"A year is three hundred and sixty-five days long. You go to bed and get up three hundred and sixty- five times and then you have completed a year."

"When shall we visit Elizabeth's house. Grand papa?"

"Oh, some time next week."

"Elizabeth has a mama and a papa,... Where is my mama. Grandpapa?"

Lord Fischel drew in a deep breath. He had been waiting for this question for a long time now. Perhaps it had been a mistake to have Bellingham's daughter come visiting with her child; but what could he have done? it was a matter of courtesy. She was on a visit to her father, and the fact that her child was the same age as Richard had prompted her to suggest that she should bring her over; but during the two days that had elapsed since the visit, Richard childish conversation had been continually 201

punctured with remarks, not about Elizabeth, but about her parents, especially her mother. And now he was holding his arms out and while asking to be lifted down from the rocking-horse he was saying, "Nannie is not my mama, is she. Grandpapa?"

Lord Fischel did not immediately answer, nor did he put the child on the floor, but, holding him in his arms, he looked into the face that had brought him new life, new interest, and a love that he had never experienced before, which love, he knew, was what a man should feel for his own son; yet his children had, at no stage of their lives, brought forth anything akin to the feeling he possessed for this child.

The child looked every inch a Fischel. Yet, in the depth of him, his lordship admitted that its nature was other than that of a Fischel, for it was of a happy nature, warm and loving. He never allowed his thought to travel to the source of these qualities, although he was aware through Cunningham that the mother still lived in the ramshackle dwelling on the common land. Her continued presence there had at first annoyed him, even worried him, for he had imagined, with the generous allowance he paid her, she would have found a better habitation for her family. Still, she had not gone back on her bargain, which was in her favor, although it would have availed her nothing if she had attempted to. The child was his and would always remain his; and this was confirmed through not only his love for the boy but the boy's love for him.

"Grandpapa!" The child now traced his finger along the top of the white moustache and, concentrating his eyes on it, he asked, "How big is my mama?"

How did one answer such a question as this? Lord Fischel put the child down on the floor; then, taking him by the hand, he said, "Come with me, Richard."

"Are we going into the park. Grandpapa?"

"Presently; but first I want to show you a picture."

"In a book. Grandpapa?"

"No, hanging on the wall."

Suiting his steps to the child's he descended from the nursery floor into the passage that led to the gallery, and then, having walked its length, he stopped before a door leading into the railed balcony which overlooked the ground floor hall. Pointing upwards to an enormous painting which filled the space between the top of the door and the high ceiling and which covered a third of the wall, he said, "Do you see those figures up there, Richard?" and the child answered, "The ladies with wings. Grandpapa?"

"The ladies with wings are called angels, and they are in heaven. You know where heaven is?" He turned about and pointed towards a long window set deeply within the stone wall.

"Heaven is up in the sky where God is; you know that, don't you?"

"Yes, Grandpapa."

"You remember when your little dog died and was put in a box?"

"Yes, Grandpapa."

"Well, your mama died like that once, and now she is in heaven with those angels." He pointed upwards again, and the child, his head back on his shoulders, his dark brown eyes wide, gazed at the picture of Christ's ascension into heaven, then he drew in a deep breath before letting it out on a sigh and asked quietly, "Won't I ever be able to see her. Grandpapa?"

"No, Richard, because she's in the sky in the House of God and you can't go there until you die, and you won't die for a long, long time.

Now"--he jerked gently on the child's hand and brought his attention to him" --it is eleven o'clock; you will have your milk and then we will go for a drive. "

His Lordship turned his head slightly to the side and made a small motion with it, and the young nurse who had been standing at the far end of the gallery, having followed her master and the child, which was her duty, came hurrying forward and His

Lordship, without looking at her, said, "Have Master Richard dressed for a drive by half-past eleven."

"Oh, Grandpapa, are we going to see the ships?" the child cried, and His Lordship answered, "Yes, if you would like that. Run along now."

As he went to go through the doorway Hatton met him. He had a long envelope in his hand, and as he held it out he said, "This came by special messenger from Newcastle, m'Lord."

It was nothing to have a letter by special messenger from Newcastle;

he had various interests which were centered there. It could be concerning stocks and shares, shipping, or mines; yet from the moment of taking the envelope in his hand he knew a feeling of apprehension.

He passed the butler, went down the main staircase, crossed the hall into his study and, sitting down at his desk, slit open the envelope.

He had not recognized the writing on the envelope but when the letter began "Dear Brother-in-Law," his face stretched slightly; then, as he read on, it began to contract and by the time he had reached the end of the short epistle his face muscles were taut.

The letter told him that his sister was dead but expressed the hope that he would be in time for the funeral, and ended with, "You will no doubt wish to discuss Isabelle's future."

Staring at the letter, he did not think, Anne is dead--poor Anne, who had spent most of her life on one or another of those bleak islands, and with a bleak man--but he thought, Isabelle's future. What if she now insisted on returning home? He had warded off the idea for years, for the thought of her in the house again was intolerable; she had been unbearable as a girl, but now she was a woman what would she be like? He could but hope that the years with Anne would have improved her, but whether or no, he did not want her under this roof, especially now, when he had the boy.

Life over the past three years had been as akin to heaven as ever he hoped to get. The child had not only altered himself but the whole household; right down to the meanest servant everybody seemed happier, lighter. Sometimes he thought this was because the house had been redecorated and most of the fabrics renewed; yet the basic reason, he knew, lay with the child. And what effect would Isabelle have on the child, and . the child on her?

He admitted to himself in this moment that he had hoped that she would make an alliance with someone in her present environment; he hadn't been concerned with whom, relying on his sister's austere good sense to guide her. The situation was so unexpected and portended much annoyance.

What he had been expecting for some time now was news of the Virago.

The last he had heard of the ship was that it was on its way to India, but that was months ago. He knew that some day Clive would return, must return; and part of him was eager that he should return, for he wished to have his signature on certain papers that would seal and ensure for all times this particular grandson's claim to his heritage and, consequently, the title.

But now, before him lay the long bleak journey to the far side of Scotland and the thought that he might be forced to entertain his daughter's company on his return.

It was two weeks later, on a warm, still day at the beginning of August. The young nurse and her charge had played ball, they had played blind man's buff, and now they were playing races and the nurse saw to it that her master always won.

The playing of races, the nurse had found, took the tedium out of the daily walk around the park. The walk started at the sunken lawn, continued through the trees, then along by the wall where it had been cleared of bramble right up to the part that faced the edge of the wood. Here the bramble and brushwood had been left, she understood, as a deterrent to anyone climbing the wall, because here their entry would be obscured by the wood itself. The broad path between the wood and the bramble-faced wall was kept cropped, but she had orders not to take the child along this path, which led to the North Lodge, so she always brought their racing to a stop when she came to the place where the bramble began; then she walked along by the edge of the wood, through the ornamental gardens until she came within sight of the other wall, glass- edged, this one, for it had only been built within the last fifty years.

She was very careful to follow her instructions exactly, for who knew but that someone might be watching her from the House through a spyglass;

even the master himself, for he had a number of spy-glasses up in the observatory on top of the east wing.

The 'three sides of the square completed, she would take her charge indoors, wash his face and hands, change his dress should there be a spot on it, and, afterwards, would attend to his dinner, which was brought up and served by the second butler. Following these tasks she would endeavor to see that her charge rested for at least an hour before once again being dressed and taken down to the drawing room at half-past five, there to have tea with his grandfather.

Today, the routine went as usual, for although His Lordship and Gunningham were away she did not dare diverge one inch from the daily plan, not with Mrs. Hatton about. But at the end of the walk there was a diversion. It was caused by the coach coming to a stop on the drive opposite the front door just as she brought her charge up the steps from the sunken lawn.

The child, seeing his grandfather's face through the coach window, tugged his hand from that of the nurse and, running round the back of the coach, was i just in time to see his grandfather descending the steps. Throwing himself forward, he cried, "Oh, Grandpapa! Grandpapa! Where have you been? You've been a long time."

His grandfather did not speak but took his hand and drew him aside;

and then the child saw the coachman helping a lady down the steps and the lady looked up at the house for a moment, then she looked down at him. The lady was tall and her eyes were big and dark and her face was white. She was not smiling, but he smiled at her; then, glancing at his grandfather, he did what he had been trained to do when visitors came to the house: he walked forward, looked up at the lady, while bowing slightly from the waist, and said primly, "How-do you-do, Ma'am?" From experience, he knew this form of address always pleased the ladies, and they smiled at him and patted his head and told his grandfather that he had a clever boy; but this lady didn't smile or pat his head, nor did she speak; instead she turned from him and went up the steps, and the swishing of her skirts sounded like the whips they used to make the horses go.

The dinner was served, the servants had gone, and they were alone together, as they had been in the coach hour after hour, jolting, juggled, falling against each other, but never speaking. And now her father, his hands placed on the table at each side of his plate, leaned his stiff body slightly forward and said, "This sulking silence will not benefit you any, Isa- belle."

Slowly she turned on him a deep, fiery glare, but asked calmly, "What would you like that we talk about?"

When he bowed his head slightly, then gnawed on his lip, she went on, undeterred by his signs of anger, "You'll understand that I'm out of touch with your type of conversation; I can discourse at length on any part of the Bible from Genesis to the Chronicles and the Song of Solomon. Oh no!"

She made a slight movement with her head.

"Not the Song of Solomon.

Aunt Anne never read the Song of Solomon; she could never bring herself to say aloud, "Let Him kiss me with the kisses of His mouth for thy love is...."

" " Be quiet, girll How dare youl" " I dare. Father. " She was leaning towards him now, her voice low and weighted with anger.

"And one thing I must remind you of: I am no longer a girl, I am a woman whom you've had toughened by wind and weather; I've been fed on the Bible for the good of my soul, and the food I got for my body your scullery maid would have thrown in your face; and I B dare further to say this to you now, I owe you nothing, respect or anything else, for you would have left me there to rot if Aunt Anne hadn't died. You sent me there so that my soul could be chastised, you did not consider the ruination of my body.... Uncle appeared as if he wished to be rid of me, did he not, but at this moment he's back there in that squalid stone cell of a house eating his heart out. I was a great temptation to Uncle...."

"Leave the table!"

They stared at each other, their hate rising like a mist between them.

"You heard what I said."

Slowly she pushed her chair back and rose to her feet, and before she turned away her lips moved into a sneering smile and she asked him, "What do you think you're going to do with me?"

He did not answer for a moment but glared at her, and he had the urge, almost overpowering, as it had been once before, to strike her.

"Kindly leave the room."

He watched her turn and walk slowly down the room, her back as straight as a ramrod, her head held high; and when the door closed on her he put his hand up and covered his eyes.

Isabelle walked across the hall and up the stairs;

she looked neither to right nor left. She walked across the landing and to her room. It was her old room but no longer dull and gloomy;

the curtains were green, the carpet was green; the wallpaper was a pleasing grey and the bed draperies a soft pink.

Four years ago the room would have delighted her;

today she didn't see it, for her body and spirit were still in the stone house that was filled with God and hate, she hating both her uncle and her aunt, her aunt hating her because her husband desired her but unwilling to let her go because the money that she represented made all the difference between genteel starvation and ordinary living. Her uncle wouldn't let her go because he couldn't bear to think of life without her; it was only her threat to expose him to his hard, puritanical parishioners that forced him to ask her father to bring her away. And now she asked herself the question she had asked him a few minutes earlier. What would he do with her? A season in London in the hope that some man would marry her? It would be a brave man who would marry her, she knew that, for the wild animal in her was now reflected in her face and manners. Given scope and ordinary living over the past four years it might have become tamed, but that house on that island had chained it up, and it was common knowledge that if you wanted to make a dog ferocious you put it on a short chain.

But she was back. She would have to remake her life somehow; she would have to try to live like a civilized person. She went to the window and opened it. The garden was beautiful, the park was more open; they must have cleared it. She would ride again. What would it be like to feel a horse beneath her once more? That might bring a sensation of pleasure.

All of a sudden her head was jerked upwards as a child's laugh floated down from a window somewhere above. The sound brought her to face the room again. There was that to contend with too. dive's son, the reason why she had been banished.

When her father told her that he had taken the child she had looked at him in amazement and although she was curious to know why he had done this she would not ask him. But she thought it was the last thing on earth she would have expected him to do, take under his wing dive's bastard, the result of that mad drunken episode.

When a tap came on her door she said curtly, "Come inlAnd there entered a young servant girl who dipped her knee and said hesitantly, " Mrs. Hat- ton sent me, Ma'am .

M .

Miss. She says to maid you until one comes. "

To maid her! She'd had to maid herself since the day she left this house almost four years ago, even wash her own underwear. She was on the point of saying, "I don't need your assistance" ; but no, she'd take from life everything she could get from now on. It was her right, and she would wallow in it. She walked to the dressing table and, sitting on the stool, she looked at the girl through the mirror and said, "I wish my hair to be brushed."

"Yes, Miss. And Miss, I have to say that tea will be served in the drawing room at half-past five...."

Her hair piled high on her head, her gown changed, she went out of the room and across the landing, and at the top of the stairs she met the child with his nurse. Her whole body stiffened as he ran towards her and caught hold of her skirt and, looking up at her, cried, "Are you my Auntie? Nannie says you are my Auntie. Are you?"

She stared down at the child, then her eyes flickered towards the nurse, who was watching with a tentative smile on her face, and she knew that whatever answer she gave to the child would be news below stairs within minutes. She would one day be mistress of this house--the thought had returned to her mind as if it had not lain dormant for four years--she must set the pattern for that day, no matter how she felt inside; and so her answer was, "Yes, I am your Aunt Isabelle."

"Oh!" When the child's hand was thrust into hers and she was forced to walk downstairs with him, her whole being revolted against the feel of the small warm fingers. At the bottom of the stairs he stopped and, smiling up at her, said, "Elizabeth hasn't got an auntie, she's got a mama but she hasn't got an auntie." He was drawing her on again in the direction of the drawing room, still chattering.

"My mama is in heaven with the angels. Grandpapa showed me the place. It's in the gallery."

His mama in heaven with the angels! The figure of the girl rose before her as it had done many times during the past years. When her hate of everything and everyone dragged her down into the depths of despair it was then she would see the girl, not as she had last seen her lying on the ground but as on the day she had first struggled with her on the drive. His mama in heaven. She wished her in hell, and she would never cease to wish her there because it was this girl, and she alone, who was the cause of all that had befallen her. After tea they went into the park, her father, the child and herself, and a small part of her was ironically amused that her father couldn't hide his surprise, even amazement that the child had taken to her.

The clearance of the place was more evident as she walked across the park. Never before had she seen the actual bricks of the wall that surrounded the north boundary. She imagined that their destination was the North Lodge, but as she entered the drive her father said, "We don't go any further."

She walked a few steps before she turned and looked questioningly at him, and he said, "It ... it is too enclosed;

it is better that he should keep to the open. "

She stared at him. Had someone tried to snatch the child?

He gave no explanation, for he could not say that at the end of the drive were the North Lodge gates and that one day the mother might look through them and, seeing her son, cause a disturbance.

Isabelle watched her father walk away, the child dancing before him.

There was a rustle in the undergrowth to the left of her, which made her turn her head. It was just such a noise on that far-off day that had caused her to poke her stick into the brushwood. She guessed that she was practically standing on the spot where it had happened. One day she would come here and she would set light to this tangle. She'd clear the whole place, the wood too, and she'd build the wall higher and put glass on the top of it. She heard the movement again. If she'd had a stick she would have thrashed at the bramble with it; as it was, she took her shoe and gave one ineffectual kick at it, then slowly walked away and followed her father.

In four years the dwelling had altered, and Cissie thought it was odd that the smaller her family grew the bigger the dwelling became. On the right side of the room, fronting the cave entrance, another room had been built. It was a small room but had a wooden floor where flour and oats, barley and potatoes could be stored in safety. On the other side of the room a larger building had been erected. This was called the wood house, for the walls were always kept lined with chopped wood. It was different from the other two rooms in that its doorway was much larger and its middle was always kept clear, a clear enough space in which to turn a horse.

She had only four children at home now: Nellie who was five, Annie six, Charlotte who was nine, and Sarah ten. Joe was working at the mill with William, Jimmy was still in the wheelwright's shop, and two years previously she had taken Mary from the tender mercies of the Misses Trenchard and had got her and Bella set on in the kitchen of a big house on the outskirts of Newcastle, and was hoping to get Charlotte, too, established there soon. Sarah she demurred about sending out, for Sarah was pea ky having a cough all the time, and tiring easily.

The money that she received from those who were working she spent mainly on their clothes, and with the five sovereigns a month she saw that the others were well fed and clothed. Moreover, there had been added to the house bed linen, new pots and pans, and mats for the floor. Even so, she did not spend the full amount, and a shilling or so often found its way back to the hamlet, to the Taggart family.

But her new prosperity didn't enhance her in the eyes of the people in the hamlet. Only a few days after the child had gone, a woman, walking past the dwelling with a bundle of wood on her back, had called out to no one in particular, "I'd be hard pushed if I had to sell me hairn to eat. I thought whorin' paid well."

