Toward the end of the meal the Hand of the Lord made his reappearance with a glowering young man whom he introduced as Brother Mortify. “He shall guide you to Townsend in the morning. It isn’t far—five miles or so.” He smiled charmingly—he had silky white hair and aston ishingly well-preserved teeth for a man in his sixties—and clapped Brother Mortify on the shoulder. “I shall pray for the lessening of the rain, that you may be sped upon your way.” For a man who forty minutes previously had been in seizures of terror at the sight of invisible demons appearing out of the back of the House of Repentance, he seemed to have made a remarkable recovery. Abigail’s hosts were lavish in their praise for “the Chosen One’s” sermon, and the Chosen One nodded grave acknowledgement. I have only done my duty, his twinkling dark eyes seemed to say. Don’t I do it well?

In fact the rain had ceased when in predawn darkness the family waked to a frugal breakfast of cold corn pudding and skimmed milk, and Brother Mortify presented himself to put Abigail and Thaxter on their way. “Not many take this way,” was his only comment, when they had to dismount and lead their horses over a stream where the bridge had rotted to nothing. “They’re Godless, in Townsend—as in other places.” He cast a meaningful glower at the travelers.

“And they’re the only ones saved and blessed, I suppose,” muttered Thaxter, when their escort finally turned back and the handful of weathered gray buildings that constituted Townsend could be descried through the gray trees. “I wouldn’t have believed it, in this day and age.” He brushed the last fragments of hay out of his hair and scarf-wool. Despite the raw iciness of the night, he’d slept in the barn. Abigail, who had shared a bed with three of the girls of the family in the boarded-up upper floor of the house, wished propriety had permitted her to do so as well.

“You were born in Boston, weren’t you?”

Thaxter nodded. “Born and raised. And Lord, I don’t know how people live in the countryside—I mean out here, not in civilized places like Weymouth or Medford. I didn’t know places like that still existed.”