“You mustn’t talk that way,” said old Heron. “No, I know, you don’t do so when others are by, but you’ll forget sometime. Mistress Borrow at the castle said that you were a very pagan, though an innocent one! That came into my head, too, while he talked. And another thing came that sounds fanciful—but a myriad of women and girls have found it no fancy! Listen to me, Joan. Since we got our new King, and since the land has grown so zealous and finds Satan at any neighbour’s hearth, there’s been a growing ferreting out and hanging of witches. In Scotland it’s a fever and a running fire and we’re not as far as the antipodes from Scotland. Now I’m not denying that there are witches; the Bible says there are, and so, of course, there must be. But it knocks at my head that many a silly old woman and many a young maid has been called a witch that was none! And it came to me that Hawthorn’s not the castle and the castle wood, and that if Mistress Borrow called you pagan and said that you stepped and spoke too freely for a woman, it’s like that some here might take it on themselves to think pure ill—” “I see not how they could,” said Joan. “There is no ill to think.—Do you mean that I am not to sing about Robin Hood and Maid Marian?” “I like to hear you,” said old Roger; “but aren’t there godly hymns? Use your own good sense, my girl.” Joan at the window looked out upon the flowering trees and the springing grass and robin redbreast carolling in the pear tree. When she turned her eyes were misty. “I like to sing what I feel like singing. If it chances to be a hymn, well and good—but a forced hymn, meseems, is a fearful thing! I like to go free, and I like not a mim-mouth and a downward look. But I like not to bring trouble on you, and I do not like either to have them set upon me for ungodliness, nor to have some fool cry upon me for a witch! So I’ll be careful. I promise you.” She laid the trenchers upon the table and turned out from its pan a warm and fragrant loaf. “I’ll be careful—oh, careful!—And now when are we going to get our beehives from the forester’s wife?” That afternoon she took her distaff and sat in the doorway and span. The cottage stood some distance from Hawthorn Forest road, but there was a narrow greened-over path that wound between. The robin sang lustily; daffodils, edging the walk to the gate, were opening their golden cups. Old Heron had gone a mile to engage Hugh the thatcher to come to-morrow to mend the roof. Joan span and span and thought of the castle and the masque. An hour passed. The gate-latch clicked and she looked up. An old woman, much bent and helping herself with a knobby stick, was coming toward her between the rows of daffodils. When she reached the doorstone Joan saw how wrinkled and drear were her face and form. “Good-day,” she said in a quavering voice. “Good-day,” answered Joan.