through the bramble and almost to the feet of Isabelle.

She was a girl, he saw, about their own age, tall and straight but raggedly dressed, her mass of brown hair in great disorder where it had been teased by the brambles, and her hands bleeding. Her face pastel white, her eyes large and fierce were yet filled with horror.

"Who are you? What are you doing here? How dare you come into the grounds!"

Cissie stared up sideways into the haughty dark face above her while she bent down and cupped Joe's head as his hands clutched wildly at her legs. Then seeing the wire attached to his ankle she let out a cry that could have been wrenched from an animal itself, and, reaching forward, she tore at the wire until his foot was free. Flinging aside the rough piece of iron that formed the base of the trap, she glared at the girl and then at the boy, crying, "You're devils, nothin' but devils, that's what you are, treatin' a little child so cruelly."

"How dare you speak to me so!" The words were deep throated like those that might have come from a mature woman.

"Mind your manners, girl, if you don't want to find yourself up before the Justice. That little child, as you call him, was big enough to set a trap for a rabbit and then kill it. He was being given some of his own medicine."

"A child's a child, a rabbit's a rabbit. You should know that."

The two girls were facing each other now and like a flash Isabelle's arm went up, the gold-headed walking stick with it, as she cried indignantly, "You dare answer me back!"

Even Clive couldn't believe his eyes at what followed, for he saw the girl reach up, grab Isabelle's arm and wrench the walking stick from her grasp. Then in one movement she seemed to fling the stick and Isabelle aside. The stick went hurling into the brambles and Isabelle followed it, if more slowly;

three stumbling steps backwards and she fell headlong into the thicket. Then the girl, stooping quickly, gathered the child into her arms and turned and fled along the path.

When he pulled Isabelle to her feet there was a streak of blood across one cheek where a bramble had caught it, but she was unaware of this.

She stood with her joined fists pressed tightly together at the front of her waist, staring along the drive where in the far distance she could see the girl still running. Without moving her gaze from the figure, she demanded, "Why didn't you do something, stop her? She struck me. She'll be brought up for this."

"Don't be silly. Belle. She didn't strike you, she only defended herself."

She now turned on him in fury.

"You dare to take her part, that scut, that scum! She knocked me down." She put her hand up to her cheek that was now beginning to smart, then looked at the blood on her fingers before thrusting her hand in front of his face, crying, "Lookl" When he made no response she cried, "Well, if you won't get her, I will." And pulling her skirt well up over her ankles she raced down the driveway; and after a moment he followed her, protesting, "Don't be such a fool, Belle. Belle, do you hear?"

So quickly did she run that he did not catch up to her before they reached the North Lodge gates, and as he came panting to a standstill he heard her cry at the lodge keeper "You let them through! You knew Aey were trespassing."

"Aw, Miss, and young Sir." He nodded at Clive.

"She was out through the little gate in a twinkling." He nodded to where the iron gate at the side of the big gates stood open.

"I couldn't have stopped her if I would."

"Who is she?"

When the lodge keeper rubbed his hand hard over his mouth she cried at him, "Who is she? Tell me this instant."

"Well, Miss," he said solemnly now, "her name be Brodie. But she's more to be pitied than laughed at. Her parents died of the fever a short while back and she was turned adrift from her house in the hamlet, and she lives now with the children, nine of them, so I hear, on the open fells."

When the lodge keeper saw the young master shake his head as if in disbelief he sensed acertain sympathy from him and addressed his remarks to him only now, saying, "

"Tis a sad case, young Sir; but there are many likewise."

dive's attention was taken from the lodge keeper now and he cried to his sister who was making for the gate, "Where are you going?"

She answered him over her shoulder, "Come and find out." And running across the rough road she made for a rise in the ground opposite the gates that would give her a view of the lower land.

From the top of the high ground she saw the girl walking now, the boy by her side, towards an outcrop of rock in the far distance, and she took note of the location before turning about and joining her brother, who was making his way slowly up the hill towards her.

It was late the same evening when she returned from a lone ride to be greeted by Clive, who demanded, "Where have you been? Father's been asking for you."

"Has he?" She pulled off her long soft leather gloves as she mounted the steps to the house, saying, "That's very fortunate because I want to see him."

"Where have you been?"

"For a ride."

"You haven't been after that girl?"

When she turned her head towards him but didn't speak he put in quickly, "Now, Belle, I won't stand with you in this. She didn't strike you, but on the other hand if you had brought that stick down on her, the mood you were in, you could have killed her."

Ignoring his remark, she said, "Where's Father?"

"Where he always is at this time of night."

