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made up a bed for him on the floor near the fire:
    an old tick stuffed with straw could have the feeling of down when a man was tired, and a boy too, as
    they both must be after their day’s tramping. But when it neared midnight and they still hadn’t put in an
    appearance, her annoyance turned to anger; for although she reasoned that Peter had
    drunk so much that
    he had thought it better to bed down there than tackle the quarry road back, and the boy with him,
    nevertheless, he had put her out.
    She lay on her bed awake for some time until her reason said she couldn’t imagine the
    beer that Bill
    could brew would have the power to knock Peter out, for, him being a sailor, he was used to his rum and
    such.
    She dozed at intervals, but before the dawn broke she was sitting on the edge other bed, her thin lips
    munching backwards and forwards portraying her anxiety, and asking herself why that
    odd feeling of
    foreboding that she experienced in times of crisis should be on her. Could anything have happened to
    them both? But what could have happened around here? True, the men at times were
    rowdy, although
    not so bad nowadays since they were living in respectable cottages and each with his stint of land.
    “Twas only on the pay-days, when they would go as far as Hexham one way or Allendale
    the other, that
    they got out of hand. And anyway, a man such as Peter could certainly take care of
    himself.
    She rose from the bed and blew up the dying embers of the fire and heated some goat’s
    milk into which
    she dropped some pieces of bread and goat’s cheese. But before she was halfway through it she found
    she had no appetite for it, and so, getting into her clothes and taking her shawl from the back of the door,
    she put it over her head, strapped it under her flagging breasts and tied it in a knot in the middle other
    back. Then picking up a wicker basket she went out. What she would do, she told herself, was to take
    a stroll towards Bill Lee’s, but should she meet Peter and the boy coming back, she
    would show no
    anxiety, perhaps a little temper at their lack of consideration, but she would say she was out as usual
    gathering her herbs.
    Of course there weren’t many herbs to be got alongside the quarry track; nothing
    worthwhile grew in the
    brushwood that had sprung up over the years. Still, she was pleased that part was covered for it took the
    scars from the land. But over towards the spinney beyond which Bill Lee’s cottage lay, there was a
    patch of meadow that on occasions seemed to give forth those herbs she needed, that is if once again
    they hadn’t let the young horses play in it. Anyway, should she meet up with her visitors, she could
    offhandedly tell them she was making for there.
    The morning light was bright and the sun was coming up over the hills when she reached a part of the
    quarry pathway that brought her to a standstill; for here she saw had been a fall and not the usual one.
    This then was what she had heard early on last evening, but she had taken little notice because there was
    always some noise from either the smelting mills or the mine. It was a joke that one day Stublick miners
    would come up out of the bottom of the quarry.
    To get round it she had to make her way into the brushwood. As she did so she came to a part she
    decided had been flattened down by a number of feet. There were stones strewn about
    and fresh earth
    had been trampled here and there. It couldn’t have been gypsies, she told herself, else there would have
    been a fire. Yet they wouldn’t have been so silly as to make a fire here amidst all this kindling. She had
    to push her way through hawthorn and bramble to reach the path on the other side and
    she stood there
    looking down into the quarry. It had been a mighty big fall, bigger than usual. Well,
    that’s what the rains
    did.
    She was about to turn away when her eyes narrowed, and she moved a cautious step
    nearer the edge
    and looked down. There, to the left