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'Mr. Harker!' Veronica's voice was not a protest, but a faint, delicious mockery,

'Have a heart now,' he protested quickly. 'I may have lost my fortune but I've still got my first name; it's Silas.'

'Well, Silas, do you know what I think about you?'

'No; but I'd give a heap to learn.'

'You haven’t got it dearie; but I'll tell you all the same. You're some fast worker.'

'An' you're sure the Katz pyjamas,' he laughed, copying her idea of Bowery American idiom.

'Sezyou?'

'Sez me an' how.'

'Is that a fact big boy?'

'It certainly is.'

Tra la la, well, some dew and some don't so let's get back to the ballroom.'

'What's that?'

'Oh, just a very antiquated joke, my dear; but seriously, I think you're a grand guy and I like you lots.'

'That's good to hear er Veronica!' He casually drew her arm through his and they began to stroll back up the beach.

'You may think so,' she said after a moment, 'but I'll tell you something. Silas. I'm a cad from cadville, so be sensible, laddie, and don't waste your time on me.'

'Thanks for the warning, but I'm not just out of the egg myself.'

'Why? Are you heavily married or something?'

'I have been and divorced, but that was when I was a kid pilot in the War days. We were all mad then and it didn't last a year.'

'But that's aeons ago; surely you haven't been lying fallow ever since?'

'Not exactly, but I've been mighty cautious these last three years. I near as damnit got hooked by a girl in Boston; she had all the virtues and was daughter to a rich man who ran his local church, but I Caught her selling my market tips and got out in time; since then I've been extra careful.'

'My poor friend, how easily you brainy men get stung.'

'Yes; I might have known she looked too good to be true.'

'Like me?' Veronica paused on the doorstep of the inn.

'No.' His slow smile came again. 'You're not good; but I'll bet you're true.'

Her ripple of laughter echoed up the stairway as she softly closed the door of the Anchor.

On the following day the exploring parties set off before Veronica was up so, after attending to the wounded who were progressing favourably under her somewhat spasmodic care, she spent the morning attacking a huge heap of mending which she loathed, but which Gregory had insisted on her undertaking as payment for her keep. After lunch she deliberately played truant and wheedled an old salt into taking her out for a few hours in his boat. By the time she got back Kenyon and Silas had returned, and both had a tale of woe to tell.

They spoke of deserted farms and frightened people who had fled at their approach. Kenyon had seen one poor woman and three children obviously murdered, a gruesome heap lying where they had been flung in a manure pit. A few of the farm houses were already looted and their contents left scattered about the rooms in wild confusion, while on the moors inland, the startled hares had given place to frightened humans, crouching in ditches here and there, scared and suspicious of each other. The few that they had caught and questioned could tell them little, except that nothing would induce them to return to the terror of the towns.

Only one piece of possible good news came out of these expeditions, and that was Silas's discovery of the Hollesley Labour Colony, which lay some two miles to the northwest of Shingle Street. It comprised a considerable settlement of town dwellers who had been transferred in previous years to the land, where they occupied small but pleasant houses and were peacefully engaged in fruit and dairy farming. Their principal official had failed to return from a visit to London early in the crisis, but under the leadership of an early colonist, whom Silas reported to be full of ability and sense, they had organised themselves to preserve order in their own district and resist encroachment.

Gregory felt that such neighbours might prove a blessing if they could be induced to trade the fruit and eggs which they had in abundance for Shingle Street's surplus of fish, and made up his mind to visit their leader as soon as more urgent matters had been attended to; but the general report of the state of the countryside made him more determined than ever to secure all the provender he could without further delay.

In consequence Kenyon was dispatched early the next morning with a party of six soldiers and six villagers, to collect all that he could of the remaining stock from farms which he and Silas had marked down the day before.

It was a heartrending experience and one that set a severe strain upon his loyalty. As a boy, like others of his class, he had snared many a plump pheasant on the neighbouring lands that marched by Banners out of sheer devilment, but to rob old women of their chickens in broad daylight is apt to turn the stomach of any decent man. Yet he knew that if they did not hang together and obey Gregory's orders, given in the interest of them all, they would surely die.

With a heavy heart he watched his men harness the scraggy horses into commandeered wagons at the nearest farms, and by ten o'clock a procession of five vehicles were winding their way behind him through the peaceful lanes.

At each house they visited he witnessed the same heartbreaking procedure, women in tears and sullen, cursing men. Whenever he could, he dealt mercifully with them, taking in quantity only from those who had comparative abundance, and consoled a little by the knowledge that, had he refused to undertake this foray, another might have been sent who would perhaps have dealt far more harshly with the unfortunate country people.

As the day wore on their loads increased. One wagon contained chickens under a net, another pigs, a third a fine stock of flour from a mill, a fourth ducks and geese, the fifth all sorts of miscellaneous provender; but the farther they advanced inland the more frequently they came upon batches of stragglers and the bolder these became. At first the little parties of two and threes only pleaded with him to give them food and followed for a short distance before despairing of succour from his convoy but, later, larger parties advanced threateningly from scattered coppices by the wayside and only the sight of the soldiers' rifles kept them from attacking.

When he arrived at Shottisham he encountered real trouble. A farmer had followed them two miles on foot, shaking his fist and shouting curses at them for the seizure of two of his pigs. To Kenyon's annoyance the man raised the village against him and the locals, hurriedly concluding a brawl in which they were engaged with some town roughs, joined forces with their late enemies and set on his convoy. The farm carts could not be galloped so he halted them as close together as possible in the wider portion of the village street, and then stood up in an endeavour to pacify the crowd, but a shower of stones soon put an end to his peroration.

Obviously there was only one thing for it; but he warned his men to fire high, and a volley shattered the silence of the sleepy street. For a moment turmoil reigned and the eighty or more people who composed the crowd fled in all directions, but with the sudden realisation that no one had been hurt they regained their courage, and under the leadership of the angry farmer made another rush.

Kenyon knew that his dozen men would be overwhelmed in two minutes if he hesitated any longer and that, hate it as he might, the outcome depended upon himself, so he drew his pistol and shot the farmer neatly in the thigh.

With a yelp of pain the man rolled over in the gutter, while the crowd stopped dead, overawed by this sudden display of determination. Swiftly Kenyon seized upon the ensuing silence.

'Take warning!' he shouted, 'or my men will put a volley in the middle of you. Up against that wall, quick now!'