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 Chapter One

I

was half-past five in the morning. The village was stretching itself. Thin spirals of blue smoke began to creep out of first one chimney, then another. From inside cow byres came the subdued rattle of chains and the swish of cows being milked. One by one the animals came out into the dewy paddocks with that peculiar low mumble as though grumbling to themselves.

""Ullo Curly!" The speaker was an upstanding youth who emerged from the Fields' barn, carrying two brimming buckets of milk. His roving eye had caught sight of Fred Collins, cap in hand, moving swiftly and noiselessly across the grass. "Where be goin'?"

Fred started and moved the cap behind him. "No-wheres," he answered. "Be back in a minute."

Young Fields laughed knowingly. "Aye, 'tain't far!"

The back of the other lad's neck felt uncomfortably red as he hurried along without further reply. His fair hair curled closely—hence the nickname that stuck like a burr—and it was only the challenging spark in his blue eyes and his ready fists that had prevented him from being called softy. They had tried it once, the others, but the bloodstained noses which resulted were no encouragement to continue the pastime, even at ranges of a hundred yards, from the cover of impassable hedges.

Thereafter Curly went his own way, and that way was not a gregarious one. On holidays, and when work was 3