The pattle stick, which Gillow used to remove clay from Dusty's plough, gripped in his hands beneath the blanket, Dawkin fought to conquer his jumpy nerves.

Unbearably claustrophobic, he sensed Wakelin standing over him, watching for the slightest movement that would prove he was awake. It was with untold solace that he caught a slight sound paces away. Hands shaking, he tugged down the edge of the blanket and peered out, guardedly.

Wakelin stood staring through the tiny window set into the thatch. Raindrops slivered silver down the pane like miniature daggers.

Upon spying the gun clutched in Wakelin's hands, a parched sensation gripped Dawkin's throat. He longed to fetch a drink, but was terrified to move.

He seemed to watch for ages. All the while Wakelin remained as still as death.

Gradually, lulled by the warmth of his body, Dawkin began to feel drowsy. He grimaced, knew that he must remain vigilant. Remain awake. Heartbeat slowing, muscles relaxing, he plunged into a deep slumber.

Wakelin stared at Dawkin's face. Listening to the boy's steady breathing, he tried to imagine it was upon himself that he looked, on the night he stole Genevieve. *If only I'd never woken,' he thought, *I'd never have gone to check on Eppie. I'd never have found her dead. I wish I'd never stolen her. And after what I've done tonight du Quesne could hang me twice over.' He peeled off his jerkin, recalling his cunning action. *Except they won't find out I've killed him. I've covered me tracks.' He rubbed his shoulder, which ached from bearing the body through the woods. *It's all pa's fault. He shouldn't have called me an idiot. I hate him.'

Sinking onto Gillow's sacks, he stared vacantly at the thatch, breathing in the acrid smell of woven cloth. Weighed down with torment, he wondered how much longer he could struggle on. He hated thinking it. Knew Thurstan was right. *I'm what that scum once called me, an untouchable, an outcast, cut off from everything and everyone.' He rubbed his eyes, damp from tears. Tugging out his pocket pistol, he drained the sedative-narcotic blend of opium and gin. Slumping back, mouth agape, he fell into a soporific slumber, brimming with pellucid visions: Plummeting through blackness, he burst into an exhilarating world that span with a riot of gay colours. Animated musicians piped foot-tapping tunes. Skirts swirled. Ale flowed freely.

Linking hands with Martha, Molly and other villagers, they formed a circle, skipping around a jigging simpleton ludicrously dressed as a harpy with bird wings and claws. Recognising the rapacious monster as his father, he shrieked with laughter. So proud, so self-righteous, everyone was mocking his father, the fool.

He saw himself, as a boy, dipping into a bird's nest. Crushing the speckled blue eggs of a magpie he revelled in the sensation of the mucous sliming his palms, for the breaking of the eggs foretold a year of luck.

Wiping his hands down his breeches, he retired to a trestle bench set before The Fat Duck. He licked his lips and was about to sup a draught from a blackjack when Gabriel's bloodied head surged through the frothing ale. In horror, flinging away the tankard, he caught the muffled cry of a baby.

He staggered to his feet. One moment he stood the right way up, his boots firmly planted on the timbers. The next instant, a sickening sensation curdled his stomach and he seemed to spiral upside down like an image in a lace-maker's water-filled globe. To steady himself, he took a firm grip on the rim of the apple rack.

Twisted ideas oscillated in his stupefied brain. *Is it the night I stole Gabriel's sister? Am I being given another chance?'

Quietly, he crept down the ladder. Even in his dazed stupor, like a blind dog he knew where each item of furniture stood and unsteadily wove his way between them and the loom.

Pushing back the doorway sacking, he took a tentative step into his parents' room and stooped over the cradle. This slight movement of lowering his head caused him to reel with dizziness.

Cautiously, he reached out and touched the baby's cheek. A dead cheek. He knew he ought to be consumed by an overwhelming sense of tragedy at his sister's death. Instead, he felt elated.

It was torture, but slowly, his legs shaking, he backed. With each step he felt the torment that had crushed the life out of him all these years lift from his body. Liberated from mental turmoil, he wanted to holler, to proclaim to the world that he was free. Something inside warned for silence, for restraint. The same something that had warned all those years ago, but now there was the added thrill of knowing he was leaving Eppie, for his mother to find her dead.

Letting the door curtain slump back, he turned, only for his gaze to fall upon the sleeping form of a girl. The baby in his parents' room was Eppie. Yet here she was, a young girl. She couldn't be. She was dead. The time between her birth and this moment melted. Fuddled, he shook his head, trying to rid himself of his state of torpidity.

From an unfathomable depth in his troubled mind memory grew. The baby was Lottie. With a jolt he realised this could only be Genevieve du Quesne. Appalled by the recollection he trod giddily towards her, his aching eyes fixated upon every feature of the child. Scarcely audible, whistling emitted from her nostrils. Barely perceptible, as she took each breath, her head moved. A shoulder rose and fell rhythmically.

Shaking with bewilderment, he grabbed the fox-hide cushion and held it slightly away from the girl's face. Passions oscillated. He hated Genevieve for throwing his life into turmoil, yet he was vexed with the pain of love for her. He forced emotional deadness. *This way is best,' he thought. *It won't hurt. They'll think she died in her sleep.'

