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Moreover, they possessed a sense of humour and here and there a gift of wit. They were whole in mind and body. But they were gillyvors, bastards, and in the sight of God, full of sin inherited from their parents. "

Nathaniel now walked down the length of the room and stood near the window that looked on to the frost-coated vegetable garden, and he said, "You know, I'm really of a mild nature, Maria, you know that, but on the day when I came out of the meeting in that vestry I was so burnt up with righteous indignation and rage that, just as Anna said she had the desire to hit out at that woman this morning, well, I wanted to lash out; and on that day I could see myself flailing those so-called men of God, all except our dear Reverend Mason. Anyway, his letter says the matter is settled and I go in tomorrow to propose a date." He turned from the window now and came back to her, and he was smiling as he added, "Do you think they'll arrange the service for midnight?"

She looked up at him and, answering his half- smile, she said, "Could be, if they want the devil there."

"Oh, my dear." He pulled her up towards him, saying now, "There is a God. I know there is, although I feel at times he is blindly furious at what goes on down here among his so-called Christian community.

Anyway, let's forget ourselves; at least, let me forget myself for a moment and talk about what's going to happen to our beautiful daughter.

I mean, how she is to get work anywhere near enough for her to travel home? Fellburn is out of the question. Gateshead Fell is not much better;

the righteous are there too. There's only Newcastle. She could manage that on the cart in the clement weather, but in the winter, no way could she make that journey. "

"Nat, leave Anna's future to take care of itself; I've got a feeling it will. I've always had a strange feeling about our eldest daughter. I've no such worries about Cherry. But about Anna, somehow I think her future's already written down in the book.

"

He stared into her face for a moment before he said, "You're a witch; so who dare cross a witch! "

"Yes; remember that, Nathaniel Marten. Odd that' she turned her head to the side and she smiled'I'll become Maria Marten. Sounds nice. Yes'

she nodded " I could grow to like it. "

He slapped her playfully on the cheek, then went out.

When Nathaniel crossed the yard towards the barn where the children were playing with a skipping rope, they stopped when they saw him and moved together almost into a huddle, and he went to them, saying, "Give me the end of that rope." After a moment's pause one of them picked up the end of the rope from the ground and, slowly approaching, handed it to him.

"There now, you take the other end and we'll see what the rest can do.

Come on with you. "

When the rope was swinging, he cried at them, "Come on! You can skip."

Then he went into the children's rhyme his pupils of years past had sung:

All in together, girls;

Never mind the weather, girls;

Lift your toes and then your heels, Skip high or you'll coup your creels. "

Apparently this was known to the children, for they took it up, and their giggles and laughter brought the two women from the far end of the barn to stare in open-mouthed amazement at their benefactor. This kind man, whom they'd heard for years described as the fellow in Heap Hollow who had bred a family of bastards had, to their surprise, turned out to be a gentleman. Their men said so, so he must be. Then one of them happened to turn her head and look towards the wood, with the result that she nudged her companion hard with her elbow, saying, "Oh, look out for squalls. Look who's coming. Oh, he'll put a lid on it."

The other woman now looked towards the approaching man and cried to the children, "Leave go! and come on in, all of you. Come on in!"

When, startled, they obeyed her, one of the women cried to Nathaniel,

"See who's coming, mister!"

Nathaniel looked towards the man fast approaching him; then he turned to where the women were hustling the children through the open barn doors and said, "It'll be all right. Don't worry, it'll be all right."

He did not, however, go forward to meet the man but walked towards the house, and was standing by his front door when Howard Praggett came to a puffing standstill about a yard from him.

"You know who I am," he began straightaway, 'and I know who you are, and you know why I'm here, don't you? "

"No, Mr. Praggett; I have no idea why you're here. It is your first visit. Would you care to come in?"

"You can drop your politeness, mister. I know all about you and your tongue. I'm going to put it to you plainly;

you're breaking the law, you know, in housing that scum. " He jerked his head towards the barn.

