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But after the meal I will tell them. "

The meal was over, they were all replete and they had said so in their different ways and congratulated their mother on the wonderful feast.

"Now who goes first? I think ladies should have the choice, don't you, Oswald?"

As Oswald nodded down the table towards his father, Anna said, "Mine can wait. Let Oswald and Olan tell their news."

"As you will. As you will."

"Well, go ahead, Oswald."

All eyes were on the bright-faced, bulky form of the eldest of the family. And he, looking directly at his father, said, "Mr. Green has asked me if I would like to manage his other shop in Gateshead Fell."

"Oh! Wonderful!"

"Managing a shop!"

"All by yourself?"

"Will you get more money? Double pay?"

"Be quiet. Be quiet." Nathaniel waved them down.

"And listen. Go on, Oswald."

Oswald took a deep breath before he said, "Of course, it isn't as big as the Fellburn one and it's in rather a poor quarter near the river, but it's got prospects. I am to do part of the baking to begin with, nothing fancy, you know, like our present shop, just plain bread, rye, brown, and white, and tea cakes griddle cakes and yeasty cakes. Of course, the drawback is, I have further to go, yet I start at the same time in the morning. But on three times a week he is letting Olan, here, pick me up when he's on his round."

"How much money are you getting? Twice as much?"

"No. No, Mr. Moneybags." Oswald laughed at Jimmy.

"But I'm going up to seven shillings a week and what stale bread I'd like to take away with me at night."

"Stale bread!" Cherry's voice was indignant.

"There won't be much stale bread left around that quarter if it's a poor one. Anyway, tell him we don't want his stale bread."

"You'll tell him no such thing." Maria silenced Cherry with a cautionary hand, then went on, "If I can't make use of stale bread for puddings then there's plenty will be glad of it, especially if we have company on the moor again, as you said earlier, Oswald."

Oswald now nudging his brother said, "Tell them your piece."

"Well--' Olan ran his fingers through his hair, then smoothed each side of his cheeks as if he were straightening side whiskers, before sticking his thumbs in his braces and declaiming, " I've been put on commission. "

"Commission? What d'you mean?" This question came from various quarters of the table; then Olan explained.

"I am to take the cart filled with trays of fancies and, as Mr. Green says, break new ground.

I approach private houses and inns and such like and ask them if they would be interested in placing an order with the firm of George Green, High Quality Confectioner, Established 1850. And for every order over a pound I get one penny commission. "

"A pennyf What's a penny to brag about?" Jimmy was butting in again.

"It's something to brag about when twelve of them make a shilling, bighead," replied Olan.

"Yes, Olan's right." His father was nodding down towards Jimmy now.

"A

shilling is something to brag about. "

"It might be, Dada, but how long is it going to take him to earn it?"

said Jimmy, practically.

"Well, that remains to be seen," replied his father. Then looking at the slightly dampened Olan he added, "Doesn't it?"

"If the weather keeps fine I could make it in a week. Anyway, Mr.

Green is supplying me with an oilskin cape and cap and also covers for the trays. So he's thought about the weather."

Jimmy was laughing now as he put in, "But what about the poor horse?"

And when Anna's

hand came out and slapped him across the ear he laughed louder, and at this they all joined in.

"Well now, that's us settled." Oswald was looking towards his sister.

"Out with it."

All eyes were on Anna now, and she, looking up the table to her mother and father, her voice low and her when deprived of all aping hauteur, she said, "Dada. Ma. I'm to be a pupil teacher."

The news brought no response for a moment;

then it seemed to animate each one of them, for they all rose at once and crowded round her chair and the questions flew at her from all sides, until Maria shouted, "Stop it! all of you, and listen."

When the hubbub had died down it was Nathaniel who, holding out his hand, caught his daughter's and drew her up from the chair, saying,

"Let's all go down to the fire. Good news should always be spread around the fire."

A moment later they were all sitting or crouched round the mat, their eyes on their beautiful sister, and in what sounded like a tearful voice, she began, "Miss Netherton took me in this afternoon.

