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Toby obligingly blew into the mouthpiece and Katy recorded the expected low reading on the chart and put it away again in the cupboard. Toby's breathing seemed easier and she took away one of his pillows and settled him for sleep. He reached out to grasp her hand.

'Don't go, Katy,' he begged.

'All right, I'll sit here for a while, but you must go to sleep soon or you'll never wake in time for the picnic in the morning.' She tucked him in and sat down at the bedside.

'Katy,' he whispered. 'If I hug Arnold very tightly every night for a whole month, do you think he might make my cough go away?'

She smiled. 'Well, you never know. He's done some very wonderful things in his life.'

She watched as the big brown eyes closed tightly. She could still hear the gentle rasping of his laboured breath and her heart went out to him. Already the little boy had captured quite a large corner of her heart.

Katy
held the peak-flow meter to Toby's lips while he blew into it as hard as he could. A glance at the dial told her that his air output was almost back to normal and she smiled as she filled in the am half of the chart.

'Great! No nasty turns today. Hurry and get up now. Your Uncle Sean will be here before we've had breakfast if we're not quick.'

He scrambled out of bed. 'It works!' he told her excitedly. 'I hugged Arnold hard and he made it better!'

They had just finished breakfast when a loud hooting from outside told them that Sean had arrived. With a whoop of delight Toby ran to the door to greet him, his father following.

Claire looked at Katy. 'Better take some extra woollies in case the weather changes,' she said. 'The sky looks clear enough but it can be unpredictable up here at this time of year.'

When Katy rejoined them on the drive the family were talking and laughing with Sean and she hung back, not wanting to intrude. Sean looked relaxed and handsome this morning, dressed casually in jeans and a roll-neck sweater. On the back seat of the car was a picnic hamper and she saw that he too
had brought extra clothes. Toby was bouncing up and down in the car, impatient to be off and when he saw her he shouted,

'Come on, Katy! Tell Uncle Sean it's time to go. He won't listen to me.'

The others laughed and Jake turned to smile at her, drawing her into the little circle. 'I'm afraid poor Katy has been rather thrown in at the deep end,' he said quietly, putting an arm casually across her shoulders. 'And coped extremely well, if I may say so. But she'll tell you all about that herself, no doubt.' He slapped Sean on the shoulder. 'It's good to see you. What a pity we're both up here to work. You must come to dinner with us as soon as you can.' He glanced at Claire ruefully. 'Right now it's back to the grindstone for me. Have a good time. See you later.'

He and Claire waved as the car made its way down the drive, between the flowering shrubs. They drove through the white gates and on to the road to cross the bridge and climb the village road up towards the moors.

'Where are we going, Uncle Sean?' Toby wanted to know.

'Belldon Cross Caverns,' Sean told him with a smile. 'You've never been down a real cave, have you?'

'No—super!' Toby wriggled with excitement on the back seat. 'How far is it? When will we get there?'

'It's not too far. Just you sit still and wait. Tell you what—see how many sheep you can count with black faces. That'll help to pass the time.' Sean turned to Katy. 'I take it you've settled in then?'

She nodded. 'The Underwoods are very nice, they've made me feel very welcome.'

'And you had a spot of bother last night, I hear.'

She shook her head. 'It wasn't serious—perhaps just the excitement. I've started recording the peak-flow readings, by the way. I tried to explain it to Toby and he treats it as a game. Claire say that once his attacks are over he quickly forgets all about them.'

He nodded. 'A typical characteristic of most asthmatics. They seem determined to live as normally as possible—even driving themselves to do things they know quite well they can't manage. But I suppose that's better than giving in.'

They had reached the top of the moor by now and the wind whistled round the car. The view took Katy's breath away; miles of rolling moorland as far as the eye could see, craggy with rocks in places, the outcrops standing like ruined castles against the clear blue of the sky. They had reached the highest spot when Sean drew the car off the road on to a smooth plateau that dropped precipitously away into a valley where the ubiquitous sheep calmly cropped the coarse grass. He turned to the small, excited boy in the back.

'Right—this is it. Shall we go?'