"I will answer the second part of your accusation first, Mr.

Praggett.

I object to the word "scum" I am housing two miners and their families because you have turned them out of their cottages and they have nowhere to go but the open moor, on which at least the children would soon have perished. Now, as for the law, what is the name of this law I am breaking? "

Howard Praggett thrust his head first one way and then the other from the band of his collarless reefer-coat before he said, "They are criminals, agitators, rioters."

"If that is so, why aren't they in the House of Correction? Why haven't they been called up before a magistrate?"

The man's face had become suffused with a purple tinge and again his head jerked from side to side before he said, "You think you're a clever bugger, don't you? But wait until Mr. Raymond ... Mr. Raymond Brodrick gets back from London. He'll point out laws to you. And he'll have them into the House of Correction for inciting workmen to riot, as those two did last night in the dark, going from one house to another, trying to bring the men out... when they're quite happy and know they've got a square deal. Aye, you can sneer and laugh, but they're eatin' and they're housed and their hairns are shod."

"Oh, that surprises me. Three of those children back there are barefoot and Nathaniel's tone now lost its bantering and became bitter as he ground out, "You say they can eat and they're housed. Do you know I'd insult a pig by placing it in one of those mud-floored, stinking hovels that you call houses for the men. And the stench from that pit village can be smelt for miles. I considered Rosier's was bad enough, but your place can beat it. Now I'll bid you good day, Mr. Praggett. And you can tell your master, when he returns from the big city, exactly what I have said. You can also tell him that my barn will be open to any other of his men you decide to victimise."

The man stepped back from him as if in order to stretch his arm out and give room to his wagging finger. In a tone of voice that sounded almost like that of an hysterical woman, he cried, "And your daughter will be out of a job. I'll see to that. She'll be one less for you to live on."

As Nathaniel raised his arm, fists clenched, Maria's voice cried out from the open doorway, "No/ Nat. No! Don't!"

Praggett backed away from him, shouting, "If you start that, you'll get the worst of it. I could knock you flat because you've never done a decent day's work in your life. Flabby bastard!"

Maria was now gripping Nathaniel's arm, whispering "Let him go. Let him go. It would only mean trouble."

They remained close together until the scurrying figure disappeared around the foot of the hill.

"Don't let it upset you. Come on inside. You're cold, I've made a drink."

Inside the house, Nathaniel slowly lowered himself down into a chair and, resting his elbows on the table, he dropped his head onto his palms, muttering as he did so, "He'll make trouble."

"Well, we're used to that. As for sacking Cherry, his wife will have something to say on that point and she'll likely emphasise her words with the frying pan."

He raised his head and looked up at her.

"That's what they must all be thinking, that I'm living on the children's wages."

"That's ridiculous. They'll know, as they seem to know everything about us, that you do coaching for the children of two of the best families in the town."

"They'll forget about that." He sighed now as he said, "It's been a funny week-end. The harmony of the house has been broken somehow: first, those two poor families coming in on us; then, this morning, Anna turning up out of the blue like that, and that woman accusing her; and now our latest visitor. What next, I wonder? "

"A cup of tea; it's always heartening. And I'll give Anna a shout; she's down by the woodpile. " Maria laughed.

"She said she had to take it out on something, so she had better get a chopper and the saw in her hand."

Anna had certainly taken out her feelings with the chopper and the saw.

They had previously felled a tree and during the last hour she had stripped it of most of its branches and had cut them into the required lengths on the sawing

block and heightened the wood-pile with them.

The wood-pile was arranged against the railings that skirted the boundary of their land. Beyond was part open rough land, part farmland, and it was very rarely that she had seen anyone crossing it except on horseback, when it was usually the Hunt. She hated the Hunt and the hunters because their beloved dog. Rover, had been killed on the occasion of a Hunt. It had become excited and jumped the fence and raced after the riders, and was trampled on. Unlike the hounds, it had not been trained to avoid horses.

