Musing on this one afternoon, she set off to visit old Farmer Kendrick’s wife at the Hill Farm, and to carry her certain remedies for her rheumatism which Mrs. Durdle had made. “Tell her,” said the housekeeper, “that she’d never have had the rheumatics had she taken my advice and carried a potato all winter in her pocket. But folk will be thinking there’s no cure without eating or drinking summat, and the worse the taste the better the medicine, they believe. So, my dear, I’ve flavoured this with camomile, as nasty a herb as grows, and do you tell her to drink it hot first thing in the mornin’, she’ll have a most powerful belief in that.” Hilary laughed and promised. Crossing the churchyard she encountered Zachary, the parish clerk, who was also the gardener and general factotum at the Vicarage; his ruddy face looked less cheerful than was its wont, and, resting on his mattock, he said, earnestly: “Don’t you be a’goin’ far from home, mistress; it be scarce safe for you to be abroad in times like these.” “Why, Zachary,” she replied, with a smile, “I do but go to the Hill Farm, and who is like to molest me?” “They say the Parliament soldiers never misuse women,” said Zachary. “But I wish the whole plaguey lot of soldiers were out of Herefordshire, whether they be Cavaliers or Roundheads. There’s sore news from Stoke Edith, they tell me.” “What is that?” said Hilary, anxiously. “Have Massey’s soldiers molested Dr. Rogers?” “Well, mistress, they set out for Ledbury with no good will to him, for, as you know, he has ever been severe to the Puritans, and I reekon they thought their turn had come. But, as ill-luek would have it, close by the wall at Stoke Edith they came upon an old parson and, belike, took him for Dr. Rogers.” “Well?” said Hilary, anxiously, as the man hesitated. “Did they harm him?” “It was old Parson Pralph walking back from Hereford to his Vicarage at Tarrington.” “I remember him, an old man of more than four-score years,” said Hilary. “He had white hair and a long white beard.” “That’s the man,” said Zachary, gloomily. “He’d been Vicar of Tarrington over forty year. Well, one of Massey’s soldiers stopped him, saying, ‘Who art thou for?’ On whieh he honestly answered, ‘For God and the King,’ and the soldier without more ado raised his pistol and shot him dead.” Hilary turned pale, the same sick horror that she had felt at Canon Frome on hearing of Colonel Woodhouse’s barbarous conduct at Hopton Castle overpowered her again, and as she walked on slowly to the Hill Farm her eyes were dim with tears. The summer brought them the news of the King’s defeat at Marston Moor, but the more distant hostilities really affected them less than the smaller troubles in their own near neighbourhood. In the autumn of 1644 there was once more grievous trouble at Canon Frome, for, notwithstanding the protection of the King’s letter, the Manor was attacked by a party of Royalists, who insisted on converting the house into a garrison.