Daniel took his place in the line of villagers that would follow the cart to the graveyard. Glad of the darkness to hide him, glad of the candle to protect from returning spirits. Glancing back he found Sarah, part of the procession for the first time, coif bright in the moonlight, Bett at her side.

It was not usual to retire to the barn after a burial.

There were no biscuits offered, no wine, only a gathering of the sober and sorrowful. Magistrate Wright’s suggestion. He resumed his position from the last gathering, standing high and precarious on a sheaf at the front of the crowd.

‘It is a sad event that brings us here,’ he said. ‘The tragic perishing of a young spirit, and one that is a great loss to her family, to the village.’ Sobbing from Phyllis’s family. ‘But we must not turn blind to the unsavoury happenings that played a part in this, brought about by her own female failing and womanly wantonness.’

Daniel’s breath caught in his throat. He waited as the magistrate looked around. Though every person in the village knew Phyllis’s death was chosen, and unnatural in every way, the story that had been told to and accepted by Parson Walsh was of a calamitous accident. His voice had cracked with sorrow during the service. He would, surely, deafen his ears to any contradiction even, Daniel hoped, from the mouth of the law itself.

‘All you who are parents, all you who have standing in this village, the duty is yours to lead the way, to light the path of purity with your own model. I see the wickedness that shrouds you, lurking like a fog. Your catches will dry and your children starve at the evil hand you invite in.’

Daniel shifted, kept his eye on Sarah. Could see nothing of her face. He longed to be at the river with her in his arms, on a day just past, when Phyllis was still living and he not sullied by the guilt and despair of her death. Only Sarah could reach him now, for he was in a well of misery. He began to sidle round the edge of the crowd. To stand near her would be enough.

‘Our young are weak,’ the magistrate continued. ‘Our women are weak, they have not the strength of spirit to resist the workings of the Devil. Blighted by feebleness and an existing stain of the soul, they are willing prey for the forces of evil. We must protect them from their own base urges.’

There was shifting, murmuring amongst the villagers. Daniel made his way past, slowly.