'Did you enjoy that, Roger?' he asked softly. 'Did you really? Does it give you pleasure to see pain in the eyes of others?'

He was not angry. His eyes were curious: clear, childlike in their innocence. I just stammered and turned away. The master came in, cloak billowing like bat wings around him. He seized Benjamin by the nape of the neck, roaring at him while he got his switch of birch down, ready to give the unfortunate a severe lashing. Benjamin did not utter a word but went like a lamb to the slaughter. I felt sorry then, and didn't know why. My motto has always been: 'Do unto yourself what should be done to your neighbour.' I have rarely been brave and always believed that volunteers never live to pay day. Perhaps it was the meek way Benjamin walked, the cowardly silence of my comrades…

I stepped forward.

'Master,' I declared, 'Benjamin Daunbey is not to blame!'

'Then who is?' the beast roared back.

I licked my lips nervously and held out my hand.

'He is!' I said, turning to the smallest of my coven. 'He placed the pitcher over the door!'

Benjamin was saved, someone else got a beating, and I congratulated myself on my own innate cunning. Well, I went from bad to worse. At night I would not go to bed. In the morning I would not get up. I did not wash my hands or study my hornbook; instead I ran wild. My mother, sickening from a strange humour, just gazed speechlessly at me, hollow-eyed, whilst my step-father's hands beat the air like the wings of some tired, feckless bird. I mocked their advice like the arrogant young fool I was. My backside became hardened to the master's cane and I began to play truant in the fields and apple-laden orchards outside the town. Once the master cornered me, asking where I had been.