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Maria met her half-way across the open ground.

"God Almighty! What's happened? What's happened?"

"She did it! She did it! With her horse. And she's taken the child.

She did it! She did it! "

Maria lifted her son into her arms now and ran back into the house and laid him on the mat. And she felt all over him before looking up at Anna where she was leaning against the side of a chair, still gasping, and in a low agonised voice, she said, "My lad is dead. He's dead, Anna. Ben is dead." And when Anna screamed and continued doing so, Maria had to lay back her son on the mat and then shake her daughter by the shoulders, while yelling at her: "Stop it! Stop it! girl. Go and get help," only to say in further distress, "Oh my God! Oh my God!"

for the red weal on Anna's face was oozing blood. But she pushed her towards the door, appealing to her now, "Miss Netherton's. Go to Miss Netherton's. Go and get help. Tell Bob Stoddart to get the doctor."

"But he's dead, Ma."

"Go on! Go on!" Maria, half-crazy now, screamed, "Run! Run!"

Anna didn't remember running to Miss Netherton's house. She didn't remember the doctor's coming;

nor did she remember both Simon and Timothy standing before her father with bowed heads.

It wasn't until the fourth day when she rose from her drugged sleep and went into the long room and saw the coffin lying on the trestle table and looked down on Ben's face, which even in death still looked alive and beautiful, did she finally realise that he was dead.

But she remembered the following day, when she stood in the midst of her family by his grave, and Parson Mason said kind words over him. It was being allowed that he be buried in Fellburn because they had all been christened in that town, and because of the latter the parson had once laughingly said they were eligible for poor-law sustenance, as well as, it now turned out, the right of burial.

The family had come in two cabs: the carriage from the Manor holding Simon and Timothy followed, and beyond that had come another carriage in which sat Miss Netherton. It was also noted that there were half a dozen people from the village, who must have taken the trouble to come in by cart, waiting in the cemetery, only that same night to be censured by the clients in The Swan.

The bar was packed, the counter aflood with spilt beer, which took Lily Morgan all her time to keep sopped up between exchanging gossip with the customers. And there was plenty to gossip about on this particular night.

Willie Melton, the painter and decorator, and his son Neil, who was an apprentice to the wheelwright, stood together at the end of the counter. And the older man looked across to where the DiacKsmitft was seated on a settle at right angles to the open fireplace, and he said, "Well, I can understand old Miss Smythe following them, and Roland Watts, 'cos he was thick with 'em long afore he left here, but for John Fenton and his Gladys to go to the cemetery well, that beats me. I thought they were just goin' into town to put in his order as one or tother do every week, not both. But there they left the shop open an' his mother seeing to it and the old snipe wouldn't open her mouth to my lass at first when she asked her, just skittish like, never thinkin', would they be going to the funeral, like? No business of anybody's where they were going, she answered her, but not until she was walkin' out the shop ... well!"

Before the blacksmith had time to add his own remarks a voice came from the other end of the bar-room, shouting, "You'll come to me next, won't you, Willie?" And Willie Melton, his head wagging, shouted back, "Aye, I might an' all, Clan, 'cos that was a surprise."

"It should have been no surprise to you or anybody else. I've always said, they've kept themselves to themselves. Asked us in the village for nowt, neither bread, beer, nor baccy; nor for me to make any of them a pair of shoes. But I still maintain that no matter what name stuck to them, he and she brought them up decent and weathered some bad times. An' we could name names, couldn't we, who helped with those bad times? So I think it beholds everybody to live and let live."

Robert Lennon took a long draught from his pewter mug, then, turning and looking at Clan Wallace, he said, "You should talk like that to Parson."

"I could an' all."

"Aye, well, I'd like to, be there an' hear you. An' you being made sides man of late, strikes me you've turned your coat. What's happened to make you do that?"

"I've turned no coat. If you think back, I'm one of the few who kept me own opinion about them."

