‘You’ll lose it if you get in arrears,’ he was warned. ‘So be sure to pay on time. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ll try to catch up wi’ that family. I’ve remembered I might have another place for them.’

‘They’ve no money,’ Harry frowned.

‘You gave ’em summat, didn’t you?’

Harry stared at him. A shilling. He’d intended it for food for the children. What a dilemma. Now the parents would have to decide whether the children would eat or have a place to lay their heads. He was angry. There’d be some landlord having a good dinner tonight and not even thinking of the plight of the tenants who were paying for it.

CHAPTER SEVEN

The rent agent scuttled off to catch up with the former tenants and Harry hoped that he had something better to offer them than the room below ground. He thought it was appalling that people should have to live in such conditions, but then reflected that it would mean the workhouse otherwise and no one wanted that, particularly people with children.

The sun came out in a cloudy sky and he stepped away from the house and strode down the side of it to see what was behind the yard. The gate was locked from the inside and he regarded that as satisfactory. It would mean that the children would be able to play outside without Ellen being anxious about them wandering off.

Beyond was a rough area of scrubland with a broken-down boundary fence boasting many gaps. Harry squeezed through one of them and came to a wide muddy bank leading down towards the River Hull. In the distance he saw tall factory chimneys and many industrial buildings; beyond those were church steeples and what he thought were oil mills and kilns. The water reached halfway up to the top of the bank and he mused that although the river was narrow here a young child could easily drown in its depths, yet there were children playing about on the water’s edge, boys of perhaps eight or ten, and older youths sitting on the opposite bank with fishing rods.

He called across to two of them. ‘Have you caught owt yet, lads?’

One of them looked up and shook his head. ‘Not yet. Missed ’early morning tench, but there’ll mebbe be roach later.’

Harry nodded. That was encouraging: food for free. He had an old fishing rod in a shed at home; he’d search it out and bring it with him. He strolled nearer the edge, to where the young lads were larking about. One of them, already barefoot, was taking off his shirt and breeches.

‘Is ’water warm?’ Harry called to him.

The boy crouched to make his way down the bank. ‘Yeh. It’ll save me having to get a bath on Friday.’

Harry laughed. ‘Did you bring soap?’