It had been almost a month after Miller Watson died before Matthew came to see her. He did not come in the cart but riding on a horse, and not bareback either. He was the miller now and the saddle was the outward sign of his prosperity, although Miller Watson had always used a trap. The day was bitter and the children were crowded round the fire, and Cissie sat with them and she didn't open her mouth to him.

But the next night, when the children were abed and it was almost on eight o'clock and she was about to go and join them because the candle was almost down to the saucer--even in her present affluence she wouldn't allow herself more than one candle a night-she heard the neighing of the horse outside, and she stiffened as she waited for his knock on the door, and a full minute elapsed before she opened it.

Then he had walked past her and gone straight to the fire, and when she had walked towards him because he was standing near where her seat was, he said in a whisper, "I've got to talk to you, Cissie." And when she didn't answer, he ground out low, "Look at me, 'cos I'm near mad."

And when she looked at him she saw that he could be right, for the flesh seemed to have dropped from him and his face looked craggy and thin.

"Cissie!" He caught hold of her hands, and she let them lie in his as he said, "I've got to see you now and then. That's all, just to see you, talk with you, sit with you, like this." He suddenly sat down in the chair and went to pull her on to his knee, but at this she resisted and, tugging her hands from him, she whispered hoarsely, "No, no! I've had enough. Don't you know I've had enough! I can't stand no more." Then bending down towards him" her face within inches of his, she hissed, " Sit with you, you say? Aye, sit with you. And you know what they're sayin' about me? I'm a whore. Sit with you, you say? Aye, and have another baim. If that happened I would do me self in. Do you hear? I would do me self in. "

"Cissie!" He had shaken his head at her.

"Listen to me." He pulled himself to his feet and, gripping her shoulders, stared down into her face before he went on, "I love you, Cissie. With every beat of me heart I love you, an' I wouldn't bring you no harm. God

Almighty! there's nobody knows more than me that you've had double your share for your years. Cissie, believe me, lass, I'd never bring you harm. But . but I just want to be near you now and again, to sort of help me meet the days, just talk to you, touch you, just your hand, it'll be enough. If I can't, then God knows what I'll do because back there I feel desperate. It's worse now, since the old man's gone.

She's fightin' for the trousers and I feel like murder, aye, like murder. "

As she looked into his eyes she became weak with fear for him.

He saw her weakening and he persisted, "Just now and again, Cissie, when things get too bad. I won't make it regular, no set pattern." And when she bowed her head on to her chest, he bent forward and kissed her hair, then said, "I'll go now, else the horse will be frozen.

Thanks, lass. "

She had not lifted her face undl he was gone, and then she bolted the door and leaned against it, and another hunger was born in her. He had said there would be no set pattern and he had kept to this.

Sometimes she didn't see him for two or three weeks and never, after that night when he unburdened himself to her, did he speak of his wife, and only once did he mention his changed circumstances. It was as he sat in the trap on the road below the dwelling; he was well put on in knee breeches and gaiters and a long cord velvet jacket. She had looked up at him and said, "You're going into Shields?" And he had replied with a nourish of his whip, "Not Shields, Cissie, Newcastle.

I'm goin' to a meeting of the millers and visit me bank, then on to the Groat Market and pick up some books. " Bending down low towards her, he had ended, " I'm a man of consequence, Cissie, a rich man. Now fancy that. " There was both laughter and bitterness in his face, and he had held her eyes before whipping the horse into a gallop. As she watched him drive away e she had thought that he had not only retained his own trousers but had stepped firmly into the miller's.... It was during the second year of his prosperity that he suggested she build a room on either side of the dwelling; and he had sent Jimmy over to help her for a full week; then he and Walters had come and put the roofs on and the floor in the storehouse.

It was shortly after this that Rose Watson came across the fells for the first time.

It was a day of high rough wind, a drying day, and Cissie was in the wood room possing the clothes in a new tub and with a new poss stick that Matthew had had made for her, when the opening was blocked by the figure of a big woman. She was wearing a brown cloak and a black bonnet and her hair was blown across her face. Gissie's heart leaped upward when she saw who the visitor was; and for a moment she thought something had happened to Matthew. She stood drying her hands on her apron while staring at the woman and the woman at her. Then Rose Watson took in a long breath, lifted her head, and looked round the mean habitation before bringing her eyes back to Cissie and saying, "So this is it?"

Cissie had found her voice enough to say, "Do ... do you want something?"

"Yes, I want something." The big woman walked towards her.

"I want me man back. I've come to give you a word of advice. It's just this. If you don't stop 'tidng him away I'll have you hounded out of the place, an' I can an' all. Where is he? in there" --she nodded towards the other room"--sleeping it off?"

"M... Matthew isn't here."

You're lying! "

"Well" --Cissie straightened up"--go and look for yourself."

Rose Watson turned away and went to the opening of the door, and there before her was Matthew striding up from the track.

Standing with her back to the poss tub, Cissie put her hand to her throat and gripped it as she saw him bend forward as if about to spring. Like this he stopped for a moment, then walked slowly up to his wife; and after staring at her while a bitter silence enveloped them, he said, "Get away home."

"Why should I? It's free land, I'm out for a walk. You're not the only one that can take walks."

"Get yourself away home."

When she didn't move, he cried at her in a terrible voice, "I'm warning you. Rose. And remember what I said last night. I'll carry it out to the very letter. Do you hear me?

"Cos I have power over every penny, and I'll do what I said."

At this her body jerked as if she had been prodded from behind, and, her mouth in a straight line and her dim knob bled which emphasized her ugliness, she walked past him and across the slope to the road where she had left the pony cart, and he, standing looking helplessly at Cissie, said, "I'm sorry. But I can promise you it won't happen again; she'll never come this way again." And at this she had become afraid and, gripping his hands, she had begged him, "Matthew, please, don't touch her. It... it isn't her fault. If you touch her it will only worsen things, you know it will; it'll really be the end then."

And he had soothed her, saying, "Don't worry. I won't lay a hand on her;

I have other weapons, the money. I've threatened to sell everything up an' go off. And you know, it's a funny state of affairs, but I'm empowered to do just that. She has no say over what she's got; I'm master over the mill and the money, and the property; and she thinks more of the mill than even she does of . " He didn't finish but looked down; then after a moment he said, " Don't let it worry you.

You've seen the first and the last of her here. Believe me on that now. "

And she did not see Rose Tumbull again; nor did she see Matthew so frequently; a month would pass before he came. But now there was a difference about his visits, for when he came at night he always took her in his arms and kissed her, and she did not repulse him for he was all she had for herself.

And then came the day when she heard the child laugh.

She had been out looking for Joe. Although Joe was nearly six and growing fast and promising to be big made, which was, in a way, a guarantee of his not being picked up by the scrapers, she still felt uneasy when he was out of her sight for any length of time. And it was another irony of fate that since she had money to buy food he had become more adept at trapping rabbits; he even came in with a hare now and again, and these fly creatures kept to the open land.

This day he had been gone for two hours or more, and although she had been up on the high ground and called and screened her eyes against the sun she couldn't see him. Then, feeling that he had been caught, she had run along the road that led to the North Lodge and towards the hole in the bottom of the wall, and it was when she was still some distance from this place that she heard the sound of childish laughter, and she was brought to a stop and bounced back as if she had come up against a wire fence. There it came again, playful, childish screeching, the noise a child made when at play; and as the sound went ahead of her she began to follow it, and she was almost up to the place where she hoped to find Joe when the laughter faded into the distance.

Leading from the rough road there were the signs of what appeared to be a fox track disappearing into the tangle, but she knew that it was no fox track but Joe's lead to the wall, and she called softly, "Joel You Joel" And when she received no answer and no sound came from the undergrowth she went up on the fell again and gazed about her. And it was as she stood thus that she saw Joe come crawling from the hole on to the road, and at the sight of him she was filled with anger and, rushing down the slope, took him by the shoulders and hissed at him, "Where do you think you've been all this time? Why couldn't you come when I called?"

When he was free from her hands he looked up at her in surprise and, hitching his clothes straight, said, "Oh, our Cissie, I couldn't come out. I didn't do it on purpose, they were there with the hairn at the corner. I ... I daren't move."

Her mouth opened and closed a number of times before she said, "You... you could see the hairn?"

He nodded twice.

"How?"

"From the space where the trap is. It's right near the end where they've cleared. There's a part where you can see right across into the park. I... I thought maybe's they were going to clear right up to the gates and they would find the hole; but they didn't, they stopped dead at the corner where the wood starts."

"How long have you been watchin', I ... I mean the child?"

He blinked his eyes and looked to the side and said, "A few weeks. It happened when I came in the afternoon to see to the trap, not in the morning 'twas then I saw him."

Her voice was quiet as she asked, "Why didn't you tell me afore?"

He kicked at the dust on the road, he looked at his fingernails, he scratched his forehead, then muttered, "You couldn't have got in, the hole's not big enough."

Tenderly now she looked at his averted face. This wasn't the reason why he hadn't told her; he didn't want her to be hurt. Joe was older than his years, he knew more than a six-year child should. He was impish and full of fun but he was also thoughtful and caring; he, next to herself, had missed Richard more than any of the others, perhaps because he was a boy.

Very quietly she asked now, "Does he come out at the same time every day?" and Joe, looking quickly up at her, said, "Aye, when it's fine.

But. but you couldn't get in, our Cissie. "

"No," she said.

"No, I couldn't, I know that. Come on." She held out her hand and together they went back to the dwelling.

The thought of the child behind the high stone wall and Joe's hidey-hole in the bramble haunted her. She knew she mustn't enlarge his entry to the undergrowth for that would give the show away; and there were times when the gentry out riding came along this road, and they had sharp eyes, had the gentry.

But after days of thinking her mind led her to an oak tree. The oak tree stood on the verge of the road with only a foot or so of its trunk exposed to a height of six feet or more, and there were ribbons of ivy circling even this part.

When one evening, in the twilight, she examined the tree she saw that if she cut the strands of ivy the tangle of bramble could be pushed back from it like a door, that is if she could dear a way behind it.

It she could accomplish this then she could cut a path through the tangle to the wall, and along it right up to Joe's hole, then enlarge that so she could crawl through. But one thing at a time.

It took her nearly a month to make the passage to the hole because, to be on the safe side and to make sure that no one on yon side of the wall would hear her, she went out before first light in the morning.

Only once did she meet anyone. It was the morning when she had reached the hole in the wall. When she heard the distant rustling in the thicket she thought for one panic-stricken moment that there must be someone of the same mind as herself; and when the creature lumbered forward and a badger, more scared now than she was, scampered away from her feet she lay back against the wall and actually laughed silently to herself.

The most simple part of the long process was the removing of another four stones to make the hole sufficiently large for her to crawl through, because a hundred years of weathering had perished the mortar. By the time the sun came over the horizon she had the stones out and, lying flat, dragged herself through the three-foot hole into the dim miniature glade that Joe had made for himself over the years.

Breathless, her heart pumping against her ribs, she peered through the deep gloom. Then, attracted to where the gloom lifted a few feet above her outstretched hands, she pulled herself forward over the ground and, rising to her knees, which brought her head in contact with the bramble roof, she saw the opening. It was about three inches long and at an angle that caused her to keep her head on one side. It was like looking through an elongated keyhole, and in it, pictured in the rising morning light, she saw the park.

When she shivered with the cold she brought her gaze from the hole and pushed herself backwards, and as her foot hit a thick branch sticking out of the ground and the root above her swayed she twisted swiftly round and righted one of the supports that Joe had placed, like pit props, along the side of the clearing. A few minutes later she pulled back the bramble door near the oak tree and stood for a moment looking right and left before stepping on to the road.

When she reached the habitation Joe was standing at the door and he greeted her with a crack in his voice, saying, "Where you been, our Cissie? Where you been? I heard you get up. Where you been again?"

She led him back into the room and, stirring the fire, pulled him down towards her and whispered, "Listen to me. I can get through the wall...."

"But you...."

"I said listen to me. I've been workin' on it for weeks; I'll show you this afternoon how I done it. Now what I want you to do is this. When I go in there I want you to play about on the fell, and when I'm comin' out I'll whistle like a pee wit and if there's nobody on the road you don't do anything, but if there's anybody comin', you'll whistle back. Now you understand that?"

"Our Cissie." His face was screwed up.

"It's not very high in there, you mightn't be able to turn round. You...."

"I've been in and I got out again. And listen to what I say. You're not to tell the others, do you hear?"

He nodded at her.

"On fine days we'll take the sack and go lookin' for wood or some such. Anyway, they know I always try to keep you in sight so they won't be made to wonder."

Long before two o'clock that same afternoon she was lying in the bramble waiting, and when, in the far distance, she saw through the slit two figures, one tall and one small, zigzagging through the trees, she put her hand to her mouth.

It was a full five minutes later, when her view of them was clear, that she almost cried aloud as the child, running away from the nurse, came straight towards her as if into her arms.

He was wearing a dress made of some cream material. It had a deep collar and wide sleeves and it flounced up and down as he ran. Her eyes were stiff with staring. One hand was pressed tight on her mouth to check her breathing. He was not more than three arms' length away from her when the nurse caught him and, swinging him about, said, "No, not that way, dearie. You mustn't go that way," And he laughed and struggled in her arms, then ran away again. The last Cissie saw of him that day was the soles of his white kid boots as he fell on his face; and when this happened and a wail filled the air she instinctively thrust her hand forward into the brambles. Then pulling it back bleeding, she held it to her mouth while she sat back on her hunkers, her head on her chest and the tears raining down her face.

This was the beginning of her daily vigil. Only when the weather was so bad that she knew the child wouldn't be allowed out did she resist crawling through the hole in the wall. There were days when it was fine and she caught no glimpse of him, and she worried in case he was ill. But quite suddenly he would appear, and nearly always accompanied by . him. And he was always running and laughing.

Then came the day when she saw the lady with them. She saw them afar off and she thought. He's showing him off to company. That His Lordship loved the boy she had now not the slightest doubt; it was in his face as he looked down at him, it was in his voice as he called to him. There was, she thought, a sort of pride in him concerning the child, and this puzzled her greatly. When they gradually came into her view she found herself staring at the lady, and when memories stirred she shook her head against them trying to deny what her eyes were seeing. The figure had developed; it was full and taller but the face was the same, dark, not only the eyes and brows and hair, but the expression was dark, forbidding. She had come home. His daughter had come home. She was moving nearer and nearer; she was going to walk down the path. She could have put her arm out sideways through the bramble and touched her skirt.

She heard His Lordship say something to his daughter. She didn't take in what it was. Although she couldn't see her now, she knew she was standing still; she felt that she was looking at her, glaring at her through the thicket, and she slipped from her elbow on to her side, and some dry twigs cracked beneath her.

She let them get well away before she moved backwards and through the hole, and when she reached the oak tree she stood for a time leaning against it before she pulled aside the dead ivy-threaded bramble door;

and having passed through it she still kept her back pressed against the tree and slanted her eyes up and down the road, for there was no Joe to give her a signal now, and hadn't been for some weeks past since he had started at the mill.

As she walked over the tells she found she couldn't stop trembling.

That woman frightened her; she had frightened her when she was a girl, but now she looked even more ferocious than she had done then. And what effect would she have on the child? That the child was happy she had to admit; but would it remain happy living with that woman? And there was another thing; if she was back . was he back? What would she do if she ever came face to face with him again?

Was it too late to say she wanted the child back and put up a fight for him? But how could she fight the lord on her own? There was no one she could turn to for help in this case, not even Matthew; for instinctively she knew that Matthew was glad she had let the child go.

The sailor walked along the Newcastle quay. He was tall and thin and weatherbeaten; he wore a thick blue serge suit and a doth cap, at the sides of which could be seen fair hair that was bleached to a silver whiteness. In one hand he carried a valise, while the other hand supported a canvas bag on his shoulder.

When he reached the end of the quay he turned and looked back at the ship he had just left, which, compared with the others lying alongside it, looked a dirty tramp, and when from the top of the gangway he saw a hand go up he bounced his head once towards it.

Leaving the quay, he threaded his way through the narrow streets, up Pilgrim Street, past the inns, the flax dressers, the cheese mongers and the open fronted shops until he came to the corner of New Bridge Street, where three cabs stood waiting for hire. The first cabman, seeing that his fare was a sailor, and knowing that sailors were free with their money, especially when they had just come off a voyage, relieved him almost in a flash of his bags while asking, "Where to.

Mate? "

"Houghton Hall."

"Houghton Hall?" The man stopped in his placing of the bags on the rack, and he turned his head and looked at his fare.

"Houghton Hall, you said?"

"Yes, that's what I said. Do you know it?"

"Aye; yes. Yes; but 'tis a long way out."

"You'll be paid."

Although the man was young, the cabby recognized that the voice held authority, as did the look in the eyes. Without further ado he opened the door of the coach and handed his passenger up, then mounted the box, and soon they were threading their way through the press of traffic in the town. But not until they had passed The Side and crossed the Tyne Bridge could he put the horses into a gallop.