"Well, does your opinion cover the mischief that one's done? All right, all right, the hairn was killed but accidentally, an' that's what'll come out in the court, if it comes up. But what happened up at the Manor when Mr. Simon found out that the hairn was dead? He goes back and nearly tries to do his wife in, didn't he? Made a holy show of himself, if all tales be true. Yellin' at his wife, " You've killed the child! You've killed the child! Now are you satisfied? You hussy! "

He called her that, an' in front of the servants. And then Mr.

Timothy tried to separate them, so we are told, and he couldn't manage it; it took two men to get him off her. Now that isn't hearsay, it came straight from the Manor. And why did all that happen, eh? It happened 'cos that hussy, not satisfied with tempting the husband, had tempted the hairn. It was a natural thing for the mother to go after it. And if that one went for her it was a natural thing an' all to raise the whip. I would have done it me self

"Oh aye, you would. There's no doubt about that," said the shoemaker.

"Strikes me you've wanted to do it for years."

"Now, now! gentlemen. Now, now!" Reg Morgan intervened from behind the counter.

"We all know who's right and who's wrong in this business. As Lily here was sayin" he nodded towards his wife' you can't light a fire without a spark. And that hoity-toity miss certainly caused the spark that killed the child, because don't forget what Betty Carter said and what happened to her. Thrown out on her face she was and blamed for the teacher being covered in paint, or such. Well, as I see it, the mistress must have had cause to throw that stuff. And as Michael Carter and his lad said when Betty came back cryin', if it was left to them they would have tarred and feathered her, not just covered her with paint. "

"Aye, 'tis a pity duckin' stools and stocks have gone out of fashion.

Morris Bergen was saying the other night that he remembers his dad being put in the stocks when he was a lad. It was to try and stop him drinkin' but he only got more drunk when they lifted him out. "

"Oh, so Morris said that, did he?" The innkeeper now nodded towards Dave Cole the butcher.

"Transferrin' your custom are you, Dave?"

"No, no. I just happened to drop in; I had a bit of business to do.

You know, Reg, I sell meat to everybody. I'd sell it to the corpses in the graveyard if they could pay their way. "

This last brought forth guffaws of laughter, but not from the blacksmith's youngest son Arthur who, during all the talk, had said nothing but had looked from one to the other as if studying some deep point, and when he muttered something his father said, "What's that you say?" and he replied, "Nowt; I was just thinkin'."

They were sitting round the fire as they had done each night since the day they had buried Ben. Nathaniel sat close to Maria, the two girls sat close together, the twins, with Jimmy between them, sat close too.

The sound of laughter had not been heard in the house for weeks. It would seem they were unable to throw off their loss. When they talked it would be in low tones; and after the day of the funeral Ben's name had never been mentioned among them. Sometimes they cried together, but generally they cried in private, that was until this particular night, the evening of the day of the inquest that had looked into the circumstances leading to Ben's death.

Nathaniel had not allowed Anna to go to the court. As he had said that morning, he would tell the justice that she was still very unwell, and that was no lie. Oswald and Olan had accompanied him to the courthouse but Maria had stayed at home with Anna, together with Cherry and Jimmy, for they both refused to go to work this morning.

They had scarcely eaten a bite all day, and when they talked it had been about everything but the matter foremost in their minds. But now here was Nathaniel sitting before the fire holding tightly onto Maria's hand, and the others were gathered round him. The table behind them was laid for a meal but it could wait; they wanted to know what had transpired in the court. It seemed at first that Nathaniel was reluctant to speak, and it was Anna, bending towards him, who said,

"Tell us, Dada, what happened, or let the boys."

Nathaniel looked at his sons, and it was Oswald who, looking from one to the other, said, "She got off."

A quiet stunned period of some seconds followed Oswald's words; then he went on: "The court was packed; and there she stood, that woman, looking as if she wouldn't say boo to a goose. And when she was questioned you could hardly hear her answer, her voice was so low. I couldn't hear half of what she said. But when one of the solicitor men had the stable man McBride in the box and he said to him, " Explain what you saw," well, the man seemed hesitant; but then he said, " The young master was about to run under the horse's head and the boy pulled him aside out of harm's way. It was then the horse reared and the offside front hoof caught him on the head and sent him flying. "

Oswald drew in a long breath and looked at his father as if Nathaniel would take up where he had left off, but Nathaniel remained silent, and so he continued: " The solicitor man then asked him what happened next?

