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Now is that clear? "

"Oh, Anna, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. But oh, lass, the thought of you ending your days stuck back there with the pair of them. They see nobody else but themselves. You must face it; I did a long time ago.

Oh, aye; they brought us up well, but drugged like with tales around the fire; the happy routine. Nothing was ever going to change. But we're no longer children, we're grown-up men and women, and the older we've grown the more they've grown back into their early days. Night after night I've sat on that mat and watched them. At one time I used to like to watch them, but not any more. They're not two people, they're just one. They could lose the lot of us as long as they have each other. "

"Jimmy! Dada's been distraught over Ben. Really! I've never imagined you thinking like this."

"We were all distraught over Ben; and as for how I think, it shows that you haven't given much thought to me."

"I have. I have. But I didn't think you looked on them like that."

"Well, how do you look on them?"

She turned from him without answering, and walked slowly towards the chopping block, and there, placing a hand on it, she looked over the railings to the moor, and in her mind she saw riding across it a man who would have taken her

for a mistress; and she also saw a man writhing on the ground in an epileptic fit.

When she felt Jimmy's hand on her shoulder she turned and looked at him, asking quietly now, "Do you intend to go soon?"

"Aye, yes; before the winter sets in. But it's strange, because the only one I'm going to miss is you; and wherever I go I'll be thinking of you, and seeing your face, because you've got a beautiful face, you know, Anna. You're beautiful altogether."

"Oh!" she closed her eyes' don Jimmy. Don't. "

"Why shouldn't I say it? Right from a child I used to like looking at you, more so than at Cherry. Cherry's pretty, but you're beautiful.

And where's it going to get you? Wasting away in that long room and in this square of ground from which you can't even drive out on the cart.

Oh, my God! Anna, it makes me sick when I think of it. "

She stared at this brother of hers, this young boy: he was still a young boy but he talked like a man, he thought like a man, he was a man, as much, or even more than the twins. He was a man as Ben would never have been. He was even now a man as his father had never been. She put out her arms towards him and they clung tightly together for a moment and then he swung away from her and, as if he were aiming to leave her and them all at this very moment, he leapt the wall behind the woodpile and ran across the open moor, leaving her with her head bowed over the wood block and moaning as if she had lost another brother, or someone, someone even closer . which she had.

Twice of late she had walked to Timothy's house. It was exactly a mile and a half away, if she went over the stile and dropped down the bank into the road, so avoiding the village. She had enjoyed the walk;

and had met only one person, a man driving a farm- cart. And she had not encountered a carriage.

It was towards the middle of July, about four o'clock in the afternoon, when she said to her mother, "I think I'll take a walk along to Mr.

Timothy's, Ma; I've got these books I would like to change."

"But it's still so hot."

"There's a breeze coming up and the road's in partial shade for most of the way. Anyway, Ma, I feel I want to stretch my legs."

"You'll feel better tomorrow when Miss Netherton comes back; you'll have something to do then. Fancy her going all the way to Holland!

She's been gone more than five weeks now.

I .

I think it might be about . about the other thing. "

It was the first time her mother had alluded to the cross, and she said, "You think so, Ma?"

"Yes. Your dada was saying a lot of such trading goes on in Amsterdam."

"She'll have a great deal to tell us when she comes back, I'm sure.

Anyway, that's one thing. "

"Oh, yes, she will, she will; and it'll likely be settled. But, money or no money, I still wouldn't like to leave here. Would you?"

She drew in a long breath and looked downwards before she said,

"Sometimes I feel hemmed in."

"Yes. Yes, you're bound to, lass," Maria put in quickly.

"You're bound to. And I understand. Don't think I don't. I understand. But something'll turn up, you'll see, something'll turn up."

Anna didn't ask what her mother thought might turn up, she just said,

"Will I have to put a hat on?" and Maria smiled, saying, "I don't see why. We've never conformed to style, have we? No; go as you are; your dress looks cool. It certainly won't rain today." Then she added, "We haven't seen him for a week or so. Perhaps he's had another turn."

