As they went into the wretched shed the setting sun broke through the lowering grey clouds and shone full on the dead woman. It lighted each vicious line and hideous trait of the wrinkled, toothless face, and betrayed the mark of an evil life, surcharged with horrid fear.
Hilarius shrank back shuddering. Could this hideousness be death?
The Friar stepped forward, but Martin stayed him.
"Nay, touch her not, Father, it may be the pestilence as thou didst read in thy dream."
The Friar fell on his knees; and, in the silence that followed was heard the drip, drip, drip, from the sodden rags on the beaten earth floor. The people without, staring, open-mouthed and silent, saw the Friar look up; his hand hastily outstretched touched the dank, muddy hair; then he knew all, and fell on his face with an exceeding bitter cry. It was answered by another cry - the glad cry of a lost child that is found.
The Friar, standing in front of that hovel of death, preached to the cringing, terrified people, many of whom knelt and crouched in the down-trodden grass and quag. He threw up his arms, and turned his blind, anguished face to the setting sun.
"Woe to the rebellious children, saith the Lord, that take counsel but not of Me, that they may add sin to sin. Darkness shall come upon them; Death shall overtake them; their place shall know them no more. Let them bare their backs to the scourge, let them confess and repent ere I visit them as I visited Sodom and Gomorrah, cities of the Plain.
"O ye people, ye have taken judgment in your hands and judged falsely withal; but ye shall be judged in truth, yea, even according to your measure. Repent, repent, for Death cometh swiftly and maketh no long tarrying. It shall come; it shall snatch men's souls away, even as ye have torn away my mother's soul, leaving no space for repentance."
He stretched his hands out over the common, and pointed to the little town.
"Your dwellings shall be desolate, and this place a place of heaps.
Ye shall run hither and thither, seeking safety and finding none; for the arm of the Lord is stretched out still because of the wickedness of the earth. Woe, woe, woe, a disobedient and gainsaying people! Woe, woe, woe, a people hating righteousness and loving iniquity! The Lord shall straightway destroy them from off the face of the earth."
He made an imperative gesture of dismissal, and first one and then another in the crowd turned to slink home like beaten dogs, snarling, growling, but afraid.
Hilarius and Martin buried the witch at the back of her wretched den; and the Friar, the priest lost in the son, prayed long by the else unhallowed grave, and Martin prayed beside him.
Hilarius stood apart, his lips set straight, and said no prayer; for what availed it to pray for an unassoilzied witch who had met her due, damned alike by God and man?
Martin came up to him.
"She was his mother," he said, as if making excuse.
Hilarius stared in bewilderment. His mother? Ay, but an evil liver; and the people of Bungay had wrought a good work in sending her to her own place. He crossed himself piously at the thought of the near neighbourhood of devils busied with a thrice-damned soul.
Martin led them out of Bungay by the Earsham road, and the Friar clung to him like a little child, for the strength of his vision was spent. They lay that night with a friendly shepherd; but only one slept, and that one Hilarius. He lay on a truss of sweet- smelling hay, and dreamt of Wymondham and Brother Andreas; of gold, vermilion and blue; of wondrous pictures, and a great name: and the scent of the pine forest at home swept across his quiet sleep.
On the morrow came the parting of the ways, for Hilarius was all aglow for Wymondham, and Martin had charged himself with the Friar at least as far as Norwich.
"As well lead a blind friar as sing blindly at another's bidding," he said whimsically, and so they bade one another farewell never to meet again in this world: for Martin and the Friar went to Yarmouth, not Norwich, and there they perished among the first when the east wind swept the Plague thither in a boat-load of sickened shipmen. And Hilarius - once again the Angel of the Lord stood in the path of his desires.
