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But God had said, "You shall never return—cursed is the ground for your sakes." He had also said, "in sorrow ye shall bring forth," and Susan had seen the sorrow as well as the sweat. She was too young to remember the births of Tamar and Ruth; but when Aaron had been born, she had stood by the bedroom door watching, with her finger in her mouth, till the midwife had driven her out of the cottage. And though, when the twins Elis and William were born a neighbour had taken charge of her all day, at night she had been sent home, and her father and mother then had been like Adam and Eve, her father with the sweat running from his brow, and her mother crying out in sorrow.

Then God had said to the serpent: "I will put enmity between thy seed and the woman's seed; it shall bruise thy head and thou shalt bruise his heel." Susan thought much about this as she sat in the high field corner at Beggars Bush, for she was always expecting a snake to run at her out of the grass. She had heard of adders being found on other parts of the farm, and once she had seen a little boy with a queer purple-mouthed wound on his foot, where it was said a viper had stung him . . . bruised his heel . . . he must be the woman's seed in the Book, and it had been explained to her that this seed was Christ the Lord. As she looked at little Dave, a great awe and reverence seized her, for she felt that this was the little Christ who should come again.