“Mice never come out of men’s mouths,” said Will. The physician knew the voice, too, the dry-throated, rigid-tongued monotone. “The comfort is that most of the wicked are women.” “Then take comfort,” said Aderhold, “and come away. Those figures are but the imagination of men like yourself.” But Will was not ready to budge. “Twelfth night, I was going through the fields. They were white with snow. Something black ran across and howled and snapped at me.” “A famished wolf,” said Aderhold. “Aye, it looked like a wolf. But this is what proved it wasn’t,” said Will. “That night in Hawthorn Forest Jock the forester set a trap. In the night-time he heard it click down on the wolf and the wolf howl. He said, says he, ‘I’ve got you now, old demon!’ and went back to sleep. But at dawn, when he went to the trap, there was blood there and a tuft of grizzled hair, but nothing else. And so he and his son followed red spots on the snow—right through the forest and across Town Road. And on the other side of the road, where the hedge comes down, they lost it clean—not a drop of blood nor the mark of a paw on the snow. But the dog they had he ran about, and at last he lifted his head and bayed, and then he started—And where, sir, do you think he led them? He led them to the hut of old Marget Primrose between Black Hill and Hawthorn Brook. And Marget was lying huddled, crying with a bloody cut across her ankle. And they matched the hair from the trap with the hair under her cap.” “They did not match with care,” said Aderhold. “And there are many ways by which a foot may be hurt.” “Nay,” said the serving-man, “but when they brought the trap and thrust her leg in it the marks fitted.” He continued to stare at the stone wolf tearing the ear. “That’s been four years, and never since have I been able to abide the sight of a wolf!... Witches and warlocks and wizards and what they call incubi and succubi and all the demons and fiends of hell, and Satan above saying, ‘Hist! this one!’ and ‘Hist! that one!’ and your soul lost and dragged to hell where you will burn in brimstone, shrieking, and God and the angels mocking you and crying, ‘Burn! Burn forever!’—Nay, an if they do not get your soul, still they ravage and ruin what you have on earth—blast the fields and dry the streams, slay cow and sheep and horse, burn your cot and wither your strength of a man.... Thicker than May flies in the air—all the time close around you, whether you see them or you don’t see them—monkeys and wolves and bat wings flapping.... Once something came on my breast at night—Satan, Satan avaunt!” Aderhold leaned across, seized the bridle of the other’s horse, and forcibly turned Will from further contemplation of the sculptured portal. “Come away, or you will fall down in a fit!”