They went through Gateshead, Felling, and Pelaw, and here they bypassed Hebbum and by a narrow road cut across open country. At one point the cabman drew the horses to a halt and, bending down to the window, called, "I'm not quite sure of me way,

Sir. " He did not make the mistake of using the misnomer of mate now, and his passenger, looking out of the window, pointed.

"Fork left; the main gate is about a mile farther on."

At the main gate the porter surveyed the dingy conveyance for a moment before slowly unlocking the gates, and then as the carriage passed him and he saw the face under the cloth cap, the face that he hadn't seen for almost four years, but which he instantly recognized, he touched his forelock, shouting as the coach rode on, "Welcome home to you.

Sir. "

The sound of the approaching cab brought the second footman to the top of the steps. He was a new addition to the household, having been in His Lordship's service for only three months, and when he saw the sailor with a canvas bag and battered valise leaving what was obviously a hired cab, he stiffened and, adopting his most haughty manner, asked, "What is your business. Sir?"

"Get out of my way." The voice sounded weary, and after the sailor had passed the man he turned and thrust the kit bag and the valise at him, saying, "See these go to my room." And comprehension hitting the footman like a stone, he muttered obsequiously, "Yes, Sir. Yes, Sir."

In the hall he encountered Hatton; and the butler, after standing perfectly still for a moment, his lower jaw sagging, pulled himself quickly together and advanced towards the sailor, saying, "Oh, Mr.

Clive. I'm . I'm very pleased to see you home again. "

"You are, Hatton?" The dear grey eyes had a piercing quality.

"Thank you."

The butler stared at the roughly dad young master who didn't talk like the youth he remembered and in some strange way no longer held any resemblance to him, and whose tone had a coarseness, but a commanding coarseness, about it.

"Where is His Lordship?"

"He... he's up in the nursery, Sir."

The fair brows drew together, hooding the eyes.

"In the nursery, did you say?"

"Yes, Sir. With... with Master Richard."

The head came forward, the eyes became slits. The enquiry was quiet.

"Master Richard?"

"Yes, Sir." Under the scrutiny the butler's composure was chipping, and now he added quickly, "If ... if you would care to go into the drawing room or, or His Lordship's study, I will inform His Lordship that...."

"There's no need." The hand was flapped carelessly back at him.

"I

think I can still find my way about. The nursery you said? " The head was turned over the shoulder, the eyes hard on him again, and Hatton swallowed before he answered, " Yes, Sir. "

He went slowly up the stairs looking first to one side and then the other at the hall below. The place had been done up, it was lighter.

This was a different carpet on the stairs from what he remembered.

Master Richard in the nursery. What was this? It could only mean that Isabelle was married. Well, well; and so they now had a Master Richard.

Two maids, carrying slop buckets, stopped dead on the landing and gaped at the sailor walking towards them, and they stood still while he passed them, widening his eyes at them in imitation of their amazed staring. Then they scurried away.

As he mounted the nursery stairs he commented to himself. Cream and grey; she always said she would have the place redecorated one day.

When he reached the landing he heard childish laughter coming from the door at the far end. A nursemaid, not unlike the one he and Isabelle had had, came out of the doorway and she, too, stopped dead and gaped at him.

She was barring his way into the room now, and so, bowing his head towards her, he said quietly, but firmly, "If you please," at the same time moving her gently aside with the back of his hand. And then he walked forward into the old day nursery where he had played, and later painted and drank, But this was not the old nursery, this place was bright with color.

His immediate glance took in a gaily painted rocking horse, and a quarter life-sized coach; the model sprung as if the real thing and drawn by a wooden horse on wheels. There was a child climbing into the coach, but it paused on the step and, turning round, said, "Grandpapa," then stopped and looked towards the man in the sailor's clothes and added, "Why look. Grandpapa, a gentleman!"

Lord Fischel straightened up, turned and saw his son, and for a moment his heart raced so quickly that he thought he was about to have a seizure.

It was Clive who spoke first. Going forward, his eyes on the face that seemed younger to him than when he had last seen it, he said, "Good-day, Sir."

"Clive 1 Why ... why I didn't know you were in; I never heard. They should have informed me. Why, dear me." He was flustered. He moved his hand up to his brow and with his two middle fingers rubbed it as if trying to smooth out the furrows.

The cold grey eyes moved over the now twitching face.

"I hope I find you well, Father?"

"Yes, yes, thank you, Clive. I'm very well. And ... and you?"

"Oh, I am very well, thank you. Tough, strong, weatherbeaten; the sea does a great many things tor you." He nodded at his father and watched the blood slowly recede from under his skin, then he turned and looked down at the child who was standing staring up at him, and he said to him, "And I understand your name is Richard, young man?"

"Yes, Sir; what is yours?"

"My name is Clive."

"Have you come to play with my coach?"

"Not exactly; but it's a very fine coach, I can see that."

"Grandpapa bought it for my birthday. I am three."

The fair brows moved upward again. Three was he? His mind did some swift calculation. She must have married almost immediately. He led up to further details by asking, "I hope Isabelle is quite well?"

"Yes, she's quite well" When his father turned away and walked towards the nursery door he turned with him, saying, "Whom did she marry?"

For answer His Lordship now called, "Nannie!" and when the nurse appeared in the doorway he said, "See to your charge," and she dipped her knee and said, "Yes, m'Lord." And he walked from the nursery on to the landing, and it was as he was walking down the stairs that he said quietly, "Isabelle is not married."

"0-oh!" He suppressed the huhl So that was it. But he wasn't surprised. Oh no; he wasn't surprised. And looking back and remembering his sister he was only surprised that it hadn't happened earlier, say when she was fifteen, even fourteen.

They had reached the ground floor and were making for the study when Give asked, "Is Isabelle here?" and His Lordship, entering the room, said, "Yes; Isabelle is here." Then seating himself behind his desk he said to his son, "Be seated," and asked, "Would you like a drink of some sort?" When Clive replied, "Yes. Yes, I would," he rang the bell.

Hatton appeared and kept his gaze focused on his master, and His Lordship said briefly, "Bring the decanters."

It wasn't until they both had a glass in their hands and His Lordship had sipped twice at his that he said, "There's something that you should know right away, Clive." He did not look at his son as he went on rapidly now, "The child you saw is not Isabelle's, it is your child, your son."

Clive had just taken a drink, not a sip, from his glass and now he choked on it and had to bend forward, his hand to his mouth. The water was springing from his eyes and running down his nose and he dabbed his face with a han kerchief and sat gasping and staring at his father. But he made no comment, not a word, and His Lordship, waiting until the spasm was quite passed, said, "The child was being brought up in poverty and squalor, so I could not allow it to go on.

But I made sure it was your child before I took any steps. He is the exact replica of your grandfather, didn't you notice it? "

Notice it? The child had just been a child, Isa- belle's child, so he would have expected it to look like a Fischel, a typical Fischel, dark-eyed, dark-haired, long-nosed. He himself, being so fair, was an oddity, or a hark back to his maternal grandfather who had been a Norwegian. He drank from his glass again. He was staggered; the wind had certainly been taken out of his sails before he had been on board five minutes, so to speak.

For days now, even months, he had rehearsed what he was going to say to his father at their first meeting. He was going to give him a detailed graphic picture of life at sea, seen and suffered through the eyes of a boy who had been gently bred, a boy who had been thrust into the stinking bowels of a ship with the deep raked scum of the earth for his companions;

who had been kicked, spat on, and flogged for no other reason that that he had come from the gentry. A boy who had suffered seasickness for three long months and to such an extent that it brought him near to death, and who was alive today only because the Captain himself had called a check to his first and second mates' discipline, a discipline patterned to give the whole crew hell but particularly the youngest member.

In this tale he had intended to dwell a long time on the joy he felt as he watched the first mate, who had been swept overboard, or perhaps had been pushed, being torn alive by barracuda, and of his glee when he had seen the second mate stabbed during a fight in a brothel; and in the telling he had meant to convey his hate for the man who had brought out depths in himself that he was ashamed of. And finally he had meant to end by emphasizing that the act that had caused his banishment had been but a "God bless you" compared with the things he had achieved along the same lines during the past four years.

But now, here was his father telling him he had a son. That child upstairs was his son. But what of it? He could have many sons. His sons could be dotted all over the Far East; in every port he had docked he had left his seed in black, brown, and white bellies.

"Have you nothing to say? Didn't the boy impress you?"

"Impress me?" He made a deep laughing sound in his throat, then moved his head in a wide sweep; and he was about to speak again when the door burst open and Isabelle stood staring at him across the room.

"Olivel" He rose slowly to his feet.

"Hello, Isabelle."

"Why, Clivel" She was standing dose to him, peering into his face, her eyes searching it as if looking for some remembered feature. This was Clive, the other part of her.

"How are you?" She felt awkward, and it was an unusual feeling for her.

"Very well And you?"

"Oh" --she laughed"--Tm alive."

It was a strange answer and he noticed that when she said it her head made the slightest movement in their father's direction, where he sat stiff-faced behind his desk taking in every nuance of their greeting, while knowing that this was but a polite facade and what they had to say to each other would be said while out of his presence.

Yet what would he have to say to her, his sister, the being who had been as dose to him as his skin? As he stared at her he could not believe that he had once been afraid of her, that he had once been weak enough, timid enough, even loving enough to follow her lead. He saw that she was vastly changed for she had the appearance of a woman well into her twenties, and what beauty she had was a hard beauty. Yet looking into the brown blackness of her eyes he knew that inside she was still the same, still a dynamic, wayward, vicious being, and perhaps more so now than ever before. He knew that during the last four years there had erupted in himself passions that were natural to her. He had got release from some of them, but what about her? Well, he supposed, being that this was Isabelle, he'd soon find out.

When she said, "Have you seen Richard?" and he raised his eyebrows and made a slight motion with his head she laughed aloud. Her laughter brought her father to his feet, and on this she turned and looked at him, her glance cold and distant. Then turning to dive again, her laughter higher now, her eyes glinting, she said, "Richard and I are great friends. He calls me Auntie, but he said yesterday that he would have liked me for his mama. Now isn't that quaint?"

Clive turned to see his father walking out of the room; then he looked at his sister and, the corner of his mouth moving up into a twisted smile, he stared at her for some moments before saying, "You know, it's a funny thing about time, it can be endless, and then it is as if it had never been. I thought you might have changed but you haven't, you're still the same Isabelle."

Her face took on a blank, dead look as she returned his stare and, her voice low in her throat, she said, Tou're wrong. Time takes its count from where you are; and on a grey island every minute is a month, and a year eternity, and the seasons chop you Up and you die slowly. "

When her lips trembled and she swallowed and the bone in her neck moved up and down like a man's Adam's apple, he put his hand out and gently touched hers. She gripped it fiercely, and hung on to it; then, her head bowed, she thrust her hand through his arm, saying thickly, "Come; let's get out of this room, we've got a lot to talk about, you and

I.

"

After only a month at home Clive was experiencing the strange sensation of being confined on all sides, even more so than when he had been incarcerated in that boat in the middle of the ocean. Yet his days were filled with riding, shooting, visiting, and, of course, walking with his son.

His son troubled him. Strange as it was, or perhaps not so strange, he was the only person in the household who wasn't worshipping at the boy's feet, for memories recurring from his own childhood caused him to object to different liberties accorded the boy. He himself had never been allowed such liberties. He had been fourteen years old before he had sat down to a meal with his father, yet this child came into the drawing room every afternoon for tea.

Months had gone by in his own and Isabelle's childhood during which they didn't see their parents. When the season came their parents disappeared to a place called London and they were left to the mercies of a nurse and a relaxed household. Even when their parents were at home, weeks would go by without their getting a glimpse of them; then perhaps for three days at a time they would see their mother. She would come up to the nursery, gay and beautiful, and want to play with them, but he himself could never play with her because he wasn't used to her.

In his childhood the nursery had been a world kept apart from the rest of the house; now the whole house was merged into the nursery. Every morning his father visited the nursery; every afternoon, weather permitting, he walked with the child; then there followed the tea ceremony in the drawing room. He doubted whether in all the land there was a child who had as much liberty as this flyblow of his.

But whereas his son irked him, the attitude of his father towards the boy angered him. He would scarcely give himself a day's shooting because he would miss a session with the child.

And now there was this business of inheritance. The child was his, he couldn't disclaim that even if he wanted to, but to recognize him legally, not only to give him his name, but to state in writing that no matter what further issue he might have this child would claim first place as his heir was taking the whole business to lengths that were not only unreasonable but fantastic.

When he put to his father the question, "What if I marry? Do you think any woman is going to stand for her son taking second place to a bastard, for no amount of legal writing is going to alter that fact?"

his father's reply had merely been, "He is your son."

He was standing now at the window of his room looking out over the drive and the sunken garden, and into his view came his father and the child, with the nurse walking some distance behind. The ritual was taking place again. The child's chatter, penetrating through the window to him, irritated him. He was allowed to talk without let-up;

he was under no discipline; not that he was rude, for in spite of his liberty he had a charming way with him. This being so, why couldn't he love him, at least like him? It came to him as he watched the child running wildly here and there that he felt towards him as his own father had felt towards himself, a mixture of irritation and responsibility.

The child, too, he knew had sensed his feelings, tor after the first ecstatic moments when he had been presented to him as his papa from the big ship, he had not been free with him as he was with his grandfather, or even with Isabelle. Now that was strange, the affection that existed between the child and Isabelle. As she had said, he almost treated her as his mama, and she in turn, behind the outwardly cynical acceptance of his affection, was now as besotted by him as was his father.

What was going to happen to Isabelle? Would she marry? Bellingham's nephew seemed attracted, but he was like whey to her thick brown beer.

What she needed was a master, but where was he to be found? Not in the narrow, censored circle of their acquaintances as far as he could see.

His feelings towards his sister, too, disturbed him. They were a mixture of pity that was akin to love and dislike that was akin to hate; his softer feelings towards her were aroused when she told him, as she did at intervals, of her life with the licentious, puritanical parson and their aunt, a female replica of their father enlarged still further by frustration.

He had been made to wonder at first how she had become such a good shot, for she handled a gun like a man, which was unusual. Then one night after supper when she had drunk well--their father no longer objected to her taking wine at the table--she had not only told him how she had become so expert with the gun, but had given him a demonstration, which, in a strange way, had made him shudder, for she had put her arms around his neck and slid her hands down his arms and over his hands and brought them into a firing position, and like this she had held him close for a moment before almost throwing him off her as she said, "That is how I learned. He would knock me up at dawn, or before, to take me out shooting. He kept the table supplied with wild duck, and as Aunt cooked and served it I know she prayed that it would choke him ... and me." She had laughed wildly for a moment, and he'd had a clear picture of the hell in which the three had existed in the stone house on the island, and his own experiences in the bilges seemed clean in comparison.

And it had all come about because of an argument as to who had right of way in a narrow passage. His thoughts had brought him to the point from which he always shied because the picture in his mind did not actually put before him the act of his first copulation but that of a sweat-covered face out of which were staring two terrified eyes.

He turned swiftly now from the window and looked about the room, then flexed his arms wide as if to push aside the walls. He'd have to get away, not only from the house but from the grounds, and not only from the grounds but from what lay immediately outside, the land, poverty stricken, overrun with the poor and the mean and the starving.

For the first two and a half years of his voyaging he had lived not only among the poor and the mean and the near-starving but also among the dregs of humanity; and he had been brought down to their level, and had prayed the while to be delivered. And he had been delivered, in so far as during the latter part of the voyaging he had risen, first to second mate, then to first mate, thanks to the barracuda and a six-inch blade. But even then he had longed for civilization again, a feather bed, eight-course meals, and the ebb and flow of lackeys around him. Now he had all this, and perverse nature was turning it into brine in his mouth, for yesterday he had gone into Shields and walked the waterfront and lingered on until dark when he had meandered through the taverns; and part of him had felt at home even while he had seen the earth as peopled with scum.

And what of his painting? He had promised himself that, once ashore, between eating and sleeping and drinking he would paint, do nothing but paint;

for during his four-year voyage he had painted only five pictures and they during the last six months. And they weren't of seascapes, mountainous seas, or billowing sails, but of the brutalized faces of his companions. And now, here he had been almost five weeks in dvilization and he hadn't lifted a brush.

He went to the wardrobe and took down some breeches and put them on.

This was another thing. He had become so used to dressing himself that he couldn't bear a man fingering him. As he buttoned up the breeches he went out of the door, across the wide landing, down a passage to where there was a window at the end, and, opening it, called into the courtyard below, "Mickyi Mickyi" and when a stable boy appeared he shouted at him, "Saddle me the Rover." Then he strode back to his room, finished his dressing, and fifteen minutes later he was on his horse and riding out through the main gate.

