“Well, let’s hope she’s got a bread-cutting machine!” said Dick. “Or we’ll be here for keeps! Hallo - who’s this?”

A tall man appeared at the entrance of the shop, a bicycle in his hand. “Ma!” he called.

The children guessed who he was at once - the son who worked over at Blackbush Farm. He had come for his sandwiches!

“Your mother is hard at work cutting sixty-four rounds of bread,” said Dick. “Shall I get her for you?”

“No. I’m in a hurry,” said the man and he set his bicycle by the door, came in, reached over the counter for his sandwiches and then went back to his bicycle.

“Tell my mother I’ve been in,” he said, “And you might tell her I’ll be late home today - got to take some stuff to the prison.”

He was off at once, sailing away down the road on his bicycle. The old woman suddenly came in, a knife in one hand, a loaf in the other.

“Did I hear Jim?” she said. “Oh yes - he’s got his sandwiches. You should have told me he was in!”

“He said he was in a hurry,” explained Julian. “And he said we were to tell you he’d be late today because he had to take some stuff to the prison.”

“I’ve got another son there,” said the woman. The four looked at her. Did she mean he was a prisoner? And what prison?

She guessed their thoughts and smiled. “Oh, my Tom isn’t a prisoner!” she said. “He’s a warder - a fine fellow. Not a nice job there though - I’m always afraid of those men in prison - a fierce lot, a bad lot!”

“Yes - I’ve heard there is a big prison on this moor,” said Julian. “It’s marked on our map too. We’re not going near it, of course.”

’No. Don’t you take the girls near there,’ said the woman, disappearing again. “If I don’t get on with your sandwiches you’ll not have them before tomorrow morning,”

Only one customer came in while the children were waiting - a solemn old man smoking a clay pipe. He looked round the shop, couldn’t see the woman, took a packet of blancmange powder, which he slipped into his pocket, and put the money down on the counter.

“Tell ’er when ’er comes,” he mumbled with his pipe still in his mouth, and out he shuffled. Timmy growled. The old man smelt very unwashed and Timmy didn’t like him. At last the sandwiches were finished and the old woman appeared again. She had packed them up neatly in four parcels of grease-proof paper, and had pencilled on each what they were, Julian read what she had written and winked at the others.

“My word - we’re in for a grand time!” he said. “Cheese, Pork, Ham and Egg - and what’s this?”

’Oh, that’s four slices of my home-made fruit cake,’ said the old woman. “I’m not charging you for that, It’s just so that you can taste it!”