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"And it'll go on being strange," she replied; 'it's the way we've made it. "

"Yes. Yes, you're right. And consequently they'll all have to fight their way through it, each one of them. Yet they know where they stand, even down to Jimmy. He's a wise boy, that one. And then there's Ben. He doesn't somehow need to be told, he knows it already.

He's imbibed it, whether from the others or the atmosphere in the house, but he knows he's one of a family that lives apart ... You know what tomorrow is?"

"Yes, I know what tomorrow is, dear. It's the seventh of September, eighteen hundred and eighty and the anniversary of the day we first met. As if I could ever forget it!"

There was a pause now before he said, "I can see you as if it were yesterday standing at the schoolhouse door. You were holding a lantern up high and it showed me your face as you said, " Can I come in? I want to learn to write . " There was another silence, and in it Maria saw herself walking into that schoolhouse room. It was a bare and comfortless room, but in the middle of it was a table on which were books and papers. She had looked at them as if they were bread and water and she were starving with a thirst for both.

He had told her to take a seat; and when he asked her, "Haven't you attended this school?" she had shaken her head and said with bitterness deep in her voice, "No; nor have I been allowed to go to the Sunday School so that I could write me name."

When he had asked her why, he had watched her jaws tighten as her teeth came together, before she said, "Because I would be breakin' into a fourteen- or fifteen-hour day's work for me father. I am from Dagshaw's farm down the valley."

"Have you no brothers?" he had asked.

"Huh! None. I am the only one, an' I save a man's wages, perhaps two, for they will only work twelve hours. Some prefer the mines to workin'

for him."

"Couldn't you talk to him or stand up to him?"

"You can't talk to him; he's an ignorant man. But I have stood up to him with a shovel afore now; it can't go on, though. Me mother put it to me to come to you. She said, if I could write me name and read perhaps then I would get a good position in a house, not just in a scullery. She herself was from better people than my father but they died of the cholera and she never learned to read or write."

He had said to her, "You should have come to school."

At that she had abruptly risen to her feet and said, "If I could have come to school I wouldn't be here now, would I? And if he knew I was here now he'd come and lather me all the way back. Then God knows what I might do to him, because I hate him. I would likely end up in the House of Correction, for there's murder in me heart at times. Me mother feels the same an' all."

"But it's dangerous for you to come this way in the dark at night, and not only that, your name ... If it was found out you were visiting me so late ... You understand?"

"Aye; yes, I understand. I'd be careful though. But you're afraid, aren't you? You're afraid, an' all; an' you're a respectable man."

He had smiled at her and said, "Not all that respectable," which caused her to peer at him through the lantern light and say, "Oh aye; you must be the school teacher with the drunken wife who caused an uproar in the village? "

It was some seconds before he answered, "Yes. I am the school teacher with the drunken wife."

"Oh, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. It was just the carter's prattle. I thought that man lived faraway in Gates- head Fell or thereabouts, because I had heard of you as a kindly young man."

He had smiled wanly at her as he replied, "News doesn't travel half as quickly in Africa as it does in this quarter of the land."

"I won't trouble you any more," she had said, 'cos you've got enough on your plate," to which he had replied quickly and with a smile, " Let's risk it. Twice a week, Tuesdays and Thursdays at about this time. But should there be anyone here I shall open the curtains and you'll see the lamp-wick up high. "

After going out of the door she turned to him and said, "I'll never forget this night... Nathaniel turned his head now to gaze up into her warm, dark eyes and, as if reading her mind, he said, " Did you ever forget that night?

Because that's what you said to me: I'll never forget this night. "

"How could I, ever?"

"But it's a long time since we have spoken of it. We hardly spoke of it at all at first, you remember? because what followed was so painful."

He dropped his head again onto her lap and looked towards the fire.

The wood had mushed itself into a deep, dull, scarlet glow and in it he envisaged all that followed the night she first came to his door.

Within a month she could write her own name and copy and read aloud complete sentences. And during that month Nathaniel's wife had visited him again from her mother's house in South Shields, with the intention of staying by his side, as she had put it. But he had warned her that if she stayed then he would pack up and go, as he had done two years previously, except that this time he would leave no address. And she would have no support from him. That was the ultimatum, and she left, cursing him.

But that visit had brought him before the Board of School Managers in the Town Hall at Fellburn. They informed him that his wife had again disturbed the peace in the market place; that it was disgraceful and should another such incident hap pen he would be relieved of his post, because such unedifying goings-on were not to be tolerated when connected with a man in his position: a school master should be looked up to, not only by the children, but by the elders in the community, as a paragon of virtue and knowledge, a man in some ways on a level of respectability with a Minister of God. Did he understand?

He understood. And with this he had written a letter to his wife, which he knew would be read to her by the same penny letter-writer who composed her demanding scribes to himself. He told her of the situation, emphasising the fact that if she once again showed her face in the town or the nearby village, he would lose his position and consequently she would lose her support, because as he had already warned her, he would leave and she would never find him again.

But that day, when he walked out of the Town Hall, he knew he would already have lost his position if it hadn't been for Miss Netherton.

Apparently the question of his conduct and dismissal had been put to a vote and it was only Miss Netherton's vote that had saved him.

Miss Netherton was a power, not only in Fellburn but also in the surrounding countryside. It was generally known that her people had owned quite a large area of the town. And even now, although she lived in Brindle House, which was no size in comparison to Ribshaw Manor, which had once been her home, she still owned a number of properties in the village as well as in Fellburn. Moreover, she was connected with big names in Newcastle, and further afield still.

He had been tutoring Maria for three months when one night their hands accidentally met, and they did not spring immediately apart, but only slowly did the fingers withdraw from each other, while their eyes clung in knowledgeable confrontation of what had been happening to each of them. Even so, no word was said.

