He was lucky. The sound of the shot was like a cannon blast going off in that innocent land and the flock of pigeons exploded out of the trees in a flurry of whirling wings. But John’s target bird could not fly up, it spiralled downward, one wing broken, bleeding from the breast. John dropped his musket and taper and ran across the cleared ground, crossing it in five giant strides. The bird was scrabbling to get away, one wing trailing. John snatched it up and wrung its neck quickly and mercifully. He felt the little heart pound and then stop. He went back to the doorstep, put the bird inside, near the fireplace with the unfinished fish trap, and reloaded the gun.

The light was going fast and it was getting cold and dark. The pigeons, recovering from their fright, circled the little clearing and landed in the trees again. John took aim and fired and the birds dashed skyward again, but this time nothing fell to earth.

‘Just the one,’ John said. ‘Well, that will do for my supper at least.’

He plucked the bird carefully, saving the feathers in a fold of linen. ‘That’ll make me a pillow some day,’ he said with assumed cheerfulness to the shadowy room. He gutted and beheaded the bird, tossing the entrails into the water in his cooking pot which he set on the fire for soup. Then he split the pigeon into four, and skewered the pieces carefully on a sharp green stick and set it before the fire with the pot beneath it to catch the dripping juices.

It was a long while for a hungry man to wait but John did not allow himself to hurry, nor to be distracted from the task of turning and turning the fowl while its stubbly skin grew golden, and then brown, and then finally crisp and black. ‘Pray God it’s cooked through,’ John said fervently, his stomach rumbling with hunger.

He took the skewer, and with his knife pushed the pieces off the charred wood on to his trencher. The meat was speckled with burned wood. John flicked the splinters away and then took up a little leg joint. It was wonderful: hot, tasty, and strong. John burned his lips against the hot skin but nothing could have stopped him biting into the flesh. He ate every scrap of meat and then dropped the bare bones reverently into his cooking pot. For the first time in his little house he looked around with something like confidence.

‘That was good,’ he said quietly. He gave a quiet, satisfied belch. ‘That was excellent. I shall hunt again tomorrow. And I shall have the soup for my breakfast. A man cannot work on the land with only porridge in his belly.’

He picked a scrap of meat from his teeth. ‘By God, that was good.’