The caverns were a local tourist attraction, but as it was so early in the season they had only just opened. The smiling woman in the hut that served as a paybox told them that they were the first visitors of the day and asked if they could manage without a guide. Sean laughed.

'I know these caves like the back of my own hand,' he said. 'My grandfather used to bring me here for a special treat in the school holidays.'

They entered the caves through an opening in the rocks, down a narrow stairway cut into the stone. Katy felt a small hand grasp hers and whispered,

'All right, Toby?'

The large brown eyes looked up into hers and she felt him shiver slightly as he whispered back,

'Yes—it's creepy though, isn't it?'

At the bottom the caves were flooded with electric lights, carefully concealed to bring out the beauty of the mineral formation without being obviously artificial. Toby stared around him in wonder at the stalactites glowing and sparkling with pink and green crystals and the stalagmites rising up from the floor in strange shapes like fairy castles. Sean told him the story of how the formations had grown year by year out of the sediments left by dripping water.

'Some of them were here when dinosaurs roamed over the moors,' he told the little boy who was listening with eyes that grew rounder by the minute. 'Maybe there was one living in this very cave. What a tale these rocks could tell us if they could only speak!'

At last they came out into the sunlight again and got back into the car to drive to a more gentle part of the moor where Toby could play with his ball. Sean looked at Katy.

'I've brought a rug. Do you think it's warm enough to eat outside? The wind has turned very cool.' He stood looking out over the moor, shading his eyes with one hand. 'Mmm—I don't like the look of that bank of cloud on the horizon,' he said. 'It can be very treacherous up here. I'll just give Toby a quick game of football, then I think we'd better be moving.'

Katy tried to see the bank of cloud he was looking at but it didn't look very menacing to her. The sun was shining so brightly surely the worst they could have was a spring shower. She had to admit that the wind had turned cold though, and she soon went back to the car to pull a warm sweater on over her shirt and jeans so that she could watch Toby and Sean at their football in comfort. Today she was seeing yet another facet of Sean's personality. He seemed every little boy's idea of the perfect uncle, yet she knew that all the time he was observing Toby carefully, watching for the least sign of breathlessness or fatigue.

By the time they returned to the car she had unpacked the picnic hamper and arranged the food as best she could. Toby had obviously worked up an appetite, attacking his meal with relish and exclaiming over Sean's housekeeper's melt-in-the-mouth cookery. Katy had to agree. The pasties, scones and tarts she had made would have done credit to a royal chef. She told Sean so and he smiled.

'Kenzie used to work for my grandfather. He and Granny brought her with them when they first moved here from Scotland thirty years ago. She was a young woman then and she's lived in Yorkshire longer than she was ever across the border yet she's as much a Scot now as ever she was, bless her.'

Katy smiled. 'I'd like to meet her—and get some of her recipes if she'd give them to me.'

'So you shall.' Sean glanced up at the sky again. 'In fact maybe sooner than you think. I've a feeling we'd do well to get down off the moors as soon as we can. That storm is coming this way fast now.'

There was a disappointed wail from the back of the car, 'Oh no, Uncle Sean! I want to stay here and hunt for dinosaurs.'

But already Sean was switching on the ignition. 'If we stay here much longer you'll find yourself here all night, young man,' he said grimly. 'And believe me, you wouldn't like that one little bit!'

'Can we go to your house then?' Toby begged. 'It isn't time to go home yet and Katy did say she'd like to meet Kenzie.'

Sean hesitated, looking at Katy. 'What do you say—would you like that?'

She nodded. 'Yes, I would—very much indeed.'

As they drove Sean told them that the house his grandfather had left him had once been owned by a man who also owned a stone quarry high on the moors. It was called Raikeside Lodge because it was built close to the narrow walled road that led up to the quarry—the kind of road known locally as a 'raikes'.

'No doubt he built it there so that he could keep an eye on his quarrymen,' Sean laughed. 'To make sure they clocked on in good time in the morning and didn't shirk.'

'Can I see the quarry?' Toby asked excitedly.

'We'll have to see if the weather holds,' Sean said. 'It's worked out now but I have heard that the stone that made up the first railway platforms came from there. Cutting and splitting into those huge slabs was a work of art. You can still see the little railway they used and there are still some old tools in a hut there.'

