“Doleful and lonely?”
“It’s all buried in black trees,” said Will, “and nobody lives there but our old master.”
“Where does Master Carthew live?”
“He lives in the squire’s house beyond the village. He’s the squire’s brother.”
“You’re near a village?”
“Aye, the village of Hawthorn.”
They rode on, Will gazing busily about him. They were still in the town, indeed in an important part of it, for before them rose the prison. Without it stood pillory and stocks, two men by the legs in the latter, a dozen children deliberately pelting them with rotten vegetables, shards, and mud. Aderhold stared with a frown, the countryman with a curious mixture of interest in the event and lumpish indifference as to the nature of it. “Aye,” he repeated, “the village of Hawthorn.”
“Is there,” asked Aderhold, “a physician in the village?”
They had passed the prison, and were approaching the sculptured portal of the great church. “A physician?” said Will. “No. There was one, but he died two years ago. Now they send here, or the schoolmaster will bleed at a pinch or give a drench. And sometimes they go—but the parson would stop that—to old Mother Spuraway.”