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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."