In many aspects of life, Marion did not believe in Cause and Effect, but she believed firmly in tendencies. She thought that with foreknowledge and skill one could influence these tendencies. In her mind the world was full of powers which worked either for or against her will. She would have called them, following the priest’s muddled teaching, the powers of Good and Evil, two words which with only tiny alterations were God and Devil, but it was more than morality that these powers influenced, it was the daily material of life as well. The powers of health battled with those of disease, and though she believed that the herb potions made in the village, and drunk with the ritual sing-song words, strengthened the powers of health and weakened those of disease, she did not believe in any cure, nor any physical change that the potion might exert on the diseased body. She only imagined influences of a spiritual nature might lessen the powers of disease. There was therefore no searching for proof and no drawing of conclusions from evidence, it was just prudent to drink the right potion, to recite the correct incantation, often with Father John’s blessing and prayer – for that was all that could be done to influence those powers in her favour.

When a cow or goat miscarried, it was only prudent to bury the foetus under the stable threshold, not because that would prevent a future miscarriage but because it was believed it would lessen the likelihood. It was known that for a menstruating woman to cure bacon did not always turn the bacon reasty, but it was believed that it was likely to have this effect, and therefore it was only sensible for a woman to avoid making bacon at these times.

The Mass, as performed by Father John, fitted into this general attitude very well. He produced, or rather Old Sarah who looked after him did, the special bread for consecration. From the hedgerow sloes and his own not-to-be-enquired-into process he made a sour red liquid which was called wine. When he was a boy in Rochester a sour red liquid was always available in barrels, and some of it was duly consecrated for Mass. He had assumed that any red-stained water was wine, so what should he do in the village but find berries which coloured water a dark crimson. Elderberries he used as well as sloes and they produced a good colour which looked like the stuff in little glasses on the table of the Last Supper, a huge picture which he dimly remembered on the refectory walls at Rochester. With the ritual of the Mass and with the mysterious meaningless words which he intoned, he gave out bits of bread to all present except babies in arms, and drank a gulp of the acid ‘wine’ himself. Everyone in the church believed that this action would influence God in their favour, and that not to attend Mass would be not so much imprudent, but downright asking for trouble.