"There were things country folk all knew would endure so long as the world lasted." "Seedtime and harvest, summer and winter." "But beliefs turned out to be more fragile." "When your faith is what you build your whole life upon..." "HE PANTS" "..what happens when it is taken away?" "The Bishop... is coming!" "THUNDER RUMBLES" "(Food for all.)" "(Hunger no more.)" "(Twister Turrill...) (Wake you up." "It is time.)" "That's marvellous." "(Rise up, Twister.)" "I surely will." "DOOR OPENS, THUNDER RUMBLES" "Marvellous!" "Twister, aint't I told you not to fall sleep in that chair?" "My dear..." "I have marvellous news." "Minnie, my eggs were scrambled to creamy perfection." "And my pillows were so plump last night I slept like a chick." "I cannot seem to sleep at all." "That's excitement at meeting the Bishop hisself." "I am rather bemused, I must confess." "Three days till His Reverend comes to consecrate the new font, and I have not received an invitation to tea at the Rectory." "Oh, I received mine two weeks ago." "I have heard that the Bishop is extremely fond of Queen cake, so I will need you to prepare me some rose water, Minnie." "I surely will, ma'am." "Is that roses and water?" "It is." "A humble postman cannot expect to grace the Bishop's table." "Thomas, you are the most devout man in the parish." "Surely it is an oversight on the vicar's part." "DOOR OPENS" "Pontefract?" "I am being greedy for gratification." "We have something better than a letter for you today, Miss Pratt." "A parcel." "Oh, how thrilling." "That'll be more of them liquorices." "Thomas?" "Yes?" "I realise it might be indelicate for you to point out to the vicar his..." "I'm sure, accidental omission - but if your wife were to sensitively raise the matter with him," "I'm sure we could secure your place at the Rectory Tea." "Miss Lane, though I do not for myself seek position or favour, it does seem to me that for the sake of our community your suggestion is ingenious." "Ingeniousness...is very clever." "Margaret?" "Oh." "Yes." "I..." "Yes." "The vicar is especially fond of you, Margaret." "Just give him your winning smile and he dare not refuse." "Is everything all right, Laura?" "Yes, ma'am." "Miss Pratt." "Ruby." "May I be so bold..." "Isn't it time you told your sister about Pontefract?" "My sister seems rather unreceptive to amiability of late and I..." "I would rather ponder a little further." "But you can see the danger?" "It would be so much more conducive if she were told, and not..." "DOOR OPENS" "Miss Lane detained me in conversation." "So I see." "Ruby, there has been a certain aroma about the place of late which has mystified me." "I have not noticed an aroma." "I would say it was liquorice, but I cannot imagine that you would bring such a vulgar thing into our shop." "Liquorice?" "RUBY LAUGHS NERVOUSLY" "No." "It's quiet again today." "It will pick up." "It always picks up." "Parcels!" "Parcels for the poor!" "Not from the post office, no..." "From the Heavens!" "Fish to fry will fall from the sky!" "A Great whispering voice came to tell Twister Turrill that parcels are coming." "Gather here, gather near." "Three days from now." "Parcels of cheese, ribs of best beef, roasted and wrapped in red ribbons!" "Did you hear him, Laura?" "It's only Twister having one of his turns." "Sausages!" "God's own sausages will rain down for all." "It usually passes in about a week or so." "A week?" "!" "The Bishop will be here in three days." "He must be stopped from proclaiming this heresy." "Gather here, gather near." "Look up!" "Look up!" "Food will fall!" "Food for all!" "My dear, what news on the Rectory Tea?" "The vicar seemed not to notice my intimations." "Well, then, the time has come to go beyond intimations." "You must press the vicar." "Margaret, this is a historical moment." "Imagine us telling our grandchildren of our day with the Bishop!" "So you must do everything you can to secure an invitation." "I thought it was you I saw on the lane." "Mr Timmins." "Yours is a face" "I thought I would never set my eyes on again." "I take it those aren't meant for me." "The readers of the Oxford Post were very fond of that story, the people in it." "You were heroes - the Timminses" " Lark Rise folk." "You were wronged by your lofty neighbours." "Is that so bad?" "You are good with words, I'll give you that, Mr. Parish." "What brings you back here?" "I have a gift... for Laura." "I wish to give it to her in person." "A new book by Thomas Hardy." "You suppose she would want to see you after what you did to her?" "I have been writing to your