‘Well, you mustn’t worry about it,’ Ellen told him. ‘It’s nature’s way of healing. We don’t want to think of it right now. All we want is to get you home.’

‘Where are the bairns? Who’ve you left them with?’

‘Erm, let me think.’ She led him across the wide hall. ‘I know I left them somewhere; now where was it?’

Isaac opened the doors for them and touched his forehead as they went through and Ellen smiled at him, mouthing thank you, and said, ‘Oh, yes, now I remember! Here they are!’

The children standing outside cheered at Mr Tannerson’s prompting and tears streamed down Harry’s face as the mill owner lifted the children one by one to give their father a kiss to save him from bending.

As they walked slowly across to the wagon, Tannerson suggested to Ellen, ‘I’ll sit in the back with the children if you can take the reins, then Harry can sit up next to you. Are you able to do that? The mare’s a steady drive.’

She was about to say yes when Harry said, ‘I can drive. I know this horse. We’re friends, aren’t we, Nellie?’ He stroked the satiny nose and she snickered and blew at him.

Ellen was doubtful, worrying about the strain on Harry’s hands and back, but he insisted, ‘I’ve got to get back to normal some time and there’s no time like ’present.’

‘Just halfway, then,’ Ellen said, ‘then I’ll take over.’ She wanted to make the left turn towards Queen’s Road and Harry didn’t know about that. ‘Turn left out of ’hospital gates,’ she told him as Tannerson helped him up.

‘We can go straight across,’ he told her. ‘Down to ’bottom of Albion Street. I thought you knew that way.’

‘I do,’ she said, ‘but I want to show you something. And just look at the sky!’ She pointed up to divert him. ‘It’s almost, but not quite, as good as a Holderness one.’

‘You’re right,’ Harry agreed, turning left as she directed; the sky in the west was suffused with blue, red and gold. ‘It’s just that ’buildings get in ’way.’

‘We’ve got a surprise,’ Thomas said from behind Harry’s ear as he stood in the back with Tannerson holding on to his coat. ‘But you don’t know what it is, Dada, and we do!’

‘Don’t tell him,’ Sarah said. She put her hand over Thomas’s mouth and he promptly tried to bite her.

‘It’s a surprise!’ he shouted again, having fortunately forgotten what the surprise was.