The Stars Look Down [antikvár]

CHAPTER ONE when martha awoke it was still dark and bitter cold. The wind, pouring across the North Sea, struck freezingly through the cracks which old subsidences had opened in the two-roomed house. Waves pounded distantly. The rest was silence. She lay quite still in the kitchen bed, holding herself rigidly away from Robert, whose coughing and restless-ness had fitfully broken the night. For a minute she re-flected, sternly facing the new day, choking down the bitterness she feit against him. Then with an effort she got up and dressed. Three months now the strike had gone on. Full of the misery of it she began to get the fire alight. It was difficult. She had only the damp driftwood that Sammy had gathered the day before and some duff, the worst kind of dross, fetched in by Hughie off the pit-tip. But at last she had it going. She went through the back door, smashed the new ice on the water-butt with one resentful blow, filled the kettle, came back and set it to boil. The kettle was a long time. But when it boiled she filled a cup and sat crouched before the fire clasping the cup with both hands, sipping it slowly. The scalding water warmed her, sent vague currents of life through her numbed body. It was not so good as tea; no, no, nothing like tea; but for all that it was good, she feit herself 'coming to'. The flames darting about the green wood illuminated a bit of old newspaper torn from her kindling, lying on the pipeclayed hearth. Mr. Keir Hardie asked in the House of Commons wbether, since the destitution is as great as ever in the North, the Government proposes a measure to enable the education authorities to take steps to feed destitute children. The answer given was that the Government did not intend to give authorities power to feed destitute children.