She had added the last logs she had sawn up to the wood-pile when her attention was caught by the sight of a riderless horse. She put her hand across her brow to shade her eyes against the weak winter sun that cast its own particular and peculiar white light and, to her surprise, she saw that it wasn't a cart-horse but a saddled one: the reins were trailing on the ground and it was trotting gently and making towards her. Then, coming into sight from around the hedge that bordered part of the field away to the right, was another strange sight: a man was running erratically after the horse. He was calling out something; suddenly he stopped, and Anna watched his arms go up in the air as if to ward off a 'swarm of bees or wasps. Then, quite distinctly, she heard him utter a weird sound. It came to her like a cry for help.

As she saw the figure fall forward, she herself let out a startled cry.

Within seconds she had climbed onto the pile of logs, dislodging a number as she

went, and from its flat top she jumped down into the field beyond.

As she ran towards the prostrate figure the horse came towards her and she could see that it was limping. It stopped as if it expected her to do something; and as if it had spoken she shouted at it, "In a minute.

In a minute. "

As she neared the man she stopped, for he was writhing on the ground: he was lying on his back and there was foam round his lips. She noticed that his teeth were clenched but that there were two missing from the upper set. She had never before witnessed anyone in a fit but she knew instinctively that this man was suffering such a seizure. And now she forced herself to go to his side, and as she knelt down by him she took hold of one of his arms, which he was still attempting to flail and, gripping the wrist, she said, "It's all right. It's all right." The spasm was subsiding now; his body was rocking from side to side but slowly, as if he was spent.

She groped in the pocket of her coat, an old one that she wore when out working in the garden. There was a piece of linen in it, not a real handkerchief, but it was clean, and tentatively she went to wipe the man's lips; but her hand stayed when his lids suddenly lifted and his eyes gazed upwards. They were blue eyes, as deep a blue as you could find in the sky on a summer's day. She saw now that he wasn't, as she had thought at first, elderly but a man perhaps in his middle forties.

Slowly, he turned his head towards her and his lips moved, but no sound came from them at first;

but then, after a moment, she thought he said,

"Sleep'. And she felt sure she had heard aright, for he closed his eyes and turned his head to the side.

She rose from her knees and stood looking down on him as she muttered,

"He ... he can't stay here. It'll soon be dark."

She turned about when she thought she heard her mother's voice calling, and looked towards the wood. The horse was standing near the woodpile now. She again knelt down by the man's side and, shaking him gently by the shoulder, she said, "Wake up! Wake up! Can ... can you stand?"

The eyelids flickered as if they were about to open again; then she heard him sigh, and he turned his head as if on a pillow. It could have been he imagined himself to be in bed; so, she thought, there was nothing for it, she must fly back to the house and get her father.

Rising quickly, she picked up her skirts and began to run, and she was half-way across the field when she saw her father. He was standing within the railings to the side of the wood-pile, patting the horse's muscle and she called to him, "Dada! Dada! Come here."

His voice came back to her asking, "What is it?" He obviously hadn't seen her before, or the man, and as she neared him he called, "Where has this horse come from?"

She leant against the railings, gasping, as she said, "The man ... the man who was riding it' she now flapped her hand against the horse's neck 'he ... he had a seizure. He's lying back there in the field."

"Seizure? What d'you mean, seizure? Did he fall off?"

"I don't know. The horse is lame; it was coming here, and then he appeared. He must have been chasing it, and then he had this ... well, I suppose it was a fit."

Nathaniel screwed up his face.

"A fit? How d'you know it was a fit?"

"It couldn't have been anything else. Come, please."

As he turned hastily from her to make for the wall that abutted the railings, she said, "Look, you can jump down here from the wood-pile.

I did . As he stood looking down at the figure who had turned on his side and who was now apparently fast asleep, Nathaniel said, "Dear, dear! God love us! Yes, he must have had an epileptic fit. There was a boy at school; after he'd had a bad one he always slept straightaway.