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"Wait; you've seen nothin'." He next drew out a raised pie, exclaiming, "It's full of meat." And these wonders now kept them silent for a moment.

During this time Jimmy had been standing with his hand on the other sack, and when the children turned to it, William said off-handedly,

"Oh, there's only bread in there." And Cissie repeated to herself,

"Only bread" ; and she looked at Jimmy and he at her.

Jimmy never brought anything as he had said to Cissie, "Matthew's mother seemed to weigh even the water" and at this time on a Sunday morning he always felt out of it. Although he knew he was bringing Cissie sixpence a week more than their William, he still had the feeling that he wasn't contributing as much as his younger brother.

But this morning he had something to give Cissie, something that would hearten her and, if it came off, give her one less to feed.

When the excitement was over and the food put away, and the children running and jumping ahead of them over the fells towards the wood, he walked by Cissie's side as she carried Nellie in her arms; and after a while he said, "I've got something to tell you, Cissie."

The pause in her step caused him to alter his stride and he looked up at her face, which was white even with the wind blowing cold, and he went on, "I think I've got a place for our Bella."

"Oh?" She stopped and looked down at him, and he nodded at her.

"It sort of come about by Matthew making the cart, you know the new cart for the coal man in Shields. Well, this chap, he gets round the big houses in Westoe, and in one of the houses he hears they want a third laundry maid. It's a big house- well, you can tell, 'cos with three in the laundry--an' Bella could stand a chance. An' she would be trained.

I'd told him and his missis about you an' us all when he took us in for a sup of tea the first time I went down, an' I told them our Bella was the next one for work, an' that she was going on eight an' a big lass.

An' that's how it came about. You've got to take her down the morrow to the big house to see. "

She now put her hand on Jimmy's shoulder and pulled him to her, and for a moment he forgot he was a working man of ten years old and he put his arms about her and hid his head in her waist, and it was as they stood like this that she thought. There's no one of them like Jimmy. And it was then that she decided to tell him.

They were walking on again, he with his head slightly bent now, when she said, "Your news couldn't have come at a better time. Jimmy, 'cos I've got something' to tell you an' all."

He turned and looked at her now; but again she was looking ahead, and when she said simply, "I think I'm going to have a hairn. Jimmy," he stopped dead and let her walk on.

When she turned towards him and saw the look on his face she shook her head, saying, "

"Tisn't my fault, you know that; 'tisn't my fault."

Aye, he knew it wasn't her fault, but he was recalling a memory, faint, yet not so faint, for it had happened two years back when the women of the hamlet had thrown stones at Aggie Holland because she was havin' a baim and had no man. He hadn't really understood it then, only that they said she enticed the men at the hay making but he remembered them stoning her. She left her mother's house and he hadn't heard her name mentioned since.

He was walking by her side again, his head bent deeply now, when he said, "How will you manage?"

"Somehow," she answered.

"I'll have to, won't I?" And to this he replied, "Aye."

They had gone some distance farther on when he asked tentatively, "Can I... should I ... well, what I mean is, do you want me to tell Matthew?"

She had told him because she wanted him to tell Matthew. Although she couldn't put it into words, her silence spoke for her.

"Are you stark staring mad altogether? Do you want to potch your chance?"

Matthew had just come in the door and taken his coat off and was about to put it on the nail. Turning and looking at his mother, he asked,

"What do you mean? What chance?"

"Don't you come the simpleton with me." She was standing close to him now, her words low.

"You know what I mean. You've been over the fells again, haven't you?"

He put his coat on the nail without taking his eyes from her.

"Yes, I've been over the fells again. Now what are you going to make of that?"

"I've said it, you're stark, staring mad unless" --she paused and screwed up her eyes"--you think it's your duty to go."

He surveyed her for a moment.

"Me duty?"

"Aye, that's what I said, your duty." There was a long pause before she ended, "I hear she's goin' to have a hairn."

