After Cicely had left him, the Ancient dozed pleasantly, being full of ale paid for by others. Martha Giles awoke him by shaking his shoulder.

“Be you quite sober, Master Burble?” she asked in a neighbourly spirit, and not unmindful of the change in the weather.

Nicodemus wagged his head, remarking chirrupingly:

“I’ve had a rare skin-full, Martha, and my old legs tell me so, not my head, old girl. Call it a touch o’ lumbager, as I did to Miss Cicely. So Mary be better, hey?”

“Yas, Mary be better and Timothy worse, pore dear soul!”

“What? Down wi’ the fever, too?”

“Fev’rish in his mind, look you. And that set agen my lady ’tis a mortal sin. Yas, Mary be mendin’. A be-utiful corpse she’d ha’ made. ’Twould ha’ been a sad pleasure to lay her out. Aggie got miffed when I passed the remark to her las’ night.”

Nicodemus heaved a sigh.

“Young folks be upsettin’, Martha. We be livin’ in fearful and wondersome times.”

Martha did not answer him, her attention being engrossed by a sudden sight of Nick capering wildly across the green.

“Come you here,” she shouted.

Nick danced up, grinning.

“Wheer ha’ you been, Nick? Up to some mischief, I’ll be bound.”

“He can bide along wi’ me,” said Nicodemus comfortably.

“I likes you,” said Nick.

“Do ’ee now? For why?”

“Because you be so nice an’ hairy, like old baboon I sees at Wilverley Fair.”

Nicodemus accepted this as a compliment. A bell began to boom loudly. Both Martha and the Ancient were startled.

“Dang me, if that bain’t big bell up at Hall!”

He half-staggered to his feet, and fell back.

“I be fair ashamed o’ my legs,” he observed solemnly. Then, as the bell boomed out even more violently, he cocked his head at Martha.

“Something be up, Marthy. You climb tree, Nicky, and tell us what you sees.”

“The lad might break his neck,” suggested Martha.

“You climb tree,” commanded Nicodemus, “or I’ll warm your starn-sheets for ’ee.”

“I likes to climb trees, I do.”

“Then up you goes.”

Nicky obeyed with alacrity. As he reached the first branch, Agatha appeared at the cottage window which fronted the green.

“What has happened?” she asked. The bell went on ringing. Then a sharp whistle was heard.

“Constable’s whistle,” remarked the Ancient. “I knows ’un.”

Excitement gripped them, as a man tore past on a bicycle, heading for Wilverley. As he passed the tree, he yelled out: “Fire! Fire!”

“That was Wilson. My lady’s shover,” faltered Martha. “Oh, dear! oh, dear! Where be fire?”

“’Tis a rick, maybe,” hazarded Nicodemus.

By this time, Nick was high up the tree. He shouted down:

“I sees a gert smoke, I do.”

“Wheer? Wheer?” shouted Nicodemus.

Martha Giles expressed a positive opinion that Wilson was riding fast for the Wilverley fire-engine.

“Why didn’t ’un take my lady’s car?”

Nick shouted again, very shrilly:

“I sees yeller flames, I do.”

Agatha rushed out of the cottage.

“It’s the Hall,” she said, tremblingly. “Maybe ’tis only a chimney.”

“Ah-h-h. Best thing for that is a wet turf a-top o’ chimney pot, and a wet blanket stuffed up the flue. I knows.”

Martha covered her face with her apron. But Nicodemus tried to hearten her up with his coagulated wisdom.

“Things might be worse, Marthy. Our cottages might be afire—see.”

Nevertheless, one and all stared at each other, helpless and almost tongue-tied under the stress of emergency.

“I wish I knew where my John was,” said Agatha.

Nick yelled out:

“’Tis the Hall, neighbours. The roof be blazin’.”

Agatha, very pale, hurried back into the cottage. Martha observed, less tearfully:

“Lard, presarve us! That pore soul in bed needs rousin’. This’ll do it. Here be Timothy Farleigh.”

Timothy stood in his doorway. His deepset eyes smouldered sullenly. Not a word escaped from his tightly-compressed lips. Nicodemus piped shrilly at him:

“Timothy, man, old Hall be afire.”

“Let ’un burn,” replied Timothy, in diapason tones. “Let ’un burn, I says.”

The Ancient glared at him.

“Shame on ’ee—shame! Think o’ the good liquor down cellar.”

“Let ’un burn, I says.”

Nicodemus, full of righteous indignation, replied sharply:

“I don’t want to listen to what you says. You listen to what I says. I be old in wisdom, and you be old in your blarsted ignerunce. We pore folks’ll suffer for this.”

A red glow suffused itself. Almost immediately a peal of distant thunder was heard. Timothy, erect and menacing, exclaimed solemnly:

“This be the Day o’ Judgment.”

Nicodemus shook his fist at him.

“If that be so, you stand wi’ the goats.”

But really he was impressed by Timothy’s deportment. The man seemed to have expanded. He had the air of an inspired prophet as he lifted his deep voice:

“May God A’mighty deal this day wi’ Lady Selina Chandos as she has dealt wi’ me and mine!”