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The telescope was a sign: a sign that he needed to get out of the valley and see the world for himself. He would walk to Penrith and take a stagecoach to Liverpool, and there he would sign himself aboard the first vessel that would take him; slave ship or whaler, he did not care, so long as it took him away from the place he was born.

He would need a little money, but that was all right - he knew where his father kept his cash and though, strictly speaking, it was theft, his parents would have one less mouth to feed. It was a fair exchange.

He might have picked up a ride in a cart had he walked the valley road, but Matthew had decided that that was not the way to leave somehow. He needed to walk the fell-top route to Penrith. He wanted his last view of home to be from above - to see it way below as he so often had in the past when he was up among the sheep on the high crags.

It was a fine morning but it was bitterly cold. There was a little snow on the high fells but not enough to put him off. He loved the fells best of all when they were white at their peaks like sugared buns, and it would be a fond memory for him to enjoy when he was basking in the heat of the Caribbean or the coast of Africa.

The sun was just coming up over the pass and the lake was beginning to glow like polished pewter. Birds were singing in the copse beside his house and among the twisted willows along the brook. Matthew took one last look at his home and walked away.

He crossed the road at the bridge and walked past the weavers' cottages. An old man who had known Matthew since he was a baby came to the door as he was passing, and Matthew felt suddenly guilt-stricken. He had an urge to go straight home, tear up the note and return the money he had taken. But his choice had been made. He must go on.

'Morning, Matthew,.' said the old man.

'Morning, Mr Beckett.'

'Where you bound for at such an hour?'

'I lost something up top,.' said Matthew. 'My grandfather's telescope. I was hoping to find it before my mother finds out.'

'Aye?' said the old man with a tone of scepticism that Matthew did not like. Who was he to question where a person did and did not walk? 'Well, I wish you luck then, young Mattie. He was a great fellow your grandfather. You must miss him.'

'Of course I do,.' said Matthew more defensively than he had intended. 'I must be getting on. Goodbye, Mr Beckett.'

'Aye,.' said the old man with a nod. 'You sure everything's all right, son?'

But Matthew was already walking away, heading towards the main path that snaked up towards the tarn and to the high drover's track that led to town. As he got to a sharp bend in the path, above the rows of the weavers' cottages, he took a smaller track - a barely perceptible sheep track - that ran by a massive stone barn and up the side of the fell, under the crags, rejoining the main path at the Black Tarn.

This was his path. He had walked it since he was old enough to walk anywhere without his brothers or parents, and though the track was clearly used by sheep and deer, he had never seen another person use it and felt it to be the only piece of this world that was his and his alone. There could really be no other route by which to leave it all behind.

He looked down at the weavers' cottages and smiled, imagining the conversation old Beckett and his father would have, but his smile quickly faded. He wished now that he had found the courage to tell the truth: that he was leaving this valley, these fells, this life; that he was following in his grandfather's footsteps and running away to sea. Unlike his grandfather, though, he would not be coming back.

He began to walk the narrow track, carefully tracing its path through the loose scree. It arced away up the fellside, its thin line so faintly impressed upon the landscape it was scarcely visible.

Matthew walked in the slow, evenly paced way of hill people. He could walk for hours with barely a pause for breath, keeping his feet to a rhythm that he dictated and not the ever-changing terrain. He was in no hurry.

A buzzard mewed as it