daughter." "She has been writing to me." "I would hope, Mr Timmins, that while I am here I can prove to you that I am worthy of your favour." "And how will you do that?" "Well, I intend to make amends with those I've hurt." "Beginning with those closest to Laura." "Hold hard there, young man." "Aren't you assuming that those closest to Laura will accept your well-versed regrets and shake your hand?" "When I express and explain my regrets...yes, they will." "Well, since you are so sure of yourself, you won't mind putting aside seeing Laura until all your amends are done and accepted?" "Mr Timmins," "I see you wish to challenge me to prove myself." "I welcome such an opportunity." "The post office is right down the street." "If you can convince Dorcas Lane to accept your apology, that'd be a start." "Mrs Turrill." "How glad I am to find you." "More than 70 years since this last happened." "Your husband, Mrs Turrill, is declaiming on the streets of Candleford and he must be persuaded to desist." "Can you see it?" "Blood." "Did you say...blood?" "Don't you know about the witch tree, Thomas?" "Long before my time, there was talk of how it would bleed human blood." "A tree?" "Bleed...blood?" "There was a local widow - name of Mrs Ashley, descended from the original squatters here - she had the gift." "Folks would come to her to remove warts and the like." "The tree." "What about the tree?" "This is about the tree." "There was some bad luck, see?" "Widow Ashley fell out with another wife and this woman fell ill and she accused Mrs Ashley of being a witch." "Folks were whispering it." "Turning away from her on the lane." "Then it started to rain." "And it wouldn't stop." "So the harvest was poor and there was hunger all over the hamlet." "The tree?" "They chased her." "Hunger can do terrible things to your mind." "They were hounding her down, and she was so full of fear she couldn't get away." "So she turned herself into a tree." "That-that tree...is a woman?" "!" "A witch?" "Yes." "We must learn why the bleeding is happening now, after so many years." "You cannot tell anyone this." "We must tell everyone." "But it's a heathen superstition." "The Bishop will be here... in three days." "Oh, my." "Perhaps that is why it is happening now." "The Bishop." "Why would the witch tree react to the Bishop coming, Queenie?" "That's what we must find out." "I will be calm." "All will be well." "What's that look you're wearing, our Laura?" "Your mind is elsewhere." "What's troubling you?" "Everyone seems preoccupied with the Bishop's visit." "I just can't seem to get excited about it." "You know you can tell your Pa anything." "There in't anything, Pa." "You don't need to hide yourself from me, Laura." "I must get on with my delivery." "Only a moment ago, you wanted to sit." "I need to finish my round, and you need to finish the font." "I came back to let you know how sorry I am." "That is not quite true." "I came to see Laura... as I'm sure you realise." "I did notice rather a lot of correspondence for her from Oxford." "She will be back from her delivery in an hour." "I am intent on not seeing Laura..." "Yet." "How strange." "To come all this way..." "I spoke to her father." "He suggested that... if I am in earnest about making amends," "I would prove it by not seeing her." "That is exceedingly chivalrous of you to take up such a challenge." "Well, I think he has a point." "I thank you for the courtesy of your apology and... ..we shall see." "We shall." "After I returned to Oxford... ..I couldn't settle." "Our own consciences can torment us more than any amount of attacks from others." "In my job, you learn to push it aside." "You drive on." "But this time, it was different." "I found myself unable to function." "Is that so mysterious?" "When we feel the tug of powerful emotions, as we do, say, when we fall for someone..." "..we want them to think well of us." "It throws up such potent self-doubts." "We question every thought, mistrust every action we make." "You don't strike me as someone who doubts herself." "Only every day." "Well, doesn't that stop you from being, well, Dorcas Lane?" "I simply refuse to listen to it." "But how can that be enough?" "No life is so sunny, no-one is immune." "How do we keep those doubts at bay?" "THUNDER RUMBLES" "No-one is immune." "No-one." "CORNET PLAYS" "Hmm." "Do you suppose the Bishop is fond of the cornet?" "I could bring it to tea." "SHE SNORES GENTLY" "Two days." "But I put the keys where I always put them!" "I'm sure I did!" "I have never lost them before!" "They're rapping at the window now." "I