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you said keep dry. "

He watched her push past him now and go and stand in the rain and call,

"Joel Joel" and then she turned into the room again and sighed as she said, "He's comin'," and by way of explanation, she added, "It's my little brother." He thought that she was very anxious that the boy shouldn't get wet, yet when the fair, bright-faced child came into the dwelling she did not attempt to divest him of his wet clothes.

"Would you care to sit down?"

"No; thank you." He refused the only real chair he could see in the place. Opposite him was a dark hole which he surmised led into a cave.

He glanced up at the lean-to roof and saw it was constructed of wooden beams with thatch across them. Then, looking about him, he shuddered inwardly at the bareness of the place. Only one thing surprised him pleasantly, and that was the absence of stench; he understood that you could cut the smell with a knife in such places. In fact the servants were forbidden to enter the Hall if they had visited a miner's or farm laborer's cottage before first being picked over and deloused in the slaughter room. The laundress did the delousing for the women and the second coachman for the men. Because of this, servants were rarely engaged from roundabout; His Lordship preferred that they should come from away so that they would need to visit their people only once a year.

He stood in silence for some time, the children staring at him. Then the girl said, "I could offer you a drop of tea, Sir, if you'd care?"

"Oh no; thank you. Thank you very much. It's very kind of you, but the shower is nearly over and I must be on my way."

He found he was speaking to her not in the tone he used with the servants in the House, but almost as if she were an equal.

He put on his hat and, going towards the open door, said, "It's almost over; the sun is coming out." Then turning to her, he added, "Thank you for your kindness. If I happen to be walking this way again I hope I may ask after you?"

His manner was so courteous, kindly, that she smiled at him and said,

"Yes, Sir. Thank you. Sir." She did not ask where he was from or where he was going. You did not question gentlemen; or near gentlemen.

Forty-five minutes later Cunningham stood before his master in the study, saying, "I did not find the opportunity, m'Lord, to ascertain when the child would be born, but I have made it possible to call on her on my walks across the fells."

Lord Fischel stared up at his man for a moment; then looking down at the paper on which he had been writing, he said,

"That is well. Cunnings. Tell me, how did you find the person?"

"Civil, m'Lord, and clean; unusually so under the circumstances."

"The circumstances?"

"The habitation, m'Lord. It's an erection built in front of a hole in an outcrop of rock."

"I see." His Lordship moved his head. Then picking up his pen and looking down at the writing paper again, he said, "You will avail yourself of the opportunity to call at regular intervals until you get the required information. Even then it may not be accurate, these things fluctuate." He glanced up at his man, and Cunningham made a motion of agreement with his head and His Lordship ended, "You'll continue to take your walks until the actual day."

"Very good, m'Lord."

With a slight movement of his hand Lord Fischel dismissed the valet and began to write, but only until the door had closed. Then he sat back in his chair. He still refused to ask himself where his interest in the birth of this child would lead him; but he did think that he was pleased to learn that the girl was clean, for the idea that the seed of his seed should be breeding in a dirty body was intolerable to him.

It was the middle of June and she was weary unto death and she had still another fortnight to go. Moreover, adding to her misery, it had rained for three days, only this morning fairing up.

Sarah and Charlotte had gone gooseberry picking, taking Annie with them, but she hadn't allowed Joe to go because she herself couldn't go.

Last week the man had been 'round again asking to buy Joe and saying he was growing so fast he would soon be worth nothing, and she had yelled at him and told him she'd tell the justice. And now Joe had slipped out and she couldn't find him.

For the past four weeks she had felt desperately lonely and at times in the night she had cried, not for her da now, or her ma, but just for someone to talk to.

She was forever trying the impossible task of pushing Matthew out of her mind, for at times she felt bitter against him. After what he had said, and how he had acted on Christmas Eve, she thought that he would have come once in every short while, say once a week or so, but she had only seen him four times altogether since that night, and then he had stood away from her, even when the hairns weren't about.

