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Chinese screens
and grandfather clocks in lacquerwork cases. There was silk damask upon the walls and crystal chandeliers, and in every room in the house lovely furniture by Chippendale, Sheraton and Hepplewhite.
There was a dining-room, a morning room, a ‘back’ parlour, a study and a library containing thousands of books. The bedrooms were large, airy, most warmed by fires in winter and summer
for the northern climate was not known for its hospitality. On the first floor there was a gallery which ran round three sides of the house, filled with paintings of lovely women, handsome men and
splendid horses, with sofas and armchairs, and flowers everywhere. Beyond it and entered from one end, seldom used now, was a ‘large salon’, furnished with spindle-legged chairs in blue
velvet, inlaid rosewood tables and screens of delicate Chinese lacquer, all of which could be moved out so that the room could be used for a concert or a dance.
    The house was set in what had once been nothing but woodland. Removing only enough trees to clear a space for it, and an acre or two of undulating lawn, the oak, the ash, sycamore, pine and yew
stood all about the grounds, and flower beds, planted with dahlia, chrysanthemum, rose and fuchsia, glowed like jewels amongst them. Rhododendron and hydrangea grew, not formally but arranged to
harmonise with the splendid backdrop of the hills and moorland. There was a driveway lined with plane trees, winding from the gateway to the entrance porch and then round the back of the house to
the extensive yard and stables. There was a small lake on which swans glided and crocus, hyacinth, snowdrop and wild daffodils clustered thickly about it and starred the lawns in spring, and a
heath garden lay at the base of the walls of the house. It had a quiet and informal beauty, which, at the back of the house, spread out into paddocks filled with splendid thoroughbreds, an orchard
or two, vegetable gardens, until it reached the high wall which enclosed it.
    ‘Well, I’m for a stroll round the garden,’ Charlie declared suddenly. ‘It’s a lovely night and I reckon a bit of fresh air would be very welcome before we turn in.
Will you take my arm, my love?’ he said to his wife.
    Instantly, like three lamps which have just had their wicks turned up, Drew, Pearce and Tessa came alive, and when Charlie and Laurel walked down the worn stone steps of the terrace and on to
the dewed grass, his niece and nephews were already running like wild colts down the slope of the lawn, Tessa with her skirts bunched up high above her knees.

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    Charlie Greenwood walked between the rows of well-spaced machines which filled the enormous room, stopping every now and then to speak to a spinner or to watch the smooth
movement of the spindles on the mules. Kit Chapman had installed ‘self-actors’ almost twenty-five years ago, the mechanised spinning frame replacing the old manual machine where the
spinner had to move the carriage by turning a driving wheel. It had been a heavy and exhausting task, usually done by a man. Now the operative, without touching the fly, just turned a guide, a
movement needing no more than the lightest pressure which instantly set in motion the spindles and took in the heavy carriage. It was so easy and light to use that a woman with the help of one
‘piecer’ could manage not one machine, but two.
    It was twenty years since the first effective Factory Act had come into force, with an Inspectorate which was legally empowered to enter any factory it so desired. Children under the age of nine
were not to be employed, it stated, and those under the age of thirteen were to be at their machines for no more than twelve hours a day. Of course, these same children and young people had no way
of proving their age, should they have wanted to, since the compulsory registration of births was not enforced until 1837. It was doubtful their own mothers, who bore a child regularly every year,
knew