The police had dogs out, sniffing at the sun top, but they never found a trail that led anywhere. That didn't stop Mr. Hardcastle going out every day with his collies, yelling and calling. They had two other kids, Jed and June, both older, but the way he went on, you'd have thought he'd lost everything in the world. My dad said he never were much of a farmer, but now he just didn't bother with Hobholme-that's their farm, but as he were one of Mr. Pontifex's tenants, like Dad, and the place would soon be drowned, I don't suppose it mattered.

As for Mrs. Hardcastle, you'd meet her wandering around Wintle Wood, picking great armfuls of flopdocken, which was said to be a good plant for bringing lost children back. She had them all over Hobholme and when it were her turn to take care of flowers in the church, she filled that with flopdocken, too, which didn't please the vicar, who said it was pagan, but he left them there till it were someone else's turn the following week.

The rest of the dale folk soon settled back to where they were before. Not that folk didn't care, but for us kids with the weather so fine, it were hard for grief to stretch beyond a few days, and the grown-ups were all much busier than we ever knew with making arrangements for the big move out.

It were only a matter of weeks away, but that seemed a lifetime to me. I'd picked things up, more than I realized, and a lot more than I really understood. And the older girls like Elsie Coe were always happy to show off how much they knew. She it was who told me that there were big arguments going on about compensation, but it didn't affect me 'cos my dad were only a tenant, and Mr. Pontifex had sold Low Beulah and Hobholme along with all the rest of his land in Dendale and up on High Cross Moor long since. Some of the others who owned their own places were fighting hard against the Water Board. Bloody fools, my dad called them.