The Stony Path Read Online Free PDF

walking along North Bridge Street past the saw mills and then Monkwearmouth Station and the goods yard on their left, before turning left before the smithy and continuing into Southwick Road.
     
    Coal dominated the western part of Monkwearmouth, and the Wearmouth Colliery in Southwick Road provided a livelihood for hundreds of Sunderland’s working men. The company had raised a gridwork pattern of dwelling places for its miners, stretching north from Southwick Road, and now, as Eva entered the narrow, mean streets of terraced houses, the desire for flight rose hot and strong again.
     
    She couldn’t bear this, she couldn’t. She breathed deeply, the soulless uniformity of the cobbled streets claustrophobic after the wide-open spaces she’d grown up with.
     
    ‘Well, we’ll be gettin’ along, man.’ Nathaniel’s brother and his wife had turned on the narrow pavement to face them, their eyes studiously avoiding Eva’s white face and stiff body.
     
    ‘You’ll not come in for a bite of somethin’?’
     
    Although Nathaniel made the offer, it was with a marked lack of enthusiasm, and now it was Delia who said, ‘We’d best get back, Nat,’ before turning to Eva and placing a tentative hand on her arm as she added, ‘I’ll nip round the morrow, lass, an’ see how you’re doin’. Likely it’ll all be a bit strange, you bein’ a country lass an’ all.’
     
    There was no criticism implied, but it was a moment or two before Eva replied, and then her voice was cold when she said, ‘I’m sure I’ll be all right, thank you.’ She had been half listening to a group of dirty-nosed barefoot urchins skipping in the road with a piece of old rope whilst the others had been talking, and the macabre rhyme the raggedy guttersnipes had been singing, drawn from the execution of the murderess Mary Ann Cotton in Durham Jail a few years back, had somehow seemed indicative of both her surroundings and her circumstances.
     
‘Mary Ann Cotton
She’s dead and forgotten
She lies in a grave
With her bones all rotten
Sing, sing, oh, what can I sing?
Mary Ann Cotton is tied up wi’ string.
Where, where? Up in the air
Sellin’ black puddens a penny a pair.’

     
    ‘Aye, aye, I’m sure an’ all, lass.’ It was hasty and embarrassed, and as Eva turned towards the children again the other three made their goodbyes quickly, before Nathaniel’s brother and his wife crossed Southwick Road and turned into Pilgrim Street.
     
    ‘She was only tryin’ to be friendly; she didn’t mean anythin’ by it.’
     
    ‘What?’
     
    As Nathaniel spoke Eva turned to him, her gaze wide and vacant, and he stared at her for a few seconds before he said, ‘Nothin’. Nothin’, lass.’ He rubbed at his coal-dinted nose, clearly out of his depth, before saying, ‘You’d best come in an’ take the weight off. Likely you could do with a sup o’ tea, eh?’
     
    She continued to stare at him as he opened the door of the house against which they were standing, the rear of which overlooked the sidings of the Wearmouth Colliery, but she said nothing as she stepped into the dwelling which was now her home.
     
     
    It was later that night, and only after Nathaniel was snoring gently at the side of her in the big brass bed, that Eva let herself think. It could not possibly be just six hours since she had come into this house. It seemed like six days, six weeks, six months ... Her body was stiff, every muscle straining in its effort to be still, and the unaccustomed softness of the flock mattress was too alien to be comforting.
     
    Nathaniel had surprised her. Her eyes were wide and staring as she gazed into the darkness. She had expected him to take what was his right but he had made it plain, before the neighbour who had been looking after his boys had arrived on the doorstep, that he wouldn’t touch her until after the bairn was born. Her large, full-lipped mouth twisted. He had made up his mind she was a bit lass, that was it, and