Sprawled on the cobbles, cradled in her brother’s arms, was the young man Charlotte had met at Ponden, Eamon Riordan, bloody and beaten. Branwell had apparently thrown himself into the fray, for his nose was bruised and his bent and broken spectacles hung off one ear. Papa stood before them blinking in the dark at the howling crowd, bellowing for calm, but to no avail. The blood of the mob was up, and they would not quieten, not even for their parson.

They might for a lady, though, Emily thought—but seeing as her sisters were still trapped at the back of the crowd, she would have to do.

“What is this?” Emily raised her voice as she planted herself firmly in front of her brother. “Why are you hounding my brother and my papa? Explain yourselves this instant, or have me and this ferocious hound to answer to.”

Keeper’s tongue lolled menacingly out of the side of his muzzle, and Emily wished he didn’t look quite so much as though he were a grinning lunatic. Still, at least he was drooling excessively—that was something.

“Well, speak up!” She assumed her old, hated mantle of a teacher addressing an insolent child.

“It’s for Joseph,” Samuel Wright called out from the crowd.

It would be him, Emily thought, for he was the sort of man who was always angry, even when there was no cause—the sort of man who thought life had robbed him of something he’d never had in the first place.

“We’ve hunted for Joseph all day, and we’ve still not found him, but we know the necklace is a Catholic trinket and this Irish scum Riordan is Catholic.”

“There is freedom to worship God as you choose in this country!” Patrick spoke up once again, and this time there were only murmurs of dissent that answered him. “This man’s faith is no business of yours, and his nationality of no relevance here.”

“Filthy Irish scoundrels!” Abel Sutcliffe called out. “They are a curse on this land.”

“No better than human apes!” A woman’s voice this time, Susan Martin, if Emily had heard right.

“Crawling all over our land like vermin.” Peter Milton—Emily would have thought better of him. “The papers say they will cause another famine here if we don’t turn them away.”

Emily shook her head slowly as she stared at them, looking as many of them in the eyes as she could, though many would not lift their gaze to meet hers.