think I hung them up." "Perhaps I didn't." "But there is a spare set, is there not, Miss Lane?" "Oh, yes, of course." "Fetch the reserve keys from my private quarters, Laura." "I can't imagine how I did this!" "My mind feels rather clouded." "I expect that's the excitement of His Bishopness coming." "I was out at dawn picking rose petals with the dew on them." "For the rose water, for the Queen Cake, for the Bishop." "Minnie...did you use the keys?" "Ma'am, I do believe they are in my apron pocket." "In't that 'strawdinary?" "The font is going to be splendid, Robert." "Splendid." "Thank heavens." "Did you know Twister Turrill is on the streets of Candleford proclaiming ungodly proclamations?" "The most ungodly that I ever heard." "But... the font is a beacon of deliverance." "The Bishop will be most impressed, and he will see that we are not a parish of profane primitives." "I can't finish it." "Did you know Mrs Turrill claims a tree near Lark Rise is bleeding?" "Did you ever hear such idolatrous...?" "Can't finish?" "The font?" "But...the..." "But the consecration is in two days' time!" "I sit here, I look at it." "I know it must be done." "But something is wrong." "But you must." "I know if I go at it, it will be ruined." "Robert Timmins." "I want us to speak calmly." "I want us to reach understanding." "I want you to hear what I say and to appreciate the implications." "The Bishop is coming." "Eight eggs, Minnie, yolks and whites beaten separately." "Is it eight or is it 12?" "I have had this recipe in my mind since I was ten years old." "Why is it suddenly unclear?" "The Vicar was most receptive when I made clear to him my request." "But I think I may have caused further confusion." "He seems to have invited me, but not Thomas." "Oh, heavens!" "It must be eight eggs, ma'am, because if you was ten years old, you would remember 12 eggs, because that's two years older." "Flour, sifted sugar, washed currants, butter in rose water." "Now, we need to put in the dry ingredients by degrees and beat the whole mixture for an hour." "An hour?" "!" "My poor arms will be..." "I surely will, ma'am." "My difficulty is, should I tell Thomas, or should I return to the Vicar to try again, or should I decline the invitation?" "Perhaps if you..." "I wonder..." "I don't know." "Miss Lane!" "You always know!" "I felt such a strange disturbance in the night." "Then, when I woke up this morning, my senses were all out of kilter." "I don't quite trust myself." "DOOR OPENS" "Miss Lane?" "Ah, you do have something for me today." "I'm afraid so." "More invoices." "Miss Pratt, can I not persuade you to confide to Ruby your testing financial circumstances?" "Miss Lane..." "I am Ruby." "Oh, yes, of course you are." "Testing financial circumstances?" "Oh, dear, I seem to have lost my bearings." "How tall do I stand?" "Tell me." "This high?" "Am I a child?" "Am I to be treated eternally as a weakling infant?" "It is not enough that you humiliate me before my neighbours, but you do it secretly!" "You whisper to them behind my back." ""My sister is so feeble," ""my sister is so piteously inadequate that faced with such things as bills," ""this delicate little nothing of a nobody will instantly collapse into fits of melancholy and hysteria!"" "Do not say, do not dare to say what you always say!" ""I do it for you."" "Why do you suppose we have such debts?" "Is it because you are making a wonderful job of it?" "You treat our customers as you treat me." "And look where it's landed us." "I want to worry!" "I am entitled to feel fear." "You refuse me even that!" "You must domineer every corner of my life!" "Ruby..." "Don't call me that!" "I am Ruth." "Ruth, Ruth, Ruth, Ruth, Ruth..." "Ruth!" "The name my mother gave me - you even took that away from me!" "You named me Ruby." "I am your creation." "You decided that we must be Pearl and Ruby Pratt of The Stores in order to make something of ourselves." "Well, what have we made?" "!" "Two notorious spinsters... with debts." "How much do we owe?" "Let me close up the shop first." "Young Laura..." "Since meat joints have bones, they're heavy, see." "So do we catch them or let them fall to the ground?" "How could I do such a thing?" "We do have time to make another one, ma'am." "Poor Pearl." "Poor Ruby." "How can I possibly put this right with them?" "Ma'am, you remember the journalist who came here." "Daniel Parish?" "I thought I saw him on the street." "I was certain it was him." "It can't be." "Yet it was." "Do you suppose he might have come back?" "Yes." "Oh!" "Oh." "He came into the Post Office." "And did