Apparently it's been under discussion for some time. I am to take up my position at Miss Benfield's Academy For Young Ladies next week. "

"The Academy For Young Ladies. Oh! Anna." Cherry's arms were about her and the sisters were hugging.

"She never let on to you?"

Anna looked at Maria, saying, "No, Ma; not a word. The only thing is, she has been pushing all kinds of books towards me over the past weeks, not only English and history, but ... well, things that went over my head. " She turned now and looked at her father, saying,

" Not that they would have gone over your head, Dada, philosophy and such. But, as she said, I won't need anything I've read of late in the Academy, nor for some time and with the little ones, but . but it may help me later on to put over my English and history to the muddle-minded minxes that grace Miss Benfield's decaying mansion. "

"Is it a mansion?"

"No, no." She shook her head at Maria.

"It's a terraced house on two floors and has a basement with an iron grid over it." She glanced towards her father now, saying, "It looked as if the wash-house was below, for steam was pouring up through the grid and there was a smell of soap-suds. But up above, oh, all was different." She wrinkled her nose now.

"Miss Benfield was dressed in black satin. She's big--' She made a sweeping motion with both hands over her chest, then she glanced at Cherry and said, " I wanted to giggle when I first saw her.

Remember that poem. The Bosom Of The World: Where all nature is unfurled . ? "

"Now, now, be serious." Her father was nodding at her.

"Tell me what she said."

"Well, it wasn't what she said, it's what she expected me to say. She just asked questions, and mostly about you."

The? " He dug his thumb into his chest.

"Yes. Were your parents alive; what had they been. I said your father had been an engineer but both of them had died of cholera."

"What was the house like, the classrooms?"

"Oh, Dada, grim. The one room I saw upstairs was partitioned off and there were eight desks in one part. What I suppose was the drawing room is the main classroom. The dining-room, too, had been partitioned off; part of it is called the music-room."

"How many teachers are there?"

"I think there are just two; Miss Benfield and another one."

"It doesn't sound like a very high-class establishment to me."

Anna now looked at Olan, saying, "Nor did it to me and I'm sure it didn't to Miss Netherton. But, as she said, I have to begin somewhere.

And once I get a year or so's experience I'll be able to pick and choose. I'm . I'm sure, Dada, it's the best she could do for me at the moment. "

Her expression was serious and so was Nathaniel's, for they both knew why it was the best Miss Netherton could do for her at the moment: a bastard and one of a family of bastards would not be classed as a fit person to instruct young ladies.

"Well now, what more news have we? Anyone else got a surprise?" Anna looked around the family.

Nathaniel still didn't say, "I have news, surprising news." It was Jimmy who next gave his news: "Well, nothing happens on a farm that you could call news, except today Daisy kicked a bucket of milk over.

And Farmer Billings raged about the byre, cursing. He used some words I'd never heard before and Mrs. Billings chastised him, you know, how she does in that churchy voice.

"Enough! Enough! Mr. Billings," she shouted.

"Be grateful you have milk to spill; you won't find any in hell." And you know

what he shouted back at her? " He chuckled so much now that he almost choked. " Go and boil your head, woman! Go and boil your head! "

Nathaniel allowed the laughter to die down before, looking down on Jimmy, he said, "He didn't say any such thing, not Farmer Billings."

"He did, Dada. Honest to God."

This aroused more laughter, because Jimmy had spoken almost as Farmer Billings would have.

But Maria quickly intervened. Looking at Cherry, she said, "Have there been any high jinks in your establishment?"

And Cherry, her face still wide with laughter, said, "You wouldn't believe it; but it's been " My dear Florence" and " My dear Mr.

Praggett". They've been cooing like two doves the last few days. And I wanted to say to her, " Look, woman; don't let yourself be hoodwinked.

He's no dove. You should know that by now. " He's a dreadful man really. He gets so mad at times that he actually jumps. He does, he does. Like the day I told you about when I'd just hung a line full of washing out and he came rushing out the back way and straight into it and got tangled up in his wet linings and brought the whole line down remember?"

