The next morning there came a visitor, indeed, to Heron’s cottage, Master Harry Carthew, the squire’s brother, who fastened his horse to the elm at the gate, and came up the path between the daffodils in his great boots and his sad-coloured doublet and wide-brimmed hat. Joan, watching from the window,—her father was just without and would meet him,—thought how handsome a man he was, but also how stern was his aspect, stern almost as if the world were all a churchyard, with graves about.... It seemed that he had some writings that he wished copied. As she moved about the kitchen she heard his voice in explanation. The voice, she thought, was like the gentleman, a well-made voice, and yet hard, and yet melancholy, too. She heard him say that he would ride by in a day or so for the writing—and then he said that the day was warm and asked for a cup of water. Old Heron turned his head. “Joan!” Joan filled a cup with fresh well water, set it on a trencher for salver, and brought it forth to the squire’s brother. He lifted it to his lips and drank. Goodman Cole’s advice to the contrary, Joan stood with a level gaze, with the result that she was aware that as he drank he looked steadily at her over the rim of the cup. It was not a free or distasteful look, rather it had in it melancholy and wonder. He put the cup down and presently went away. Two days thereafter he came with other papers to be copied. A pouring rain arrived upon his heels and he must sit with old Heron in the kitchen until it was over. The room was bright and clean. Joan, having put for him her father’s chair, sat to one side spinning; old Heron took a stool. They were yeoman stock, and the squire’s brother was gentry. Carthew spoke little and the others waited for him to speak. The room was quiet save for the whirr of the wheel and the rain without. The white and grey cat lay by the hearth. Old Heron had thrown fresh faggots on the fire, and the tongues of flame threw a dancing light. The little speech there was, and that solely between the two men, fell upon the affairs of the country. The discovery of the Gunpowder Plot was seven months old, but England still echoed to the stupendous noise it had made. Old Heron said something that bore upon the now heavily penalized state of the Catholics. “Aye, they pulled down their own house on their own heads!” answered Carthew. He spoke with a stern, intense triumph. “I would have them forth from England! There is warrant for it in all histories. As the Spaniards pushed out the Jews, so I would push them out!” The rain stopped; he rose to go. Old Heron opening the door, let in a burst of fresh sweetness. Joan stood up from her wheel, and, as Carthew passed, curtsied. He made an inclination of his head, their eyes met. There was that in his look that both challenged and besought, that, at all events, left her troubled enough.