Her hostess, jiggling a pan now full of bacon rashers, began to say that this was not a good idea, that the children would grieve and their father would feel guilty, but Glenys shook her head. ‘They may feel that for a little while – not Mr Trewin, but the children – but I’m certain it won’t last,’ she said positively. ‘Remember, I’ve been a teacher now for several years and I know the way children’s minds work. I have been their friend, but I’m also a reminder of times they would rather forget. So truly it’s best that I disappear from their lives and let them throw themselves into being young farmers, which I am certain will suit them down to the ground.’

‘But you said you would visit . . .’ the older woman began, and then stopped as the kitchen door opened to reveal Mr Griffiths and the three Trewins.

‘Come along in and sit yourselves down,’ Nain said at once. ‘Wash your hands, you children, and I’ll start cooking, because Miss Trent wants to get back to Mrs Buttermilk’s place before midnight!’

Glenys began to protest, to say that Mrs Buttermilk would no doubt give her a meal, but the older woman, though she smiled, shook her head. ‘I don’t want it said that a guest came to my house and left without good hot food inside them.’ She twitched the curtain aside and looked out, then let it drop with an exclamation. ‘It’s snowing! Ah well, that settles it. Dad and Sam will get the trap out, harness the pony and drive you back to town. Now sit down, everyone.’ She turned to her husband. ‘I don’t suppose this young lady will drink our homebrew as you and Sam do; I dare say she’d prefer a nice hot cup of tea.’

Glenys realised that to protest, to try to insist that she should leave at once, would be churlish, so she sat down at the table and was grateful when Mo took the chair on her right and Jimmy that on her left. Smiling rather stiffly, she helped herself to bread and butter.

When they had all taken their places, however, and were beginning to eat the food their hostess set before them, Glenys was glad she had stayed. The bacon was delicious, the tea hot and sweet, just as she liked it, and under the influence of the meal conversation gradually ceased to be stilted, and became easier. Sam Trewin told the story of his very first voyage as a lad of sixteen, when he had jumped into his hammock and it had promptly ejected him, to the amusement of his shipmates; and rather to her own surprise Glenys capped his story with a reminiscence of her own first day as a teacher. It was the start of the new school year and she had been teaching the infants when one of them suddenly got up from her little chair and announced she was going home because she did not like school after all. Glenys had no idea what to do. She tried to reason with the tot, but when she took a step towards her the child hurled her pencil case in her general direction and set off, at an incredibly fast pace, for home.