Publisher's Synopsis
This plaque, together with the metal medallion of a fire insurance corporation and two iron bosses connected with the system of stays by which Mr Hackett's descendants had tried to save their property from collapsing, made the Fellows's house the most decorative feature of the row, and gave Abner a feeling of enviable distinction in his childhood long before he knew what they meant. His father, John Fellows, like the rest of the tenants, was a miner. He had chosen to live in Hackett's Cottages because they lay nearer to the colliery than any other buildings in Halesby and were within a reasonable distance of the cross-roads where stood his favourite public-house, the Lyttleton Arms. Hackett's Cottages, in fact, hung poised, as it were, between two magnetic poles: the pit where the money was earned and the pub where it was spent. To remain there contented would have implied a nice equilibrium, had it not been that eastward of the cross-roads and the Lyttleton Arms ran the Stourton Road, with houses on both sides of it, and amongst them the Lord Nelson, the Greyhound, and the Royal Oak. Next to the Royal Oak came the entrance of the Mawne United football ground, and since John Fellows's passion for football was only exceeded by his devotion to 'four-penny, ' the pull of the colliery was hopelessly overbalanced by these delights
