He looked at her with rustic meditativeness. He was slow and country-living; he had no great acquaintance with Alison or Cecily, and it had never occurred to him to mark Master Harry Carthew, where the squire’s brother rode or whom his looks pursued. He had heard of the vintner in the town, and had dimly supposed that Joan would marry him, or maybe the new huntsman or some other fine-feathered person at the castle. But now the plague had swept the town, and the vintner might be of those taken—and here was old Heron gone. He looked at her again, and the hand that held the piece of thorn against his lips began to shake a little. It occurred to him more strongly than it had done before that she was a fair woman—and then, Heron’s cottage. There was a tiny plot of ground, the cow, some poultry. As things went, she had a good dowry. Will the smith’s son might go farther and fare worse. It was not the right time, all Hawthorn being so gloomy and everybody afraid, and his own heart knocking at times against his side with fear. But it wouldn’t hurt just to drop a hint. He moistened his lips. “Joan,” he said; “Joan—”
And then, by the perversity of her fortune, Joan herself shook him from this base. She lifted sombre eyes, still turning the little grey nest about in her hands. “Why do you think we had the plague? The minister preached that it was sent against the town for its false doctrine, and we gave thanks that we were not as the town.... And then in a little while it was upon us, and my father, who was a good man, took it and died....”
Gloom that had lifted this bright afternoon on the forest edge settled again. Will the smith’s son had a strong taste for the supernatural, all the emotional in him finding that vent. It could grow to light up with strange lightnings and transform every humdrum corner of his mind. He liked to discuss these matters and feel a wind of terror prick his temples cold. He spoke oracularly, having, indeed, listened to talk at the sexton’s the night before. “There’s always an Evil Agent behind any pest, or a comet or a storm that wrecks ships or blows down chimneys. At times God uses the Evil Agent to punish the presumptuous with—as He might give Satan leave to spot with plague the town over yonder, seeing that if it could it would have the old mass-priests back! And at other times He gives the Evil Agent leave to prick and try his chosen people that they may turn like a wauling babe and cling the closer to Him. And again there may be one patch of weed in the good corn and Satan couching and holding his Sabbat there. In which case God will send plagues of Egypt, one after the other, until every soul wearing the Devil’s livery is haled forth.—Now,” said Will, and he laid it off with the sprig of thorn, “Hawthorn is for the pure faith of the Holy Scriptures, so we haven’t the plague for the reason the town hath it.—Again, put case that so we’re to love the Lord the more. Now Hawthorn and all to the north of it is known for religion. I’ve been a traveller,” said Will with unction, “and I know how we’re looked on, clear from here to the sea, and held up to the ungodly! Master Clement’s got a name that sounds to the wicked like the trump of doom and Master Harry Carthew isn’t far behind him—What did you say?”
“I said naught,” said Joan.
Will closed his exposition. “Now it may be that God wisheth to prick up Hawthorn to fresh zeal, and, indeed, the sexton holds that it is so that Master Clement interprets the matter. But it seemed to me and the tinker, who was there talking, too, that the third case is the likelier and that there are some ill folk among us!” Will dropped the bit of thorn. “It’s the more likely because there’s another kind of mischief going around and growing as the plague dies off. I know myself of three plough-horses gone lame in one night, and Hodgson’s cow dying without rhyme or reason, and a child at North-End Farm falling into fits and talking of a dog that runs in and out of the room, but no one else can see it. The tinker”—Will spoke with energy—“the tinker has come not long since over the border from Scotland. He says that if Hawthorn was Scotland we’d have had old Mother Spuraway and maybe others in the pennywinkis and the caschielawis before this!”
Joan rose and lifted her bundle of faggots to her shoulders. The grey bird-nest she set between two boughs of the thorn tree. “What are the pennywinkis and the caschielawis?”
“The one’s your thumbscrew,” said Will, “and the other’s a hollow iron case where they set your leg and build a fire beneath.”
Joan turned her face toward the cottage. Her old acquaintance walked beside her. It was afternoon and there was over everything a tender, flickering, charming light. It made the new grass emerald, of the misting trees veil on veil of soft, smiling magic. Primroses and violets bloomed as though dropped from immortal hands. The blue vault of air rose height on height and so serene and kind....
Joan spoke in a smothered voice. “I would believe in a good God.”
The young countryman beside her had gone on in mind with the tinker and his talk. “What did you say, Joan?”