“I read ye, men of Anathoth, and the murder in your hearts.  Ye that have worshipped the shameful thing and burned incense to Baal—­shall I cringe that ye devise against me, or not rather pray to the Lord of Hosts, ’Let me see Thy vengeance on them’?  And He answereth, ’I will bring evil upon the men of Anathoth, even the year of their visitation.’”

Now, though I was no participator in that direful thing that followed, I stood by, nor interfered, and so must share the blame.  For there were men risen all about, and their faces lowering, and it seemed that it would go hard with the stranger were he not more particular.

But he moved forward, with a stately and commanding gesture, and stood with his back to the well-scoop and threatened us and spoke.

“Lo!” he shrieked, “your hour is upon you!  Ye shall be mowed down like ripe corn, and the shadow of your name shall be swept from the earth!  The glass of your iniquity is turned, and when its sand is run through, not a man of ye shall be!”

He raised his arm aloft, and in a moment he was overborne.  Even then, as all say, none got sight of his face; but he fought with lowered head, and his black beard flapped like a wounded crow.  But suddenly a boy-child ran forward of the bystanders, crying and screaming,—­

“Hurt him not!  They are hurting him—­oh, me! oh, me!”

And from the sweat and struggle came his voice, gasping, “I spare the little children!”

Then only I know of the surge and the crash towards the well-mouth, of an instant cessation of motion, and immediately of men toiling hither and thither with boulders and huge blocks, which they piled over the rent, and so sealed it with a cromlech of stone.

II

That, in the heat of rage and of terror, we had gone farther than we had at first designed, our gloom and our silence on the morrow attested.  True we were quit of our incubus, but on such terms as not even the severity of the times could excuse.  For the man had but chastised us to our improvement; and to destroy the scourge is not to condone the offence.  For myself, as I bore up the little Margery to my shoulder on my way to the reaping, I felt the burden of guilt so great as that I found myself muttering of an apology to the Lord that I durst put myself into touch with innocence.  “But the walk would fatigue her otherwise,” I murmured; and, when we were come to the field, I took and carried her into the upper or little meadow, out of reach of the scythes, and placed her to sleep amongst the corn, and so left her with a groan.

But when I was come anew to my comrades, who stood at the lower extremity of the field—­and this was the bottom of the hour-glass, so to speak—­I was aware of a stir amongst them, and, advancing closer, that they were all intent upon the neighbourhood of the field I had left, staring like distraught creatures, and holding well together, as if in a panic.  Therefore, following the direction of their eyes, and of one that pointed with rigid finger, I turned me about, and looked whence I had come; and my heart went with a somersault, and in a moment I was all sick and dazed.