“Aye,” said Only Truth. “Apostates, Sadducees, atheists, miscreants, infidels, unbelievers, witches, warlocks, wizards, magicians, and sorcerers! Damned and lost! They howl in the hottest cauldron and burn in a furnace seven times heated!”
So discoursing they came insensibly into a strip of country, green and pleasant with late summer. Before them was a hillside with a parcel of children at play, a dozen or more, and among them a big boy or two. These now gathered into a knot and stared down at the pedestrians. “Four—coming across Blackman’s Heath!”
There arose a buzzing sound, half from fright, half from a sense of exciting adventure. One bolder than his fellows called down. “Be you the witches?”
“Witches!—witches—!”
“They be all men—”
“Ho! Satan could make them all seem men! They pray to Satan and he lets them turn what they will. Bats and red mice and ravens and horses—”
“So he could! Witches!”
“They be four, and they come running over Blackman’s Heath—”
A stone leaped down the hillside. Another followed, and struck Only Truth, who grew red and angry and brandished his stick. The assailants shouted, half in fear, half in glee, and gave somewhat back; then seeing that they were safe, well above the assailed and with the open hill behind them, stopped and threw more stones. Only Truth would have made after them, up the hillside, but Aderhold checked him. “Do not fight bees and children—”
They were presently out of stoneshot. But the children might carry news and set others on their path. “Those escaped are four,” said Aderhold to Wrath Diverted, “and we are four. It will not be convenient to be stopped and questioned on that ground.”