In the face of such fury, it was only a matter of minutes before the children were bundled from the house and into the waiting carriage. By this time, their silence was broken. Cries of ‘Mammy’ and ‘Sal… Sal’ trailed behind the carriage as it fled away.

One by one the few neighbours who resided in Dock Street came hesitantly to their doors. Curious and afraid, they made their way to Tilly’s door, now swinging back and forth in the gentle breeze. They couldn’t begin to guess what had taken place there; they were afraid of what they might find. All they did know was that the children had been taken. All of them! Every last one, judging by the cries they’d heard. There were people in authority who could do that. People who had the right by law to commit such a crime against ordinary folk. You didn’t go out of your way to pit yourself against such wicked creatures. Not unless you wanted them to turn on you, you didn’t!

As the neighbours came in through the front door, nervous and afraid, a smaller, even more terrified creature sped through the dark, rat-ridden cellars below, then up the flight of steps on to the front pavement.

From there, her heart still beating furiously, Sal ran along the cobbled streets, tears flowing down her face and occasionally crying out for her mammy.

After Justice Crowther and the men had taken away the others, Sal had remained pressed tight in the dark corner, desperately fighting the impulse to show herself in an effort to save her brother and sister, together with Tilly’s brood. She knew instinctively though that to betray her presence there would be a foolish thing to do. It had been hard, so very hard, to see the young ’uns all taken away and to be unable to do a single thing to stop it.

As she sped along the streets, Sal dared not think of Tilly, and the ‘bad ’un’. In her mind’s eye she could still see them lying there, and she was mortally afraid. What if her mammy had been there tonight? Oh, it didn’t bear thinking about!

As she ran and ran, losing her way, then finding it again, Sal had one thought in mind. One person to whom she could turn. Even then, she was afraid. Because hadn’t her own mammy told her that this one was not to be trusted! Not the friend they thought she was.

In her headlong flight Sal reminded herself of this. But she had to trust someone, didn’t she? She would trust Nelly! Because, deep down, she had come to love that lady. Nelly would help. Nelly must help. There was no one else in all the world to whom Sal could turn. Tilly and Joe were badly beaten. The young ’uns had been taken. And her mammy was away to London Town, trying to find them a place to live.

Upstairs in the big house, Emma could not rest. She felt old and weary, afraid to hope in the wake of recent developments. Thoughts of the young woman called Molly would not let her be. There were too many things still left unanswered, too much that played on her mind. The watch chain found by Nelly in this very house… the same piece that Emma’s father had given to her shortly before he departed this world. The same piece that had been lost on a twilight morning so many years ago, when she had given birth to a girl-child, before being unjustly transported from these shores.