he ask for me?" "He asked for me." "We spent some time talking in my private quarters." "He wished to make his apologies to me for the articles he wrote." "And then did he ask for me?" "Or perhaps leave a note?" "Or say when he might return?" "Or why he's come back to Candleford?" "I'm sure he'll call in again soon." "Perhaps." "DOOR OPENS" "Minnie, have you seen anything of Daniel?" "What are gazing up at?" "I did once taste roasted beef and it was so delicious that I don't want to miss one if it falls from the sky." "I do believe the whole world is out of joint." "Thank you for coming, Pearl, and for giving me this opportunity to make my apologies." "My sister refuses even to speak with me." "She is beyond reason." "And it is entirely my fault!" "You trusted me with the responsibility to deliver the mail only to you and I failed you in that." "Yes." "I cannot fathom how I came to make such a formidable mistake." "Hopefully, my sister will mope and brood for a day or two, and then, perhaps you might impress upon her that you are entirely to blame and it was not so much that I wished to conceal matters from her," "but that you and I had a functional arrangement!" "I simply lost my senses for a moment and mixed up your secrets." "Giving her the bills in place of her Pontefract correspondence." "Secrets?" "Plural?" "Correspondence?" "Pontefract?" "I can't believe I did that!" "Again!" "Miss Lane, who would send my sister liquorice?" "Oh, Ruby will never forgive me!" "I will never forgive myself!" "A man!" "A Yorkshire suitor kept hidden from me!" "Miss Lane, splendid news!" "All is well." "The Vicar has invited Thomas to tea." "We can all relax." "Parcels!" "Parcels for the poor!" "Gather here, gather near." "In two days, gifts will fall from the heavens." "Ham on plates!" "Livers and kidneys, fried in gravy." "Food for all." "You are not here to write about this, are you, sir?" "It would make a rather amusing story." "Mr Turrill," "Twister..." "We are both reasonable men." "I only wish to point out to you that, in two days' time, the Bishop will be here and..." "Oh, I know about the Bishop." "I shan't be expounding when he arrives." "Good." "So you understand how it might upset him." "Distress him even." "It is my mission to tell His Reverend about the parcels." "That is not possible." "Oh, but it is, because every time that there is a dignitary visits, the Vicar pays me thruppence to open the gate, see, as the carriage arrives." "So I shall take my possibility to speak with the Bishop concerning the heavenly arrivals." "There is nothing I can say that will dissuade you, is there?" "Laura, will parcels truly fall from the sky?" "Oh, Minnie, really..." "What do you think?" "I once found a penny in a puddle." "So I put my hand in again and found another one." "So I put my hand in again and found another one." "I always look in puddles now whenever I pass one, but I in't never found another penny." "So I believe there will be food in the sky." "Because anything can happen once." "Minnie, perhaps you are right." "Laura..." "What does it feel like to fall in love?" "Well, it feels... taken over... in a way that's so wonderfully aching and unsettling..." "I didn't know I was in love until you asked me." "If I was in love with Daniel, and I in't saying I am cos I in't..." "But if I was, and if he came all the way to Candleford just to see me," "I would tell him I loved him." "Would you tell him, Laura?" "Yes..." " I would." " Oh!" " I did see Daniel." " You did?" "What did he say?" "Nothing." "He was watching Twister in the street." "Then he can't want to see me." "Oh, no, don't mention it." "My dear, I have wonderful news!" "Tea, the Bishop..." "Oh, we have a visitor." "Mr Turrill, you are most welcome." "Where are these sausages, then?" "We must keep the doors locked at all times, no-one must know that he is here." "Thomas, what are you doing?" "We will only isolate him until after the Bishop has gone." "Isolate?" "I'm ready for my sausages." "Hot or cold, I have no mind." "The man is a menace to our community." "We must contain him here till the danger has passed." "Fried, not boiled." "Why does he keep mentioning sausages?" "I enticed him here with the promise of offal." "But we don't entertain sausages." "I lied." "Give him cold pie." "I'm trying to grasp the..." "Are you saying...?" "Are we keeping Mr Turrill a prisoner here?" "Does no-one see?" "Am I the only one who wishes our town to be spared the humiliation, the ruin?" "I am trying to preserve the good name of our parish!" "But...kidnap?" "He will be sustained!" "It's