He paused for a moment outside the gates. To the right and four miles away lay Bellingham's place; but he wouldn't go that way because he had refused to join the shoot. Opposite him was the road to Jarrow and Rosier's pit village, and he didn't fancy passing through that stinking hole; so he turned up the road to the left which led back towards the North Lodge, deciding that from there he would cut across the open ground towards Felling and perhaps stop at the tavern near the Toll gates because he felt like talking to someone; he did not add "someone ordinary," but left it at that.

There was a bend in the road some distance ahead and he saw a peasant woman come running down from the fell and on to the road. She was holding up her skirts. She had brown hair which glinted in the sunshine. He wondered in passing whom she was running from or whom she was running to, for this was a lonely part, there being no habitations about. Then a surprising thing happened. When he rounded the bend and looked along the straight stretch of road that led to the Lodge there was no sign of the woman.

When the explanation came to him his chin jerked, and he thought.

She'll certainly be tickled, if nothing more painful, for she had likely gone into the thicket bordering the wall to relieve herself. He put the horse into a canter and galloped along the road.

When opposite the North Lodge, he turned the horse and mounted the fells; he let the animal have its head, and it had covered almost a mile before it tossed him. When he felt himself diving through the air from the saddle he relaxed his body before it touched the ground, a life-saving trick that an old sailor had taught him--when you're thrown almost from one end of the deck to the other, and not only by high seas, you have to learn some defense. But his horse hadn't been so fortunate. When it scrambled to its feet it was evident that it had badly sprained its fetlock. He swore as he led it back over the way they had come. But before they were in viewing distance of the North Lodge he decided that he could cut the journey short by forking to the left; this should bring him almost to the bend in the road and near the main gates.

He was some distance from the actual road itself when he again saw the woman. He saw her coming out of the tangle near an oak tree, and he mightn't have thought anything more but to remark to himself that it had taken her a long time to do her business but for the fact that she first looked one way along the road, then the other. If she had raised her head high she must have seen him and the horse, but she didn't.

What she did now was to turn away and walk along the road; and when she reached the bend she mounted the fells and became lost to him among the hillocks.

He took the horse gently down the slope and on to the road; and when he came to the oak tree he glanced at it, then stopped. He noticed that it was covered, except for a few feet from its base, by a tangle of bramble and ivy. One thing, however, stood out: the ivy on the left hand side was dead because it had been cut.

Dropping the bridle and using both of his gloved hands, he pushed at the tangle, and when it fell inwards like an object without support his eyebrows moved upwards. Pushing it still further aside, he now saw through the dimness a clearing leading to the actual wall. He pursed his lips into a silent whistle. He did not venture to investigate further as he thought that would be unwise; there could be a trap somewhere, it could even be a spring trap and blow his head off. Yet why would anyone want to set a spring trap outside the grounds? No, that wasn't the reason for this tunnel; the tunnel had to do with the wall, the wall that guarded the grounds. He stepped back and pulled the bramble into place again, then thoughtfully led the horse away.

The thought of the woman and the tunnel intrigued him, and he would have returned to investigate further but for the fact that he hadn't escaped altogether lightly from his fall. He found he was bruised rather badly down one side and his shoulder was stiffening up; so when the next day it rained he took the carriage into Newcastle and presented himself at his father's club and sat drinking most of the afternoon, and although he was without company he found the atmosphere preferable to that of the house where everything seemed to be dominated by the requirements of Master Richard. The child, he

e thought, attracted people up to the third floor more surely than a whore did long-voyage men.

He did not rise early the following day because he had a heavy head, but when he looked out the sun was shining, and after a light breakfast he decided to take a walk.

Isabelle met him at the foot of the stairs. She had not seen him since early yesterday morning and now she looked at him through narrowed eyes, and when she spoke there was hostility in her tone.

"Is it by accident you are becoming aloof, or is it intentional?"

He gave her his one-sided smile as he answered, "It was very wet outside yesterday, so I decided to match it" --he thumbed his chest as he ended"--internally, so I took myself to a place where the process would be undisturbed."

"A sailor's hostel?" Her lip was slightly curled, but he showed no offense and even laughed before he said, "No, no. No place so sordid.

I am reverting to my inherited standards; I honored Father's dub in the city. "

"I want to talk to you."

"Well, you can do that anytime.

"What do you want to discuss?" He thrust his hands into his breeches pockets, and the attitude annoyed her and she said. her voice low, "It's about the child, and I can't do it here. Come to my room."

"Huhl" He jerked his head upwards as he left the bottom step.

"The child!" And on this she grabbed his arm, saying, "What is the matter with you? This is something you've got to face. Like it or not, he's yours and he's got to have your name. This is about the only thing I'm in agreement with Father over."

"Oh! you are?" Their eyes held tor a second before he gripped her hand that was clasping his arm and jerked it away, and the action was as if he had cut the umbilical cord that had roped them together from birth;

and now he said grimly, "Then I'm afraid there's going to be two of you disappointed." And on this he turned from her and walked across the hall, picked a walking stick from the stand, then went out by a side door.

As she watched him go she gritted her teeth, and she wondered where that part of him had gone that she had loved; because the boy she had known to be timid and weak and easy-going was now none of these things, he had turned into a man that she almost disliked. The fact that he had no feeling for his son did not displease her, for this being so, he would have no wish to take him away from his grandfather's care and this house, even if he married, and she could see no sign of this happening because his manner towards women was dour, the exaggerated courtesy he showed them being little short of ridicule. But even should he marry she could not imagine his keeping the child in the same house as his bride. And that's where she came in. She had always seen herself as mistress of this house and slowly but very surely over the weeks she had made her position felt by gathering the reins of management into her hands. The servants were aware of this, even if her father wasn't.

If anyone had told her that within five short weeks she would come to love, with an irrational, compelling love, the child of that low, ignorant fell creature, she would have laughed at him, while wanting to slap his mouth with the back of her hand in the way her aunt used to slap hers in the early days in the stone house.

Even during the first two weeks of her acquaintance with the child she had remained obdurate against her rising affection for him. Then came the day when, with his arms tight around her neck, he had said, "Can you have two mamas. Aunt Isabelle?" And when she had laughed and replied, "Yes, that is possible; it your first mama dies you can have a second mama," he had hugged her dose and whispered,

"Then you are my second mama. Aunt Isabelle." And it was done.

Clive had spent some time in the stable examining the horse's fetlock, looking at the other mounts, and talking quite affably with Morris, the coachman, Bowmer, the second coachman, and Micky, the head stable boy. He felt quite at home with the stable staff and they with him.

The verdict was, he was all right was Master Clive, come back a man and no mistake, and could hold his drink better than most. Now who would believe that when they remembered the nervous young stripling who had been transported, so to speak. , Half an hour later he strolled through the park, out through the North Lodge, then continued casually down the narrow road until he came to the oak tree. He had purposely put on a plain coat, the skirt of which came to his knees; and quickly now, after glancing up and down the road, he pushed aside the bramble door. Once behind it, he put it in place again, all as if he had done it many times before.

The passage to the wall was high enough to allow him to walk with only his head stooped forward, and when he reached it he made out, through the filtered light from above, that for some distance alongside it a way had been cleared. Thrusting his walking stick out in front of him and moving it from side to side, he walked slowly forward until he came to where the clearing ended. And there he stared down at what was a man-sized hole.

Well! Well! He nipped on his lip before slowly dropping on to his knees. But he had to lower his body still further before he could get through the hole, and now, still on his hands and knees, he peered about him. He was in a tiny clearing, the bramble roof held up here and there by props. He stared about him hi amazement . and recognition. This must be the very spot where, on that faraway day, the small boy had hidden. But that was four years ago. This place was still being used, he had seen the woman come in. Why? There were no rabbit traps that he could see, there was no outlet that he could see. He turned once more on to his knees and crawled around the space, which at most was but three yards in length and two in breadth, and as he crawled he asked himself to what purpose it could be used. He was inside the grounds.

Why would anyone want to sit in here? They couldn't get out, that was acertainty. His eyes began to search the dark green screen, and then his crawling suddenly stopped. He was looking through a slit. His vision was obscured by tiny branches, but nevertheless he could see into the far distance, and in the distance he saw his father and the child and Isabelle. And now he sat back on his heels, and his hand, going to his mouth, tapped it slowly.

He was about to put his eye to the opening again when a slight sound, as if a rabbit were scurrying over dry leaves, came to him; then distinctly he heard the intake of a long drawn breath as happens at the end of a run.

From the position he was in now he was facing the hole and could be seen by the girl when she came in, for instinctively he knew it was the girl and he felt cold at the thought. He had already guessed the reason for this place.

Her scrambling through the hole, although almost noiseless, cut off the sound of the movement he made in shifting his position, and as her head and shoulders appeared and she looked upwards, his arm shot out and his hand across her mouth only just stifled her scream. As she began to struggle furiously, his other arm about her like a vise, he pulled her into the clearing where, losing his balance but still keeping his grip on her mouth and shoulders, he fell to his side, and she with him. And there they lay, their bodies close for a second time, their eyes staring into each other's, hers so terror-stricken, and her heart beating against his breast so rapidly that he wouldn't have been surprised if she had died there and then.

She was still now, lying stiff, frozen, like someone being hypnotized into terror; and into the silence, broken only by their mingled hard breaths, there came the sound of a child's high voice, crying, "Watch.

Watch me. Grandpapa. " And on this her eyelids moved.

Slowly taking his arm from about her shoulders but not his hand from her mouth, he held his forefinger up to her and wagged it twice, indicating that she be silent, and accompanied this with a pursing of his lips into a "Ssh!" Now, drawing his hand from her mouth, he pulled himself away from her and on to his knees, and as he gazed at her lying crumpled on the ground he felt slightly sick, for she looked as she had done all that time ago just a second before his father had torn his flesh out of hers.

He turned on his knees and pointed towards the slit in the brambles and motioned that she should look through it, but she made no movement, not even when she heard the stamp of the child's footsteps running past the edge of the thicket and his laughter filling the air.

It was not until Isabelle's voice came to them, calling, "Come, Richard. Come. Look, I will race you," that she moved her eyes from his and looked up at the green tangled roof.

Minutes later, when the voices and steps had faded into the distance, he motioned to her that she should come away; and he, going first, backed through the hole. But he had to wait almost three minutes before she put in an appearance, and when he went ahead walking close to the wall to keep his coat away from the loose bramble she did not follow immediately, and again he had to wait for her.

When he opened the screen door, he surveyed, as she did, the road both ways before walking on to it;

and when she was through she stood with her back tight against the oak staring at him as if he were the devil.

Now he kept his distance, almost two arms' length from her, and what he said was, "You have no need to fear me in any way." And when she made no answer he repeated, "Do you understand what I am saying? You have no need to fear me in any way, any way whatever."

He saw that she was petrified and he searched in his mind for some way to allay her fears, but he found none and went stumbling on.

"Go in there when you like, I won't give you away."

When she still made no effort to speak he said softly, "I'm not the devil from hell, don't look at me like that, girl. If ... if it's any consolation to you I'm deeply sorry for what happened on... on that day."

Still there was no word from her; and now he said with some impatience, "If you care tor the child so much as to risk your neck going in there, for you could be shot at by the keepers, why did you let him go in the first place? Why did you sell him?"

"I, I didn't sell him." Her body jerked from the tree, then fell back against it again, and he was slightly startled at the vehemence of her reply.

"I'm under the impression that you did."

"Well, you're wrong, see." The top part of her body had again moved from the tree, but her hands at her sides were still gripping the bark.

"You are being paid twenty-five shillings a week, I understand. Is that right?"

"Yes, 'tis. But ... but I didn't sell him. If he said that he's lying."

"Well, if it wasn't for the money why did you let him go?"

There was a silence before she mumbled dully, her eyes cast down now, "

"Twas because of Bella, my sister. She was in service and she got into trouble. She stole, she stole TWO HANKIES." Her voice was bit e ter again and she raised her eyes to his, "They were for sending her to the House of Correction, and ... and I couldn't bear it for she was only eight, and the man, the valet, said His Lordship would put things right for her on condition I let him have the child." She now leaned her head back against the tree and, her voice louder, she ended, "They had been at me for weeks, months, from he was born, but I wouldn't budge. But ... but it was because of Bella, not the money."

Godi Two hankies. The House of Correction. Blackmail. His father had got the child on the strength of two hankies . Christ Almighty! He said to her now, "The child is three years old. Why is he still so important to you?"

Her head sank forward until he could see the crown from where the brown hair flowed in a clean shining circle, and when he heard her words soft and heart-felt saying, "He's mine; he's all I have of me own," he had an almost uncontrollable urge to grab her hand, run her to the Lodge and through the park, pick up the child and thrust it into her arms and say, "Therel Take your own." But after a moment, while he continued to stare at her, he said, "Remember what I've told you, you have no need to fear me in any way." And on this he turned abruptly and walked from her.

Perhaps it was. His Lordship thought, because Isa- belle was confined to her room with a chill that his son deigned to accompany the child and himself on their afternoon walk.

It was the first fine day tor almost a week, and as they strolled through the park, the child running before them. His Lordship, merely because he was finding his son's silence embarrassing, remarked, "I think we'd better have Stracey over to see Isabelle if her cold is no better by tomorrow."

The comment on this came almost absentmindedly from his son, "Oh ... oh yes."

"She's hardly ever indoors, out in all weathers. I think it's unseemly, this craze for shooting. It isn't a woman's place. But there, times have changed."

This remark bringing no response whatever. His Lordship glanced at the tall, hard thinness of the young man at his side, and he thought now as he had thought often over the past weeks that his son was almost unrecognizable to him. The boy Clive, the painter, the sensitive individual he had known and recognized as some small part of himself, but not this man. It was strange but he was finding himself more at ease in Isabelle's company than in his son's, and that was strange indeed. Yet Isabelle was deporting herself very well when all was taken into account, that is with the exception of her craze for shooting. Still Bellingham, or at least his nephew, seemed to welcome her presence. But above all, what pleased him most was that she had taken to the child, and the child undoubtedly had taken to her. Things never turned out as one expected. He had dreaded her return to the House, yet daily he had looked forward to seeing his son again, and yet here they were finding it difficult to carry on an ordinary conversation. That was until his son suddenly said, "About this business of inheritance. Father." He nodded towards the child.

"Yes."

"I've been thinking."

His Lordship waited, his eyes on his son's profile.

"I think perhaps after all' it would be a sensible thing to do; as it is, no one has any real claim to him,

have they? " Now Clive turned his head and looked at his father, and His Lordship moved his head slowly to the side and nodded twice before saying, " That is right. "

"Except of course the mother."

"Oh well, that could easily be seen to."

"How? You have nothing in writing from her."

"That's quite true, but she has taken my money for over three years;

the courts would soon put her in her place. "

"I wouldn't be too sure of that. There was the Dunlop case you'll remember last month. They gave the custody of the child to the mother."

"Different thing altogether." His Lordship's head was wagging now.

"She was a lady; she had been going to marry the man but unfortunately he was killed. The mother in that case had a right to him."

"Even when the grandfather tried to prove he was the issue of his only son and without him the line would die?"

His Lordship stopped in his walk, and, his tone barely covering his anger now, he said, "I don't see why you're holding this case up as an example if you I intend to give the child your name."

Clive had stopped a few feet ahead of his father, and standing sideways to him with the nonchalant, disinterested air that seemed part of him now, and which annoyed his father, he said, "I was merely stating a case in point. That courts don't always do what is expected of them; so, as you suggested, I think it would be wise to have this matter settled once and for all."

"Yes, yes, I agree with you." His Lordship was walking on again, his voice calmer now, but his Adam's apple, moving rapidly up and down, showed his inner agitation, and his irritation came to the fore again when his son, seemingly bent on continuing the conversation along what he considered, under the circumstances, very tactless lines, said, "Has she ever tried to see the child?"

"No, of course not."

"How is her money paid to her?"

"What!"

"I said how is the money paid to her?"

"I told you this weeks ago. At the beginning of the month."

"What I mean is, does she come and collect it?"

Now His Lordship merely paused in his walk while he looked at his son, then asked stiffly, "What is all this? Why this sudden interest in this girl?"

"She is the mother of the child, isn't she?"

"There is no one disputing that, and least of all me." His Lordship's anger was now evident, but it seemed to make no impression on his son.

"You didn't say how she got her money."

"Cunningham takes it to the habitation." His words were cold and stiff.

"The habitation?" Now Clive was looking at his father.

"She lives on the fells in a makeshift house. That is her own fault;

she has enough money to rent a decent place. "

"On the tells, the open fells? Why do you think she continues to live there?"

"How should I know? These people are like rats, they cling to their homes."

There was a pause. There was no sound between them, no sound from the child even, for he had stopped and was examining a dead, blackening rowan frond that covered his two small hands. No bird sound broke the silence in these seconds, no wind in the branches of the trees; it was dive's voice that cut it, saying with strange bitterness, "For a rat she did rather well in my opinion." Then, moving quickly forward, he gathered up the boy in his arms and held him above his head; and for the first time he really looked at him. And the boy, surprised by the playful e ness of his papa, did not respond for a moment, not until his papa put him down on the ground and, taking his hand, ran him forward towards the end of the park to where the grass drive led into the forbidden distance; and, standing close to the tangle of undergrowth, lifted him up in his arms again and, pointing into the distance, said, "I think that's a rabbit."

