“Ay, and preached to me afterwards about every nettle and bramble that he found there, as though each had been one of the seven deadly sins. No, no, I like not his ways and I am weary of all this talk of how great and good a man is Master Simon. I fear me that all is not well in that bright-flowering garden of his.” The shoemaker nodded craftily, as though he knew much that he would not tell. Goody Parsons edged nearer. She was grateful to that gentle-voiced, kind-faced Master Simon who had helped her so often in trouble; she loved him much but, alas, she loved gossip more. “Tell me what they say, good neighbour,” she coaxed. Samuel Skerry was provokingly silent for a space. “They say,” he said at last, “that in that garden—beyond the tulip bed—behind the hedge—” “Yes, yes!” she gasped as he paused again. “There is Something hid,” he concluded—“Something that no one of us ever sees but that neighbours hear, sometimes, crying aloud.” “But what is it?” she begged to know, in an agony of curiosity. “Hush, I will whisper in your ear,” he said. “It were not meet to speak such a thing aloud.” Goody Parsons bent her grey head to listen, and started back at the shoemaker’s low-spoken words. “Ah, surely that can not be true of so good a Puritan!” she cried in horror. “You may believe me or not, according to your will,” returned the shoemaker testily. “You were there but now; did you hear naught?” Loyalty to her dear Master Simon and love of giving information struggled for a moment in the Goody’s withered face, but at last the words simply burst from her. “I did hear a strange cry,” she said. “Ah, woe is me to think ill of so good a man! Come with me toward my house, Neighbour Skerry, and I will tell you what the sound was like.” So off the two went together, their heads bent close, their lips moving busily, as they gossiped with words that were to travel far.