She, like Peter the poet, wrote of the Jarvis valley. But while she saw by each bare tree a barer ghost and the ghost of the last spring and summer, he saw the statue of the tree and no ghost but his own that whistled out of the sick bed and raced among seaward fields.

Here in the valley, wrote Mrs. Owen, my husband and I live quiet as two mice.

As she writes, thought Mr. Stul, she feels the weight of her breasts on her ink-black arm.

Do the holy gentlemen believe in ghosts?

With the chains of cloud and iron suspended from their limbs, thought Mr. Rafe, they would drip the deadly nightshade into my ear.

May she bear a vampire’s baby, said Mr. Stipe.

The Reverend Mr. Davies of Llareggub is staying with us for an indefinite period, she wrote in her secret hand.

Over the more level roadway on the lower hills, drawn in a jogcart by a sweating pony, the Holy Six journeyed in search of Mrs. Owen. Miss Myfanwy, seated uncomfortably between Mr. Stul and Mr. Lucytre, conscious of the exposure of her calf and the pressure of Mr. Lucytre’s hand in the small of her back, prayed that the moon might not go in. There in the crowded cart the darkness would conceal the roving of the holy hands, and better Mr. Stul’s delight.

The wheels of the cart bumped on a boulder.

Over we go, said Mr. Rafe, too frightened to brood upon the dissolution of his delicate body tumbling down the slope.

Over we go, said Mr. Vyne, thinking how hard it was that death should come alone, the common flesh of Miss Myfanwy seated so near him.

As the cart balanced on one wheel, and the pony, with the entire weight on one back leg, pawed at the air with its hanging hooves, Mr. Stul thrust his hand high up under Miss Myfanwy’s skirt, and Mr. Lucytre, smiling at destruction, drove his fingers into her back until the knuckles tingled and the invisible flesh reddened with pain. Mr. Edger clasped everything within reach, holding tight to his phallic hat. Mr. Stipe leant suddenly to one side. The pony slipped on the wet turf, whinnied, and fell. God is good, said old Vole the carter, and down he went, gathering speed, a white-haired boulder plunging into the craggy meadow fifty feet below. In one tight, black ball, the rest of the company rolled over the side. Is it blood? Is it blood? cried Miss Myfanwy as they fell. Mr. Stul smiled, and fixed his arm more tightly round her.