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what I’m talking about. Parson Shincok, that very night. And the next day Lawyer Benfit. It was shocking.” Amity clutched a ruffled petticoat and turned. “What?”
    China hugged her knees, bright-eyed and excited as a child. “Why, that very night you were wed to Simon and left, Parson Shincok—well, nobody knows exactly what happened but the next morning he was found at the bottom of the rocky hill, just above the bridge. His horse went on home without him and next morning his servants set out to find him and there he was. His neck broken.”
    “China!”
    “After you and Simon drove away and Lawyer Benfit took his sour face home, the parson stayed on and on and kept drinking brandy and when he left I vow he was so drunk he could scarce get on his horse. But then he’d been like that before. It was bound to happen sooner or later. Parson Shincok always drank overmuch.”
    It was true enough; there had been far too many Sundays when Dr. Shincok’s sermon was a blurred and incoherent discourse. Yes, Amity thought, England is somewhat at fault in this quarrel; we’ve had too many scapegrace outcasts, calling themselves parsons—too many governors who thought only to extract money from the colonials rather than to govern for the colonies’ good and development.
    But she thought too of Dr. Shincok’s flushed but good-natured face. “That’s dreadful, China.”
    “Oh, but that’s not all. Lawyer Benfit was shot and killed.”
    The little ship seemed to rock strangely; the planks below Amity’s feet seemed to take on a wavering life of their own. “Who shot him?”
    “Oh, nobody knows. He must have had some quarrel. He always made enemies, especially among the rebels. Everybody knows that. It’s a lawless, violent time, Charles said.”
    Lawless, yes. Murderous, Amity thought.
    China said airily, “He was found on his own doorstep, shot. That was next morning, too. That’s the really shocking part of it. Both of them at our house when you married Simon and that very night both of them dead. Dreadful!” said China and suddenly yawned again.

4
    “CHINA,” AMITY BEGAN AND then because the cabin seemed to rock and waver she sat down on a little three-legged stool and stared at China. “Didn’t anybody do anything about it?”
    China snuggled down sleepily. “La, what was there to do? His servant didn’t hear a thing, but then he’s deaf as a post. The house, or at least the study, was searched according to the servant but he said nothing was stolen. Mr. Benfit’s pistol was found and had been discharged. Charles thought he might have fired it in self-defense—on the other hand, whoever he’d quarreled with might have just snatched Mr. Benfit’s own pistol and turned it on him. Likely nobody will ever know, he was an unpopular man and such an outspoken Loyalist.” She yawned. “The Grappits left.”
    “The Grappits! Where did they go?”
    “To Charlestown. They have friends there. I was glad to see their backs. It was the very morning we heard the news about Dr. Shincok and Lawyer Benfit. Both dead as mutton.” She sighed and wriggled coaly into her pillow. “That’s just all I know. I wish you’d let me sleep.” She shut her eyes with such resolution that Amity knew there was no use in questioning further.
    Besides, what questions were there to be asked? It was dreadful, it was shocking, it was a terrible coincidence—Parson Shincok who had made her Simon’s wife, Lawyer Benfit who had drawn up the marriage contract and witnessed the ceremony, both dead within hours of her marriage. As China had said, these were violent times. Certainly poor old Dr. Shincok was overdue for some sort of accident; certainly Lawyer Benfit had made enemies all his life by his sour and inflexible opinions.
    But it was a very remarkable coincidence. It was almost too great a coincidence to accept. Yet if it was not coincidence, then both men had been intentionally murdered. If it was not coincidence, then