Cocooned in her dreams, Eppie had the briefest perception of something inexplicable bearing down upon her, followed by an overwhelming, stifling pressure. Unable to drawn breath, she lashed out.

Wakelin thrust harder, harder. *It's nearly over,' he thought determinedly. *Then I'm free.'

The child's abrupt movements died and became no more than twitches.

Something cold and hard jabbed into Wakelin's back. In alarm, he loosened his grip and span around.

Released from her suffocation, Eppie heaved for breath. Hot with racing blood, her ears pulsated. *Mam, my nose is squashed!'

Sleep satiated, Martha stumbled out of bed. Seeing Dawkin brandishing the fowling piece at her son's chest, she shrieked in alarm.

Disturbed from her slumber, Lottie bawled.

Leering, Wakelin stepped toward Dawkin. *Ya wouldn't know how ta use it anyhow.'

*Wanna try me?'

*Gimme it!'

*I saw what you was doing!'

Wakelin seized the barrel of the gun. In the ensuing scuffle, a blast rocked the cottage.

Falling backwards, Dawkin slammed against the grandfather clock, sending its winding mechanisms whirling.

Wakelin knew the odds were stacked against him when Gillow appeared in his nightshirt and gaped in disbelief at the dust and fragments of reeds spiralling from the puncture in the thatch. *What the?'

Diving for the door, Wakelin was quickly lost in the swirling dawn mist.

CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT.

A SHORT SPRING.

Once Wicker's leg had healed, Eppie and Dawkin released her at a sandy sett by the riverbank. However, so devoted to Dawkin had she become that she immediately ran back.

Her coat had toughened up and become rougher, stiffer, with wiry hairs. She had never wholly recovered from her injuries and so was unable to tunnel into Gillow's vegetable plot.

Simply for the fun of seeing Eppie squirm, Dawkin fetched out a worm from his pocket and let it wriggle between his fingertips before popping it into his mouth. *Mmm, tasty.'

Wicker placed her front paws upon his shoulders and licked his cheeks. In response, he spat the food onto his palm and offered it to the cub. Wicker consumed it with relish.

*Do you have to keep doing that?' Eppie asked.

Dawkin grinned at her discomfiture. *It was you who told me that mother badgers chew worms for their young.'

*Well, I wish I never had. It's disgusting.'

It was a chilly spring morning and they were lazing beside the stream. Surrounding them were clumps of daffodils, dancing in the gentle breeze.

Eppie lifted the head of a dying bloom. *Fair daffy down dilly, I weep to see you haste away so soon. Like you, our lives have a short spring. Like you, we soon decay and die. Gabriel read that poem to me in the Crusader Oak. It teaches us that our lives are short. We must make the most of time.'

*Then you won't say no to a game of frog-lowp?' He pointed to a carpet of anemones. *Bend down over there.'

Seeing him race towards her, she giggled and lost her balance.

He skidded to a halt, frowning. *How can I leap if you don't hold yourself firm? And don't spring up when I'm jumping. The last time you did that you split my chin in two. What are you laughing at? It hurt.'

Footsteps thudded towards her. Hands pressed upon her back, he sailed over.

Martha hurried towards the children, her face clouded with anxiety. She had been over at the Leiffs cottage. *Molly's asking for you, Eppie. Hurry, she's like as to go back at any moment.'

Bare-footed, Eppie hastened across the lane.

Warmly wrapped against the wind in a cream turban and ungainly woollen coat, Jacob was in his shed, loading firewood into a basket.

Thrown into mental confusion, not knowing how to act towards her dying friend, she dawdled in the Leiffs garden, considering how best to take command of her indomitable spirit lest she say or do the slightest thing that might cause offence to Molly or her mother. Habitually, she checked for slugs on cabbages.

Spying her, Jacob smoothed his bristly grey moustache so that it reached his lower lip. *There was a time when that girl could talk for two days without stopping. No more. You get along in. The missus has sent me out for firewood. Keeps me mind off things.'

Timidly, she knocked.

Abruptly, the sound of someone chopping with a knife ceased. Footsteps spilt across the stone floor. Having ushered her in, Sarah disappeared through a door at the bottom of the stairs. *Wait on, I'll see.'

Logs crackled. The low chimney overshadowed with trees, smoke incessantly filled the parlour with smother, which seemed not to bother the kitten at the fender-side. Sarah had been in the process of chopping garlic mustard. Scattered around an open bible was a handful of salted herrings.

Jacob booted the door open, groaning under the weight of the logs.

*You'd best come up,' Sarah told Eppie, *though don't be frightened if she don't recognise you.'

The stairs were steep and splintered over the years by the boot-nails of Molly's elder brothers as they tramped up and down. Reaching the narrow landing the smell of sweat came strongly to Eppie's nostrils. Sunbeams streamed into the room where the brothers slept, falling upon James, whose weakened body heaved with each hollow cough. Suffering the same ailment as Molly, slowly, but surely, his lungs filling with fluid, he was drowning.

