*Be quicker next time,' Crumpton growled. *I'm not scraping you off the floor.'

The day dragged.

Eventually, the night sky shrouded the windows, beautifully dark blue.

Oil lanterns lit, still Eppie laboured on. Time and again her nimble fingers were called upon as piecers working on the outside shouted for her to join snapped threads.

Although she hated the cellar she longed to return there to escape the monotony of the mill. Her back ached unbearably from scavenging; crawling beneath the machines, brushing up dust, and picking up bits of dropped cotton. Her chest and throat hurt from coughing.

Not only did she feel physically sick and tired but mentally drained, worn out by the ridiculous restriction that she must not utter a single word to Martha throughout the interminably long day. She felt weary of holding back her emotions in the way she saw those around her doing, their faces stony as Crumpton patrolled, glaring at their work.

The bell clanged, tolling the end of the working day. Workers funnelled through the yard. The mill kept hot and damp to stop the cotton fibres snapping, the sudden change in temperature was torture.

Shivering, Eppie clung to Martha as they plodded through the oppressive, dank fog.

*I wish we never had to set eyes on that mill again,' Eppie said, knowing that only a few hours would pass before they returned.

Sitting around the upturned market basket they blew upon the potato, onion and rook broth, glad of its watered-down mix to keep them warm.

*When we first came over from Ireland, Mr Grimley owned the textile mills and the weaving shed,' Eibhlin told them. *Things were better then. Workers were fined for smoking whilst at work, dangerous things. Nothing like what we get from Mr Crumpton. He was put in by the current owner.'

For the remainder of the week, Eppie worked to the point of exhaustion, consumed by the ghastly feeling that she had never slept in her life. Often she would glance at the bales of cotton in the drying-room, longing to snuggle down, but she had seen other children succumb and listened with dread to their screams as Crumpton beat them. So she fought against her sagging tiredness. She did not want the same thing happening to her.

CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO.

TIME WASTER.

Saturday, the last day of the working week. They would finish early and receive their wages. This was Eppie's only compensation as, rising early, she trembled with weariness.

To Wakelin's eyes the women and girls, treading through the dark streets, shrouded in shawls, looked like a row of crows with broken wings.

Life was better for him. The skill of his work required his utmost concentration so that he was less aware of the monotony. Regardless of this, he craved fresh air and the friendly banter he had with Ezra when they had worked in the cropping shop.

First light of day appeared.

Eppie stared longingly out of the windows, which were kept shut to keep the mill at a constant temperature to stop cotton threads breaking. High above leafless boughs, doves flapped against pink clouds. How she longed to hear the dawn chorus and the murmur of the wind instead of the continual battering of the machines.

Plucking raw cotton, she was painfully aware of torn scabs bleeding beneath her nails. Waves of tiredness welled. She fought them back. Tried to recall happy times, like the evening after she had put her stuffed rabbit and his carrot in the garden: Gillow was laughing. *What have you in mind to learn, my little maid?'

*I'm going to write poetry.'

*Leave clever words to the gentry who've nowt better to do than mull over such useless things. To handle soil and rotting leaves, that's what brings you close to God, not fancy words.'

*But can't you see, Pa? Poetry is in the earth. It's in your *tatie plot, the clouds, the trees. It's everywhere you look!'

Now she realised she was wrong. There was no poetry here. Steady and monotonous pumped the iron heart of the mill, its rhythm thumping through the soles of her feet, ticking repetitively in her veins. There was no escape from breathing in the stagnant stench of sweated labour trapped within airless rooms.

There was no poetry here.

*Dunham, to the mules!'

It was the same day after seemingly endless day, the relentless metal beasts crushing the life out of their victims.

Backing from the mule, where she had swept up waste cotton, an appalling tickling caught at her throat. Coughing ceaselessly she was sure she would choke to death, there and then, on the sucking dust. Clasping Eppie's hand, Martha stared anxiously into her red-rimmed eyes. Fever-bright they burned in her lean face, reflecting her hunger and deprivation. Eppie fought to draw breath, *It's the ... little cottony bits.'

