‘What about competition?’

‘Competition?’

‘From other foragers.’

He shook his red locks; his hair was long but well combed.

‘It’s a lonely part, this. I don’t get many visitors. Those that come are welcome to what there is. I bring the food up as I want it. And the coal. I know a place where there’s a regular mine of it. The old station goods yards. They had a load in when the Almighty called Time.’

‘Water?’

‘That, too. The Lord’s provided very well for His servant. Not more than five minutes’ away, just about where Woolworth’s used to be, I found this stream gushing out of the earth. A good head of water, and it’s still flowing.’

‘Is it all right for drinking?’

‘You’re thinking about the bodies? I thought of that, too, but it was a weakness of faith. It is sown in corruption; it is raised in incorruption. I Corinthians 15: 42. If the Lord God preserves a man, in the day of the pale horse, shall he fear any evil? That was in the beginning, of course. Now I boil water before I drink it. The Lord does His part, but He expects us to do ours.’