"Where, Papa?" The child leaned forward and peered along the path.

"Oh, he's gone. Rabbits are very quick little fellows."

He held the child in the same position until His Lordship came almost to his shoulder, saying, "Don't encourage him to go along there. He could easily slip into the wood; it's heavily trapped."

He put the child down now and, patting his bottom, sent him forward at a run and laughing gleefuly. And then he said, apparently in some surprise, "But I was through there last week. I never came across a trap."

"There weren't any last week. But we found a place where they were getting in; there must have been a number of them. It could have been the scum from Rosier's village or one of the gangs that sell to the markets. Anyway, they certainly thinned the birds out; even came as far as the pens and helped themselves.... And not a dog barked;

they're elusive as vapor. "

"I understood it was illegal now to set spring traps."

"Illegal or not they're staying. I have placed a notice on the south wall to the effect that it is dangerous to enter the woods. I have not stated that there are traps set; they're clever enough to deduce why the notice is there."

Clive gave a huh of a laugh now as he said, "They won't need much evidence to prove that there are traps if they show they've one leg missing, or blinded."

"What can one do? You tell me. They're scourging the country like vermin, no man's property is safe from them. Do you know that Bellingham had a keeper tied up, gagged, then thrown face downwards in the lake to drpwn. And he would have but one of the other keepers had been watching from the undergrowth and managed to get him out in time.

Travel may have widened your sympathies, Clive, but I would like to wager that, when you inherit, your forbearance on such matters will be wanting. "

"Very likely, very likely." Clive was nodding his head thoughtfully now. Then he went on, "Touching on the matter of inheritance reminds me that I've also been rather negligent about visiting Compton and getting my matters settled. You said, didn't you, that I would have around four thousand a year from the trust?"

"Yes, about that. Perhaps a little more; the investments abroad have been very favorable of late."

"Quite enough to set up a small establishment?"

"Yes, if you go careful. Were you thinking of doing this?"

"Yes and no. My mind is rather unsettled at the moment."

"You have given up the idea then of returning to the sea?"

"Not entirely. Captain Spellman is anxious that I sail with him again;

but there's plenty of time tor me to consider that because the ship is doing a coastal run, and in the spring, when the sea's open, he'll be trading to Bergen, so I understand. Anyway, he'll be near enough at hand should I change my mind. "

"What if he should have taken on a permanent first mate in the meantime?"

"Ohi" dive's tone was airy, "He'll arrange matters." He paused before ending, "You know, you made a deep impression on the Captain, Father."

His Lordship's face took on a slight tinge of pink and when the child came running back towards them now and flung himself against his father's legs and hugged his thigh he hoped with a deep intensity that his son would, in the end, decide to return to the sea, and for more reasons than one.

It was early November. For eight days now they had seen no sun; the fog shrouded the grounds in a white mist in which the trees floated and men's heads appeared in the distance as if disembodied.

In almost every room in the house a fire was blazing. The whole place was warm, even the great hall and the stone passages, and the atmosphere was light, almost gay. The servants bustled and looked happy in their bustling; all day long there were men and women carrying big skips of wood and buckets of coal, or big copper cans of hot water for baths. The master, Miss Isabelle, and the child bathed every day; only Master Clive had no use for daily hot baths. Up till a fortnight before he had taken his bath in the river. In the opinion of the indoor servants Master Clive was a funny one; they would even have dared to say not quite a gentleman any longer, for he didn't have a valet, and he had the plebeian way of thanking servants for doing him a small service. This latter might go down with some, but servants of long standing knew that these weren't gentlemen's ways.

On this morning of thick fog and air so chill that it penetrated even the thickest clothing and probed the skin, Clive left the warm comfort of the house and took a walk. No one had inquired as to where he was going. His father was closeted in the study with his bailiff and Isabelle was playing with the child.

Once outside the North Lodge he turned right along the road until he came to the oak tree, and there he stopped. She would not have been here for days. How intense must have been the hunger that brought her here in the first place, that made her create the hidey-hole and run the risk of discovery.

He walked on sharply now and mounted the fells at about the place where he had remembered her going up the bank. Away from the shelter of the wall and the sunken road the air caught at his breath and made his chest heave. He could see no farther than sixty feet ahead; and for the first time since leaving the house he asked himself a question: "If I do see her how will I bring the matter up?"

Long before he had gone into Newcastle the weeK before to sign the deed claiming that the child, christened as Richard Brodie, was his son and rightful heir and would henceforth take the name of Richard John Horatio Fischel, he had known what lay behind his change of attitude; but he also knew it would take time before he could present it to the girl in an acceptable fashion, time in which he must convince her that he was up to no trickery, that his one aim was to recompense her for the wrong he had done her.

Each night since he had surprised her in the hidey- hole he had gone over the incident second by second, It was much clearer in the dark, much more real; he felt her body close to his for the second time in his life. He saw the blood press to the surface of her face where his fingers squeezed her mouth. He saw the creamy film and the texture of her skin, and he smelled the smell of her, that woman's smell that her old shabby clothes could not smother. He had smelled it on the day he had taken her, and never had he smelled it since on any other woman.

Women all had particular smells, but there had been none like the odor that came from her; and there, as he had held her pressed tightly to him while their child laughed and called on the other side of the bramble fence, he had been more aware of the odor of her than he had been of the strangeness of the situation.

He knew that he could wander about up here tor hours, even go round in circles and never come across a living soul. After some time he took out his watch and peered at it and was surprised to see it was only a quarter to eleven, little more than an hour since he had left the house. He felt he had been away from the confines of the Hall for days.

When the fog lifted for a moment, and he saw in the distance the figure of a woman, he stopped. The woman had seen him, and she, too, had stopped. He couldn't make out in the swirling fog if it was the girl or not, but when the figure came hurrying towards him he knew it wouldn't be the girl. The woman stopped within twenty feet of him.

There was a look of surprise on her face; it was as if she had thought she would see someone else. He saw that she was a big, ugly woman but not poorly clad; and when she turned and almost ran back the way she had come, he remained standing, pmzled by her appearance and quick disappearance. It was evident she had not expected to see him.

After a moment he, too, turned and retraced his steps the way he had come; but fifteen minutes later, when he hadn't reached the road, he realized he had missed his way. Then ten minutes later still he came on the dwelling.

It seemed to rise out of the ground like an eruption. It was akin to something he imagined a man would build if wrecked on a desert island;

it looked like a number of poor cow sheds at different levels stuck against the outcrop of rock. He saw it was in three sections but that only the middle section had a window, and there were only two doors.

The larger door was open and revealed what looked like a wood shed, the other door was closed. He was staring at this door, wondering whether he should knock, when it opened and there she stood. But only for a second. At the sight of him she heaved in a deep breath, sprang back into the room, and banged the door shut. And then he heard a bar being dropped into its socket.

God Almighty! She was still all that afraid of him. Couldn't she believe that he meant her no harm, only good? If he could only get her to realize just how much good he meant her.

He knocked on the door sharply as he said, "Open the door, please. I must speak with you."

He heard a small voice which wasn't hers say something, and again there was silence. And again he said, "I have no intention of going away until I can speak with you, so you might as well open the door. I have something to say to you that is of great interest to you ... it, it concerns the child."

Two full minutes passed before the bar was lifted;

then slowly the door was opened, and there she stood, one hand gripping the door and four children standing round her, their eyes wide, with fear in them. The sight brought his head down, and after a moment he asked quietly, "May I come in?" And now she pushed the children from her and opened the door further to allow him to walk into a room that wasn't a room, but the strangest place he had ever seen, and he had seen some strange places.

The wall of the outcrop jutted roughly into it;

there were odd bits of old furniture here and there, and at the far end a tiny fireplace. She and the rest of them had lived here, according to his reckoning, for five years, and here his son had been born and nurtured by her until he was five months old. He looked at the children, all girls--they were grouped together now at the side of the fireplace--and turning his gaze to her, he said, "Do you think I might have a word with you in private?"

When she went and picked up a shawl from the top of a chest, he said, "No, no, it is bitter out. Is there no place to send the children?"

And on this she made a motion with her head and the tallest girl, still with her eyes on him, sidled past him and to a door at the far end of the room, the others following her.

When they were alone he looked at her where she was standing by the far corner of the fire, her face averted from him, and he said, "Won't you sit down?" When she made a small movement with her head he said under his breath, "How can I convince you of what I said the other day, I mean you no harm?"

She still made no answer, but her shoulders moving up and down showed him the rapidity of her breathing, and the terror of him that was still in her; and so, throwing aside his formulated plan of slow approach, he said, "How would you like your child back?"

Her body was slow in turning, her lips were apart, her eyes wide, and the fear had gone from her as if it had never been, but the look that had replaced it lasted only a matter of seconds; and when her shoulders slumped downwards they seemed to drag with them a veil of blankness over her face, and she said dully, "You're just sayin' that.

There's no chance; he . he would never let me, not now. "

"My father has no power over ... your child." He had almost said "our child."

"I am the person, who, from now on, will dictate what will happen to it."

The eager look was creeping back into her face and she said in a whisper, "You ... you really mean that ... that I could have him again?"

"Yes, yes, that is what I mean. But you would have to have a suitable place in which to bring him up." His eyes flickered around the room.

"May I... may I

ask you a question? " He waited a second, then went on, " Are you thinking of being married? "

The question seemed to surprise her for she jerked her chin before turning her head to the side and looking down as she answered, "No;

an' I won't, ne veri He was surprised at the answer and the authoritative tone in which it had been given, and he allowed a moment to pass before he went on, "Well, now what I have in mind is this. I will settle a sum on you that will enable you to take a house in a respectable healthy neighborhood, say on the outskirts of Newcastle, and when he reaches the age of five, you will send him to school. It could be a day school, but a good one. I would wish him to be known as Richard John Horatio Fischel; he has recently been registered under this name." He stopped as he saw her hands going out towards the table, and gripping it as if for support; and then, her gaze still cast downwards, she asked, "Why ... why are you doing all this?" to which he answered quietly, "Isn't it evident? I wish to make reparation to you for the harm I brought on you, and I wish to settle it before I return to sea."

She raised her eyes to his now and stared at him, and she saw him, for the first time, not as a demon but as a young man of pleasing appearance, with an expression that was serious, and grey eyes that were kindly, and she couldn't associate him with the other being, who on two of the three occasions they had met, had held her to him and created in her fear- tearing panic.

When she asked softly, "What of your father? I... I think he is very fond of the child," he paused before answering because, deep within him, he knew that he should ask the same question of himself as she had in reply to his former question, "Why are you doing all this?" and if he were to be truthful he would answer with another question: Why should his father have it all ways? He had banished him for raping a young girl, hadn't he, and yet had himself been quite prepared to enjoy the fruits of that act? Moreover he had taken upon himself a halo for his clemency. Clemency! when, as she had said, he had got the child, not for money, but for two lawn handkerchiefs.

His answer to her was now checked by the door opening and a thick-set powerful man entering. He stared at the fellow and the fellow stared at him;

then she, in great agitation, exclaimed, as she moved down by the side of the table towards the man.

"Ohi Matthew! I didn't think to see you the day."

Matthew came slowly into the room, and after glancing at her he returned his gaze to the visitor and, his voice grim, said without preamble, "What's your business here?"

"Whatever my business I cannot see " what it has to do with you. Sir. "

Clive's voice was no longer that of the sailor, or the pleasant individual who talked to the outside staff, but that of a Fischel, a man who demanded respect and obedience as his right.

"Now, perhaps you'll allow me to ask you the same question. Who are you?"

"Everybody knows who I am. Fm Matthew Turnbull, the miller, from Brockdale."

Clive now cast a glance towards Cissie. She was staring at the fellow, pleading in her eyes. Hadn't she said she was not going to be married, nor ever would be? Then who was this man who spoke as if she were his property? Well, it would be easy to find out, he was the miller at Brockdale.

He turned and looked at her, saying now, "You'll be hearing from me again. In the meantime good-day to you." He made no motion of farewell to the man who had his eyes fixed hard on him but went out through the door and into the mist; and as he walked, the face of the miller intruded on to a picture that had formed in his mind when he had said to her, "You will take a house on the outskirts of

Newcastle. " The picture had shown him returning from sea and going to the house to visit his son ... and his son's mother.... " Who's he? "

Cissie closed her eyes, rubbed her hand all 'round her face, and finished by smoothing her hair back;

but even then she didn't answer Matthew's question. Sitting down on a chair, she joined her hands tightly together before looking up and saying, "It's ... it's him, His Lordship's son."

"Whati" Matthew looked as if he were going to bound towards the door, and she leaned swiftly across the table and grabbed at his arm, saying, "No, no lIt all right. Let me tell you. I've ... I've got something' to tell you. He ... he didn't come lookin' for me, plaguing me; he came to tell me I ... I could have Richard back. Aye, he did."

She moved her head slowly at him.

"You see, it was like this...." And now as he stared stiffly down at her she told him what she had kept to herself for years, and had made Joe keep to himself, the hidey-hole from where at intervals she had watched her child grow, and she finished, "He ... he could have given me away but he didn't;

instead, he's gone about makin' it possible for me to have the hairn back. "

And now Matthew asked the question she had asked of Clive, "Why?"

"" Cos"--she looked down and wagged her head-- " he's, he's sorry for what he did. "

"Huh! Godi" She brought her eyes quickly up to his.

"He is, Matthew, he is. I ... I was terrified of him, scared out of me wits at the sight of him, until ... until a little while ago when he stood there an' I seemed to see him not as a devil any longer but just like, well, anybody else."

"But he's not like anybody else, an' you know that. You know it only too well. And if he says he's goin' to do something for you let me tell you, Cissie, he's not doin' it for nothing. They don't, not them lot. You be careful, it could be some kind of trap, an' I'm warning you."

"What kind of trap could it be if he gives me the baim back?"

"I don't know, I haven't had time to think, but I tell you, be on your guard; what he did once he could try on again...."

She pushed her chair back and got to her feet, staring at him the while, and he said defiantly, "Well, I'm sorry, but... but I don't trust any of them."

She turned away and when there was a silence between them she muttered, "Will you have a drop of tea? it's fresh made." Then, "What brings you over at this time of day?"

Now he sat down and, bending forward, stared into the fire and said, "I think she's goin' out of her head. I ... I came over 'cos William told me that he had seen her as he and Straker were coming back in the cart from Gateshead. He saw her mounting the fells in this direction, and and I was afraid." His head went lower and his voice went into a low growl as he ended, "I'm afraid all the time now.... Cissie" -he turned round"--why don't you move? Look, I can get you a place, in Jarrow or Shields or anywhere roundabout."

She stopped with the teapot in her hand, but she didn't look at him as she said, "I could be movin'. If I get the hairn back he says I've got to move into a respectable district and ... and have him educated."

"And he'll pay for it all?" He was on his feet now.

"Well" --her head was up and her voice was harsh-- "it stands to reason that I can't, doesn't it?"

"Look." He put out his hand and pointed his finger at her.

"I'm warnin' you. You be careful; men like him don't promise houses to people like you--now that's putting it bluntly--unless they're after something."

"He's only trying to pay for what he did." She was shouting at him.

"That's what he says. Oh my Godi" He held his brow for a moment; then asked in a quieter tone, "You want to get away from here?" And she said softly now, "Aye, Matthew; I'm sick to the heart of me at the thought of another winter." And when he came and stood close to her and said, "Well, let it be me who'll fix it for you," she looked up at him and said quietly, "Not if I take the child with me." She could have added, "And not if I don't either, not as long as you're married, and her almost going off her head as it is."

He swung round from her now and marched towards the door while thrusting on his hat, but when he had opened it he turned to her once more and said, "Keep the door bolted, and keep a lookout. And I'm not only meaning with regards to her." And on that he was gone.

Clive went into Newcastle to see the solicitor--not his father's solicitor, but one of his own choosing.

The firm of Weir and Dixon was well established and dealt with a number of county families, and Mr. Weir wasn't unused to the request the young man made. It was to the effect that he should look for a house for him, a small establishment of eight to ten rooms with a garden, the whole to be in a secluded spot in a healthy district.

Also, that he wanted papers to be drawn up to the effect that one thousand pounds a year was to be allotted to acertain lady in support of herself and her son. The purchase of the house, the furnishings, and the maintenance in the future of the entire establishment were to come out of a separate fund.

Mr. Weir assured the young gentleman that his wishes would be attended to with the utmost speed, but it might take a few days, or even a week or so, to find such an establishment. Nevertheless, he had no doubt whatever that it could be found.

Clive impressed upon him that the matter needed speedy attention, then left, and went to his father's club, where he ate a small meal and drank, a great deal; and as dusk was falling he was assisted into the coach by Bowmer and driven back to the Hall.

The following day he was late in appearing at breakfast, and was favored by a scowl from his father as he took his seat at the table and an almost disdainful look from Isabelle, which latter amused him.