They remembered; and just as on that first occasion, so the room was filled with laughter.

The laughter trailed away as one after another they turned their attention to the young boy who was saying quietly now, "I'm going to be a doctor when I grow up."

The statement, made with such emphasis, brought no response from anyone for a moment. Then his father asked gently, "Why this sudden decision to be a doctor, Ben?"

and the boy's answer was firm as he said "Because I want to mend things, like ... like sores on legs, Dada."

"Sores on legs ... ? Who has sores on legs?"

"The children that came into the wood this morning."

"And they had sores on their legs? What were they doing in the wood?"

"Gathering blackberries, Dada. They were very small, not as big as me.

They had no shoes on and their feet were dirty and they had sores on their legs. "

Nathaniel rose from his chair and picked up his son from the floor and held him up in his arms. And looking into his face, he said, "And you will be a doctor some day, son, and heal sores on legs. God willing."

"What if he's not, Dada?"

"What if who's not?"

"God. God willing. You said the other day you were willing to help the pit lad or anyone to read or write, but what if God isn't willing?"

A shiver ran through Nathaniel's body and he repeated to himself. Yes, what if God isn't willing? This last child of his, this small, strange and continually happy child filled him with foreboding, even fear at times.

He did not resist Anna's taking the boy from his arms and standing him on the floor again. He hadn't been aware that she had risen to her feet, but he could count on her always being there at moments such as these: when life became so

frightening he seemed to become paralysed by it.

Maria was standing close to him now, saying, "Tell them our news. It's time."

"Oh, yes, yes, our news. We have some special news for you. But first of all I must say something to your mother that I have longed to do for the last nineteen years." And now he took Maria by the shoulders and pressed her down into his chair. Then dropping on to one knee, he looked into her face and said, "Maria Dagshaw; I love you. Will you marry me?"

"Oh! Nat. Nat." Maria pulled her hands away from his and covered her face with them; and now they were surrounded by their children, all saying in different ways, "Oh! Ma, Ma. Oh! Dada, Dada."

"Dry your eyes, my love." Nathaniel picked up the corner of her white apron and gently drew it over her wet cheeks. Then, sitting at her feet now, he addressed his family, saying, "I have never kept anything back from you. You have all been brought up to face the situation that we brought upon you by our love for each other. Yet, in spite of the so-called shame, I doubt if there is a happier family in the whole of the country. So now I will tell you the news I received, that Anna brought to me tonight, the news that should have been delivered five years ago. It has happened like this. My wife, as you know, was addicted to drink. In order to keep her from plaguing me, I had to find her five shillings a week for her lifetime. I used to send her a ten-shilling note once a fortnight, care of the letter-writer, the penny letter-writer, you know. Well, his letter tells me it was only by accident that he found out my wife had died five years ago. After her old mother had missed two visits to collect the money, he thought he'd better take it to the address he had been given. It was a kind of lodging house, and the landlady greeted him as if he was a relative of the poor, lonely old woman. It must have been through questioning her that he learnt my wife was already dead. The man, the letter-writer, didn't want to be implicated in anything unlawful, so he thought he had better do some explaining."

He paused before saying, "So five years ago I could have said the words I said a moment ago to your mother: Maria Dagshaw, will you marry me?

But still' he moved his head slowly 'we would have been no happier than we are now, and, unfortunately, our marriage cannot erase the stain we have put upon you all."

"Oh! Dada. Dada." The girls were kneeling by his side, their arms about his neck, while Maria held her hands out towards her sons, and they crowded round her; and it was Olan who said, "Whatever happens in life, Ma and Dada, I'll always thank God that I was born of you, and Oswald, being part of me, says the same, don't you, Oswald?"

"Oh, yes, yes, Ma ... Dada."

"And Jimmy is proud of you, too, aren't you, boy?"

And Jimmy, his voice thick, muttered, "I don't know, being connected with you two is nothing to shout across the water. Anyway I can disown you once I can buy my farm."