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He paused for a moment as if considering, then said, "Aye, you're right." And taking the coat off and turning it inside out, he laid it across a chair, adding, "I went to Shields Market the day."

"Oh! I've never been to the market. Me da always said he would take us but ... but the chance never came up."

"Oh, it's a sight," he said.

"And the people. You can't get stirred.

But you're glad when you get out of || it, and away from the town; it's too noisy, too much bustle. " He was now tipping out the contents of the sack on the table.

"I thought these would help their Christmas." He pushed aside six oranges and a bundle of toffee apples, and pointing to a bag, he said,

"Them's tiger nuts; they'll keep their jaws goin'." And now he separated from the rest, two parcels, one largish, the other small, and having placed them one on top of the other, he handed them to her, saying softly, "A warm Christmas, Cissie."

She took the parcels from his hand, looked at them for a moment, then raised her eyes to his. Her face looked blank.

"I hope they fit; I just guessed your size."

She still stared at him until he said, "Well, aren't you going to look and see what they are?"

She opened the smaller package first and when she laid across her hands a pair of long, brown, hand- knitted stockings, she pressed her lips together but said nothing. Then her hands were fumbling at the larger parcel; and as she undid the wrapping, the contents seemed to breathe and swell. Slowly she unfolded a fawn shawl with a pink fringe; then as she held it before her she looked as Charlotte or Sarah might have looked when confronted with wonder: a child believing yet not believing. She lifted her eyes to his but was unable to speak; a great warmth was filling her; her eyes were full of light. Never in her life had she possessed anything of color; her clothes had always been black or brown, and never had she worn anything new. Once a year her da had taken the money he had saved for the purpose and gone to the rag market in Newcastle, and there, for five shillings, bought a pile of old clothes enough to last a year, and her mother had cut them up and remade them. But not once had her da brought back anything bright and light; he always picked serges and worsteds, knowing these to be hard-wearing. But here she had a dove-fawn shawl with a glowing pink fringe.

Slowly she gathered it into her arms and held it to her breast as if it were a child, and, her head bowing deep over it, tears rained down her face and tell on to it.

"Aw, Cissie. Cissie." He was standing close to her, his hands gripping her shoulders.

"Ah, don't. I thought it would please you, something something different."

When her head fell lower still and the sobs shook her body his hands moved from her shoulders and slid slowly round her back; and he held her close and gentle, his chin resting on her bent head, his eyes staring at the jagged wall of rock opposite to him, from which was oozing little rivulets of moisture. Then after a moment, as if breaking through a barrier of restraint, his mouth dropped into her hair, and he moved his face back and forwards over it.

She was still holding the shawl, her arms crossed over it were like a barrier between them, and he pulled it from them and threw it on the table and, lifting her head sharply upwards with his hand, he looked into her tear-washed face and muttered thick e ly, "I love you, Cissie. You know that, don't you? I love you, but ... but I've got to go through with this other, I've got to." He now shook her slightly.

"You understand why? Do you understand why?"

She gulped, closed her eyes, and nodded her head once.

His voice was coming like a whispering growl from his throat now.

"If it just rested with me I would take you and the horde of them ..

an'"-He jerked his head upwards before adding, " An' the one that's comin'. I would take the lot if it was just me. But there's them back home; I'm all they've got to live by, and trade's not so good. " Not so good? He could have said it had been getting steadily worse over the past two months, that he'd had no orders since making that cart, that he'd had to put Walters on halt-time in order to keep Jimmy on, and that he must have been stark staring mad to go into Shields and pay seventeen and six for the shawl. The two shillings he had given for the stockings was really more than he could afford; but seventeen and six! The money he should have paid Riley's bill with. Still, Riley wasn't waiting for it for his bread and butter, else he would have stumped it up right away. Riley was a man with four ironmonger's shops, a man who was buying property;

he could afford to wait. But still, seventeen and six; how was he going to make it up? --To hell! To hell's flames. It might be the one and only thing he could ever buy her . out of his own money that was.

