‘Look,’ whispered Marion to Peter, pointing to this procession. Then she realized it was too far off for him to see. ‘It’s the children – all with flowers, following Father John to the church, Rollo too, carrying the baby. So it has died.’

They paused on the bridge and Marion watched the little procession go into the church. There would be the burial tomorrow. Meanwhile, this ritual of all the children carrying whatever wild flowers were about, to be placed round the corpse in the church, was the habitual ceremony for a dead baby.

Even more leaden-hearted, Marion joined the groups under the oak tree. Dobbin, sobered by terror, was standing against the trunk with Tom holding the rope which still bound his feet. The villagers around were hostile. Rollo returned from the church and was standing with Sir Hugh and Dame Margaret on the path watching, when Widow Annie burst through the crowd, knocking down two children, and lunging towards Dobbin. She was caught and held by Hodge, a labourer from across the Green.

Dame Margaret, as authoritatively as before, stepped forward. ‘Go home,’ she ordered.

Annie started to whine, and to bluster and struggle to get near Dobbin, whether to protect or attack him no one knew.

‘Go home,’ Dame Margaret repeated. ‘Mind your grandchildren, those that are left.’ Widow Annie looked round wildly. The children who had been in the procession were now standing in an uneasy little group. They no longer held their bunches of flowers. Annie knew where they had been, and what the procession had meant and her face showed pain as well as fear.

‘Go home,’ Dame Margaret shouted more emphatically. Annie looked round with terror at the implacable faces of the villagers.

‘Go home,’ repeated Hodge’s wife, Cecily. ‘The baby’s dead, and we won’t let Dobbin off this time.’ To a general hushing, Hodge released Annie and she backed away and disappeared over the Green.

Marion crept up to Dame Margaret and asked how Jill was.

‘Sleeping, thanks be. Joan is with her. She doesn’t even know the baby’s dead.’

Meanwhile, Tom and Rollo had tied ropes round Dobbin’s wrists, pulled him to the oak tree, pressing his face against the trunk, pulled his arms half round the trunk and tied the ropes together on the far side. Rollo pulled down Dobbin’s hood and with long pliable birch branches they beat him on the head, back and his bare legs.

Dobbin roared. The villagers stood around tensely watching. Marion saw Rollo’s face as he beat him, calm, indifferent, passionless, unfeelingly following the letter of the law. And that in itself was a reason to fear him. The group of children, subdued with the ceremony of putting their wilting flowers round the dead baby by the altar, still stood together, watching with open mouths the ceremonious assault on big, strong, frightening Dobbin.

The beating over, Tom and Rollo untied his hands and, each holding an end of rope, marched the moaning Dobbin, his neck and legs bleeding, up to the churchyard. Near the top by the line of yews Rollo left him. The rest of Dobbin’s punishment was to dig his baby’s grave with his bare hands in the rooty earth. There was no escape; Tom stood over him.