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When he saw the softening of her face he thought he had won, as he knew money always won, until she said, "I'm sorry; if I could do this for you I would, but I couldn't part with him, for no money could I part with him." And it was strange that in this moment she should feel regret that it was impossible for her to part with the child, for the man before her, the great lord from Houghton Hall, was evoking her pity, because as she said to herself, he looked sort of alone, lost like.

She rose to her feet saying now, "Will you permit me going. Sir. An'

good-day to you." She covered the child up as she turned from him, and went out of the door and looked at Cunningham, who was standing on the drive, but didn't speak to him. Then turning to Joe, who was climbing the iron gate, she said, "Come along with you," and together they went out into the road. And there Joe asked, "What had you to go in the Lodge for?" And she answered, "I had to see the bailiff; I was after a job but I didn't get it." And he said, "

"Cos you had the hairn?" And she answered, "

"Cos I had the hairn."

Bella came running up from the track panting; her face was alight and she was calling over the distance, "Hello. Hello, all of you's." And Joe ran towards her, shouting, "Our Belial ... Looka who's here. Our Belial" Cissie, hurrying to the door and stepping over Nellie where she was crawling over the threshold, stood waiting on the rough terrace, and when Bella came up to her she put her arms about her and kissed her, then held her at arm's length, saying, "By! you're lookin'

bonny." And Bella smirked a little and blinked and smiled her broad smile, then said, "Oh, but me legs are achin'; it's a walk and a half, I set off afore one. What time is it now?" And Cissie, leading the way into the room and looking at the clock, said, "Gone half-past two."

"Oh, crickeyl that'll mean I'll only have an hour 'cos I must get back afore dark. Cook skins you alive it you're late.... Ohi" She flopped down on the chair with a sigh, and Joe, standing by her side now, demanded, "You brought us anything, our Bella?" And Bella replied somewhat indignantly, "You're always on the get, our Joe; I've told you afore you can't bring stuff from there."

Joe stared at his sister, then looked at Charlotte and Sarah, and after an exchange of glances they went out; the excitement of seeing Bella had vanished. They should have remembered she never brought anything.

Cissie had been waiting anxiously for Bella's arrival, for this was her pay day. The food stock in the dwelling was very low. The mushrooms were finished and there was nothing to glean anywhere. She said, "I'll make a drop tea," and as she put the kettle on the fire, she added,

"How are you getting' on?"

"Oh, all right." Bella wrinkled her nose.

"But they boss you about;

there's always somebody bossin' you about. " Bella now turned her head to the side and looked down at the child in the basket and remarked, "

By! he's grown; he's getting' fat. " Then, her attention going off at a tangent, as was usual with her, she said.

"Do you get more stuff from the mill now since Matthew's livin'

there?"

Cissie knelt down in front of the hearth and blew on the fire before she replied, "No, just about the same."

"Cissie."

"Yes, Bella?" Cissie turned on her knees towards her.

"I got me pay the day, Cissie."

"Yes, yes, I know you would have."

Bella now put her hand down and, lifting up her skirt, took from a pocket in her petticoat a piece of rag tied into a knot and a small package, and all the while she looked at Cissie. Even when she undid the knot in the rag she still kept her eyes on her sister. Then taking from the rag two shillings and sixpence she handed them to Cissie, saying hesitantly, "That's all I've left, Cissie. Well, you see" --she tossed her head"--it's the tally man. He comes round and everybody buys from him, an' it's only so much a month. But ... but I've got a petticoat ... look." She again turned back her skirt; then lifting her top petticoat she exposed a flimsy pink cotton garment edged with rough lace.

"It was three shillings. I only pay sixpence a month, but but this month I got a hair ribbon an' " --she looked down"--I ... I got this brooch." She now undid the button of her short jacket and exposed to view a gaudy piece of green tin with a red stone in the middle.

Cissie's first reaction was of deep anger. She wanted to take her hand and skelp Bella across the ear, knock her flying. She was well fed and housed and she hadn't spared a thought for her brothers and sisters up here on this bleak fell, but had spent nearly halt a month's wages on trash. Yet as she stared at Bella, looking at the face that was so like her own when eight years old, she thought. She can't help it; she'll always be selfish.

