But as he climbed over the craggy edges and down the side of the hill, he lost his place in Mrs. Owen’s crystal. A cloud displaced his black hat, and under the cloud walked a very old phantom, a shape of air with stars all frozen in its beard, and a half-moon for a smile. Mr. Davies knew nothing of this as the stones scratched his hands. He was old, he was drunk with the wine of the morning, but the stuff that came out of his cuts was a human blood.

Nor did Mr. Owen, with his face near the soil and his hands on the necks of the screaming weeds, know of the transformation in the crystal. He had heard Mrs. Owen prophesy the coming of the black hat, and had smiled as he always smiled at her faith in the powers of darkness. He had looked up when she called, and, smiling, had returned to the clearer call of the ground. Multiply, multiply, he had said to the worms disturbed in their channelling, and had cut the brown worms in half so that the halves might breed and spread their life over the garden and go out, contaminating, into the fields and the bellies of the cattle.

Of this Mr. Davies knew nothing. He saw a young man with a beard bent industriously over the garden soil; he saw that the house was a pretty picture, with the face of a pale young woman pressed up against the window. And, removing his black hat, he introduced himself as the rector of a village some ten miles away.

You are bleeding, said Mr. Owen.

Mr. Davies’s hands, indeed, were covered in blood.

When Mrs. Owen had seen to the rector’s cuts, she sat him down in the armchair near the window, and made him a strong cup of tea.

I saw you on the hill, she said, and he asked her how she had seen him, for the hills are high and a long way off.

I have good eyes, she answered.

He did not doubt her. Her eyes were the strangest he had seen.

It is quiet here, said Mr. Davies.

We have no clock, she said, and laid the table for three.

You are very kind.

We are kind to those that come to us.