not a hardship!" "But we have no right!" "Must I explain what is blindingly obvious over and over?" "Can no-one comprehend the magnitude of our perilous position?" "The Bishop is coming!" "I will fetch the cold pie." "Emma, I am decided." "They must call in another mason to finish the font." "What has brought you to this?" "I must be fair by my neighbours." "The font has to be complete in time for the... occasion." "The celebration." "But it is yours." "Robert..." "Come here." "Tell me the truth." "What is going on in that mind of yours?" "It in't the stone." "I am the problem." "Stone is stone." "It will respond to a confident hand." "I will speak with the vicar and recommend a man for the job." "In't that running away?" "I cannot finish it." "It is gone from me." "I don't trust my own hands." "I dare not touch the stone." "Then tell me..." "Admit it to me." "What has done this to you?" "Do you suppose your thoughts will vanish simply by giving up on the font?" "They will follow you to your next job." "Tell me, what has so disturbed you, Robert?" "My own daughter... hiding herself from me." "Why?" "Because she can't trust me with her feelings." "Because..." "I am too hard on her." "There it is." "Now I don't trust myself." "Now it is in my hands, and the stone knows it..." "Yes, you can be hard... on all of us." "But I have seen you more forgiving than any man I know." "I have seen you trying to adapt yourself to our needs, trying to understand the ways of women and girls." "These are night thoughts, Robert." "The daylight will wash them away." "Go back to the font." "I realise it is unforgivable." "I assure you, Ruby, my slip was not intentional." "Something came over me." "Small at first." "I thought I had lost my keys." "Then I couldn't quite remember a recipe for a cake." "But it grew!" "Each instance seemed to add to my sense of uncertainty." "The anxiety itself made me act clumsily... ..as though I had lost control of my own faculties." "I suppose, the truth is, I have no choice." "In the end, I must forgive my sister." "She is what she is and she does what she does and believes what she believes." "It must have been so awful for you." "More awful for her, I think." "I hope." "I know how Pearl can be." "And I know that you were most concerned to tell her of your liaison on your own terms, but..." "I can only promise you that I had no intention of..." "My liaison?" "Pearl knows?" "Surely, Pearl..." "She must have..." "That I inadvertently..." "You didn't know?" "DOOR OPENS" "You must stand upon the moral high ground, mustn't you?" "You humiliate me by refusing to humiliate me!" "You knew." "You knew that I had... have...a gentleman friend correspondent." "Yet you say nothing!" "You must always arrange matters so that you are superior." "You've been watching me, thinking your lofty thoughts!" ""Ruby's off in the clouds while I carry the burden of bills and debts." Well, I refuse!" "I intend to correspond!" "I intend to enjoy... ..and hope and wish and..." "Do not make me pity you!" "I will not!" "That is so unfair!" "Unfair!" "Well..." "Mr Timmins!" "You are chipping." "With your chisel." "I've never heard a more pleasing sound." "Splendid." "Splendid indeed." "I am gratified to think the Bishop will have something to consecrate." "Look..." "Here, you see it?" "I was right." "There is something in there." "In...there?" "A fossil." "I can't see it clearly enough yet." "I need to dig down to get a better look." "This...fossil..." "Are you claiming...?" "Looks like a head to me." "A fish, perhaps." "How did it get there, Mr Timmins?" "It is the work of ages, my girl." "Usually, when a living thing dies, it rots away." "But sometimes, a creature becomes like this." "There was a man writing books." "Mr Darwin." "He claimed that these fossils explain about how we evolved over many millions of years." "Do not say that man's name in this place!" "Do not advance the abomination that we are the sons of monkeys when...tomorrow..." "No, that thing cannot be seen, cannot be discussed whilst the most Christian of men is here!" "Thomas, this is a remarkable find." "Such a thing of wonder." "I must excavate it." "I must let it out." "You have done this deliberately... to antagonise the Bishop." "This has been here for thousands of years." "It's unforgivable." "Unforgivable!" "I never appreciated what an appetite you have, Mr Turrill." "Oh, I didn't mean that you were in any way greedy or..." "There in't no parcels coming, is they?" "I...don't imagine so, no." "I've been gone, in't I?" "Now you are returned to us." "It was