*No talking!' Crumpton shouted. *What do you think this is? The market square?' A toffee stuck to his set of false teeth. He spat them out, picked off the sweet, and sucked the dentures back in.

Eppie jumped at the feel of a hand crawling upon her shoulder. A willowy fellow, Longbotham was, as ever, dressed in a cheap black cotton suit. He was acting upon instructions from the overseer. *Name?' he asked in an unhurried voice.

*Eppie Dunham.'

The clerk carried a wooden board upon which was set an ink pot and quill.

She watched as he wrote slowly in the red fines book: Two pence deduction. Speaking whilst working.

*Two whole pennies?' she cried.

Crumpton cast her a wry smile. *Make that four whole pennies.'

Weighed down by a wooden box off-loaded from a narrowboat, a man entered the mill and dumped it beneath a window. *Chalks!'

*They're shouting out for chalks in the finishing shed,' the overseer told Eppie. *Take some over.'

Whilst grabbing a handful she glanced through a window and gaped in surprise, having spotted Tobias Leiff. He was standing beside a narrowboat, turning the handle of a crane. Another steersman directed the unloading of bales. She longed to rap on the window to gain Tobias's attention.

*Rules!' Crumpton snarled. *No looking out of the windows.' He hung a heavy stone around her neck. *You will wear this at work all week as your punishment.'

*A whole week!' she protested, tugging at the thick cord.

*Longbotham, make those six whole pennies,' Crumpton said mockingly.

In the glass-roofed finishing shed, women sat at tilted tables on which cloth was spread, repairing faults and colouring it to make it appear an even shade.

Wakelin and Ezra stared at Eppie in sorrow as she stepped towards a table. The stone, Time Waster daubed upon it, was so heavy, and the rope so painful as it bit into the skin of her neck that it forced her to walk round-shouldered.

Depositing the chalk, she returned, gloomily, to the spinning room.

The engine shut off for the night, a queue of children stood in rigid silence before the office door.

*Next,' Mr Grimley called.

Seated upon his lofty stool, Longbotham totted each family's due wage in his ledger.

*Name?' Mr Grimley asked without looking up from a tin box.

*Eppie.'

He huffed, though she guessed, more from weariness than bad-temper. *Surname?'

*Sorry, Dunham.'

*You appear to have got yourself into a bit of mischief this week, young lady.'

Hands gripped behind her back, she stared at the blazing coal fire. *Umm.'

Having checked the wage, Longbotham informed Mr Grimley who, in turn, handed her a few shillings, pence and twenty badge-like copper coins. *Next.'

*What's them?'

*Tokens.' Sorting the earnings for the following child he had no time to explain. *Owner's scheme. Take my advice, stick to vegetables.'

Martha turned the unfamiliar coppers over in her hands.

*You've done well,' Eibhlin said. *We're compelled to buy nearly all our food and wares from the truck store. Those are truck tokens.'

Whilst Eibhlin and Coline headed to the cellar, Eppie, Martha and Fur joined the queue of workers outside the truck shop. Abel Loomp, Purveyor of Quality Foods was painted in lurid orange letters above the door. Lantern-lit, the interior looked a jolly place with seed buns and cottage loaves displayed in glass cabinets. Stacked to the ceiling were all manner of merchandise.

*We'd best have pig's fry tonight,' Martha said. *It's cheap and warming.'

Eppie gazed wide-eyed at the rows of tiny wooden drawers with their shiny brass handles, longing to creep behind the counter and peep into each to see what treasure it held. Above the drawers were arrayed cardboard boxes, jars of pickled eggs and onions and blue-wrapped packages of varying shapes and sizes.

Having exchanged some of his tokens for a limp-looking cabbage, Fur tore off to the market to see if he could procure any good deals with his few pennies.

Fighting back tiredness, Martha smiled genially at the beefy-faced grocer. *I'd like some pig's lights, heart, liver and chitterlings. Also half a pound of oatmeal, three onions and six potatoes.'