The flesh on his cheekbones whitened with the tension of his jaws, the natural fresh color of his face deepened; but she wasn't warned or deterred by the signs, for she went on, "Well, it would be no surprise to anybody for miles, would it, because you're never off her doorstep or her cave step, which is more like it. And the fantastic tale goin'

on the wind about her being' taken down by the young master of Fischel;

why, that's a midsummer's imagining if ever I heard one. "

When his hand shot out and gripped her shoulder, she started and shrunk from him and spluttered, "Leave go of me! What's come over you?"

"Do you know something?" His square face was close to her long, thin one.

"There's times I've asked me self however you became me mother. Do you know that?"

He watched the expression in her eyes change, and for the first time in his life he knew he had hurt her, but he went on, "You're a mean creature. Inside and out you're mean. And your mother's mean, and your sister's mean, you're all mean; and you've crushed me dad for years.

But there's one thing I'm goin' to tell you, you're not goin' to crush me. I'm not wearin' the breeches just to cover me loins. Now, you understand thati An' don't try to take them off me. You drive me too far and I warn you, I'll do what I threatened afore, I'll bring her here with the lot of them, into this house, and you'll put up with it, or get out. "

He released her with a thrust of his hand and she fell against the wall. And she stayed there as if stunned, while he tucked in the neck of his shirt and rolled up his sleeves and poured water into the wooden bowl. When he had dried himself on the hessian towel hanging from a nail by the window and turned to leave the scullery, she said, "Wait a minute" ; and when he looked at her over his shoulder, she went on, her tone slightly modified now, "I only said what I did for your own good, for you should know that Rose has got wind of it. She was over here not an hour since quizzing, talking about going over to see the poor starving hairns for herself. But it isn't the starving hairns she wants to see, it's her."

He made no answer but went through the kitchen, his grandmother's and his aunt's eyes following him, then up the stairs and into his father's room.

His father seemed to be waiting for him, but then he always looked like that, lost, lonely. He stood for a moment looking down at him before saying, "No matter what you heard, I didn't give it to her."

"I wouldn't blame you if you had, lad."

At this the fire went out of him, and he turned away and walked to the little window and looked down on the village street; and when his father said, "Lying here you get a sort of second sight, and I know that you're only taking on Rose because of what goes with her, but your heart isn't in it, else you wouldn't have waited this long."

Matthew bit hard on his lower lip and closed his eyes tight.

"What's she like, the young one?"

What was Cissie like? A bright spring morning, a wood carpeted with anemones, spelling purity. Purity? Not anymore. But that wasn't her fault. He saw the bloom of her skin, the softness of her lips and the depths of her eyes, and the heart and the spirit of her that struggled against adversity and fended for nine children on that wind-ravaged land.

He turned towards the bed, his shoulders hunched, his arms hanging limp, his head slightly bowed, and answered, "She's a fine lass" ; then he went out.

When he entered the mill yard his shoulders were back, his head up and his chin thrust out. The miller was at the pulley, and he turned his head in Matthew's direction; and perhaps it was because his hands were occupied that he did not raise one as was usual and wave a greeting instead of shouting above the clatter and creaking of the sails.

Matthew tapped on the door as he entered the kitchen, and Rose Watson turned from lighting the lamp, looked at him, then turned back to the lamp again and adjusted the glass before saying, "Hello there. What brings you the night?"

He walked slowly to the other side of the table so that he could face her, and when she looked at him, he said, "I've something to say to you. Rose."

"Aye? Yes. Well then, sit down." She pointed to a rocking chair to the side of the blazing fire, and he said, "I'll sit after if I may; I want to get this thing clear first. You came to the house this afternoon and had a natter with Mother."

"Yes. Yes, I was passing that way." She moved the lamp to the end of the table and picked up from a chair a shirt that she was making, then sat down.

"I understand that you've heard that young Cissie Brodie is goin' to have a hairn, an' you've likely heard an' all that I've been across there and finished the dwelling for them, and in spite of the fact that you've also heard tell that that young Master Fischel was sent off to sea for rapin' her you can't help, like the rest of them, in puttin'

two and two together."

