So the new life began. If George Malpas, lying in Shrewsbury Jail, returned, in one of the debauches of sentiment to which his nature was subject, to the idea of his desolate wife and family, and dwelt on it with pity or remorse, he might well have spared himself the luxury of these emotions. There were few changes at Wolfpits. The children knew that they need no longer expect the violent attentions which George gave them when he felt like it; Spider, the bitch, settled down to a life untroubled by George’s kicks and stones; while Mary, that strange and secret creature, was spared at least the alternations of reproaches and endearments which made up the greater part of her marriage. George had vanished from her life. For three months at least no word, no sign from him might reach her. It was true that the family had to live more simply. Abner’s wages, which she now took without question every Saturday night, could buy them nothing more than the absolute necessities of life, and, even so, must be spent with care; but it pleased her to think that she was managing on them and that not one penny went on frivolous things. Abner himself kept back no more than a couple of shillings for tobacco every week. To drink was out of the question, and it now seemed to him fortunate that Mr Hind, in a fit of temper, should have warned him off the Pound House. He now spent most of his evenings at home sitting before the fire, with Gladys on his knee, and making catapults or other wooden weapons for Morgan with his knife. Even in so small a household as theirs there was plenty of rough work that a man could do, not only in the way of digging and dressing the garden and hewing wood for the fires, but actually in patching up the crumbled fabric of Wolfpits which, left to the mercies of rain and frost, would have fallen about their heads. The sudden intimacy with their neighbours into which George’s arrest had thrown them, continued, and the more Abner detached himself from the life of the cloggers and of his own mates, the more sufficient did this isolated communal life of Wolfpits become. It was the most peaceful and natural that he had ever lived, and he grew to love it for its regularity and calm.