e with
smugglers and gypsies and villains, the scum of the earth!

Someone knocks.

CHRISTY (without moving). That's the minister.

MRS. DUDGEON (sharply). Well, aren't you going to let Mr. Anderson in?

Christy goes sheepishly to the door. Mrs. Dudgeon buries her face in
her hands, as it is her duty as a widow to be overcome with grief.
Christy opens the door, and admits the minister, Anthony Anderson, a
shrewd, genial, ready Presbyterian divine of about 50, with something
of the authority of his profession in his bearing. But it is an
altogether secular authority, sweetened by a conciliatory, sensible
manner not at all suggestive of a quite thoroughgoing
other-worldliness. He is a strong, healthy man, too, with a thick,
sanguine neck; and his keen, cheerful mouth cuts into somewhat fleshy
corners. No doubt an excellent parson, but still a man capable of
making the most of this world, and perhaps a little apologetically
conscious of getting on better with it than a sound Presbyterian ought.

ANDERSON (to Christy, at the door, looking at Mrs. Dudgeon whilst he
takes off his cloak). Have you told her?

CHRISTY. She made me. (He shuts the door; yawns; and loafs across to
the sofa where he sits down and presently drops off to sleep.)

Anderson looks compassionately at Mrs. Dudgeon. Then he hangs his cloak
and hat on the rack. Mrs. Dudgeon dries her eyes and looks up at him.

ANDERSON. Sister: the Lord has laid his hand very heavily upon you.

MRS. DUDGEON (with intensely recalcitrant resignation). It's His will,
I suppose; and I must bow to it. But I do think it hard. What call had
Timothy to go to Springtown, and remind everybody that he belonged to a
man that was being hanged?--and (spitefully) that deserved it, if ever
a man did.

ANDERSON (gently). They were brothers, Mrs. Dudgeon.

MRS. DUDGEON. Timothy never acknowledged him as his brother after we
were married: he had too much respect for me to insult me with such a
brother. Would such a selfish wretch as Peter have come thirty miles to
see Timothy hanged, do you think? Not thirty yards, not he. However, I
must bear my cross as best I may: least said is soonest mended.

ANDERSON (very grave, coming down to the fire to stand with his back to
it). Your eldest son was present at the execution, Mrs. Dudgeon.

MRS. DUDGEON (disagreeably surprised). Richard?

ANDERSON (nodding). Yes.

MRS. DUDGEON (vindictively). Let it be a warning to him. He may end
th