"Oh, Matthew! I ..." He lifted his hand up to silence her.

"I know, I know, you've never said it. But it's a suspicion in your mind. Well, I want to tell you that the story that you heard about the young master is the truth, an' that the child is none of mine."

God that it only were! He felt for a moment that he had spoken the words aloud, but then she was looking at him softly through the lamplight, saying, "Well now, Matthew, you can come and sit down now, can't you?"

Before he moved from the table he asked, "Are you satisfied in your mind?" And to this she answered, "Yes, Matthew, I'm satisfied in me mind."

As he took his seat opposite her she bent her head over her sewing; and as she moved the needle rhythmically, she said, "I wouldn't have blamed you for being taken with her, for she's a comely enough girl, whereas me, well" --she moved her head slightly"--I know what I am. I have nothing to offer you but the mill when my father goes and what goes with it."

If she had left it at the first part something in him would have responded to her and he would have said, "You're a good woman. Rose; it's a woman I want, not a girl," but she had added the clause to the match, the bonus that went with the bond, so to speak, the bond that tied a man to a pit, to a farmer, or to a woman he didn't love, but which offered a bonus for the hazards of the labor.

When, going off on a tangent as it were, yet her words still connected with the same theme, she now said, "William's doing fine. Father, he says he's showin' signs of being cut out for the mill," it was as if she had actually bound him to the chair opposite her, and he knew the irony of it was that only by marrying her could he help Cissie, for it anything were to happen to prevent their coming together then William would be sent packing, and there would be no sacks on a Sunday for the boys to carry across the fells. Furthermore, there would be no apprenticeship for Jimmy in the shop, for no one knew better than himself that he was in no position to keep an apprentice; his trade was worsening, and without the prospect of an alliance with the mill his future, unless there was a miraculous upsurge of orders, looked bleak.

She had said, "Sit down, Matthew," and he had sat down; and now he was bound to this armchair, band and foot, for life.

It was the end of November. The days were short and cold, the nights long and cold, but inside the dwelling place there was a modicum of snugness. The fire was on night and day and the temperature inside the walls was bearable, even on the coldest days they'd had so far, and the branches of wood piled high against both end walls not only helped to support the structure but gave Cissie a feeling of security.

It was over a fortnight since Matthew had brought the last load of wood. She hadn't seen him since and she wondered whether the incident that happened that day had anything to do with his absence, for as he was unloading the cart and handing the branches down to her two women from the hamlet passed on the track. They, too, had been to the wood, as the bundles on their backs showed, and they had stopped and looked upwards to the great pile on the cart and the man unloading it, and he had paused in his handling of the wood and looked down at them; and when one made a sound in her throat like a loud derisive "Huhl" she had seen him grit on his teeth. Well, whether the incident had kept him away or not, she knew this morning as she stood in the hamlet and faced the two women she had seen that day, that she was now stamped as a bad

'un.

She had heard through Sarah meeting Dilly Tag" gart that the Robinsons were killing a pig, and she had come into the hamlet to see if she could get some tripe or chitterlings. She had gone round the back way to the Robinsons' yard where Mr. Robinson kept his pigs. The yard showed evidence of recent slaughter and Mr. Robinson himself was in the shed cutting up the beast. He halt turned to her, then turned away again as she asked, " Have you any to spare, Mr. Robinson? " And before he could answer his wife came to the house door and, her eyes hard and her voice tight, had put in quickly, " No, it's all spoke for"; then had added, " If I'd known you were short of a bit we would have kept you some; but then we didn't think you'd need it. "

She had stared at the woman, then at the man before turning away, and outside in the lane she had come face to face with the two women who had seen Matthew bringing her the wood. They were Mrs. Smith and Mrs.

Proctor. Mrs. Proctor was the widow of the carpenter who used to make the coffins. She had no children and now lodged with Mrs. Smith.