And now Bella, sensing that the battle was almost over, proffered her peace offering. Handing Cissie the slim little parcel, she said, "I brought this for you, Cissie."

Cissie took the piece of paper and opened it and gazed down at a beautifully embroidered lawn hand 9

kerchief, and her eyes widened as she raised them to Bella, saying,

"Where did you get this?"

Bella got to her feet and walked to the table, and there with her forefinger she drew a number of circles before saying, "The young mistress, she gave it to me. She's nice; she's my age and she wears beautiful clothes." She put her head on one side now and looked at Cissie, saying, "Aw, you should see, Cissie, silk and velvet. Aw, you should see."

"She really gave you this?"

"A-hah." She was drawing the circles again. "

"Cos as I said she's my age, an' I'm the youngest there."

Cissie was again looking at the handkerchief. This was no trash, this was a piece of fine lawn with an exquisite flower design worked on two corners and forming the initial C, her own initial.

Cissie was still young enough to appreciate such a gift. She forgot for a moment that they would be on short commons for the rest of the week and that she had wanted to slap Bella, for now, bending forward, she kissed her, saying, "Thanks. Thanks, Bella. But you're sure you don't want to keep it for yourself?"

"No, no; I want you to have it. I would like you to have nice things, our Cissie. If I had a lot of money I would buy you nice things."

Cissie now put her arm around Bella's shoulder and pulled her to her side; and then the kettle spluttered and she laughed and said, "We'll have a drop tea."

As she made it she thought to herself. God provides, there's always good with the bad. But the following day, if she had thought about this theory she would have questioned it, for over the fells again came the man she thought of now as "him from the House." She had, in a way, over the past few weeks, come to look upon him in the same light as she did the scraper who came searching for climbing boys. Yet it wasn't really him she was afraid of but his master.

There was a wind blowing which cut like a knife, but in spite of this she kept him standing outside, the door pulled closed behind her, and before he could begin she said harshly, "It's no use, it's no good talkin', I told him, and no matter what he says it'll still be no use."

Cunningham looked at her pityingly; he was deeply sorry for her; but he was his master's man and his master's wishes would have to be obeyed.

When there came a pause in her gabbling he said quietly, "As I said to you before, they have ways and means, and if His Lordship decides to take the matter to the justices you wouldn't have a leg to stand on...."

"The justices? What could they do? He's mine!"

"Yes, yes, I know; but he's also young Mister Clive's son, and His Lordship's grandson; and even if you protested he wasn't, which I know you wouldn't, but even if you did, there is the looks of the child to prove you wrong. He would only have to be held up to a portrait in the gallery and the kinship would be proved."

"I don't care. I don't care. I won't do it. I can't, I couldn't!"

She now moved her head desperately, "He's all I've got of me own; or likely to have."

"You'll marry."

"I'll not!" The two words were shot at him, and he smiled tolerantly until she repeated, "I tell you I'll not, never. I know I won't, never." And now he was forced to take her seriously and he narrowed his eyes at her as he wondered if that one drunken act of the young master had killed marriage for her. If that were so, the tragedy was twofold.

A great gust of wind threatened to take off his hat and lift him bodily from the ground as it surged up under his cape, and he bent against it, saying, "His Lordship has increased his offer. He said he will give you twenty-five shillings a week and find you a habitation."

It was fantastic, utterly fantastic: twenty-five shillings a week and a habitation! But she had no hesitation in shaking her head, and, pulling the front of her bodice up round her neck because the wind was piercing her chest, she said, "It would be all the same if he made it thirty-five, or forty-five. Tell him that."

He looked at her sadly. She was shivering.

"Go inside," he said;

"you're cold. Good-day to you."

When she got inside she stood with her back to the door and looked to where the children were sitting in a circle on the mat around the fire and, in their midst, the basket with the child in it. They had been playing with him, making him laugh and gurgle. He laughed easily and rarely cried. He was a happy child, and this amazed her, for during the months she had carried him her spirit had been bent down in one way and another with misery. And now they wanted to take him from her he wanted to take him from her, that old man living in his mansion. He would pay people to wash him and look after him but they wouldn't give him love. You couldn't buy love. Twenty-five shillings a week, or all the gold in the world, couldn't buy the feeling he got from her and would always get from her.