And he again seemed hesitant to speak; but then he said, from what he could see the young lady went to grab the mistress and the mistress brought her riding crop down on her. Then the solicitor man suggested

again that it was after the young lady tried to grab his mistress.

"And the man said, yes. And then he was asked what happened when he came on the scene with his mistress, and he said, " Well, sir, the child was clinging to the young girl, and . " He hesitated again, and was prompted by the solicitor man who said, " Yes; go on. " And then he said, " The child was yelling he didn't want to go home with the mistress but wanted to stay with the teacher. "

' "But that is not all you heard, is it?" the solicitor asked him, but McBride said, "I think it is, sir." Then the solicitor man came back at him again:

"Did you not hear your mistress accuse the teacher of something?" he said. And I could see the man was upset, and he bowed his head now and wagged it a bit as he said, "There was a lot of confusion and yelling.

She said something but I couldn't make out what it was. " And you know'

Oswald was now looking from his mother to Anna 'that woman had been sitting with her head bowed, and now she turned and looked towards the man and that painful look went off her face and for a moment she looked devilish. I'm telling you, she looked devilish. But no matter how the solicitor man kept on, the stable lad wouldn't say any more and he was told to stand down. Then it was the doctor's turn, and he said Oswald paused here and wetted his lips before going on.

"He said Ben was dead when he examined him, and Anna, Miss Dagshaw, he said, her face was bleeding from what had been a whip lash. What was more, she was demented and had to be put to sleep, and she still wasn't herself. After that the two solicitor men went up to the bench and there was a lot of talk with the justice. And the justice said it was a pity the young teacher was unable to be present as she could have thrown more light on the matter. And then he spoke to the jury. He told them that it would seem there had been no intent to harm the boy, whose action in trying to save the younger child must have startled the horse;

then unfortunately he had been struck by the hoof and, according to the doctor, had suffered no pain but must have died immediately.

"It would be for them to decide. Or words to the effect. You know how they go on. The jury wasn't out very long and when they came back they said, it was ... accidental death."

Oswald now turned and looked at his father. Nathaniel was sitting with his head bowed, and Oswald's voice was very soft as he said, "It was then that Dada sprang up and cried, " She killed my child! She killed my child! " And there was an uproar in the court and the justice said if Dada couldn't be quiet he would have to leave the courtroom. But he wouldn't. He shouted at them how that woman had tried before to run his daughter down and had attacked her and split her head open with a bowl and covered her with oil. But by this time the policemen were pulling Dada outside. And then the justice man started speaking again and he said that the woman of course was not entirely without blame but it wasn't within his province to judge her, but her reactions had led to a tragedy and it would remain with her how she viewed her conduct in the future."

There followed a long silence until Olan broke it by remarking, There was nobody from the Manor there, I mean, none of the men, not her husband, or Mr. Raymond, or Mr. Timothy. I looked round and couldn't see one of them. But I saw her come out with the solicitor man.

Anyway they said she's been left the Manor for weeks; in fact he put her out. "

"Oh, Dada." Anna was kneeling in front of her father now, holding his hand, and he, looking down 'on her, said, "It's all right. It's all right, my dear. But it was a sorry day when you went to that house."

Then raising his head he glanced around his family, saying, "We have never spoken of death, but I know now we must because he is still here, he is still among us. I also know that he was due to die. Ever since he was a baby and so beautiful I have felt that the saying.

Those whom the gods love die young, could be applied to him. I can tell you now that I always had this fear that I would never see him grow up. And you know something, my dear family? " he paused here before adding " He knew that. From the things that I remember him saying, he knew that his time was short. So from now on we will speak about him. You know, I saw him last night as plain as I'm looking at you now. You had all gone to bed. I came down the room to lock the door, and he was sitting on the mat there, in front of the fire, where he always sat, his legs tucked under him, and he turned and looked at me and his smile was so serene. "