‘You’re from Bradfield?’ she said.

‘No, further off.’

‘Stocksbridge way?’ She smiled again, warmly, and raised her eyebrows. ‘I’ve a cousin in Stocksbridge.’

‘No.’ He’d never heard of Stocksbridge and wanted to end this line of questioning. ‘The driver – Michael – he were reight kind to stop. I were on me way to town.’ He did not want another resident of this town viewing him as waif, stray or vagrant.

‘Well, that’s all very well,’ said the older woman. ‘I can make room for thee, but I can’t take a dog.’

The baby yawned and reached with a fat little fist for the plait of greyly blonde hair that hung over the woman’s shoulder. The girl was blonde too, and pretty. She gave him a sympathetic look.

Silas coughed. ‘He’s a bonny lad. What’s his name?’

The woman absently tugged her hair out of the baby’s mouth.

‘He’s a she. Betty.’

He could tell she was becoming exasperated. The wind was blowing the rain into the room, but he had done the right thing by edging forward over the threshold. It meant she couldn’t bring herself to tell the girl to close the door on him. The girl smiled at him and said, ‘P’raps we can let him dry off for a bit.’

Silas smiled back gratefully. She was a proper looker with large blue eyes and a plump mouth and pale unblemished skin. Plump and big-breasted. The sort of girl his brother would waste no time in leading into the barn. Her hand, when she lifted it to wave him in without waiting to hear what the older woman had to say, was red raw, the skin rough and peeling.

‘And Shandy too?’ He appealed to the girl, but she looked away from him, over her shoulder, at the woman whose name Silas had been given and had forgotten.

The woman sighed. ‘Aye, alreet. The dog an’ all. It’s not staying inside, though! You can tie it out the back.’

He followed the two of them, crossing the room in two strides, his eyes flicking over his surroundings. A sampler hung on the wall above the glowing fireplace and a long wooden seat alongside the coal scuttle was covered in embroidered cushions. A rug covered most of the floor. The place looked cosy. He’d struck lucky. In the corner, a white-painted door stood open, a staircase curving out of sight behind it.

The kitchen led off the front room and was just as warmly inviting, the coal fire and hissing gas lamps bathing the walls in a warm yellow glow. Shandy eased past him into the centre of the room and gave herself a vigorous shake, spraying the accumulated filth of their journey against the legs of the small kitchen table and over the flagstones.

‘Shandy, gi’ over! Sorry, missus.’

‘It’s Mrs Armitage – Hilda – and this here’s Louisa Leigh. Louisa lodges with me.’

‘Oh. Pleased to meet you.’

‘And d’you have a name, at all?’

‘I’m Silas,’ he said, ‘…Hinchcliffe.’ There should be no harm in telling these women his name, although he wouldn’t put it past his father to set the police on him and have him hauled back to the farm. ‘I’m Silas Hinchcliffe.’