She went to the basket and picked him up and held him tightly and wished she could press him back into her body and there keep him safe forever.

Joe said, "What did that man want, our Cissie?" and she said, "It was about that job again."

Joe looked at her slyly. He didn't believe what she said about the job.

Cunningham continued to come at intervals to the dwelling, but on his visits he merely passed the time of day with her and asked after her health. He did not mention the child or His Lordship; but each time she saw him she was filled with fear, and no matter what the weather she did not ask him inside. That is, until one wild day in early December when he saw her struggling towards the habitation, the child in her arms, and a girl whom he had not seen before dragging some way behind her.

November had been wet, bleak, and bitter. She had spent nearly every day of the first two weeks gathering wood; there were no branches stacked against the wall this year. She had not seen Matthew since his marriage on the day the child was born, and she reasoned it was just as well; but some part of her heart blamed him for not sending them the wood.

Then on the Tuesday of the third week the tree carrier's float appeared on the track. It was laden with branches and cuttings and two strange men unloaded it by the simple process of throwing the wood onto the road, and they called to her, "You'll manage, Missis?"

Going over to the track and looking down at the enormous heap of wood, she said gladly, "Yes, yes, I can manage. An' thanks."

It took them a full day working hard to stack the wood against the walls, and when it was done she stood back and looked at it in deep thankfulness and cried within herself, "Ohi Matthew. Matthew."

The following Sunday, when the boys arrived, Jimmy was wearing an overcoat He said that Matthew's mother had made it out of an old one of Mr. Turnbull's. He made them all laugh when he described how she first took him into the kitchen to measure him, but he, not knowing, thought he was going to get his ears boxed; and when she said she was going to make him a coat he said you could have knocked him down with a couple of iron spokes. He admitted to Cissie that he still didn't care for her much because she was bossy and in and out of the shop now that

Matthew wasn't there all the time, but still she was kinder to him and gave him more to eat.

So, on the whole, life was bearable; she was managing, and if it weren't for the fear of that man from the Hall she would, she told herself, have little to worry her. That was, until the day that Parson Hedley came to the dwelling and said she must go down at once to Pinewood Place because Bella was in trouble.

She stared open-mouthed at the tall, gangling figure of the parson, then whispered, "What kind of trouble?"

Parson Hedley drooped his head and shook it before replying, "She's she's been stealing."

"Bella stealin'l" Cissie's voice was no longer a whisper, it was loud and indignant and disbelieving.

"Our Bella wouldn't steal. Parson; our da brought us all up never to touch anything that didn't belong to us, an' I've kept tellin' them all. Bella wouldn't steal."

"But she has, Cissie." His voice was patient, and there was a silence before she asked, "What's she stole?"

"Garments I understand. There have been a number missing, and something was found under her bed, a handkerchief, belonging to one of the daughters of the house."

A handkerchief. Oh God! Oh God! She turned her head and looked towards the chest of drawers. There was a handkerchief in there, a fine lawn handkerchief, beautifully worked. Oh Bella. Oh our Bella, how could you! Of all the things that had happened over the past year this was the worst. She said now, "What will they do to her?"

"I don't rightly know, Cissie. She'll likely have to come up before the justices; she could be sent to the House of Correction. Being a girl she won't, I think, get the lash, and she's too young for deportation; it ... it will likely be the House of Correction."

The House of Correction! Oh dear God! Oh dear God! the House of Correction! Bella wasn't bad, just feather-brained and wanting things.

Picking up the child, she wrapped it in an old piece of blanket, over which she draped the fawn shawl. She would have to take him with her because there was his feed and her breasts were full. She put her own shawl over her head and tied a bit of string round the neck to stop it blowing off in the wind, and she said to Sarah, who had been standing listening wide-eyed to what the minister was saying about Bella, "Look after them, won't you? And bar the door. You've got enough wood in to keep you going till I come back. And you, Joe, mind you don't go out, except to the midden, and come straight back. Do you hear?"