All he had asked was how she was and if she was managing. She couldn't understand him; she knew he niust marry the woman, but he had said it was her he loved. If it hadn't been for the gentleman who walked across the fells and passed the time of day with her now and again she wouldn't have spoken to an adult soul for weeks, for since she had become so big, and with the incident in the hamlet still in the forefront of her mind, she sent Sarah and Charlotte to Brockdale for the few groceries that they needed;

and in a new arrangement she now took William's wages from the mill in flour and she knew she benefited by it.

She slithered over the wet humps at the top of a rise from where, in the distance, she could see the outskirts of the wood and, putting her hands to her mouth, she called, "Jo-ool You Jo-ool" And when there was no response to her calling she became filled with panic. If that man got Joe she would die; she would die when she was having the hairn 'cos she would have no wish to live. Joe with his impish face and lightning movements, his gay laugh, being forced up a chimney, being stuck up a chimney, being suffocated up a chimney. She held her hands to her face.

If only he would appear, dart from behind a rock perhaps where he was hiding. She wouldn't go for him; at this moment she would hug him to her.

When she had told him of the scraper he had laughed at her and said, "I can run like a hare; no scraper man is gonna catch me."

When she heard a cough she swung round, and there was the black-clothed gentleman at the bottom of the rise.

"Good-morning," he called up to her; and she nodded down to him and said, "Good-mornin'." Perhaps he'd seen Joe. As she made her way down towards him the slope took her into an almost shambling run and she was about ten feet from him and trying to steady herself on the wet grass when she slipped and fell over sideways. For a moment she felt only a kind of numbness; it was when the man took her arm and tried to raise her from the ground that the pain, shooting through her, caused the whole fell to disappear in a sheet of blackness.

A few minutes later, when she got to her feet, she found she couldn't straighten up, and when the man kept asking her if she was hurt she could only nod her head.

"Oh, dear, dear; you shouldn't have run." He was very solicitous.

"Can I help you to your house?"

"I'll ... I'll be all right in a minute; it's ... it's just like a stitch, you know."

Yes, he knew. But he also knew that what she was feeling wasn't the outcome of a stitch.

She drew in a long breath and straightened up a little further and half smiled at him as she said, "It's ... it's going," then added, "Have you seen me brother, you know the little one, Joe?"

"No, I'm sorry I haven't. Has he been gone long?"

She jerked her head, then said, "About an hour I think.

"Tisn't long that, but there's a man. He's ... he's gatherin' climbing boys. He he wanted to buy him ... buy Joe. I'm frightened."

They were walking now, she still bent slightly to the side, and he thought as he watched her slow progress that her concern for her family was commendable. Under the circumstances it would have been wise, he thought, to have one less to feed, besides being paid for the boy; and climbing boys were necessary; how else could you keep the chimneys clear? He understood they were trying out a newfangled machine but he knew it wouldn't succeed because it couldn't get into the crevices, and he had heard it made a great deal more mess than the boys did.

She was a strange girl, he considered, yet very pleasing. In an odd way over the past weeks he had become attached to her, concerned for her--so much so that the reports he had given his master were a little larger than life, but all to her credit.

They were in sight of the dwelling when Joe came running out of the doorway and Cissie stopped and cried, "Where you been? Oh, you are a bad 'unl" And when he dashed to her, his face bright and laughing, she encircled him with her arms and held him tightly to her. Then suddenly with a drawn-out groan she fell on to her knees, her body doubled in two.

"Our Cissie! Our Cissie! What's the matter with you?" Joe wasn't laughing now, and after a moment she looked from the man who was bending over her to Joe and, gripping his arm, said, "Run ... run to Rosier's village, you know, where Mrs. Bellamy lives. Tell her ...

tell her I think me time's come. Bring her back with you. You understand?"

Joe nodded, but as he made off she checked him and after drawing in a long breath she gasped, "And mind, don't, don't talk to anybody on the road. If you see that man, run; do you hear?"

