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Then, as the stinging-nettles told him he was alive, fear turned to rage. Who had come charging over him like this, galloping through the shaw and leaping the hedge without looking to see if there was a Christian man behind it? Indeed, he might have guessed—that was mistress Catherine Alard galloping her horse as if the devil and all his imps rode at her crupper. He watched her go down the heathery slope towards the farmstead, rolling in the saddle like a boy. She was a wild piece, and no man would marry her. Folk said that she must be twenty-eight—an old maid turning sour; yet she seemed more man than maid, with her loud whooping voice and her galloping ways. Folk said that she was wild for the old religion and would go crazy for the want of it: folk said she was sorry that the King of Spain's ships had been driven away.

§ III

But this was unjust to Catherine Alard, who felt as thankful as anyone that the Grand Armada had been defeated. Indeed, she had just ridden over to Staple Hill to see if the bonfire there was still burning: last night they had missed its red glow in the sky. She had ridden a roundabout way, and it was not till her journey home that she saw what had happened at Holly Horns. Suddenly lifting her eyes to greet the loved, familiar landmark and lifting her hand to make the sign of it on her breast, she had seen a gap and a desolation. On the slope outside the shaw lay strewn the broken stones that told their tale. Someone had thrown down the cross.