Bett met them at the foot of the hill. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I tried to stop them, or make them wait for the magistrate at least, but—’ She shook her head.

‘They’re at the house?’ Sarah asked.

‘On the way, yes. Sorry.’

Sarah ran on, pausing when she came upon the parson. So intent on exacting revenge on his behalf, they had all abandoned him to his indignity. Sarah gasped, bent to place a kiss on his forehead.

‘I’m sorry,’ she whispered.

Daniel took her in his arms and shared her misery. She stood a moment, face pressed against his tunic.

‘It’s all gone,’ she said. ‘Everything just gone.’

He kissed the top of her head. ‘I know.’

‘And now they blame my family.’ She pushed him away, staggering towards the Haworth shack with tears pouring down her face.

The crowd was already at the house. Some had collected weapons: sticks, knives, ropes, torches. Gabriel had a pitchfork.

Hackles

They have ripped him from his bed, I see by the way his blanket is flung aside. Four men to carry him, one grasping each limb. He twists in their arms, eyes rolling, face the colour of wood-ash.

Just a lad. Frightened lad. I don’t know why they cannot see that’s all he is.

‘Mam,’ he calls. ‘Mam, make them stop.’

She runs from man to man, pulling on their arms and weeping. ‘Leave him be, what dust want with my son?’

Annie in the corner of the other room, kneading her petticoat. Tears dripping into her stretched mouth as she wails and sobs, as I’ve not seen her do since she was tiny.

I run to her, lift her. She shows no sign of knowing me. Allows me to pick her up without speaking or putting her arms around me. My neck soaked with her tears.

Daniel stands in the doorway, staring helpless as the men struggle to carry John’s thrashing body outside, as they throw Mam off. He looks at me, eyes huge against the sickly shade of his skin. Feared.

I run to him, force Annie into his arms.

‘Take her,’ I say.

His arms close around her, he strokes the hair from her wet face. ‘Come with us,’ he says.

I shake my head. Cannot.

‘Sarah—’

‘Go.’

He nods.

The men carrying John, the crowd that follows and Mam as she drags against them are all outside the door now. I am sick with fear, sick with seeing John’s fear.

‘Please,’ he shouts. ‘Let me be. Please.’

There are whoops and jeers from the crowd. People I saw at church, women who chat and laugh at the market, who have come to Mam for cures many a time. Gabriel at the head of them, pitchfork held aloft.

I run after, pull with all my strength at those holding John, try to prise their fingers away.