Loomp worked the handle of the meat-mincing machine. *Going to eat like lords and ladies are we, missus? You must be fresh.'

Rudely, Crumpton barged Martha aside. *Quart o' toffees, Hubert,' he demanded of the apron-clad boy, who helped behind the counter. *Make it snappy.'

Fetching a stool, Hubert reached up to a glass jar. Unscrewing it, he tipped the sweets into a set of pendulum weighing scales, and funnelled them into a paper bag.

*Workers may only ask for up to four food items a day,' Loomp informed Martha. *Mustn't be greedy, must we?'

A blank where her smile used to be, Martha crunched the handle of Eibhlin's wicker basket in embarrassment, stammering her apologies.

Crumpton smirked at Martha's discomfiture.

Impatiently, Loomp passed over a bag. *Here, take it. Tokens?' Eyes gleaming, he thrust a raw-looking hand into Martha's and snatched nine.

*So many! I won't have enough to last the week.'

*Watch your tongue; else I'll not be serving the likes of you again.'

Foggy air chilled them as they left the store.

Martha felt dazed and dirtied by the experience. *It's not going to be as easy to save as I imagined.'

*You can buy all this for a few pence in the market,' Jenufer said as she, Ezra and Simkin followed them out, *not that the quality's any better there.'

They traipsed through town to collect their younger daughters from Grandmother Mobsby.

*Only last week we fetched a fruit pie off Loomp,' Ezra said. *This is stuffed all right, I told Jen, though not all with apple. There were bits of hay and cotton fibres in it. I even fished out a horse's whisker.'

Eibhlin was delighted with Martha's offer that her family share the pig's fry.

Coline and Eppie set about slicing the meat and onion, rolling them in flour and salt and frying them in fat.

*I don't know if Lottie will stay awake to eat,' Martha said. *She hasn't opened her eyes since I fetched her home. Her cheeks are flushed as though she's been crying.'

*It'll be the stench of the river making her eyes water,' Eibhlin reassured her. *It takes some folk queer.'

*Becky, Jenufer's daughter, is sick as well,' Martha said. *Jenufer has an inkling that Grandmother Mobsby force-feeds the young ones a pudding of flour and water.'

Eppie approached Wakelin with a chipped pudding basin of stew. Gleefully, he rubbed his hands together. Moments later, chewing, he grumbled, *This ain't proper cooked.'

*It can't be helped,' Martha said, exasperated. *The fire hardly has any heat in it.'

He threw down his spoon in disgust. *I'm off to The Barrel to drown the taste.'

Valiantly, Martha forced herself to work through the weeks though, like Eppie, she was feeling the strain of the long hours. Knowing they had to be up well before dawn she often stayed awake all night, afraid that they would oversleep and not hear the bell. Now she understood why so many mill workers suffered from upset stomachs, appeared miserable, and aged prematurely. The same was happening to her.

Despite her anxiety, as the first weeks of December crept by, it was seeing their savings slowly grow that most pleased Martha. They had even acquired a few domestic utensils on credit from the truck store and earned a little extra by selling the pigs to a local butcher.

Strengthened by Martha's optimism and listening to her plans for their future that, before long, they would be free of the mill, Eppie steeled herself to work through her fatigue. Each day, though, was a ghastly endurance.

The weather worsened. Hail or rain often fell upon them as they stomped to and from the mill, and it was almost impossible to dry their shawls in the cellar.

Ever a fog hung over the grimy river. There was no respite from breathing in its dankness as it seeped into the basement through cracks and crannies in the brick mortar.

At work the impure air, deficient in oxygen, was no better. Workers lived with the nauseous stench of whale oil, used to lubricate the machinery. Smearing the floor, it sank in and became rancid.

Overwhelmed with a sense of meaninglessness in her life, Eppie often went to bed suffering from headaches, gripped by the nagging need to sleep, a cherished experience that often eluded her these days.

CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE.

DREAMER.