"Oh, I wouldn't think so. He goes to Newcastle quite a bit. I know he's researching some old books in the archives of the Literary Library; no, the Literary and Philosophical Society Library, he calls it."

"Well, it's a good thing he's got something to pass his time with, the way he is."

As she left the house and walked towards the stile, Anna wondered why her mother always alluded to his infirmity. She seemed forever to be pressing the point. Yet there was no one more sane and normal than Timothy, and the more often she saw him the more she would forget he was ever ill in any way.

She climbed the stile; then put down her two books on the ground and, preparatory to negotiating the bank, turned her back to the roadway and felt carefully with her right foot for one of the footholds she had made, and placed her left foot in a similar one further down; then let out a scream when a hand gripped her calf and a voice said, "Want a helpin' 'and, miss?"

When the hand pulled her feet to the lower ground, she swung round and fell against the bank, and looked into the face of Arthur Lennon, the blacksmith's son. He was a man of twenty. His hair grew long over his brow and down his cheeks, and he had a moustache trailing down each side of his mouth. His face showed one wide grin.

For a moment she couldn't speak, but looked beyond him to where another man had stepped from behind the hedge that bordered the other side of the road. There was a gap in the hedge wide enough to let a farm-cart through, and the man was holding a large tin by its handle and a brush in the other hand, and to his side stood a younger boy.

"Get out of my way!" She pressed her hands against the bank in order to rise, but the grinning face was hanging over her now, saying, "Ask civilly." And when next his hand came on to her breast and, half turning his head to his companion, he said, "There's nowt in them; flat paps for a gillyvor," she screamed, " Take your filthy hands off me, you dirty- mouthed individual! Get out of my way, you lout! "

"Lout, am I? Who you callin' a lout, you whorin' bastard? Not satisfied with breakin' up one family, you have to go for the fitty one. How does he manage? Does he have a fit when he's at you?"

When her knee came up and caught him in the groin he jumped back, holding himself; and

she was about to turn and grab her books from the top of the bank when his arms came about her and, spewing obscenities at her, he dragged her screaming through the opening and into the field. When his hand came across her mouth and her teeth bit into it, he pulled it back, bawling, then brought her a blow on the face that sent her head spinning for a moment and seemed to knock the breath out of her body.

The next minute she was on her back and he had one knee across her legs and was now tearing at the front of her dress while he shouted to the man, "Drop the can here, an' go and fetch your Betty. Tell her to bring a pilla."

"A pilla? You don't mean the tar ... ?"

"Aye, I do. Me da said it should have been done a long time ago. An'

look! stop that bugger from scarperin'."

The man put down the tin of tar saying, "My God! Arthur, they'll have you up;' but he was laughing while he said it; and Arthur Lennon said,

" Just let them try. Lucky you had the job of doin' the railings.

Look!

get after him, quick! or he'll be at the village afore you know where you are. Bring him back here; I'll settle him. "

The man caught up with the boy and, hauling him by the collar, brought him back and thrust him to the ground beyond Anna, and her assailant grabbed him by his shirt-front now and threatened:

"You open your mouth about this and I'll cut your tongue out. D'you hear me? One word an' you know what'll happen toyer If not that, down below something'll happen there, you understand?"

The boy made no sound but trembled visibly, as he now watched Arthur Lennon trying to pin Anna's clawing hands to her side.

"Untie the york on me legs," Lennon growled at the boy, 'an' put it across her mouth. Go on! Untie it. "

With shaking hands the boy untied the rope from beneath the man's knee, where it had been used to hold up the trouser leg, and when he leaned over her his eyes were looking straight down into hers, and he shook his head as if to say, I can't help it. I can't help it. Then he put the rope across her gaping mouth.

The man, now taking his knee from her legs, stood up; then bending over, he put one arm between her legs and the other under her waist and with a flick, turned her on to her face as if she had been a sheared sheep. Then, pulling her arms together, he held them with one hand while he loosened the piece of rope from his other leg, and with this he tied her wrists. He then dragged off his thin necktie, with which he tied her ankles together. This done, he now turned her on to her side, and with one pull he split her dress from top to bottom, then her underskirt, then her thin summer camisole. She was now naked to the waist.

