"Suspicious--suspicious!" she stammered.
"Yes, say yourself, is it not? Listen! You will yourself be examined. And all of us, as witnesses. William did it, there is no doubt about that. Otherwise there would have been more fires long ago. Good evening!"
He left her standing there and, hopping over the garden beds, he made a few strides toward his house, glad to have got away from her.
She did not call after him; she spoke never a word. She stood as if overwhelmed, her hands clasping the fence post. A cold sweat ran down her body and she shivered in a frightful chill. Her son--her William-- he was--they said he--what was it they said that he had done?
It was as though she had been struck a blow on the head; all at once she could not think clearly of anything. There was but one thing she knew: her William must come soon, come soon and shut the mouths of those slanderers!
Groaning she tottered to her cottage. Inside it was now quite dark; only the glow on the hearth cast a few feeble rays. The black cat purred. She took him in her lap and stroked him until sparks snapped in his fur. He purred louder and louder, like a spinning wheel--the wheel was whirring in her own head.
It whirred and whirred: incendiary--her William was no incendiary--hanged--her William was not going to be hanged--the constable and Heid were asses--there had been fires in the village--since he had been gone there had been no more fires in the village--the case was being investigated, they will soon prove--no, her William was no incendiary, her William was not going to be hanged--the constable, Heid, the judges, they were all asses--no, her William was no incendiary--but how, how prove it?
With a shriek she started up. Her William was innocent, perfectly innocent; she, his mother, could take her oath to this! But who--who would believe her?
"Holy Mary, Mother of God, have mercy! I will light thee a candle--so bright, so tall!--He is innocent! Help, have mercy, Holy Mary, Mother, help!"
She babbled and sobbed and wrung her hands. On her knees she crept through the room and beat the floor with her brow. What should she do, how could she prove that her William was not he who had set the fires?