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Roger reached across the fire and snatched hiet away fro hi his face in her shoulder Her own face had gone pale with shock

Roger looked shocked, too He put a hand to his throat, gingerly, as though unsure he was really touching his own flesh The ridge of the rope-scar was still dark under his jaw; I could see it, even in the flicker of the firelight, along with the smaller, neater line of my own incision

The initial shock of his shout had worn off, and theout froather round Roger, exclaier nodded, sub his hand shaken and his back pounded, all the while looking as though he would strongly prefer to be elsewhere

"Say soh Findlay coaxed him

"Yes, sir, you can do it," Iain joined in, round face bea "Saysay ‘She sells sea shells, by the sea-shore’!"

This suggestion was howled down, to be replaced by a rain of other excited proposals Roger was beginning to look rather desperate, his jaw set tight Ja himself to intervene in soh the excited throng, with Jes with intense distrust She took Roger’s hand with her free one, and ses

"Can you say er’s smile matched hers I could hear the air rasp in his throat as he took a breath

This time he spoke softly; very softly, but everyone held silence, leaning forward to listen It was a ragged whisper, thick and painful, the first syllable punched hard to force it through his scarred vocal cords, the last of it barely audible But,

"BRREEahnah," he said, and she burst into tears

76

BLOOD MONEY

Fraser’s Ridge

June, 1771

I SAT IN THE VISITOR’S CHAIR in Ja bloodroots while he wrestled with the quarterly accounts Both were slow and tedious businesses, but we could share the light of a single candle and enjoy each other’s co to the highly inventive re-sucking son of a porcupine!" he muttered "Look at this, Sassenach--the s, threepence for two loaves of sugar and a brick of indigo!"

I clickedto note that two shillings seeh price for substances produced in the West Indies, transported by ship to Charleston, and thence carried by wagon, pirogue, horseback, and foot another several hundred ht to our door by an itinerant peddler who did not expect payment for the three or four months until his next visit--and ould in any case likely not get cash, but rather six pots of gooseberry jam or a haunch of smoked venison

"Look at that!" Jaures and arriving with a vicious stab at the bottos, two bolts of ery--what in the naer, has he thought of a way to play tunes on a hoe?--ironhshare," I said pacifically "It’s not ours; Roger brought it for Geordie Chishol to be ist colonial s more than wooden dibbles and spades, with an ax and perhaps an iron hoe for ground-clearing

Jah his hair

"Aye," he said "Only Geordie hasna got a spare penny to bless himself with, not until next year’s crops are sold So it’sthe ten and six now, isn’t it?" Without waiting for an answer, he plunged back into his calculations,tortoise" under his breath, with no indication whether this applied to Roger, Geordie, or the ploughshare

I finished grating a root and dropped the stub into a jar on the desk Bloodroot is aptly nauinaria, and the juice is red, acrid, and sticky The bowl in s, andsmall animals

"I have six dozen bottles of cherry cordial h he didn’t know that; the whole house had sus can take those over to Salem and sell the on that to buy seedcorn Have we anything else that can go to Salelance, but encountered only the whorled cowlicks on top of his head, bent studiously over his figures The candles and honey were a sensitive subject

"I think I can spare ten gallons of honey," I said guardedly "Perhaps ten--well, all right, twelve dozen candles"