"I'll come about half-past eight." As Josiah walked to the far end of the village, he thought in his simple way of his last three years.

After much wandering and fear of being traced, he had been used at the stables by Penhallow.

That he had been a slave was suspected, but that troubled no one in Westways.

He had long felt at ease and safe.

He lived alone, a man of some forty years, cooked for himself, and had in the county bank a small amount of carefully saved earnings.