He pleaded now with her, bending his head close to hers, "Tell me you understand why I've got to do what I'm goin' to do, just tell me, Cissie."

She cleared her throat, wiped each cheek with her fingers, then said softly, "I understand, Matthew."

They looked deep into each other; then, his breath on her face, he whispered, "Will you tell me one thing more? Do you love me?"

Her gaze did not move from his, but she did not speak. Then with a sudden movement she fell against him, and his mouth came on hers and they stood there locked together and swaying until she gasped for breath. Then they were staring at each other again. And now he drew her to the one chair that had a back to it. Sitting down, he pulled her gently onto his knees and, cradling her in his arms, he said thickly, "Let's stay so a while; it may have to last us a lifetime."

She carried the child high. It pushed out under her breasts and by the beginning of May she couldn't fasten her skirt over it although she had put in gussets. At various times the child kicked her. It seemed strong and impatient to be born, but it had six weeks more to go. She wished the days would fly for she was tired of the burden of her body;

she felt cumbersome and she became weary so quickly.

It had been a beautiful spring, and it was just as well for there had been another strike at Rosier's pit. They had brought gangs of men over from Ireland and turned the miners from the cottages, and for a time she had neighbors on the fells, but at a good distance away. Yet their presence made her feel fearful, because, copying her, they had carted stones from the quarry and built shanties, and, although it was still common land, the sight of so many small stone huts could incense the gentry, and they might take the law in their hands and enclose the fells.

The sun was shining brightly today but there was a very high wind blov/ing and she had to hold on to her shawl, not the fawn and pink one. As she walked along the main rut-hollowed road from the farm she had to pass by the North Lodge of Lord Fischel's estate and she always hurried along this sec ton of the road. Today she had passed the gate and was just about to leave the road and mount the fells when a carriage came rocking towards her and she scrambled up the bank and stood for a moment breathlessly looking down at the galloping horses and glimpsing through the windows the face of a man she recognized, although she had only seen him once before.

Lord Fischel, too, had seen the girl only once before but in the fleeting glimpse he got of her standing on the bank silhouetted against the skyline he remembered her; and the glimpse had shown him more than the girl's face: it had shown him that she was with child.

As the carriage rolled through the North Lodge gates and up the driveway and across the park he sat straight in his seat, his eyes flicking along the rows of buttons in the black leather upholstery opposite as if he were counting them.

Having arrived at the house, he was met on the steps as usual by Hatton, solicitous always for his master but not presuming to inquire if he had had a good journey.

It was the valet, Cunningham, who was privileged to ask this question of his master as he helped him off. with his boots, then his coat and cravat.

"I trust you have had a good day, m'Lord?" And to this his master replied, "Fair, Cunnings, fair."

The valet's name was Cunningham but a three- syllabled name was considered too distinguished for a servant and so had been reduced to Cunnings. Cunningham did not object to this. He was a small, thoughtful man, with the quiet, restrained manner expected of a valet;

but his position in the household was unique, in that as much as it was possible he was in his master's confidence.

His master now lifted one foot up after the other so that his stockings could be pulled off. He always changed his stockings after a journey and he watched the process as he said, "Do you remember, Cunnings, the reason why I sent my son away?"

Calmly Cunningham replied, "Yes, m'Lord." His Lordship was already aware without asking that he knew the reason, the whole household knew the reason--had it not been witnessed by the two coachmen? -in fact, the whole county knew the reason, and Cunningham knew that his master was thought to be insane for wreaking such vengeance on his son; girl servants were dropped every day by the sons of their masters. It was looked upon in some quarters as necessary practice for the young bloods. If there was no result of the association, well and good, and the young person might benefit by a present; but if there was a result she was sent packing. The issue of the wealthy was so mixed with the poor that he wondered, during his moments of contemplation on such matters, that the strain didn't rise above its environment and make itself evident. But perhaps it did just that, because there were men everywhere risking their livelihoods in order to learn to read and write. This in turn, in some cases, made them become pamphleteers and write against the blood that was surely in them.

