They came to the village and rode through it, the litter arousing curiosity, allayed every few yards by Will’s statements. Aderhold observed the lack of any sympathy with the sick old man, even the growling note with which some of the people turned aside. There was the usual village traffic in the crooked street, the small shops and the doorways. Children were marching with the geese upon the green, where there was a pond, and near it the village stocks. Housewives, with tucked-up skirts and with pattens,—for an April shower had made mire of the ways,—clattered to and fro or sat spinning by window or door. Many of the men were in the fields, but there were left those who traded or were mechanic, as well as the aged, sitting, half-awake, half-asleep, in sunny spots. It was the usual village of the time, poor enough, far from clean, ignorant and full of talk, and yet not without its small share of what then counted for human flower and fruition, nor without promise of the future’s flower and fruition. They rode by the church, set in dark yews. Almost in its shadow rose a plain stone house. “Master Thomas Clement, the minister’s,” said Carthew. “Hawthorn hath a godly and zealous pastor! The town behind us is all for prelates and vestments and a full half at least of the old superstitions. But Hawthorn and the country to the north have purged themselves as far as they safely may.” Out upon the open road again they saw to the left, back among trees upon a low hilltop, a large and well-built house. “Carthew House,” said Carthew, “where I live. But I think that I will ride on with you to the Oak Grange.” Presently, leaving the highway, they took a rough and narrow road that led, first through fields and then through uncultivated country, toward the great wood that had been for some time visible. “Hawthorn Forest,” said Carthew. They rode a mile in silence, the wood growing darker and taller until it reared itself immediately before them. To the right, at some little distance from the road and almost upon the edge of the forest, stood a thatch-roofed cottage with a dooryard where, later, flowers would bloom, and under the eaves a row of beehives. “Heron’s cottage,” said Carthew. “Old Heron lives there, who in the old times was clerk to the steward of the castle.” They entered the wood. It was dark and old, parts of it not having been cut since Saxon times. Their road, which was now hardly more than a cart track, crossed but an angle, the Oak Grange lying beyond in open country. But for some minutes they were sunk in a wilderness of old trees, with a spongy, leaf-thickened earth beneath the horses’ hoofs. The sunshine fell shattered through an interlacing of boughs just beginning to take on a hue of spring. Every vista closed in a vaporous blue.