‘Rough people,’ explained Felicity, quietly, in case they overheard and took offence. ‘Fighters. This whole area is Reiver country. Used to be, anyways, though if you throw a rock in the air it’ll hit somebody with a surname from one of the old clans.’

‘I’ve studied the Reivers,’ I said.

‘How?’ she asked.

‘I’m sorry?’

‘How did you study them? They’re long gone.’

‘Read about them, I mean. In books.’ I waved the novel I was reading. It was probably an Orwell. I liked Orwell a lot in those days.

She continued to stand there, staring at me. Now she had recovered herself she seemed disinclined to move on. Behind her the sky was an ugly grey, like wet limestone. Her coat was buttoned up to the top but she looked cold, as if she was suppressing a tremble.

‘I’m not a big reader,’ she said. ‘My husband likes cowboy books. And films. I try to read but I fall asleep.’

‘You’re reading the wrong books,’ I said, primly.

‘Yes?’ She seemed interested in the idea. ‘You can tell me which are the right ones.’

I gave her a little more attention. Angled my head, enquiring whether she wanted any more of my time. The wind played with the long grass. The birdsong was shrill, a plaintive whistle, like a drowning sailor calling for help.

‘Do you know all the occupants?’ I asked, waving generally in the direction of the next headstone. It was a sandstone affair, its letters semi-obscured by wind and rain and time.

‘Not all,’ she said. ‘Most of these are before my time though I recognize a lot of the surnames. Mam’s in a family plot, you see. All the newer burials these days are back in Gilsland. St Mary Magdalene. The new church, we call it, though it’s been up more than a hundred years.’

‘Your family’s from here, then.’

‘Oh aye. Dad says they built the place around us. Reckons we helped put up the Roman wall. I’m Denton, now, I suppose, but I hope I’m still Gilsland.’