Some days after this, a great storm moved in over the Fens and the hard earth of Whittlesea was turned once more to mud. Pearce called all the Keepers together in the parlour after our mid-day broth to offer up thanks for the rain falling on his lettuces and his beans. These prayers done, Edmund took up his soap and undressed himself and went out into the deluge but returned, very agitated, a moment later to announce to us that two visitors were at the gates, an old woman and her daughter clamouring to be let in.

"Ambrose," said Pearce, "will you leave these people out in the storm?"

Ambrose went to the window: "The storm is moving east," he said. "It is passing."

"They must not come in!" said Edmund.

"No," said Ambrose, "they must not come in. And they will not. They will read the bill we have posted and they will leave."

"How if they cannot read?" asked Pearce.

Ambrose hesitated a moment before replying. "One of us will go to the gate and talk to them through the grille."

"I shall go," offered Hannah.

"No," said Ambrose calmly. "Edmund will go. He will go directly, for he does not mind the rain."

I watched from the door of Whittlesea House as Edmund, naked except for his frayed under-drawers, jogged out to the gate, soaping his chest as he went, and stuck his head into the small iron grille inset into the heavy portal. I could not hear what he said, for the drumming of the rain on the earth and on the buildings was very loud. Nor could I, from this vantage point, see the visitors, but it appeared they were very insistent for Edmund was so long at the gate he had succeeded in washing all of himself except his legs while he parleyed with them.

He at last came away and bent down to soap his knees and his calves. By this time, however, the storm had indeed moved off in an easterly direction and there was not enough rain falling to rinse off the lather he had made. Edmund threw his head back and glared angrily at the clearing sky before making his way to the pump, where he completed his ablutions. Only then did he return to us and tell us that the visitors had been the mother and sister of my would-be murderer, Piebald, and that they had come out from Puckeridge, some way north of London.

I went up to my room, which is indeed more of a room to me now and less of a linen cupboard, and looked out over the wall that surrounds us to the Earls Bride marshes. On the road to the village, I could see two figures walking, dressed in the clothes of very poor people. Every few steps, they turned and looked back towards us. Then the younger woman put her arm round the shoulders of the older one and they walked on until I could see them no more. Only after they had disappeared from my sight did I "see" that the younger of the two, Piebald's sister, carried a basket that appeared heavy. No doubt they had come with provisions and, being turned away by Edmund, had not thought to leave these at the gate.

It was this knowledge – no less, perhaps, than the knowledge that these women were Piebald's kin – that made me swiftly descend the stairs and inform Ambrose that I was going to ride after the visitors to retrieve the gifts they had forgotten to leave.

"Very well," said Ambrose, "but do not go so near them that you breathe their breath."

"They do not have the plague, Ambrose. There is no plague at Puckeridge."

"That we cannot know, Robert. The germ has come north to us from Southern Europe and so may still be moving in a northerly way."

"Very well. I will not go near them, but call out to them to put down their offerings, which I will then retrieve. Are you content that I should do that?"

"Yes."

"And say," intervened Pearce, "that we are sorry for their wasted journey."

"I will, John."

And so I went out to put a saddle on Danseuse whom I had not ridden for a long time. The storm had quite gone and, in the bright sun once again shining on us, the inmates of Margaret Fell were assembling for their airing, but I gave them no thought, my mind being intent only upon overtaking the visitors.

At the sight of a saddle, Danseuse gave a whinny of joy and her flanks shivered as I tightened the girth. And immediately I had mounted her, she began to trot very fast towards the gate, thus causing some fright to the women walking round the oak tree. I tried to rein her in, but she pulled so hard with her head that I was jerked forward and almost lost my balance. Then Daniel opened the gate for us and we were out of Whittlesea and at once my splendid mare began to gallop like a chariot horse and in no time at all we had reached the straggle of poor houses that is Earls Bride.

I had expected to overtake Piebald's visitors before reaching the village, but there was no sign of them. Managing to slow Danseuse to a quiet trot, I passed through Earls Bride and out the other side of it, where the flat, muddy track led on towards March. Because of its flatness, I could see some way down this road and there was nothing and no one visible on it. I persuaded my horse to stop. I dismounted and looked back at the village. As I have informed you, it is a place without an inn or hostelry of any kind, so I could not guess where the two women might be. It was as if the bright air that still smelled of rain had made them vanish.

Leading Danseuse by the reins, my hand close to the bit, I endeavoured to turn her round so that I could return to the village and knock on the door of one Thomas Buck (who is a thatcher and the only jovial man in this sad community) and enquire of him whether the two women had asked for shelter or rest in any of the houses. But Danseuse would not let herself be turned. She showed me a white, angry eye and reared up, jerking the reins from my hands. I stepped back, involuntarily. She is a large and powerful horse and, discomforting as my life is, I did not wish to be crushed by her hooves and thus lose it altogether on this lonely Fenland causeway.

But I see now that instead of stepping back, I should have tried with all my might to catch hold of Danseuse's bridle. For I was about to lose her. Once out of the Whittlesea gate, she had smelled her freedom in the sunshine. Now, she saw the straight, flat road before her and she took it. She kicked up her heels in a final little dance of joy and then she bolted away, faster it seemed to me than I had ever ridden her, faster even than on our night journey to Newmarket, and I was left with one foot in the ditch, staring stupidly after her.

Collecting myself, I did the only thing that came to my mind: I ran after her, shouting her name, the while knowing this action to be futile, as if a chicken tried to fly after an eagle. But then, at my side, appeared two boys, very ragged and with no shoes on their feet, aged about ten or eleven.

"We'll catch 'im, Sir!" they said and without waiting for permission from me, hurled their thin bodies down the track, calling: "Answers! Answers!" which they thought, from hearing my shouting, to be my horse's name.

I stopped and took a handkerchief from the pocket of my breeches and wiped the sweat from my face. Then I stood and watched. The speed of Danseuse had not slackened at all, but the boys did not seem to understand how easily she would outrun them, for they bolted gamely on, racing with each other to be the first to get to her and bring her back. I saw one of them stumble on the road made muddy by the storm, but he quickly recovered his balance and charged on. Seeing their determination it was tempting to hope, just for an instant, that if I waited patiently, I would, late in the afternoon, see them return, leading my mare between them. Yet I knew this would not happen. Danseuse would run until night fell. She would run until she was lame. She would never return to Whittlesea.

In less than five minutes, Danseuse and the boys passed out of sight. Feeling very stupid standing in the road, and remembering at length the errand on which I had come, I walked to the cottage of Thomas Buck. The thatcher was not at home. His scrawny wife, who is like a pullet with no flesh on her bones, informed me she had seen two women pass through the village but now they were gone along the road to March. I thanked her and she closed her door in my face. I had a great longing to sit down.