His fiery sister was a very tame person these days, one could almost say a motherly person. How would she react to the news that he was taking the child away, giving it back to its rightful mother? He didn't ask himself whether she would be hurt because he didn't care if she was hurt or not; for the truth he'd had to face a long, long time ago was that he really disliked his sister, he hated some part of her, and the hate stemmed from the day she had laughed, and cried to him, "Well, why don't you? Go on!" and had leaned against the tree and finished, "You're frightened. You never have, have you?" Without her taunting he never would have, even then; and he knew now, even more so than he did then, that there was something unnatural, something bad in the make-up of a woman who could witness such a deed.

So, feeling like this, he saw her act of mothering the boy as just that, an act. If he had been told at this moment that he could be proved wrong he would not have believed it; it needed action on her part to convince him, and he had it later that day.

The day before, much to his father's annoyance, he had refused the invitation to join him and Isabelle in the shoot on Bellingham's estate, and his father was now demanding in a tone heavy with exasperation, "What is the matter with you? You enjoy your shoot, don't you?" to which he replied, "Yes, but I'm not feeling inclined that way at present. How long is it on for?"

"The week."

"Then I may accompany you tomorrow."

Later, Isabelle had stood at the top of the steps pulling on her gloves and she allowed her father to descend almost to the bottom before she turned to Clive and said under her breath, "What has come over you? You're acting like a bore; you should go back to the sea, you'd be more at home there."

"Quite right, quite right." His lips moved into the twisted smile.

"And I'm thinking seriously of doing just that."

Her eyes widened slightly as she said, "Don't be ridiculous; you seem to forget you have taken on a new responsibility."

"Oh, I haven't forgotten that."

"You surprise me! Then may I ask that during the time I ... we are out you could force yourself to go and see the child?"

"Yes, yes, you could." He bowed his head to her.

"I may even go further than that. I may take him for a walk; it's a very nice day."

He looked up into the bright sky.

"Yes, that's what I'll do, I'll take him for a walk."

"Oh!" She went down the steps, her riding crop whipping against her leather boots.

He watched them ride away, then turned indoors. She had set the germ of a thought alive in his mind and he said to himself, "Why not? why not?" It would be a prelude to the final act; it would show him the child's reaction to her and the place. Not that he would allow the child to live there; but it wouldn't do any harm for him to see it, as young as he was.

Early memories left an impression; he could remember happenings in his own life right back to when he was two years old.

But he did not immediately put" his plan into action. Rather, he ordered himself and the child an early lunch and informed the nurse that he would not require her to attend them on their walk that afternoon.

So it was around two o'clock when the nurse brought the child down to the hall. He was muffled to the eyes against the cold; he wore white kid boots and white gaiters. These came well up under his three Hannel petticoats. He wore a blue woollen dress heavily embroidered with silks, and over this a blue melton cloth coat lined with fur; on his head was a bonnet-shaped hat to match, out of which his cheeks poked like two rosy apples.

He held out his hand to his father, saying, "Are we going to the sea.

Papa? " and Clive replied, " No, not today; just for a walk. "

"Are we going to the farm?"

"Perhaps."

The child looked up at him solemnly now and asked, "Will you take me on your big ship one day, Papa?" And to this Clive answered with a laugh, "Now that's more than likely, more than likely."

When they reached the beginning of the drive to the Lodge he swung the child up into his arms and walked rapidly along it, and Richard, looking about him excitedly, cried, "This is where the rabbits are?"

"Yes, this is where the rabbits are."

At one point on the road the child said, "Is this the way the carriage goes. Papa, when we go to the sea?" and Clive answered, "It is indeed." He found it difficult to talk with the child. One moment he saw him as a baby, the next as a little boy very advanced for his age, for he talked incessantly, and very distinctly;

almost, Clive thought, like his father. And he was forever asking questions about everything he oh'

served. He did not like to confess that he wasn't at ease with the boy. When the child looked at him now it was as if he were reading his thoughts, for he said quite suddenly, "Do you like me. Papa?"

Clive blinked, smiled, and moved his head jocularly before he answered this probing question.

"Of course I like you. Why do you ask such a question?"

"Because Nanny says you're not like a real papa."

"Oh, she does, does she?" He pursed his lips.

"Why am I not like a real papa?"

"I don't know, but that is what she said."

"Did she say that to you?" His face was straight now.

"No, Papa. She was talking to Raddiffe while they were attending to the bath water."

"Do you think I'm a real papa?"

He watched his son hesitate before saying, "I don't know ..." then add mischievously, "but I would like to go on your ship." And at this Clive put his head back and laughed.

They were well on the fells now. They passed the stone quarry; then, a few minutes farther on, they rounded a bluff, and there in the distance was the dwelling.

The child saw it immediately and cried, "Look, Papal Stables." And Clive said, "They're not stables, Richard, that is a house. I am taking you to see" --he paused"--the lady who lives there."

As he came nearer the dwelling he saw two small girls carrying water, and when they caught sight of him one of them dropped her bucket and ran helter skelter into the house.

He was still carrying the child when he approached the door, and there she was standing framed in the opening, her eyes fixed on them as if she were beholding a vision. To put matters straight right away, he said quickly, "We have only come to pay you a visit, we were out walking." He watched her mouth open and close; then her head moved downwards in a nod, and she stepped backwards into the room. Now he put the child down on the ground and, taking his hand, led him forward and into the dwelling. Inside, he looked down at his son and said, "Say how-do-you do and the child, holding out his hand to Cissie, looked up into her face and, in a voice that was almost as strange to her as to be foreign, said, " How- do-you-do, Ma'am? " And when the lady didn't make any reply, only held his hand tightly, he added, as he had been taught to do, " I hope you are well. " At this she slowly released his hand and looked at Clive, and he again said, uneasily now, " We were out for a walk;

I thought it would be a kind of introduction. "

"Yes." She moved up the room. Her eyes still on the child, but speaking to Clive, she said, "Will you take a seat?" And he went and sat down and he looked at the four little girls staring at the visitor and was about to say, "Wouldn't you like to play?" when he had the thought they could be verminous, but then dismissed the idea. She wasn't verminous--he'd lay his life on that--and she'd never allow them to be. He wondered in passing how she came to be so different from the types in the hamlets and villages; perhaps living up here in the clean raw bareness of the moor had something to do with it.

Whatever it was that had made the difference, he knew in his own mind that she was different, and for a moment he saw her dressed as Isabelle was dressed and visualized her beauty enhanced a thousand fold He also imagined she would be educable.

He said now to the child, "Would you like to play with the little girls, Richard?" And Richard, smiling broadly, said, "Oh yes. Papa."

He did not often have children to play with and this indeed was a surprise to him. When he held out his hand to Nellie, who was nearest to him in size, she glanced up at Cissie;

and Cissie nodded to her, and she took the boy's hand and allowed him to tug her down the room and out through the open door.

When the other children rushed after them, Cissie, as if just coming awake, flew to the door and cried at them, "Be careful! Play gentle.

And don't go away from the flat. Hear me now. " Then she turned into the room again and walked slowly to the table, and standing there, she said simply, " Thanks. "

"I ... I thought it better he should see you before the final arrangements were made. My solicitor tells me that it may take a week or two to find a house, but I would imagine you should be well installed before Christmas."

She now walked along the side of the table and, staring at him, her head shaking, she said, "I don't know what to say to you" ; and to this he answered, "There's no need to say anything. I... I have already told you why I'm doing this."

His eyes were looking straight into hers, and she lowered her lids and after a moment muttered, "I ... I was thinkin', what if he doesn't take to me? And ... and the change. What if he frets?"

"He's only a child, a baby; he's still young enough to forget about everything over there. And ... and he'll have young children to play with. This he has never had. His life is peopled with adults; it is not good for him."

"What... what does your father say?"

"He doesn't know yet."

"He'll never let it be." She moved her head slowly, and he answered, "He has no power to stop it. He himself saw to it that I recognized the child as mine, gave it my name, and am responsible for it. He's mine to do with what I will; and I will to hand him to his mother."

Again they were looking at each other; then again her lids shaded her eyes. She didn't know what to make of this man, who was young, yet not young. Only one thing she knew, and in a way this surprised her: she was no longer afraid of him. She didn't actually know what her other feelings were towards him, but she did know that she no longer stood in deep fear of him.

A silence fell between them, and he broke it by asking softly, "What is your name?"

She was for saying "Cissie," then she gave him the name by which she was christened and which she had never heard spoken but once, and that by her father:

"Cecilia."

"Cecilia." He inclined his head towards her, then said, "It's a beautiful name."

She felt the color rushing over her body, up her neck, and to her hair, and she had no power to suppress it, but as she looked into the eyes fixed hard on her, Matthew's warning came back to her; He's after something; they do nothing for nothing, people like him, not for the likes of you, they don't.

She turned slowly about and moved down the room to the door and looked at her son chasing the girls gleefully hither and thither on the flat rock terrace, and they were responding to him as if they had played with him all his life, and not just while he was in the cradle.

Clive now joined her, standing just behind and to the side of her. He glanced at the playing children for a moment, then brought his eyes onto her head to where the thick, brown plaits of hair were twisted to form a cap. And there came to him again the aroma from her body, and he knew that of all the things he had wanted in life, and of all the things he might want from life before he died, he would never want anything, or anyone, as much as he wanted this girl at this moment.

When she turned her head quickly towards him and said, "He ... he looks happy, he likes them," he said, "Of course, he likes them. I don't think you'll have anything to worry about." Then stepping past her, he called to the boy, saying, "Richard! RichardI Come here." And when the child came running to him, he said, "Let the lady see what a big fellow you are, how heavy you are." Then turning to Cissie, he added, "Lift him and see what a great boy he's grown into."

Cissie, stooping over her child, slowly put her arms about him and lifted him up; but when the child's face was close to hers she couldn't see it, and the breaking point came when the child's hands clasped her cheeks and his small voice said in concern, "Why are you weeping?" And, his own voice breaking, he turned to his father, saying, "Papal Papal the lady's weeping."

Clive took the child from Cissie's arms and with his hand on her shoulder he turned her about and pressed her gently through the open door into the room again. And the children gathered round the door and watched the unusual scene, and so no one noticed the two riders on the road at the bottom of the slope.

Isabelle had had an enjoyable day. She had brought down a number of birds and evoked the admiration of Arthur Bellingham. She had been pressed to stay to dinner at the Bellinghams' but had refused, as had her father; the nights drew in early and neither of them relished even a five-mile ride in the dark. Her father had gone on ahead some time ago, taking the high road back to the Hall, and she had been content to meander by side roads with young Bellingham, whose admiration afforded her some amusement, if nothing else.

They crossed farm land, taking the horses uncaringly over fields of turnips, then dropped down on to the narrow road that ran alongside the wall of the estate.

It was as they turned the bend in the road, and her head was back laughing at a weak quip her companion had made, that her eyes took in the huddle of stone buildings in the distance at the top of a slope, and the group of people standing in front of them.

It was the first time she had been on this road since she had returned home, but it was not the first time she had thought of the girl or the stone dwelling; and now there they both were, the girl, and that shanty, which she herself had tried to wreck, and . nol No! She must be imagining things, it must be a trick of the light, because that couldn't be dive and the child. He would never . NEVER1 She reined her horse in and stretched herself upwards in the saddle, and dearly now she saw her brother lift the child from the girl's arms and put his own arm about her and lead her into the place; and it was only young Belling ham voice that stopped her from bringing her horse round and taking it up the slope at a gallop.

"What is it," he asked, "squatters?" His horse was prancing and he brought it to her side, and when he looked at her he was amazed to see that her face was distorted with anger; yet at the same time he was pleased to note she had a feeling for land.

"Damn nuisance, all of them," he said.

"As Father said the other day, it wants a mighty brush to sweep the whole bang lot of them into the sea. He's right an' all, quite right, can't leave a yard of land open these days but they come up with some tin pot claim to it. You should get your father to enclose it."

She didn't enlighten him as to the fact that her father didn't own this land; she was concerned at the moment only that he hadn't recognized Clive over the distance, for had he done so the scandal would have swept the county like wildfire. She was already aware that he had a loose tongue and gloried in tidbits of scandal.

She surprised him still further by swinging her horse about and setting it into a gallop, and she didn't stop until she reached the North Lodge, through which she was just passing when he drew up with her. She turned in the saddle and said, "I'll likely see you tomorrow.

Good-bye," and on this she set the horse into a gallop up the drive, leaving him gaping after her.

She didn't slacken speed until she pulled up the animal on the gravel drive. Jumping from the saddle before the stable boy could reach her to take her foot, she ran up the steps and into the hall; and there she saw Hatton and demanded of him, "Where is His Lordship?" and Hatton, looking at her in some surprise, said, "I should imagine he he is taking his bath by now. Miss." Didn't she know that His Lordship took a bath immediately after returning from a shoot? He watched her tearing 08. her hat and gloves and throwing them aside together with her crop, as she crossed the hall; then he watched her lift up the dip-end of her riding skirt in no ladylike fashion and mount the stairs at a run.

When she reached her father's room she rapped on the door, which rapping indicated to His Lordship, who was immersed in his bath, that it was no servant outside. Thinking it was his son, he said to Cunningham, "If that is Master Clive admit him."

When Cunningham opened the door and saw Miss Isabelle standing there he immediately pulled it closed and allowed himself only a small aperture in which to stand.

"I wish to see His Lordship."

"I'm ... I'm sorry. Miss, but His Lordship is in his bath."

Cunningham's voice was a mere whisper, and for a moment he thought she was going to push past him. Then she said, "Tell His Lordship I must see him immediately ... immediately. Do you hear?" Then she raised her voice.

"It is very important." As a maid passed down the corridor she dropped her voice to a whisper, and, leaning towards Cunningham, she added, "Tell him it is to do with Master Richard."

"Yes, yes, Miss, I will do that."

"Tell him I will wait in his dressing room."

"But... but. Miss."

"Cunnings." Her tone was louder now.

"I will wait in his dressing room. Give His Lordship that message."

Cunningham realized that His Lordship could quite clearly hear the message and when he dosed the door it was to see his master getting out of the bath; and so, going hastily towards him and picking up the warm towek that hung on the rack to the side of the fire, he enveloped him in one of them, and, taking the other, he knelt down and dabbed at his legs and feet, saying hesitantly, "Miss Isabelle, m'Lord, she wishes to..."

"I heard. Cunnings. Be quick. There, that's enough. My robe."

Minutes later he opened the door into his dressing room, and he saw his daughter with an expression on her face that he hadn't seen since the day he raised his hand and slapped it. Yet the anger and venom in it weren't, he recognized, turned against himself now.

"What is it?"

he asked sharply.

"Clive." Her mouth was so dry that she had to wet her lips before she could go on.

"He's ... he's taken the child to that... that woman on the fells."

The muscles of his face seemed to drop, then contract sharply, "Whati" "I saw him as I was coming back. She ... she was holding Richard in her arms. He took him from her and" --now she bit on her lip"--he escorted her into that place, that shanty. And there were others about, children."

He looked closely at her and was about to say, "You're mistaken; you have become so obsessed with the child that you have dreamed this up," because he knew she was becoming obsessed with the child, even more so than himself, and he was aware that he was jealous of the child's affection for her. Although the child was not less pleased to see him now than before, he always wished her to accompany them on their walks, and was forever touching and fondling her, and she him. But about this happening she would have no illusion. Yet he must make sure. Stepping back, he opened the door and said, "Cunningsl" "Yes, Sir."

"Bring the nurse, immediately."

He watched his daughter striding up and down the room like someone demented and he said to her sharply, "Stop that prancing. If this is true then it has deeper implications."

"She is a low, wanton hussy." Isahelle, following her own train of thought, now took her fist and banged it against the top of the high-backed leather chair.

"She's scumi A harlot. After what happened she encourages him again."

"Be quietl Do you hear? Don't raise your voice. You don't know the ins and outs, the circumstances. On the two occasions I spoke with her she did not appear to me to be a loose creature; poor, common, ignorant, but I don't think immoral."

"How do you know? They live like vermin." She was bending towards him now, her aggressiveness aggravated by the fact that he should speak well of the girl in any way.

He said coldly, "Use your sense. She could not have approached him;

any advance would have been made by him. " He turned and, looking at Cunnihgham, who was standing in the doorway, said, " Yes? "

"The nurse, m'Lord."

He walked now into the bedroom to see the girl standing just within the doorway, her face white, her eyes wide.

"Where is your charge?"

"Mr.... Master Clive took him for a walk, m'Lord."

"At what time?"

"Shortly after two, m'Lord."

"Without having their dinner?"

"Master Clive ordered a light meal beforehand, m'Lord."

"Did he say where he intended to take the child?"

"No, m'Lord. I ... I thought it was just into the park. I... I've been waiting for them."

"Very well." He turned from the girl and she sidled out. Then looking through the doorway to his daughter, he said, "Go and change and meet me downstairs within the half-hour. If he hasn't returned, then be prepared to accompany me in the coach."