"Aye, Cissie. Aye, I'll run."

"Go on." She pushed him forward, and he went skipping and bounding over the wet ground like a hare itself.

"Let me help you" Cunningham now took her arm and led her into the dwelling and when he had sat her on the chair, she said, "Thank you.

Thank you. "

"Hadn't you better go to bed?"

"Yes. Yes, I'll do that." After a moment she got to her feet, saying,

"I'm all right. Thank you. Thank you very much."

The "thank you" was a form of dismissal but he still stood in the room and watched her go through the opening into the cave; and after about ten minutes, when he thought he had given her time enough to get undressed and into bed, he called, "Are you all right?" and she answered, "Yes, yes, I'm all right."

Slowly he went and stood in the opening and looked down towards the floor where she was lying on a wooden structure on top of a straw mattress that had a patched quilt over it. She was still fully dressed, and as he was about to speak again he was checked by the sight of her knees suddenly coming upwards while at the same time her head was bent forward as it to meet them.

After a moment when she put her legs down and adjusted her clothes he asked softly, "Is it possible for me to get you something?" And to this she only shook her head. Looking about him he thought what could he get her anyway in this place? He was surprised that he should find himself so deeply moved and distressed; this assignment, as it were, had turned out quite differently from what he had expected.

Over the years, taking the tone from his master, he had come to look on those who worked outside the precincts of the Hall as a form of species only a little above the animal level. Rosier's village for example was a case in point. They worked and drank and fought and bred amid stench and filth that even some animals wouldn't tolerate. A badger, for example, always kept a clean house.

"0-h G-God! 0-h M-al Ma!"

Her body was doubled up tighter now. He could see her bare thighs. He turned away in embarrassment, also in deep distress, because the sight of the girl was reviving memories that he had buried long ago for his own peace of mind.

After a while there was no sound from the room, and, seeing a bucket of water standing on a chest with a mug near, he examined it to find it was clear, and dipped the mug into the water. He now went slowly into the cave and to her side, and, bending down, said, "Have this drink of water."

She raised herself on her elbow and took the mug from his hand and drained it. Then, muttering, "Ta, Thanks," she lay back and closed her eyes.

The sweat was pouring down her face. Her hair he noticed, as he had done before, was beautiful. Her skin, too, was beautiful. He took out a very white handkerchief and, assuming the position he took up when he pulled off his master's boots, he drew his han kerchief gently around her face, and she opened her eyes and gazed at him; very much, he thought, like a wild doe in agony. And he had seen a wild doe in agony--some huntsmen were very bad shots. Two hours later he was still with her, but looking now from the door towards the track along which he imagined the woman and the boy would come. In the last half-hour her pains had been tumbling one on top of the other and he knew that the birth of the child was imminent.

The cry that pierced his head turned him quickly about, and he went back into the cave and stopped just within the doorway to be dumbfounded by the sight before him. The girl was clutching the sides of the bed, her body arched and heaving; her knees were up and wide apart; her clothes, a mere skirt and a petticoat, were tumbled back about her thighs, and from her womb was poking the head of a child.

It must have been that her groans and cries overlaid the entrance of the woman and the boy, for he found himself thrust aside by a big creature in a black shawl who cried at him, "Who you? What ya doin'

here? Get out of iti" When he stared at her speechless, she yelled at him, "Go on. Bugger off il No place for you. What you want in here anyway?"

He didn't immediately obey this creature's commands but stood and watched her bend over the bed and place her big dirty hands under the child that was sliding into the world, and as he watched he became filled with bitterness and anger, for it was just such a woman, big, dirty and liquor-filled as this one was, who had killed his own wife and child, his wife to die in agony, having been poisoned through dirt.

He had been twenty-two when that happened and life had ceased for him for a while, until one day, carrying on his work of assistant tailor, he had gone to measure a young man, son of a lord, whose name was Fischel.