the hunger caught hold of my thinking." "It in't the hunger I mind." "It in't so much the memory of hunger neither." "It's...the fear of hunger undoes you." "When I was a boy, there was winter days when the craving was in your bones." "You gets so you are possessed by hunger." "You are the hunger." "I confess, I know nothing of hunger, Mr Turrill." "But I do know a little of fear." "And I understand how such fear can make one wish to..." "Well, I used to call it, "jumping out of my mind"." "Escape." "From thoughts." "From feelings." "From...today." "The thing about the fear of hunger is... no amount of eating can cure it." "But I will have another piece of that cold pie." "I have a surprise for you, Mr Turrill." "Sausages!" "Go on, then." "Say your tuppence worth." "I regret what I did." "It was wrong of me, I accept that." "I hope you that will be able to, um..." "Drink your tea." "When I came to Lark Rise last time..." "I was affected by what I met here." "People here have a fashion about them." "They give you tea when you might deserve salt rubbed into your wounds." "Well, you are here, facing me." "So you must have true courage, or a great and admirable need to put things right." "Thank you." "Or you have another trick up your sleeve." "Show your manners." "Drink your tea." "You assume that a few of your silky words and a flash of your handsome charm, and we will..." "What?" "Understand?" "Forgive you?" "Like you?" "We are the ones being harmed, but you're the one with the wounds!" "Mr Parish..." "You are drinking my tea, because I was taught not to hold grudges." "Not for your sake, mind, but for mine." "Holding a resentment is like drinking poison and waiting for the other person to die." "I don't wish you ill for what you've done." "But where my daughter is concerned..." "I wish you a hundred miles away." "I know my daughter." "Your way of life, of seeing life..." "..it would scar her." "You've made your mind up about me." "If you stay, it will be far worse." "So I'm asking you to promise me you will leave her alone." "Can you do that?" "Yes." "Yes, I can." "Mrs Turrill." "The tree." "That's all in hand." "We're preparing things now." "Well, I am glad to hear that." "Indeed." "Indeed." "I've found the ritual that we need to perform." "A call to the elements." "Did I hear you say... a ritual?" "We're going to consecrate the tree." "Set her free." "Consecration is a solemn sacrification, the holiest ceremony, only to be performed by those ordained by the church!" "And you are planning... ..to consecrate... a tree?" "!" "We must release the poor dear." "Been in there all these years." "That..." "That road!" "That lane right there is where the Bishop will pass by on his way to morning service to consecrate the font!" "That lane..." "It goes right past the... ..Witch Tree." "I find myself... ..pleading with you not... to not... ..to reconsider." "She is pleading to be let out." "I can't turn away from her." "I see." "I see!" "Very well." "I see." "Daniel..." "I'm beginning to think you're avoiding me." "I have been avoiding you, Laura." "I don't understand." "Why?" "Because I wanted so much to see you." "That's why I came here." "That is why I must go." "Everything here tells me that." "Is it this place?" "Is it so terrible?" "I love this world of yours." "The people here." "That's why I must leave." "Daniel, you're not making any sense." "Why have you been avoiding me?" "Because your Pa asked me to." "To prove myself." "And why must you prove anything to my Pa?" "I don't have to." "I never did." "I wanted to prove something to myself." "And I have." "In my soul..." "I'm a journalist." "The Bishop is coming, and the locals believe there's a witch inside of this tree." "My instincts tell me to go back to Oxford with this story, exploit the Bishop, embarrass the locals, make a mockery of everyone!" "But you don't have to!" "I have your letters." "And, in them, is a kind and gentle man." "The type of man I could fall in love with." "Would you give up on him so easily?" "How can you become him unless you start?" "You can start now." "I could help you." "No." "Yes." "Yes." "It is such a lonely place." "Being separated by secrets." "I do so fear it." "I want my sister back." "This is our store." "We have known difficulties before." "We will overcome our circumstances." "Together." "You mentioned a while ago we might have a fashion parade." "Why not?" "Might be great fun." "What is his name?" "Lionel." "Lionel Dallas." "Does he have an occupation?" "He is an undertaker." "Hmm." "He cares greatly for his... clients." "He