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On the last Sunday in June they all met to break bread together for the last time. Will Backshell was now back again, but by common consent Susan was asked to stand up and read from the Book. Her choice was the twelfth chapter of Exodus, wherein is told how the children of Israel went out of Egypt. For the last week or so she had seen herself and her family as Israel, called to the Promised Land, and Copthorne as the Land of Egypt, which they were to leave behind them, dark, plague-stricken, storm-stricken, judged and despoiled. In her mind as she read she could see the cattle of Pickdick, Horn Reed and Beggars Bush dying in the fields of a murrain, she could see frogs leaping in at the windows of the Horse and Cart, and the houses of the village, while the waters of the Shovel Brook were turned to blood, and night came up at midday from behind Glashall Wood.

"And it came to pass, that at midnight the Lord smote all the firstborn in the Land of Egypt, from the firstborn of Pharaoh that sat on his throne unto the firstborn of the captive that was in the dungeon; and all the firstborn of cattle.