It was almost dark when he came across the sunken garden and mounted the steps to the drive, there to see a coach driving out from the stable yard, its lights blazing, and Hatton ushering his father and Isabelle through the house door and on to the terrace.

"Grandpapal Aunt Isabellel" The child bounced excitedly in his arms and made as if he wanted to be put down; but he held him tightly, saying, "Now, now. Wait until we get inside." He paused a moment at the bottom of the steps and through the lights held by the footmen he looked upwards and into his father's eyes, then watched him turn abruptly about and, pressing Isabelle before him, enter the house again.

When he went past Hatton, who was holding the door wide, he put the child down on the floor and, tapping his bottom, said, "Go with Hatton. Go on now." And the child stopped and looked to where his grandfather and aunt were walking away from him across the hall; then he looked again at his father, and when his father nodded at him, he held out his hand to Hatton, and Hatton walked him to the bottom of the stairs where he handed him to Mrs. Hat- ton. She took his hand and led him up the stairs to where the tearful nursemaid was standing, and he went with her. And there was no one to tell about the exciting adventure he had had with his papa because his nanny kept weeping all the time and would not listen. Everyone was weeping today.

In the study Clive looked at his father and Isabelle standing almost shoulder to shoulder, for once in complete harmony in their rage against him. He did not think they knew where he had been;

he thought their anger was occasioned by sheer fright at his having taken the child outside the precincts of his small world at a time when the cholera was known to be raging not only ,in Sunderland but also in Jarrow, which was much nearer home. But when his father, his voice trembling with his anger, said, "Explain yourself. Sir," he felt for the first time that the matter went deeper with them than the mere fact of his taking the child outside the gates. And then he had it, the explanation, because Isabelle, unable to contain herself any longer, spat at him, "How dare you? How dare you take the child to that filthy hovel?"

Oh. He nodded his head at her. So that was it. They knew. How it had come about he didn't know, but they knew. And in a way he was pleased because it had saved him thinking up a way to break the news to them.

Now his father was speaking, grinding out his words through his thin lips.

"Have you no decency, Sir? Have you no feeling for what is right and proper? Even after your four years' chastisement?"

Now it was dive's turn to rear. The twisted smile went from his lips, the grey of his eyes turned bottle- hard, and his voice was the deck voice, the voice of the first mate as he cried, "You, to talk of decencyi You, to talk of what is right and wrongi You took the child away from her by force...."

"That is a lie."

"All right then, you paid for it, but by playing on the feelings of a simple girl and her ignorance of law, you bought the child for two pocket handkerchiefs. Isn't that so, Sir? Not for twenty-five shillings a week, as you would have me believe, but for two pocket handkerchiefs that her sister stole. You saved her sister from the House of Correction and the payment for it was her son.... Don't talk to me of the correct thing to do, and decency. I raped the girl. You doled out punishment for my act but you couldn't erase it from my mind, for it's been with me ever since. And now I wish to atone for it. I am going to atone for it by giving her back the fruits of my sin--as I remember your words tor my act. Sir."

"You can't l You can't l You're mad." It was Isa- belle shouting at him now.

"I won't let you. The child is ..." and she substituted the word "father's" for "mine" and went rushing on, "He has looked after him, given him this environment; the child will die up there."

"He is not going up there; I am providing a home for his mother and him."

"No. No." The words were soft, quiet, as if from someone about to faint, and the look on His Lordship's face indicated that this could indeed happen at any moment; and the tone still quiet, he said, "You can't do this."

"Can't I? You were very anxious. Sir, that I should prove my right to the boy by making everything legal. I did just that. The boy is my responsibility, his life is mine to order; and after consideration I think the best place for him would be with his mother. The arrangements have been in motion for some time now; they should be settled within the next week. And you. Sir, can do nothing about it."

He turned his head.

"Nor you, my dear sister."

"You won't l You shan't! I won't allow it." She had stepped in front of him, her bust, that had once been as flat as a boy's, big now, was almost touching his coat. She was the termagant, domineering Isabelle that he remembered, out to make him fall in with her wishes, to frighten him into doing her will. But she was forgetting to take into account his four years' education on a sailing vessel; and when she now cried at him, "I'll see him dead before I'll let him go to that dirty, stinking whore," his forearm came out and, with a chopping movement, hit the top of her breasts and knocked her flying. It was only her father's arms that saved her from falling full length on the floor, and when he had steadied her his own rage was subdued by the sight of his son's blazing face. He didn't recognize him or the voice that cried at Isa- belle, "Don't you dare put that name to her! Huhl" He was bending forward, all his muscles taut, his voice coarse sounding and guttural as he cried, "On your own admission you're worse than any whore. You encouraged the antics of the parson and his straying hands, or you wouldn't have let it go on for four years. And you enjoyed torturing Aunt Anne. You've been unnatural all your life. You've only been saved from the pillory or worse because you were born in this house, and I'm sick in my stomach when I think I was in the same womb as you."

Isabelle was standing alone now. Her father had taken his support from her when his brother-in-law's name had been mentioned, and now he stood apart as if from the whole concern, looking first at his son and then at his daughter; and the thought that he had tried to bury rose again: Why had he been plagued with such offspring?

"ENOUGH!"

His voice seemed to shudder the walls. There followed a heavy, telling silence, and it was finally broken by dive turning abruptly and stalking out of the room.

His Lordship now walked around his desk and sat down. He felt very tired, old, ineffectual, useless. The only human being he had ever really loved in his life was to be taken from him and he could do nothing about it. And that's what he said when his daughter, leaning over the desk towards him, asked between short, hard breaths, "What are you going to do?"

"There is little we can do; in fact, nothing."

"There must be something." So far was she leaning across the desk that her face was on a level with his, and he saw again, as he looked into her eyes, the face he had struck, and he wanted to put out his hand and push it from him, far, far away. Once again he wanted to push both of them far away, away out of his life.

What peace he had experienced during the past few years in this house, just the child and him. Happiness had pervaded the place, the workings inside and out had gone without a hitch. The child, he thought, had cast a spell over all his domain. He certainly had tempered his own attitude towards the peasantry, for he had made work for extra hands on his estate, he had given liberally to the charities in both Jarrow and Shields, and he knew that his generosity had kept the soup kitchens going for two winters. All this since the child had come into his life. And now he was to go back from where he had come.

"Isn't there any legal way? He is your heir once removed."

"Yes, once removed. That is the crux of the matter;

once removed. As things stand his father has legal right to him, and he is of age. " His tone was full of regret and he made a sound in his throat.

"And I was the one who insisted upon this. And you, too" --he moved his head towards her"--were all tor having legal recognition.

Well, we got what we desired, we got legal recognition for the boy--and this is the result. "

She moved away from the desk holding her face in both her hands now.

He watched her walk the length of the room twice before stopping near the table on which a lamp stood, and when she took her hand and passed it over the tall glass funnel, which emitted quite a severe heat, he felt himself shudder.

She walked back to the desk and, her voice more controlled and her body straight now, she said, "If you can do nothing legally, what can you do illegally?"

He remained still. The suggestion disturbed him but he did not refute it. Then, her face close to his again, she whispered, "I... I could take him away."

He got sharply to his feet, saying, "No, no. That would be ridiculous, and fruitless."

"Then what do you suggest? That he should just walk out of here with the child and hand him to that creature?"

As he moved to the fire and stood looking down into it she said, "I once heard Mr. Bellingham making a statement about land. Fence it in, he said, enclose it, and let them fight it out from there. Possession is nine points of the law."

He turned and looked at her. Possession is nine points of the law. It the boy were out of reach for a time then Clive might be brought to his senses through cool argument and discussion, not in heated passion as had happened tonight. Of course he could take the matter to court under the heading of abduction, or kidnapping, but he didn't think that his son would do this, for he imagined that underneath the crude shell that his four years of voyaging had built round him, there must still remain the indolent, sensitive creature, who would take the line of least resistance and would be open to reason. He sighed now and said, "We'll discuss this further tomorrow. In the meantime, stay with the boy as much as possible, and should Clive show any sign of carrying out his threat you will, of course, inform me at once ... and," he added, "make the necessary arrangements with the nurse." He then made a motion with his head and turned from her, and she went quickly from the room.

Ten minutes later, standing before her dressing table mirror, she picked up a strand of white silk cord that was used for binding her hair before it was dressed, and slowly she began to pull out single threads as if she were drawing sinews from a body.

He had been into Newcastle and heard from Mr. Weir that they had procured a house for him on the outsldrts of the town with a very pleasing aspect towards Denton Burn. Fortunately, as it happened, the owner was taking up a post in India and the house would be vacant at the end of the week, and although it wasn't usual that a new owner should occupy the premises until all matters were settled, Mr. Weir had arranged that his client should take possession right away. He also went on to state that all the furniture was to be disposed of and suggested that Clive should look at it with a view to purchase.

When Clive saw the contents of the house he said he would take everything as it stood. The furniture was more solid than tasteful, but then, he imagined, it would be more durable under the rough handling of children. The house, as Mr. Weir had pointed out, was very pleasantly situated and he saw its isolation as no drawback. There were three reception rooms, a quite sizeable hall, and offices; four bedrooms and dressing rooms on the first floor, and tour attic rooms on the second floor. There was a stable yard bordered by a coach house and two loose boxes. It was a small but very desirable residence. He complimented Mr. Weir on his choice.

Later, as he rode along the Gallowgate through the Bigg Market and the Groat Market and through the comparatively new Collingwood and Dean Streets which sported flag pavements and whose shops had display glass windows, he thought, I'll bring her and show her it all. I doubt if she's ever seen the shops in 280 l the city, and she must be dressed. Yes, before she takes up residence she must be dressed.

He went to the Club, but only for a meal; and his drinking was moderate because he knew he must keep a clear head. He had an odd feeling that there was something afoot in the House; things were too quiet, his father too studiously polite, Isabelle too controlled, but not so controlled that she could cover her hate of him. But this did not trouble him too much.

He had come into the city on horseback and he had already traveled two-thirds of the return journey when he left the main road, took the side road that led to Rosier's village, then mounted the open fells.

He gazed about him as he rode. The sky was low, seeming to rest in the distance on the hillocks. The ground in parts was hard and slippery under the horse's feet, while in others the animal had to plough through quagmires almost up to its knees. This, he told himself, was the scene that she looked upon all winter, had looked upon for many winters, and had survived and brought her young family through to survive. And there was now joined to the uncontrollable secret feeling she created in him a deep admiration for her.

When he reached the habitation there was no one in sight, and when he knocked on the door there was no answer, and he knew a keen disappointment. But just as he was about to ride away she came up the slope from the track below. She was wearing a fawn shawl with a pink fringe; it was the first time he had seen her in a light color and it enhanced her. She was carrying a wicker basket in which there were various articles of grocery, and round her were the four children, and each of them was carrying something, large and small.

He led his horse forward and she slowed her step when he came up with her, and the children sprang away as the horse flung its head up and down and snorted loudly. He said haltingly, "I ... I was just passing. I have some news I thought to give you."

"Yes, Sir." She moved her head towards him, then followed the children towards the dwelling where they stood waiting for her round the door.

Taking a large iron key from the pocket of her skirt, she inserted it in the lock; and as the children went inside she said to Sarah, "Here, take this," and handed her the basket. Then she turned and looked at him again.

He was standing by his horse's head now and smiling gently at her.

After a moment he said, "You told me your name was Cecilia." He made a little moue with his mouth, and leaned his head slightly to the side before he added, "Well, mine is Clive."

She gave no answering smile in return, nor did she speak, but once again a heat spread over her body and her face Hushed, Clive, he had said. She would as soon have thought of calling God "Bill" as calling this young man by his Christian name. Her feelings at the moment were strange to her for they were a mixture of excitement, wonderment, and fear, yet the latter was no longer connected with him.

He said quickly, "I have found a house. It is very pleasing. It is partly timbered, and isolated somewhat, being in the country, but the aspect all around is beautiful. In six days' time it will be vacant. I wonder it you would care to accompany me and view it before you take up residence there?"

He was speaking to her as he would to one of his own class. He talked of going to view, not having a look, and taking up residence, not going to live there.

When she hung her head he said, "What is it?" and she replied quietly, "I'm troubled."

He took a step nearer to her, still holding the horse's bridle, and said, "Why? Why are you troubled?"

She looked up into his face and if she had spoken the truth she would have said, "Because Matthew was here last night and got into a rage and called me a fool."

"Ask yourself," he had said.

"Have you ever known any of his kind do one good turn without expecting something back? Even their feeding of the poor in the winter is just to keep them going because they'll need them come spring and summer on the land." Then he had taken her by the shoulders and, looking deeply into her eyes, said Hatly, "Sit quietly, Cissie, and ask yourself one question. Why is this fellow, who will one day be lord of the Hall, giving you his son, the son who he tells you he has claimed as legally his? Why? I'll tell you why. Because once you are in that house he'll be free to come and go. You can't stop him seeing his son because if you did he'd whip him away again. You'd be his kept woman, and that's how you'll be looked on in any case if you take his money and his house." He had ended by pleading, "Do as I say and let it be me who'll get you a place out of this." She had turned on him then crying, "It doesn't matter if I'm classed as your kept woman! As it is, you've made me name like darts, and I can't go even as far as the wood now but I see your wife watching me. Kept womani That's what she thinks I am, your ... your kept woman. It I go to his house I have the baim, if I go to yours I don't. And" --she had ended finally"--I want me baim."

He was waiting for an answer and she said softly, "It'll be a strange arrangement."

"Oh no." His voice was airy.

"There's nothing strange about it. You will be living in your own house with your own income. I can assure you everything is being done legally and proper. A temporary deed is being drawn up until the papers of register are ready, then they will be sent to you and no one will trouble you further. For myself, I am, as I have told you, returning to sea. I may be away for months, or years, but I would, naturally, at the end of a voyage like to see my son, and with your leave I will call upon you then. That will be all."

At the end of a voyage, and with your leave I will call upon you then. It sounded so strange, yet quite above board. No smell of the kept woman was indicated by these words.

"Look," he now said with quiet persuasion, "let me call upon you tomorrow, and I will take you to see the house. At least the exterior, as the tenants won't be moving out until the end of the week. I will also take you to my solicitor and he will immediately put at your disposal the income you are to have in the future.... Then perhaps you might want to look at the shops." He did not mention clothes, he would leave that to her, at least for the time being.

There was a long pause before she said quietly, "Thank you."

"That's settled then. Can you be ready about ten o'clock in the morning? Or is that too early?"

"No" --she shook her head"--it's not too early." Not for someone who usually rose with the dawn no matter what time of day it came.

"Till tomorrow then." He bowed slightly towards her, and as he gathered the reins into his hand and prepared to mount she said hastily, "Your ... your father. What does he say now?"

He did not turn his face fully to her as he answered, "He is naturally against it. It could not be otherwise." And on this he mounted the horse, inclined his head downward and rode off.

His father was surprisingly civil to him at dinner. He opened the conversation with the shoot he had arranged for the week ahead, starting the next day. He spoke of his friend Bellingham, and suggested that he was likely to get better bags on the Houghton Estate than he had garnered from his own during the past week, the shortage of birds being put down to the activities of the poachers. He said he would be going out early in the morning and inquired if Clive would be accompanying him; and to this Clive're 5

plied politely that he was sorry but he had made arrangements to go into town. His Lordship had expressed regret but said there was always another day.

This conversation had taken place while the servants were waiting on the table; and although Clive knew his father was a stickler for etiquette and decorum, there had been many times, even since his return home, when, for much less reason than he had now, he had sat through the entire meal in silence.

Isabelle's attitude towards him was more comprehensible for she exchanged no word with him, excusing herself immediately after the meal was over and leaving the dining room. And he did not find her in the drawing room when he later went there; nor did he see her for the rest of the evening, and this he could understand.

The following morning he arrived downstairs in time to see the servants dispersing after prayers. He sat down to breakfast with his father and was not reprimanded for not having observed the rules of the house. But there was no small talk this morning and the meal was passed in silence; and when Isabelle did not put in an appearance there was no remark made on her absence.

Just before the meal ended he said, "I would like to use the second coach; would that be in order?" And to this his father replied, as it the request had surprised him, "Oh yes. Yes, certainly."

Excusing himself, he left the table and in the hall he said to the third footman, "Kindly tell Bowmer I will be needing the second coach immediately."

He went up the stairs and onto the landing, and from there he saw Isabelle and her maid leave her room at the end of a corridor and mount the stairs to the nursery Hoor. She had not seen him, and he stopped and stared at her. She was not dressed for a shooting party but in a green corded costume suitable for traveling. The maid, too, was dressed for a your e they, and across her arm she was carrying her mistress's cloak.

He walked slowly towards his sister's bedroom and, gently opening the door, glanced in. The room was orderly, there was no sign of luggage or of a quick departure. Still moving slowly, he ascended the nursery stairs, and, on reaching the landing from which six doors led off, he walked quietly to the day nursery, and with a jerk he threw open the door and startled the nurse and the child.