On this she left him, throwing her gloves and crop on to the hall chair as she made for a door at the far end of a short passage leading from the hall. She paused for a moment outside the door, then knocked, and when her father's voice came to her she entered the room.

Lord Fischel was surrounded by books. Each side of the large desk was piled with them, three walls of the room were lined with them. His main occupation in life was reading, and his main interest was astronomy. He raised his head and looked at his daughter. Then the muscles of his face gave a nervous twitch as he said, "Ah, yes. Come in. Sit down, Isabelle."

She walked slowly across the room, but she didn't sit down. Standing at the edge of the desk she startled him by immediately asking, "Who owns the land that runs along by the park on the east side of the North Lodge?"

"Land?" He narrowed his eyes at her.

"You mean the open land, the fells?"

"Yes."

"It's common land."

"You have no say about it?"

He shook his head, then gave a wry twist of a smile.

"Not as yet."

"Are people allowed to live on it?"

"Being common land, yes, in certain circumstances, like camping. And they can graze their animals."

"Can they build houses?"

"Build houses on the fell?" He brought himself round to face her more squarely.

"Not unless they've obtained a tenure and have deeds to that effect. Why do you ask?"

"I saw people building there."

"What kind of people, squatters or workmen?"

"It's a family ... there's" -she stopped herself from saying "a girl" and added, "There's a woman doing it."

"Oh." He turned his attention to the desk again.

"Likely squatters erecting a shelter. But as long as they don't dig foundations they're within the law, and anything without a foundation won't stand the winds of the winter up there." He gave a wry smile at the futility of such wasted effort and now he said again, "Sit down, Isabelle."

When she had seated herself he did not look at her, but picking up a plain-handled pen he drew a star on the paper to his hand before he said, "I'm afraid I've some very disappointing news for you. You will not be able to go to London as arranged."

The impact of the words stunned her for a moment, and then she was on her feet again, demanding, "But why. Father, why?"

And when, his face still turned from her, he said, "I cannot give you the reason," she knew it. It was her mother; he wouldn't go because he had likely heard that her mother was in town. Mr. Bellingham must have brought him the news. But if she didn't go to London, where was she to go? Back to Heidelberg, she supposed, and Aunt Helen's, and the daily journey to the convent, under strong escort of course, so that she would not come in contact with the students. And there would be the musical evenings, and the decorum, and no fun, because Aunt Helen didn't believe in fun. In a way she could be her father's sister, not her sister-in-law, for her theory was that if God wished you to marry.

He would send you a man;

magically the man would appear, as her husband had appeared to her.

But of course he mustn't be a German student. But even Heidelberg and Aunt Helen was preferable to staying here, yet she determined not to go without a protest. She said now defiantly, "Well, I don't want to go back to Heidelberg, Father. I've ... I've outgrown Aunt Helen."

"Indeedl" His face was straight, and he frowned at her before he went on, "But you need not worry, you're not returning to Germany. It so happens that I received a letter from your Uncle Henry yesterday telling me of a long-felt desire of his and your aunt's to visit India, and they intend to do this forthwith. So I'm afraid you'll have to content yourself with my poor company and the amenities of your home until further arrangements can be made." Again there was a thin smile on his face, but it vanished when, bending towards him, she cried, "No, Father! You can't make me put up with this all winter, it's utterly dead, and I've looked forward so much to staying in London. I ... I want to go to London; I'll go mad if I have to stay here, there's nothing to do."

Swiftly he rose from his seat and it was on the point of his tongue to say, "Then we'll go mad together for

I, too, cannot bear the thought of you in this house for months ahead. "

Up till they were ten he had seen little of his children, for they were kept, as children should be kept, out of sight at the top of the house. Sometimes they were brought into the drawing room to say How-do-you-do, and at such times when they stood side by side staring at him solemn-eyed he could not believe that he was the instigator of their being; he did not feel that they belonged to him. When his wife had left him he had arranged that the top floor of the west wing of the house should be given over entirely to them and the governess. A year later he had sent his son away to boarding school and the boy was fourteen before they sat down to a meal together. When his daughter was fifteen he consulted with his brother. Henry, and his wife, while they were on a visit, as to what was best for her, and when his sister-in-law suggested, as he hoped she might, that Isabelle should return to Germany with them and finish her education there, he had welcomed it.

During the last two years they had come home for the holidays, but even then he had seen little of them, apart from meal times. This year it had to be different. They were near seventeen and something had to be done; and to this end he had made arrangements which, he hoped, would take care of his daughter's future. Then that wanton, who still dared call herself Lady Fischel, showed herself on the London scene once more, and here he was having to suffer the companionship of his daughter for months ahead; and of his two children he liked her less, for not only did she look the image of his grandfather, but she had an unpredictable nature and in some strange way she disturbed him.