Life, Cunningham often considered, was a very strange thing; but he was satisfied with his share of it, and had been for the last thirty years, during which time he had served his master even before he came into the title, and had never been out of his presence for more than twenty-four hours since. He had dressed His Lordship for his wedding; he had accompanied him on his honeymoon; and as the years went by he had suffered with him through Her Ladyship's lack of decorum. He had, like his master, but from a distance, listened to her upbraiding and talk that did not befit an ordinary woman, let alone a lady; and he had, like his master, disliked, from the very begin110 f. ne swelling ri ace rung, the twins her ladyship had presented to her husband.

Henry Cunningham did not believe in a God, or a hereafter, but he believed in his master's right to rule through the heritage of the Fischel family.

And now His Lordship said, "I would like you, Cunnings, to take a walk on the fells tomorrow and make the acquaintance of a person who lives there in what I understand to be an extension to a cave. Her name is Brodie; she is with child. I want to know when it is expected."

I; "Yes, m'Lord." There was no hesitation in the answer, no sign of surprise at such an order.

His Lordship, now stripped of his clothes, even of his skin-tight underpants, lay on a straight couch placed at some little distance from the fire, and submitted himself to be rubbed down with a warm rough towel, after which Cunningham sprinkled eau-de- cologne liberally on his hands and massaged the thin, almost fleshless frame.

As Lord Fischel gently sniffed the stringent odor up his nostrils he thought. It could be anybody's; they lie like rabbits. But he would know by the day on which it was born. He did not ask himself why he was taking an interest in the offspring of a girl who was, after all, only fell trash, for he could not admit to himself that he was missing his son. He had never liked his children; he had been glad to get rid of them. Singly, each had been an irritant; combined, and under this roof with him, they had become nothing short of a nuisance; yet there was that in him, if he would acknowledge it, that was crying out for his son. There was that in him that would have altered the charter of the Virago and brought his son back to these shores again. But there was nothing in him that desired that he should ever set eyes on his daughter again.

The gentleman was dressed plainly in black and he asked the way to Brockdale.

"Oh! Brockdale." She shook her head at him.

"You're goin' the wrong way. This leads to the hamlet of Heatherbrook; Brockdale lies over there." She pointed.

"And it's all of three to four miles."

"Oh! That far?" he said.

"Yes, Sir."

He raised his head and looked up at the sky, saying, "It could be rain, I won't venture that far today. It's very pleasant up here." He spoke as a stranger to these parts, and she said, "Yes, Sir, in the spring and summer; but at the back end it's bleak."

When he turned from his direction and walked by her side she didn't mind. He was a gentleman, yet there was a qualifying element in her classification. Perhaps not quite a gentleman, for gentlemen wouldn't talk kindly with her like he did. But someone like Parson Hedley. And he was dressed not unlike the parson--sober, but much more neatly and very clean; his hands were whiter than any woman's she had ever seen.

As they walked along the track below the dwelling, his prophesized rain came in a sharp stinging shower and she said, "Ohi Sir, you're going to get wet." She turned from him as if to hurry up the rise; then looking at him again and realizing he was without a. greatcoat, she pointed over her shoulder.

"You could shelter if you like." He was a stranger but she had no fear of him.

"Thank you; I'd be pleased to." He hurried after her towards the odd-looking habitation, and when she opened the door and stood aside to let him pass, his step became slow as if he were walking into an unknown world. And such was the impression the interior made on him that his imperturbability was shattered. Three little girls were sitting on a piece of black matting before a small, rough fireplace, and in a basket was another child. The girl looked at them, then said immediately and, he thought, anxiously, "Where's Joe?" And the tallest girl, her eyes on him, answered her sister, saying, "He's down by the burn. He's comin'. We ran 'cos we saw it was gonna rain;