At one point before the church clock at the back of the square behind the buildings struck twelve o’clock, a farmer had come and talked to two of the men who had gone off with him after a minute or two. By then Rose felt like a block of ice. She had long since stopped being able to feel her feet and her hat and coat offered little protection from the piercing wind that had sprung up.

Betsy woke up just after midday and immediately began to cry, whether from hunger or cold or a combination of both, Rose didn’t know. After trying to pacify the baby for over half an hour she was becoming increasingly desperate.

It was then that her previous interrogator, her voice conciliatory now, came over and said, ‘If you want to see to the bairn, old Seth, the pub landlord, won’t mind. He’s got a snug in the back he only opens at night for the card players, but if you buy a hot toddy or somethin’, he’ll let you use it for the bairn, all right? He’s a good sort, Seth.’

‘Th–thank you.’ She was so cold her teeth were chattering.

Old Seth turned out to be as amiable as promised, and once ensconced in the small room off the main pub that smelled strongly of stale beer and tobacco smoke, Rose fed and changed Betsy. She had ordered a bowl of soup and a roll from the landlord, and once Betsy was calmer, Rose drank most of the soup, leaving a little and some fragments of bread which she turned into mush in the bowl and then fed to the baby, knowing her breast milk alone wouldn’t satisfy Betsy for long.

After wrapping Betsy up again as snugly as she could she left the sanctuary of the little room and stepped outside. The wind had picked up still more while she had been inside and now the sky was darkening, the sunshine of the morning a distant memory.

Maggie and her husband had disappeared; whether they’d been taken on by someone or had just gone home due to the worsening weather Rose didn’t know. Only two men remained and herself.