He said now, with studied patience, "If you employ your time in useful ways it will not drag. I'll tell Mrs. Hatton to instruct you in the running of the house. The tapestry of the fire screen in my bedroom needs attention; also Mrs. Hatton has mentioned that new curtains are required for the drawing room. You can go into Newcastle and choose the material. Then you have your pastime of riding and walking.... Your days should be full."

Once again she was speechless, for her temper was choking her. She knew now how her mother had felt. No wonder she had taken other men.

She had the desire to cry at him, "I hate you! I hate you as much as my mother did." Fearing she might do just that, she turned and rushed from the room, and, finding Clive waiting for her in the hall, she gripped his arm and pulled him with her to the morning room, and once inside and the door closed, she leaned her back against it and gasped at him, "We're not going to London. He said circumstances have arisen.... It's Mother; she must be there and he's terrified of facing her. And I'm not going back to Germany either, they're going to India.

I'm to stay here all winter. " She brought her body from the door and poked her head towards him, hissing now, " Do you hear what I say? I'm to stay here all win teri He himself couldn't see this as a tragedy. He would like to stay here all winter, set himself up in the old nursery, and just paint and sleep and eat.

"Well say something, don't just stand there gaping." She now marched across the room, her arms waving wildly as she cried, "I'll go mad.

I'll do something desperate. I know I shall. "

When she. turned to face him again there "were tears in her eyes, and the sight was so unusual that he went to her and put his arm around her shoulder. But he didn't speak, for at the moment he had no words with which to comfort her. One needed, big outsized words when talking to Belle, for everything connected with her seemed to be larger than life.

After a time he said, "Come on up to my room. and I'll give you a drink of something that will make you feel better." He bent his head down to hers as she dried her eyes and blew her nose, and whispered, "I've lifted a bottle of old brandy from the cellar. Come on."

For four days Isabelle rode her horse along the road from the North Lodge. She would hitch it to a tree before climbing to a hidden spot from where she could watch, behind an outcrop of rock, the wall slowly rising. On the fifth day she stayed longer than usual, waiting until she saw the girl and the children leave the place together; then swiftly mounting her horse again she rode towards the structure.

Pulling up some yards away she surveyed the scene: the fire let into the earth, the sooted kitchen utensils near it, the heap of wet mud.

Then, turning the horse, she backed it against the wall which faced the entrance to the cave.

When the horse's haunches touched the wall it reared nervously and kicked out with its back feet;

and as it made to move forward she pulled it up short and backed it again, this time digging her heels viciously into its side.

When the top of the wall gave way against the horse's haunches the animal reared up on its hind legs and almost dislodged her. Taking it forward, she turned and surveyed her handiwork. The top halt of the wall lay scattered within the enclosure. Swiftly now she took the animal round to the side and repeated the performance. This time the horse did not rear; it seemed to know what was demanded of it, and not until the stones began to tall did it jump forward.

She was about to follow the same procedure with the third wall when she saw a figure flying towards her. This did not cause her to gallop away, but she walked the horse forward a little, drew it to a halt, and waited for the girl to come up. She watched her as she stared at the debris, then dashed to the remaining wall and looked over it; and she almost laughed when she turned and gaped at her, so comical was the creature's expression. Her lip curled, her head went up; then, pulling hard on the bit, she brought the horse round, its front legs clearing the ground, and galloped away.

At eleven o'clock the next morning Hatton met her as she was crossing the hall on her way out, evidently about to ride, since she was wearing her habit, and said, "His Lordship wishes to speak to you.

Miss. He's in his study. "

In the study she was surprised to see Clive already there. She had left him painting not long ago in the nursery after failing to persuade him to join her in a ride. Her father, she saw immediately, was angry; the whiteness around his mouth gave an indication of this, and she imagined that he had found out they had been drinking, for Clive had lifted another bottle from the cellar, and when, his Adam's apple working violently above the line of his cravat, he demanded, "What is this I hear. Miss? Such conduct. Explain yourself, and at once," she glanced at Clive; but he only stared back at her, his expression blank; and so to be on the safe side she parried with, "I don't know what your meaning is. Father."

"You don't know what my meaning is, girl? Do you deny you took your horse yesterday and deliberately knocked down the walls of a dwelling on the fells?"

As her eyebrows moved upwards, her lids shaded her eyes.

"It was the work of a scut. You forget yourself and the house you represent. What have you got to say?"