But after one death in the farmhouse, halfway to Hawthorn, the black finger drew back. No one else at the farm was taken, the scattered houses between it and the village went unscathed; time passed and no harm came to Hawthorn. Some said the river barred the infection, others that the air was different. One or two at most called attention to the great crowding in the town, to the massed poverty and dirt,—whereas the village was open-built and reasonably clean,—and to the traffic between the town and a large seaport, whereas small was the business of Hawthorn and few the strangers. But the most part of Hawthorn Village and the country to the north of it knew otherwise and said otherwise with unction and lifted looks. Pestilence came like comets, as a visitation and a sign from on high. Jehovah launched the one and the other. Fire against the cities of the plain—plague against prelatical towns and castles, only not Popish by a narrow line, retainers of stained glass and images, organ-players and bowers of the head, waiting but their chance to reinstate a wearing of copes and lighting of candles! The wonder was not that the plague came, but that Jehovah had so long withheld his hand! In Hawthorn Church they prayed that the plague might cease from the afflicted town, but prayed knowing that the plague had been deserved. Now that the outstretched black finger had been definitely withdrawn, the analyst might have found in the prayer of some—not of all—a flavour of triumph. Was it not also Jehovah’s doing that the pure faith was so adorned with health and vindicated? The town grew a gloomy place indeed, filled with apprehension. People viewing it from distant hills professed to see hanging over it a darkened and quivering air of its own. The streets had a deserted look, with fires burning and none around them. The death-carts went more frequently, and the bells clanged, clanged. There was a need of physicians, those in the place being overworked and one smitten. About the time that the black finger drew back from the farmhouse, Gilbert Aderhold walked to the town and offered his services. Thereafter for weeks he was busied, day and night.