‘Quite so,’ Mr Marshall had put in. ‘Just sign it at the bottom, my boy, and let me shake you by the hand as my new tenant.’

Matthew had made a great play of signing the Agreement with big scrawling letters, as if he could barely write properly, whereas Esther knew he could sign his name quite easily. She had felt that this behaviour was all part of his punishment of her for having trapped him into marrying her so that she could secure the tenancy of the farm.

Now, as they stood in the kitchen discussing the possibility of buying a pair of horses, for the first time he was showing real enthusiasm in planning their future.

A thought struck her. With a calculated subtlety that was normally alien to her candid nature, she said, ‘Why don’t you have a word with Tom Willoughby? He would probably know how much a pair would cost. He might even know of some for sale?’

Matthew grinned at her, and for a moment he was the old Matthew. ‘Eh, but you’re a sharp one, Esther Hilton. Why didn’t I think of that?’ Then, remembering suddenly, his eyes clouded over. ‘Aye, you’re a sharp one, all right, an’ don’t I know it.’ He turned away abruptly, the tentative signs of a burgeoning co-operation dying instantly.

‘I’ll see Tom some time,’ he said casually over his shoulder and went out to feed the pigs.

Esther sighed and returned to churning the butter, venting her disillusionment by thumping the wooden barrel of the churn over and over vigorously.

With February came the snow.

It fell heavily and almost continuously for three days. A strong wind sprang up off the sea from the north-east, a bitingly cold wind, drifting the snow and cutting off all communication with the town and even with the other farms.

As the snows began, Matthew brought all the cows into the farmyard. As the weather worsened the animals kept to the byre, munching their way through the hay and watching the white world outside with soulful eyes.

On the first Sunday in the month, as they sat either side of the kitchen table eating the roast beef dinner with no word of conversation passing between them, there came a thumping on the back door. They glanced at each other in surprise. Sunday was not usually a day for callers and no one could get down the coast road from the town. Not even Will Benson had been able to get through on his usual calls during the past week.

‘What the . . . ?’

‘I’ll see who it is.’ Esther rose and went to open the back door.

One of Ma Harris’s children stood there, his thin frame shivering in the cold, the snow resting on his cap and clinging to his coat.