Then December came, and something happened in that month that changed their lives. Tuesdays and Thursdays were the nights for instruction.

But it was on a Friday night of this particular week that she visited him. He had been to a meeting with the Church Elders. He had wanted to put on a Christmas play in which all the children would take part.

The Elders were willing to countenance this, but insisted that only hymns should be sung. It was almost ten o'clock when, frustrated and irritable, he entered the house and lit the lamp; but then there was a knock on the door, and when he opened it there she was standing shivering.

He had pulled her swiftly into the room, saying, "You're like ice.

What is the matter? "

"I ... I had to see you. My ... my mother wants your ad ... advice,"

she had stammered.

He had pushed her down into a chair, pulled the curtains, taken the bellows and blown up the fire. Then he had rushed into the other room and brought back the cover from the bed, and when he had put it round her, his arms remained there and, looking into her face, he said, "How how long have you been waiting?"

"An ... an hour. It doesn't matter."

"But why have you come?"

She had pressed him gently from her for a moment to put her hand inside her coat, and she brought out a stiff, yellowish-looking bag about nine inches long and four wide and, her voice trembling now with excitement, she said, "We were cutting' down wood. Mother an' me. There was a tree leaning over; the wind had got it. It wasn't all that big, perhaps ten years' growth, big enough to make logs, you know, so we pulled on it and brought it down, and ... and as I was chopping off the branches, me mother went to hack off the root. You see, it had left quite a hole where the roots had been dragged out, and as she bent over it she saw this bag sticking up at the bottom of the hole. And she pulled on it. She had to pull on it because the end seemed to be stuck; it's very sticky clay soil. Anyway, she called me and said, "

Look! " And I said, " What is it? Open it. " And for a moment she seemed frightened. You see it was tied at the top with a cord, but it's broken, as you see, because when she touched it it fell away; and the bag was stiff, brittle. Feel it."

He felt it. Then her face brightened as she said, "Guess what we found in it?" He shook his head and said teasingly, "A fortune?" only for his surprise to be shown by his open mouth when she replied quickly,

"It could be. I don't know. But look!" and she had withdrawn from the bag a cross; not an ordinary cross in gold or silver or brass, but one studded with stones.

After gazing at it he had pulled the lamp further towards them and bowed his head over it. And then he had said, "My God!"

"That's exactly what me mother said: my God! She says it may be worth something."

"Worth something? Oh, yes; yes."

Her hand now tightly clasping the bag, which seemed to crackle under her touch, she had then said, "If he knew ... Father, that's the last we would

see of it. So Mother said to bring it to you and ask what we should do. "

He had sat back in his chair and after a moment said, "Well, this could be classed as treasure trove, you know, belonging to the Crown.

A priest or monk must have buried this years and years ago, likely during the Reformation. "

The what? "

"The Reformation. The breaking up of the monasteries We must talk about that sometime. But this, I don't know. Once you let it out of your hands I think that's the last you'll see of it; I mean, of the money it might bring to the authorities. This has been known before.

Or the ritual will pass through so many hands that your prize-money would be worth nothing when you got it, and it might take years. "

Then after a pause he added, " But then, there must be someone in the city who buys stuff like this. Look; will you leave it with me? I'll try and get advice. I think the best person to ask is Miss Netherton.

"

"Oh, aye, yes. Miss Netherton, from Brindle House? They say she's a nice lady."

"Well, she has helped me. But at first I won't say who you are, just that you have something you would like to sell on the quiet, and could she advise you. Will that do?"

"Oh, aye. Aye, I know you'll do your best. Oh!" She had put out her hands and touched his cheeks;

then the next minute her arms were about him and his free arm was holding her, while his other was extended straight out, gripping the precious find. And thus they stood for some time before, slowly, he laid the cross on the table and, pushing the rug from her, he then held her body close to his, and so tightly that they could scarcely breathe.

When eventually he pressed her from him they looked into each other's eyes before their lips came together, and long and tenderly they remained so.

When it was over she leant against him as he muttered, "Oh, my dear, dear, dear one." And what she said was, "I've loved you from the minute I clapped eyes on you. I knew it was only you for me. Even if your wife had not been what she is, it would have made no odds. I would have loved you in silence all me life. But now I'm yours an you are mine for all time."

And so it was . He brought his gaze from the fire and again looking up into her face he said, "There are fiends in this world, but thank God there are friends too. And if ever there was a friend. Miss Netherton has been one to us all these years."

"How old is she now?"

"Oh, I should think in her early sixties, but she's still so brisk, and she has some spirit in that small frame of hers. She must have just been in her early forties when I first saw her as one of the School Managers. But I'll never forget the night I went to her with the cross Again he turned and looked towards the fire. The embers were almost dead now, showing but pale grey and dull rose, yet in them he could see himself standing in the drawing-room of Brindle House. Ethel Mead had shown him in, and Miss

Netherton, on entering the room, had greeted him warmly: "It's a bitter cold night. What brings you out in it? But first, before you tell me why you're here, would you like a drink? I can offer you port, whisky, brandy, or, on the other hand, a cup of tea or coffee."

He had said, "I would be pleased to have a cup of coffee. Miss Netherton. Thank you."

He had watched her pull on a corded, tasselled rope to the side of the fireplace, and when Ethel Mead entered, she had said to her, "A tray of coffee, Ethel, please'; then had said to him, " Come and sit by the fire. But first let me have your coat. "

He had taken off his overcoat and she had laid it on the arm of an upholstered easy chair, then, sitting opposite him, she had said, "I hope you're not in trouble again."

"No; not this time, I can say, thanks be to God." They had both laughed and her quick rejoinder had been, "You must instruct Parson Mason on how to say that, because he irritates me every time I hear him drawling it out. Besides me, his Maker, too, must be tired of it."