speaks of them most tenderly." "I am sure that he does." "Shall we have some hot milk..." "Ruth?" "You can call me Ruby." "You might as well." "Is everything all right, Miss Lane?" "Yes, Laura." "Just a little night humour." "Have you seen your young man yet?" "Yes, ma'am, and he is decided he will be my young man." "That is rather sudden." "I know people think ill of Daniel." "I do believe he gave people cause to mistrust him." "Daniel is a man who is tormented with self doubt." "It is that which makes him want to run away from people." "Oh." "Is that so?" "You must have said something rather magical to make him overcome his troubles." "I told him what you told me, Miss Lane." "When I first came here." "I'm curious what I could have said that might restore a man to well being so quickly." "The constant thought of others." "If we forget about ourselves, our own selfish needs, our worries and uncertainties..." "Well... life does seem to flow more easily." "My own words coming back to me." "Perhaps I ought to make a habit of listening to my own advice." "Ah!" "Ah!" "Margaret..." "I have had a dream." "A vision." "I have been pushed too far." "Pushed beyond." "Pushed over." "And I will stand up for Jesus." "For our parish." "For decency." "For the Bishop!" "My dear, what are you considering?" "I am beyond consideration, Margaret." "BANGING AT THE DOOR" "Miss Lane, Miss Lane..." "Thomas has taken up an axe!" "HE SOBS" "Why me?" "Why not?" "Oh, Thomas..." "Come away and leave the tree." "This witchery must be struck down before these pagans perform their pagan ceremony!" "You have your faith and others have theirs." "There's only one true faith, Miss Lane!" "And look where it has brought you!" "I have every respect for your beliefs, Thomas, but do you suppose at this moment that you present a picture of the triumph of Christianity?" "The coming is Bishop!" "Oh, Thomas..." "I have known you since you were a boy." "And I have known your faith in all that time, too." "It does not depend upon you impressing the Bishop, no matter how very reverend he may be." "It is yours." "It lays beside you on your pillow at night." "It comforts you when there is no human comfort to be found." "Your faith has steered you and sustained you through many trials." "Isn't that so, Margaret?" "I..." "Oh..." "We..." "Yes!" "It has sustained others, too." "Myself, for one." "You?" "Well, you saved me when my own actions almost cost me the Post Office." "I did save you, didn't I?" "Yes." "Yes, you did." "Now...you have saved me." "Why, isn't that how life works?" "We take turns in saving one another." "I think they call it fellowship." "Pagan, by the way, only means country ways." "Rustic faith." "Something handed down." "I wonder..." "Perhaps it might cause offence." "Do you suppose we ought to remove the... implement from the tree?" "Powers of the North, Guardians of the Earth, consecrate this tree and charge it with your vitalities." "Come to us." "Purify this dawn." "And let this spirit be reborn." "Powers of the East," "Guardians of the Air, come this way and pass through me." "Let us set this spirit free." "Powers of the South, Guardians of Fire, burn away this history." "Let the innocent travel in peace." "Explain this to me." "I hear a voice telling me to go to Candleford to proclaim that food will come from the heavens." "I come." "I proclaim." "And I find I'm fed all the food I can stomach." "Now if that in't a gift from the beyond, then I would be more'n pleased to know what is." "Queenie!" "Mr Timmins has found a fossil!" "Show me!" "I have to see that!" "What a thing to find!" "Isn't it just wondrous?" "It's a fish." "It's just about the most beautiful thing I ever saw." "There were things country folk all knew would endure as long as the world lasted." "But some things were lost." "Taken from us." "Thrown away by our own neglect." "Or simply stolen by the doubts we conjure in ourselves." "So they must be restored." "Fought for, held dear." "So that we can be at peace with one another and with our own beliefs." "The Bishop is not coming!" "He has been taken ill." "# A gypsy came to the castle gate... #" "What a tune!" "I don't know when I've heard anything so catchy." "What about you, Edmund?" "What does the song mean for you?" "Freedom." "His first day on the land." "And his first pay on the land." "I wanted better for him, I wanted more." "If a person were going to become a wife, what do you suppose they would need to know?" "She must learn to dance." "She must be able to make cakes." "I believe we have a plan!" "Can you keep a secret?"