...Since her husband's death two years before, Kate with her man of business and her excellent farm steward had run her own property . Not that the Somervilles were rich; but up and down Tyneside were farms and mills and cottages paying dues to Flaw Valleys , and in return receiving from Kate the service of her roadmakers, her wheelwrights and her smiths, her granaries in time of need and her shelter in time of war. No more than turned thirty yet, small , sharp-tounged and plain as a brown hen, Kate Somerville was priestess and nanny at once to her people and a legend to her friends. ...