lood was up. He swung round on his son. William was bigger,
but Morel was hard-muscled, and mad with fury.

"Dossn't I?" he shouted. "Dossn't I? Ha'e much more o' thy chelp, my
young jockey, an' I'll rattle my fist about thee. Ay, an' I sholl that,
dost see?"

Morel crouched at the knees and showed his fist in an ugly, almost
beast-like fashion. William was white with rage.

"Will yer?" he said, quiet and intense. "It 'ud be the last time,
though."

Morel danced a little nearer, crouching, drawing back his fist to
strike. William put his fists ready. A light came into his blue eyes,
almost like a laugh. He watched his father. Another word, and the men
would have begun to fight. Paul hoped they would. The three children sat
pale on the sofa.

"Stop it, both of you," cried Mrs. Morel in a hard voice. "We've had
enough for ONE night. And YOU," she said, turning on to her husband,
"look at your children!"

Morel glanced at the sofa.

"Look at the children, you nasty little bitch!" he sneered. "Why, what
have I done to the children, I should like to know? But they're like
yourself; you've put 'em up to your own tricks and nasty ways--you've
learned 'em in it, you 'ave."

She refused to answer him. No one spoke. After a while he threw his
boots under the table and went to bed.

"Why didn't you let me have a go at him?" said William, when his father
was upstairs. "I could easily have beaten him."

"A nice thing--your own father," she replied.

"'FATHER!'" repeated William. "Call HIM MY father!"

"Well, he is--and so--"

"But why don't you let me settle him? I could do, easily."

"The idea!" she cried. "It hasn't come to THAT yet."

"No," he said, "it's come to worse. Look at yourself. WHY didn't you let
me give it him?"

"Because I couldn't bear it, so never think of it," she cried quickly.

And the children went to bed, miserably.

When William was growing up, the family moved from the Bottoms to a
house on the brow of the hill, commanding a view of the valley, which
spread out like a convex cockle-shell, or a clamp-shell, before it. In
front of the house was a huge old ash-tree. The west wind, sweeping from
Derbyshire, caught the houses with full force, and the tree shrieked
again. Morel liked it.

"It's music," he said. "It sends me to sleep."

But Paul and Arthur and Annie hated it. To Paul it became almost a
demoniacal noise. The winter of their first year in the new house their
father was very