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 gamekeeper, and speaking so quietly and simply, Satan had come to renew his promise and to reassure her. He had put on this shape that she might not fear him. Or would he have her to know that to those who serve him he appears no longer as a hunter, but as a guardian? This was the real Satan. And as for the other, whom her spirit had so impetuously disowned, she had done well to disown him, for he was nothing but an impostor, a charlatan, a dummy.

Her doubts were laid to rest, and she walked back through the fields, picking mushrooms as she went. As she approached the village she heard Mr. Saunter’s cocks crowing, and saw the other cock, for ever watchful, for ever silent, spangle in the sun above the church tower. The churchyard yews cast long shadows like open graves. Behind those white curtains slum- bered Mr. Jones, and dreamed, perhaps, of the Sabbath which he was not allowed to attend.

As Laura passed through Mrs. Leak’s garden she remembered her first morning as a witch when she had gone out to give the kitten a run. The sunflowers had been cut off and given to the hens, but the scrubbing-brush was still propped on the kitchen window-sill. That was