The adjacent room into which she stepped was sparsely furnished with little more than the bare necessities. Jacob's bass viol stood in the corner like a soldier on guard. A flimsy cloth, draped from the rafters, swept the timber floor, partitioning Molly's bed from that of her parents.

Sarah took up her knitting. Wakelin and the parson sat in rough chairs beside the bed. Although Wakelin glanced up as Eppie trod to the head of the bed, her hands clasped before her, no emotion stirred in his face.

Downstairs, Jacob scraped back a chair at the hearthside and droned on to the kitten about the nuisance of toll evaders sneaking through in the dead of night.

Eppie was disturbed to see how ill Molly had become since yesterday, scarcely the shadow of a living creature. Dark circles swam around her sunken eyes.

Time passed.

A hush suffused with the presence of God saturated the sickroom, a hush that must not be broken by any brash, piercing word, or jolting sound.

Slowly, rhythmically, Jacob tapped with his foot upon the iron-dog at the hearth.

Eppie glanced at the bowed heads, at onions strung from the rafters in an attempt to draw out Molly's fever. Listlessly, she stirred the spoon in a trencher filled with a mixture of brandy and vinegar. Jacob's leather snuffbox stood beside Pilgrim's Powders for Fevers. Absent-mindedly, she flipped up the lid of the box and snorted a pinch of snuff up her nose, imitating the way she had seen him do. With a terrible sense of consternation, she felt her nose become unbearably ticklish.

Startled by Eppie's vigorous sneeze down the back of the parson's neck, Sarah dropped her ball of wool. *This is too bad!' she cried mournfully, dabbing the parson's damp neck with Jacob's half-finished vest. *Too bad!'

Jacob burst in. *What's a-miss, Sarah?'

Imagining the stray ball unfurling beneath the bed to be a monstrous mouse, the kitten wriggled out of his hand and sank her teeth into the wool, spitting.

Her eyes streaming, Eppie sneezed without cessation, uncomfortably aware of Wakelin glaring at her.

*By, that's a shocking cold you have, petal.'

No one had noticed Molly's eyes flicker open. The look of pain which had scoured her face for the last few days had disappeared. Smiling lovingly at Wakelin, her expression was one of wonder, as though she were seeing joyous things in a distant, happy land. With a final, sighing breath she drifted from earthly things as naturally as a falling leaf in autumn.

CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE.

SUPERSTITIOUS NONSENSE.

Betsy rubbed her aching feet. *My corns are killing me. That's a sure sign of rain. I don't relish the idea of a soaking. I'd best fetch my thick shawl.'

*You needn't bother, Mrs P. The wind's blowing the clouds away too fast for rain,' Gillow answered.

Martha roused them. *We'd better get going.'

They passed beneath the porch.

*It's so sad about Molly, poor lamminger,' Betsy said. *Mind you, after her flame perished I suppose it was to be expected.'

Last winter's eve, each member of the congregation had taken a candle to church. From Parson Lowford's perspective the flame symbolised God's spirit. For villagers who gave credence to folklore it was to hear the spirits call out the names of those who would die during the year: a bright light was favourable, a spluttering flame meant misfortune, while a dying flame foretold death.

Tinkering with the broken latch on the gate, Gillow spoke with vehemence. *That's superstitious clush.'

*You're only saying that because a death-watch beetle fell from a beam and snuffed your candle,' Eppie said, grinning.

Mourners, clad in sombre raiment, assembled for Molly's wake in the parlour of The Fat Duck.

Parson Lowford was doing his best to curb the irreverent conduct of his congregation. Visiting of relatives on the Sabbath was frowned upon, as was the funeral wake, where folk expected to indulge in meat and drink after the service. The villagers, however, had other ideas and were adept at contriving plots to continue their cherished way of life. On this occasion, Molly's wake was being held before the funeral to lessen the chance of the parson catching them.

An impressive fire roared. Feeling the heat, Eppie unpinned her mantle and thrust it between over-garments that ballooned from pegs.

*Gillow!' Jonas shouted above the hubbub. *Come and toast your innards with a pint of warmed ale. Or would you prefer a drop of something stronger?'

Bill and his friends were seated at their usual table, swilling from tankards and puffing on pipes. Tobias, who had managed to get a few days off work to visit his family for the funeral, was chatting to Wakelin at the bar. Edmund, beside them, had his arm around Kizzie.

Sarah approached Martha and Betsy. *There's a jug of whey set by for the children. Sweet tea is it, ladies?'

Balancing brimming mugs, Eppie and Dawkin made their way to a table, averting their eyes from Tom who glowered at them from behind the counter. They squeezed in at a bench. Women, seated nearby, were grumbling about the parson charging folk who had not joined the burial club a guinea to hold a funeral.

The high mantelpiece was cluttered with cheap figures in crockery-ware, brass candlesticks and tobacco dishes. Dawkin indicated to a print that showed a masked rider on a horse. *That's what I want to be when I'm growed.'

*A highwayman?' Eppie asked, trusting that he was teasing.