The child recovered quickly and cried, "Oh! Papa. Are you coming for a walk with us?" and Clive, going to him where he sat dressed, except for his coat and bonnet, touched his hair, saying, "Not this morning, tomorrow perhaps. Yes, tomorrow surely."

At this the maid made a queer sound in her throat and he turned and looked at her. Her face was red and she started to cough. It was a choking cough, and he said to her, "Take a drink of water," and she turned from him and fled into the other room. And he stared after her for a moment, then walked quickly to the night nursery door and threw this open too, but it did not reveal his sister and her maid.

He came back to the child who, staring up into his face, said, "Papa, can I whisper?" and Clive, bending his ear down dose to the smiling mouth, said, "Yes;

what do you want to whisper? " And the boy in a conspiratorial manner, as if he were aware that this was a thing to be discussed between them alone, said, " When will I be able to play with the little girls again.

Papa? " Looking tenderly at him, his hand fondled his son's long curls, Clive said, " Soon, my son; quite soon. Be a good boy until I return.

Goodbye. "

"Good-bye, Papa."

Out on the landing, he looked towards the other doors. If he opened them and found her there what would he say? She was at liberty to take a drive without sanction from him. As he stood staring, her maid emerged from the staircase that led to the servants' quarters.

She stopped when she saw him and her agitation almost equaled that of the nurse.

Thoughtfully now he returned to his room, donned his cloak and hat, inserted a handkerchief into the cuff of his coat, and put a bag of sovereigns into his hip pocket; then -he went out and down the main staircase, across the hall, and on to the drive.

There he stood for a moment and looked up at the sky. It was high with great billowing white clouds going before the wind. As he brought his head down his eyes slid to the side, attracted by a movement in the window of his father's study, but when he turned and looked at it fully there was no one there.

In the stable yard he saw Morris fully dressed, and he thought it strange that his father should have ordered Morris to drive the second coach for there was strict protocol as to which groom drove which carriage. Then Bowmer came from the stables leading the two bays and the second coach, and he doffed his hat and said, "Good-morning Sir.

It's all ready. "

"Morning, Bowmer. By the way, is the first coach being used today?"

Bowmer seemed to hesitate for a moment, then said quietly, "Yes, Sir."

"Who is using it? I understood His Lordship was going to the shoot."

"I... I don't rightly know. Sir; I only know Morris got his orders last night to stand by."

Clive stared at the man. Morris got his orders last night to stand by?

His father was going to the shoot, and Isabelle was ready for a journey where? And this he put to the coachman, "Do you know where the carriage is bound tor?"

Bowmer seemed uneasy and his reply came, hesitant, "No, Sir." He looked at Clive through kindly eyes. He liked the young master and he knew there was business afoot to do him down. He might have strange ways but he was more human than anybody else in the house. He said now, slowly, "I only know, Sir, that the extra luggage rack has been put on the back." He held the young master's eyes until Clive said, "Thank you, Bowmer," before walking to the carriage door. Bowmer jerked forward and opened it for him, and as he closed it Clive put his head near the window and said in an undertone, "Stop the carriage when you're two-thirds down the drive, say, near the cypress walk."

The coachman nodded, then muttered, "Very well, Sir," after which he mounted the box and drove the horses over the cobbled yard on to the main drive and turned them right in the direction of the South Lodge.

Dutifully, three minutes later Bowmer drew the carriage to a halt and Clive, alighting, said, "Wait here. I'll be back." Then turning, he walked at a brisk pace up the drive until the bend brought him within sight of the house. Here he stopped, and, standing on the grass verge against the shelter of an evergreen hedge, he saw the coach drawn up below the steps. He saw the servants hurrying down it with cases of luggage; then he saw the nursemaid and Isabelle's own maid descend the steps, and in each hand they carried a valise, and behind them came Isabelle and his father with the child between them.

The ground was flying away under his feet. He had reached the corner of the house before they came to the last step, and when they saw him surging towards them they stopped, but just tor a second. Then Isabelle, grabbing the child up into her arms, dashed to the coach.

But she had only managed to thrust the boy inside before she was torn from the doorway and suffered the indignity of stretching her length on the gravel.

By the time they had picked her up he had the boy out of the carriage and in his arms. But he said not a word. The servants were all staring at him with their mouths agape and keeping their distance. His father,

his face almost ashen, was leveling on him a look that was both shamefaced and condemning, but Isabelle's glare could be described by only one word: murderous.

He turned now, his eyes searching for the nurse, and when he found her cowering by the tail end of the coach, he cried at her, "Your master's luggage immediately," and like someone hypnotized she brought the two bags she was still hanging on to and dropped them at his feet; then, going to a rack at the back, she pointed a trembling finger at a trunk, and the coachman hastily lifted it down and put it on the ground.

The child, sensing a hostile atmosphere, now began to whimper and Clive patted his back. Then glaring at the coachman, he barked at him in a manner that brooked no hesitation on his part, it did not even allow him to glance at His Lordship for leave to carry out the order, "Get this luggage down to my coachi You'll find it down near the Lodge gates." He now gave one last look at his father but did not deign to glance in his sister's direction before he strode away still patting the child, who was crying aloud now.

He had gone only a few yards from the seemingly mesmerized group when Isabelle, pulling herself from the support of the stone balustrade, raced after him and, clutching wildly at his arm, cried, "You can't do this! You can't! You won't get away with it."

When he continued to walk on she kept by his side, spitting abuse at him until they reached the head of the drive, when she hissed under her breath, "If you take him from us I'll kill her. I swear to you I'll kill her."

At this he pulled up and, dragging his arm from her grasp, said idly, "That would avail you nothing:

you would merely be signing your own death warrant. " And at that he left her. But her threat went with him, for, knowing his sister, he was aware that she never thought of the consequences of her actions;

e she just acted. A panicking fear filled him, and he knew that he must get the girl away from that habitation as soon as was humanly possible.

Within minutes they were bowling through the gates, and twenty minutes later Clive rapped on the roof of the coach, and when it came to a stop he got out, and lifting the child in his arms he said to Bowmer, "Bring the small valises and follow me. I will come back and help you with the trunk."

"Yes, Sir." Dutifully Bowmer picked up the two bags and followed the young master up the slope;

and when they reached the top of it he could not believe his eyes when he saw the place for which they | were making. As he later said to Morris, "I was with him all the way, I still am, but I think he's gone off his rocker to leave the child in that hole, whether she's his mother or not."

The door opened as they were crossing the flat and Cissie appeared, dressed in a clean serge skirt and shirtwaist, over which she was wearing the fawn shawl, which she only just saved from falling from her shoulders to the ground when she saw him striding towards her carrying the child and a young fellow in livery following with bags.

When Clive, walking past her into the room, said to the man, "Wait outside, I'll be with you in a moment," she looked from him to the child who was standing now by his side but still whimpering, his face tear-stained, and she whispered, "What's happened?"

He replied simply, "They tried to abduct him. It I hadn't suspected that something was afoot this morning they would have got away with it." He drew in a long breath.

"Now listen, and listen carefully. You can move into the house on Monday, or Tuesday--the present owners will be gone by then--but in the meantime keep the child with you, don't let him out of your sight."

She shook her head as she said, "But what if they should come? What if he should send servants to take him?"

His answer to this was quiet and firm.

"They won't do that. I'm going back to the house now and after what I have to say to them I can assure you they won't do that."

And in his own mind he was sure that after he had told them what the result of any precipitate action of theirs towards her would evoke, they would be forced to hold their hand.

The idea for the deterrent had come to him during the drive from the gates to this place, but it was an idea which, although only formulated within the last hour, had, he knew, been there for days past, weeks in fact, just waiting to be hatched out. And this morning's business had firmly chipped the shell.

He said now, "I'll be back and forward during the next few days just in case, but I don't think you have any need to worry. But do as I say, don't let him out of your sight. And it would be wise not to go far afield." He glanced about him, then asked, "Where are the other children?"

"They're out gathering... getting wood."

"Oh." His chin jerked upwards. Then he said with a forced smile, "Well, from Monday onwards there'll be no more need for them to go wood gathering."

It was odd, but she had thought the very same thing that morning, and she had been about to stop them when from habit they took the sacks and went out, but then she had said to herself, it'll keep them busy.

She had given them instructions with regard to their dinner and about locking the door once they were back.

She looked at the child. He was staring up at her, one finger in his mouth, his eyes still bright with tears, and she dropped on to her hunkers spontaneously in front of him and said, "There now, there now.

Let me take your coat off. " And when his hand came out and slapped her and his small high voice cried at her, " Nol no! I want Nanny," it was as if a knifed had been thrust through her ribs.

"Richardi Richardi That is rude. You must not be rude or insolent.

Look at me, Richard. " He caught at the boy's hand. Then pointing towards Cissie, he said, " You remember your mama who you thought was in heaven? Well, she did not go to heaven. This lady, Richard. " He now wagged his finger towards Cissie.

"Papa! Papal" The tears were raining down the child's face now, the voice a whimper, and Clive shook his arm impatiently and said, "Listen to me. Don't interrupt when I'm talking. This lady...." But it was Cissie who interrupted him now. Looking at the child's gently stamping feet and shaking legs, she said almost in a laugh, "It's all right, it's all right," then whipping him up, she took him into the cave, and there, pulling a bucket from the corner, she lifted up his dress and petticoats and let him relieve himself.

When he was finished she adjusted his clothes and he stared at her solemnly, and she took his hand and they went into the other room. But it was empty, and she saw through the open door Clive and the servant carrying the trunk up the slope.

The trunk, she saw, was bigger than their clothes chest and she marveled that any one child could have so many clothes.

When Clive said in a formal manner, "I must away, but I will return shortly," and in the same manner took his son's hand, saying, "Be a good boy," the child said, "May I come too. Papa?" And he replied, "Not this time, I'll be back in a little while;

you stay with your. " He looked towards Cissie, then towards the open door, outside which Bowmer was standing, and added, " Stay with this lady, I won't be long. " And nodding at Cissie, he ended, " He'll be all right; he'll get used to it. " Then he was gone.

She had to stop the child from running after him;

and again Richard slapped at her hands, then backed from her until he came up to the rock wall, and, hia lower lip trembling, began to cry loudly now.

As the coach turned into the road where the milestone was and the land sloped away to a valley bottom, Clive saw a group of riders in the far distance, and he knew them to be the Bellingham party coming for the shoot. He gauged he would have five minutes' grace in which to speak to his father and Isabelle before their arrival. And so, putting his head out of the window, he called to Bowmer to speed the animals.

The lodge keeper showed his surprise at seeing him back so soon, but even more so did Hatton when Clive entered the hall and demanded, "Where is His Lordship?"

"In... in the drawing room. Sir."

When he walked into the drawing room he saw that not only his father was there, but Isabelle too. And it seemed significant to him that his father was seated while Isabelle was standing, but they both held brandy glasses in their hands.

Their surprise outdid Hatton's. It brought his father slowly up from his chair and caused Isabelle to take a step forward while putting down her glass on a side table.

He did not keep them waiting for him to give the reason for his quick return. He said, "The child is now with its mother and I want to inform you, in fact, impress upon you, that should either of you attempt to take him from her care, or" --he now looked directly at his sister"--do her an injury in any way, I will take action which will, by way of embarrassment, make the present situation pale. And my action will be simply this: I shall marry her ... and quickly. So, think on it seriously and consider whether you want her for the future Lady Fischel, because before God I

will do as I say. And I may tell you it would be pleasing to me, for she is naturally beautiful and can be made to fit the situation.

Clothes will change her outward appearance; her mind can be educated;

it has been done before. I think you will remember that my great-grandfather adopted this measure with his second wife. "

Neither of them spoke, they just stared at him, glared at him, and on the point of turning from them, he said formally, and speaking directly to his father, "The person in question cannot take up residence in her new home until Monday or Tuesday, so until such time I will avail myself of your hospitality, Sir, so as to be near... the child."

As his hand touched the door handle his father's voice came like an arrow at him, saying, "Clivel" And when he turned towards him again he saw that his father was finding difficulty in speaking, for he ran his tongue over his thin lips and swallowed deeply before bringing out, "In the meantime, may I ask you to consider bringing the child back here? I promise you there will be no further effort made to take him away, but I cannot think of him living in that habitation."

"Thank you. Sir, but I think no. I should not worry about his health, for I understand there has been a large family brought up in that habitation and they all look quite well, considering.... But I don't think ..." here he paused before going on, "I don't think there would be any difficulty if you would wish to visit the child and its mother at a later date." And on this he went out and closed the door, and as he did so he heard the shooting party come up the steps, and he made quickly for the stairs and his room.

Three events tended towards the climax. The first was that His Lordship told Clive the following morning that if he was staying in his household, for whatever length of time, then he must conform to its standard, and it would be courteous if he joined the shoot, especially as his sister was indisposed.

What his words really meant was that his son's appearance at the shoot would dilute yet another scandal which was being laid on his house.

The second event was that Isabelle, presumably confined to her room with a cold, was drinking heavily. Her father being out, she ordered the decanter to be brought up to her, and such was her standing in the house now that Hatton couldn't disobey her command.

It did not need brandy to inflame her fury. She drank in the hope that it might dull it and blot from her mind the face of that detested girl. In her brain- heated musings she looked back down the years but could see no further than the day when she had caught the boy with the trap and had struggled with the girl and come off the worse. It was from that day her life had begun; it was from that day that her turbulent nature, out to conquer and domineer, had been challenged.

The girl had fallen as a seed into the fertile soil of hate that lay deep within her, and in which sooner or later someone would have embedded himself. But it had to be this girl, who sprang from the lowest form of the working class, the agricultural laborer.

Not the least part of her hate was made up by a sense of indignity that she, the daughter of a lord, should have found that, for years now, some part of her day had been taken up with the thoughts of this creature. And now she must suffer the greatest indignity of all, for the girl not only had charge of the child, but she had gained the love of her brother, her twin brother. He had said he would marry her, and she believed him. Oh yes, she believed him, tor the desire for her was in his eyes, the need of her was in his tone when he spoke her name. At this point she took her empty glass and flung it with all her force at the iron framework of the fireplace, and it shivered into a thousand fragments and brought the maid running to the dressing room door, standing there with her hand to her mouth exclaiming, "Oh, Miss! Oh, Missi" "Get awayl" she cried at the girl; she then added, "Bring another glass." She stood up and walked to the window. She was quite steady on her feet. The home brew that her uncle had made had been quite potent and had seasoned her. Her thoughts flashed to him for a moment and she muttered aloud, "Parsonsi Stills in the cellar, and whores in the vestry."

When her maid brought the glass she helped herself to another measure of brandy, and stood sipping it while she looked out onto the grey day. The sky was heavy and low, there was a feeling in the air that spelled snow. She wanted to get out, ride, walk; she wanted movement.

Why shouldn't she join the shoot? She could say her cold was better.

She put her hand out flat against the window pane and watched the heat from her fingers outline them on the glass, and when she took her hand away she didn't move until the last fragment of steam had evaporated and the outline was no more. Her thinking brought her round almost with a jump and she was crying to the maid, "Robsoni Come her el Robsoni" And when the girl came hurrying into the room, she said, "My riding habit, and quick now. Quick!" And as the girl ran to the wardrobe to get the habit she started to unhook her own clothes to aid the process.

The third incident took place at the mill. Matthew had just returned on horseback from Benham. As he entered the main yard he saw Straker come scurrying through the door from the house yard and at the same time he noticed that the horse was still harnessed to the flour dray, and he knew without even having to guess that Straker, who had been out delivering, had just now also delivered a bit of little-tattle to the mistress.

Matthew was well aware that Straker, for various reasons, didn't like him--the main one being that he was now master of the mill, whereas before he had been little more than a hand like himself. Another reason was that he had chewed him off one day when he brought him a bit of gossip, and had told him that if he spent less time jabbering to the customers his journeys would be shorter and he would have more time for work. This was the day for delivery at the Hall and by the looks of things he had brought back a piece of gossip that had warranted no delay before being passed on.

He glanced in the mill and saw that William and Joe were busy on the threshing floor and he called to William to get the store cart ready and harness the horse; then he went into the house.

Rose was busy at the table, and Peggy, a woman from Brockdale village, was on her knees whitening the hearth. As he passed through the kitchen he turned his head in Rose's direction, saying, "I'm going to change, an' I'd like a bite." But he didn't immediately make for the stairs; instead he went along the passage to the office, and he had hardly closed the door behind him when it was opened again, and she came into the room and repeated his words, "Going to change. An' you'd like a bite." Then she added, "And where you off to the day?"

"It's Friday, isn't it, the second in the month? I'm going into Newcastle, of course, to the bank, and then on to the chandler's."

"There now," she said mockingly, her two fists thrust into the hollows of her broad hips.

"It's only twelve o'clock. You've never left the house afore one on a Friday for Newcastle."

"Aye, that's true enough, but I've just managed to get there on the bank closin'. I'm going earlier the day so I don't have to rush. Now what have you got to say about that?"