“My name is Charlie,” he says. “I am heading to London. Might I beg some food and water?”

“Beg” he says, calling it what it is. A good clear gaze on him. Puts a man in a mind to regret he does not have a son.

“You can have water at any rate.”

I draw him a measure from my well. He drinks straight from the ladle.

“As for food,” I say, “I’ve got the rot.”

I show him to my storeroom, where my potatoes lie riddled with black; break one in half and show him the deep veining, clammy to the touch.

“You’re welcome to a plateful, if you can stomach them”—I point to the stove, where I am heating my lunch—“but they may do you more harm than good, not being used to such fare.”

He wavers, clutches the broken spud I have shoved in his fist, too tired to think. When I offer him a stool, he sinks down exhausted.

“Maybe I’ll try a bite.”

Once they are boiled, I fry the potatoes in some dripping. The smell that rises from the pan is frightful, even to me, but the hole in the boy’s stomach proves bigger than his disgust. I don’t offer him seconds. I don’t have enough to be generous, and it won’t do him any good once the food hits his guts. We each have a thimble of liquor afterwards. “Calms the brewing storm,” my Mary used to say. A better use for the potatoes perhaps.

“You are dead tired, son,” I say when he rises to leave. “I can offer you shelter. A place in the barn. You won’t make London tonight.”

“I can’t,” he answers, giving it thought. “I have friends ahead, waiting for me. They’ll be worried.” And then he adds, firmly, with a simplicity I did not know existed amongst the gentry: “You are a good man.”

“Ah,” I say, embarrassed, “I smoke as much as the next sinner. But the sun is out today, and my knee’s finally on the mend. Small blessings, eh, son?”

“Are you married?”

“Was,” I say, pointing to the row of crosses that mark my wife’s and daughters’ graves. “It’s a hard life.”

“A hard life,” he repeats like it is news to him, and weighty information. “Thank you for your kindness. Good-bye. Beware of dogs.”

ф

I chew on this all through the night—Beware of dogs—my stomach queasy with the rotten food. At dawn the second gentleman comes calling. He is a dark one, head to toe, fine clothes shiny with Soot, as though they have been lacquered by an enterprising tailor. A young one, too, not much older than the copperhead. His dog is an odd thing: red, drooping eyes in a dark, drooping face. A beaten cur, slavish and vicious. It steps close and smells me like I am a steak.