"Look there!"

And she pointed through a gap between the trees down to the valley where,
above the tall trunks, they could see the whole expanse of a big
homestead, with the long thatched roofs of stable and barn and the tiles
and slates of the house and turrets. She put her mouth to his ear and
whispered:

"That's where the rent-farmer lives ... and he's a bad, bad man. He does
wicked things to the little girls who go into the wood; and mother says
that then they fall ill and die and then they go to Hell!"

Doorke did not understand very well, but he saw from Horieneke's
wide-open eyes that it was serious. They sat down together on the edge of
the ditch, with their legs in the grass, played with the daisies and
listened to the thrushes gurgling deep down in the wood. They sat there
for a long time. The sun sank to the top of the oak; the sky was flecked
with white clouds which shot through the heavens in long diverging
shafts, like a huge peacock's tail upon an orange field.

The children mused:

"I should like to fall down dead, here and now," said Horieneke.

Doorke looked up in surprise:

"Why, Horieneke?"

"Then I should be in Heaven at once."