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the sound of the crowd usually carries over to them on execution days. Today, while they are eating their belated dinner, they hear a sudden distant groan of disappointment. Wife Hannah looks enquiringly at Sewall.
    He guesses what it is. Hawkins has been reprieved while on the very ladder itself. There is nothing more dismaying to an eager crowd than the sight of a condemned person climbing back down to the world he has already left.
    Only Thomas Johnson will hang today.

C HAPTER 4
    I t’s an April day, with a blue sky and puffy white clouds, though there are still fingers of old snow here and there. Sewall is in his orchard, building a new henhouse with the aid of his black servant, Bastian. Or to be more accurate, Bastian is building a new henhouse with help from Sewall, who is holding the little roof in place and has a mouthful of nails, passing one to his servant when required.
    The chickens stand around near their old tumbledown residence, watching all this activity with furrowed brows and grumbling gently. Even the family’s little black cow is interested and pokes her head over the fence of her pasture. She was let out of her shed for the first time this morning when Bastian decided there were signs of growth in the grass, and Sewall enjoyed watching her frisk about in the winy air as she celebrated the outside world again. The Daughters of Sion had no business to stretch out their necks and tinkle their feet but the Bible does endorse dancing at the end of mourning—as in Jeremiah, for example, when Jacob is redeemed.
Then shall the virgin rejoice in the dance, both young men and old together: for I will turn their mourning into joy . . .
If the virgins and the young and old men can dance when released from grief, why not the little cow when escaping the long captivity of winter?
    Young Joseph is crouched beside Sewall and Bastian, playing farms with wooden animals. These include toy cows and chickens, and looking down at his play is suddenly like viewing this Boston back garden from a great height, or more particularly looking at the fields round Sewall’s childhood home of Newbury, Massachusetts, from the top of Old Town Hill, and seeing the tiny sheep and orchards and rows of Indian corn way below: perceiving the homely and diminutive world from the fastness of heaven.
    Bastian asks for another nail and Sewall passes him one. But Bastian is supporting the henhouse with one hand so requires Sewall to hold the nail in place while he strikes it with his hammer. Sewall crouches down, grips the shaft of the nail and waits for the blow. At that very moment comes a call of ‘Good day!’
    Sewall twists his head upwards to see who it is but is stunned by a sudden cry of terror. He cries out himself in response, that fear shuttle again, and nails fly from his mouth. Joseph starts bawling too. Bastian grips Sewall’s arm. ‘Master, it’s only Captain Wing,’ he explains.
    Sewall stumbles to his feet. Captain Wing is now laughing heartily. He is a big burly good-humoured man, a fellow congregant of the South Church, and runs the Castle Tavern on Mackerel Lane just off Dock Square, where Sewall often dines. He used to have a mop of fair hair, though sadly that has now been buried in a wig. ‘I’m sorry, Captain Wing,’ Sewall says, ‘you startled me. I think you startled young Joseph too.’ He looks down at his son, who has stopped crying. ‘It’s only Captain Wing,’ he tells him. Joseph glowers briefly at Captain Wing and resumes his play.
    â€˜It is my place to apologise,’ Captain Wing says. ‘When you turned your head towards me, I had the strangest impression. I thought you’d become some sort of monster with iron fangs.’ Bastian, still squatting on his haunches, laughs gleefully at this.
    â€˜Ah,’ says Sewall. ‘No, my teeth are passably sound and I don’t need false ones.’ He wonders whether to lead on