The boughs went in the walls between two layers of fir rinds. He put sods on the outside. He figured his walls kept winter out as well as William Pender's did. But coal fires and lace curtains! William Drew did not have these. They were for men like Bill Serjeant, who had boats and servants. Not men like him who came from Cornwall for a fishing season. Two summers and a winter. Came and then stayed.

"Is that a couple of hares?" William Drew moved closer. William Pender had snared two good sized hares where the path turned in to the tall stones. They lay by his sack. He had pulled their legs and arched their backs. That was how he liked to see them. He did not like to see anyone dump hares in a bag in a frozen lump.

He liked to see things done in a neat way. A way that told people you cared how you lived. So his bag was packed neatly. Alice Maud's cures were tucked in a row at the back. At the front things were stacked like goods in Baird's grocery. His tinder lighter. His coil of snare wire. His tin of chewing tobacco. And his flask. The flask had a drink of brandy in it from Christmas.

He lived modestly. But he liked to have a supply of things his family used. Coal, flour and molasses, and a little brandy. They were running out of these things. The brandy and molasses would go first. Then the coal. Then the flour.

He took the cap off his flask and offered William Drew a drink. He took one too. The brandy heated his throat, his chest. He felt William Drew's smile in the dark.

"Brandy cures everything," William Drew said. His smile was too big, William Pender thought. He could not see the smile. But he could feel it gleam.

Heat stole up his legs. It met the heat flowing down from the brandy. It was heat of sleep and brandy, not real heat. He did not worry. He enjoyed it. The smile of William Drew gleamed through veils of sleep. William Pender floated. He watched the smile. He waited for it. It did not speak. But shadows rustled in the bushes.