It was when Anna felt his hands on her drawers that her whole body writhed. She was screaming inside her head, praying to die now. She next felt the sleeves being torn from her shoulders, then her dress being ripped at the back; but it was after the smell of the tar filled her nostrils and the first full brush of it was slapped on her breasts, then dragged over her stomach and downwards that she knew no more.

She did not hear Lennon growl at the boy, "Stop your whimperin' else I'll strip you and lay you aside her."

He had finished tarring her when the other man returned, accompanied by his sister, Betty Carter. She was carrying a pillow and she stood looking down on the black-streaked body with the clothes lying in strips from it, and she said, "You did it, then, Arthur. Uncle Rob said you should an' that you would one day. An' she's only getting'

what she deserves, the bitch."

Looking down on the black nakedness, her brother said, "Didn't ya try her afore you tarred her? In for a penny in for a pound."

"Split that pilla!"

When Betty Carter tried to split the pillowcase the ticking was too strong, and she said, "Give me your knife," and with it, she split the pillow down the middle and then puffed as the feathers floated over her. But she didn't hand it to Lennon; instead, she said, "Let me do it."

And so she stood over the prostrate form and shook the feathers down on to the wet tar.

"Turn her on to the other side," she said, and both men, now using their feet, turned the unrecognisable form on to its other side, and as Betty Carter emptied the pillow-case she cried, "You didn't put any on her hair! Have you any left?" She now took the brush from the can.

"Hardly a scrape," she said, 'but it'll do. " And with this she drew it a number of times over the shining dark hair, then, gathering up some loose feathers that were lying round about, she finished her job.

And now they all turned and looked at the boy, who was vomiting.

"He'll split," Davey Carter said.

"My God! he won't."

He now pulled the boy up by the hair of his head and with his doubled fist hit him in the groin, bringing him doubled up again; then warned,

"One squeak out of you, just one, an' like I do with the cattle.

Understand? "

The boy gasped and made a motion with his head.

"Who's gona find her?"

Betty Carter said.

"Oh, they'll find her right enough. She was likely goin' on a jaunt to the fitty one an' he was likely expectin' her. Oh aye, he would be. I wonder how much he pays her? Somethin's keepin' that lot in clover up there. Oh, they'll find her all right. Afore the night's out there'll be a hue and cry."

"But what about when she comes round?"

"Oh, well, by that time we'll have had a drink and be givin' them a bit of entertainment in the bar, and then we'll be off. We were goin' in any case. I was due for the sack the morrow, any road 'cos then old Peterson will have found out that he's a pig short. An' Davey here, he's fed up, so we had made wor plans. It was just honest luck that we came across her. By! I've been wantin' to do that to the stinkin'

whore for years. She'll not stick her nose in the air so much now."

"What about me? He knows that it was me." She pointed to the boy.

"Don't worry about that." And taking the boy by the collar again, Lennon pulled him towards Betty Carter, pushing his face close to hers as he said,

"Look! you've never seen her in your life afore, except in the village, understand?

"Cos if you don't we'll get you. I'll get you.

We're not goin' all that far away, we're just goin' to lie low for a time. But if you squeak, one of these nights I'll pick you up and I'll do what I said. Oh, an' I'd like doin' that. I've always liked doin'

it and I'll like doin' it to you. Oh yes! You get me? "

The boy was so sick he could neither say anything nor make any movement, but Lennon said to Betty Carter, "He understands all right.

Don't you worry, Betty, don't you worry. But let's get some of this off wor boots. Anyway, that's what we've been workin' at, tarrin'; expect to get dabbed up a bit at this job. Oh, an' aye. Bring her books off the bank; she may want to have a read. " He laughed.

A minute later he threw the books into the hedge, then with his foot he eased her body towards them;