"You hear!" the priest said to Mrs. Satterthwaite.
"It's the branches," Mrs. Satterthwaite answered.
The Father answered: "There's no tree within ten yards! Try bats as an explanation."
"I've said I wish you wouldn't, once," Mrs. Satterthwaite shivered. Sylvia said:
"I don't know what you two are talking about. It sounds like superstition. Mother's rotten with it."
"I don't say that it's devils trying to get in," the Father said. "But it's just as well to remember that devils are always trying to get in. And there are especial spots. These deep forests are noted among others." He suddenly turned his back and pointed at the shadowy wall. "Who," he asked, "but a savage possessed by a devil could have conceived of that as a decoration?" He was pointing at a life-sized, coarsely daubed picture of a wild boar dying, its throat cut, and gouts of scarlet blood. Other agonies of animals went away into all the shadows.
"Sport!" he hissed. "It's devilry!"
"That's perhaps true," Sylvia said. Mrs. Satterthwaite was crossing herself with great rapidity. The silence remained.
Sylvia said:
"Then if you're both done talking I'll say what I have to say. To begin with . . ." She stopped and sat rather erect, listening to the rustling from the shutters.