Alf Parsons said: 'The other's Joe Ashton's wife, Emily. I reckon she'll be all right when she's got over the shock. He never did treat her right.'

All the men of Joe Ashton's party had shaken hands.

The elderly man of the first party stood at John's elbow.

He said: 'Have you changed your mind, Mr Custance?

Can we stay with your lot?'

John could see now how the feudal leader, his strength an overplus, might have given his aid to the weak, as an act of simple vanity. After enthronement, the tones of the suppliant beggar were doubly sweet. It was a funny thing.

'You can stay,' he said. 'Here.' He tossed him the shot-gun which he had been holding. 'We've come by a gun after all.'

When Pirrie killed Joe Ashton, the children down by the wall had frozen into the immobility of watchfulness which had come to replace ordinary childish fear. But they had soon begun playing again. Now the new set of children drifted down towards them, and, after the briefest of introductions, joined in the playing.

'My name's Noah Blennitt, Mr Custance,' the elderly man said, 'and that's my son Arthur. Then there's my wife Iris, and her sister Nelly, my young daughter Barbara, and my married daughter Katie. Her husband was on the railway; he was down in the south when the trains stopped. We're all very much beholden to you, Mr Custance. We'll serve you well, every one of us.'

The woman he had referred to as Katie looked at John, anxiously and placatingly.

'Wouldn't it be a good idea for us all to have some tea? We've got a big can and plenty of tea and some dried milk, and there's water in the brook just along.'

'It would be a good idea,' John said, 'if there were two dry sticks within twenty miles.'

She looked at him, shy triumph rising above the anxiety and the desire to please.