Toby was wriggling on his seat with excitement, his disappointment at having to leave the moors quite forgotten.

As they drove Katy began to see that Sean had been right about the weather. The heavy bank of cloud had moved fast and now it was almost overhead. The sun had gone and a cold unfriendly wind was growing stronger by the minute, whistling eerily across the vast empty space. Rain, then sleet began to lash the windscreen, then, to Katy's amazement, the sleet gave way to flakes of snow. She saw now the reason for Sean's insistence that they should get away.

'Maybe we'd better postpone out visit to your house for today,' she said, turning to him. 'Perhaps you could drop us off as you go through the village.'

He shook his head. 'We're not going that way. I'm driving north. Yesterday I made a slight detour to drop you at Belldon Cross. But don't worry, we'll soon be there now.' He glanced at her anxious face as she peered through the windscreen at the sheep huddled against the drystone walls, their fleeces already caked with snow. 'Incredible, isn't it? I did warn you though. Just when you think summer has come this can happen to bring you back to earth. That's Yorkshire for you!'

'Surely it can't last long in May?' she said, looking at him.

'No. Once the storm has passed it'll soon clear up and thaw, but it can be very nasty for anyone unfortunate enough to be caught in it.'

They turned off the road to drive for about a mile down a narrow lane, then Katy saw the house, perched halfway up the rise on a knoll. The road leading to it was so steep that Sean had to make several tries at it, the wheels of the car slipping on the wet snow. But at last they reached the top and Katy got out to look over the magnificent wild view that lay below them. But the weather precluded any standing and staring and Sean soon hustled them inside the low stone house. Katy had a first impression of stone-flagged floors and oak-panelled walls, gleaming copper and dark red stained carpet. The homely scents of furniture polish and lavender filled the air. Sean opened a door and ushered them inside a room with a low beamed ceiling. It was furnished with comfortable, well-worn leather chairs, and a heavy antique desk stood in the window. In the wide stone fireplace a wood fire crackled behind a fireguard.

'This is my den,' he told them. 'It's where I work. Warm yourselves at the fire and I'll go and see if Kenzie can rustle us up some tea.' But he was back a moment later with a scrap of paper in his hand. 'Kenzie has had to go home. She left me this note,' he explained. 'But she's left food enough to feed the entire Mackenzie clan so we'll be all right.'

'Oh, she doesn't live in then?' Katy asked.

He shook his head. 'She used to but she married a local shepherd ten years ago. No doubt her husband will be worried about his new lambs in this weather and Kenzie has gone off to have a meal ready for him when he gets in.' He rubbed his hands and held them out to the blazing logs. Katy looked hesitantly at him.

'I'll go and make the tea, if you're sure she won't mind another woman in her kitchen,' she offered.

The three of them drank tea and toasted muffins in front of the log fire whilst outside the snow continued to fall, making a soft whisper against the glass. Toby thought it all a marvellous adventure but after a while Katy looked at her watch, then at the darkening sky outside.

'What are we going to do about getting back to Bridge House?' she asked. 'Mrs Underwood must be wondering where we are.'

Sean walked to the window and looked out. 'The snow's stopped but it's still very cold. I'm afraid the roads will be bad now until morning,' he said doubtfully. 'Quite honestly I can't see myself negotiating that hill tonight.' He turned to look at them. 'I can't see anything else for it—you'll have to stay the night. I'll ring Claire and let her know.'

'Hooray!' Toby jumped wildly up and down with delight. 'Then you can show me the quarry in the morning can't you, Uncle Sean?'

Sean laughed as he dialled the number. 'I don't see why not.' His eyes met Katy's and held them for a moment. For a split second her heart seemed to stand still as she tried to read the enigmatic message she saw in them, then his expression changed abruptly as Claire answered the telephone.

In the cosy kitchen, warmed by the huge, old-fashioned range, they ate the delicious casserole left for them by Sean's housekeeper, washed down by mugs of hot coffee and followed by crusty homemade bread and farmhouse cheese.

Afterwards Sean gave Toby a piggyback ride up to bed in the room he had occupied himself as a small boy. As Katy tucked him into the big feather bed between lavender-scented sheets he sighed happily.