CHAPTER XXIV
AUDREY COMES TO WESTOVER
It was ten of the clock upon this same night when Hugon left the glebehouse. Audrey, crouching in the dark beside her window, heard him bid theminister, as drunk as himself, good-night, and watched him go unsteadilydown the path that led to the road. Once he paused, and made as if toreturn; then went on to his lair at the crossroads ordinary. Again Audreywaited,--this time by the door. Darden stumbled upstairs to bed. MistressDeborah's voice was raised in shrill reproach, and the drunken ministeranswered her with oaths. The small house rang with their quarrel, butAudrey listened with indifference; not trembling and stopping her ears, asonce she would have done. It was over at last, and the place sunk insilence; but still the girl waited and listened, standing close to thedoor. At last, as it was drawing toward midnight, she put her hand uponthe latch, and, raising it very softly, slipped outside. Heavy breathingcame from the room where slept her guardians; it went evenly on while shecrept downstairs and unbarred the outer door. Sure and silent and light oftouch, she passed like a spirit from the house that had given her shelter,nor once looked back upon it.
The boat, hidden in the reeds, was her destination; she loosed it, andtaking the oars rowed down the creek. When she came to the garden wall,she bent her head and shut her eyes; but when she had left the creek forthe great dim river, she looked at Fair View house as she rowed past it onher way to the mountains. No light to-night; the hour was late, and he wasasleep, and that was well.
It was cold upon the river, and sere leaves, loosening their hold uponthat which had given them life, drifted down upon her as she rowed beneatharching trees. When she left the dark bank for the unshadowed stream, thewind struck her brow and the glittering stars perplexed her. There were somany of them. When one shot, she knew that a soul had left the earth.Another fell, and another,--it must be a good night for dying. She ceasedto row, and, leaning over, dipped her hand and arm into the black water.The movement brought the gunwale of the boat even with the flood.... Saythat one leaned over a little farther ... there would fall another star.God gathered the stars in his hand, but he would surely be angry with onethat came before it was called, and the star would sink past him into anight forever dreadful.... The water was cold and deep and black. Greatfish throve in it, and below was a bed of ooze and mud....
The girl awoke from her dream of self-murder with a cry of terror. Not theriver, good Lord, not the river! Not death, but life! With a secondshuddering cry she lifted hand and arm from the water, and with frantichaste dried them upon the skirt of her dress. There had been none to hearher. Upon the midnight river, between the dim forests that ever spoke, butnever listened, she was utterly alone. She took the oars again, and wenton her way up the river, rowing swiftly, for the mountains were far away,and she might be pursued.
When she drew near to Jamestown she shot far out into the river, becausemen might be astir in the boats about the town landing. Anchored inmidstream was a great ship,--a man-of-war, bristling with guns. Her boattouched its shadow, and the lookout called to her. She bent her head, putforth her strength, and left the black hull behind her. There was anothership to pass, a slaver that had come in the evening before, and would landits cargo at sunrise. The stench that arose from it was intolerable, and,as the girl passed, a corpse, heavily weighted, was thrown into the water.Audrey went swiftly by, and the river lay clean before her. The starspaled and the dawn came, but she could not see the shores for the thickwhite mist. A spectral boat, with a sail like a gray moth's wing, slippedpast her. The shadow at the helm was whistling for the wind, and the soundcame strange and shrill through the filmy, ashen morning. The mist beganto lift. A few moments now, and the river would lie dazzlingly barebetween the red and yellow forests. She turned her boat shorewards, andpresently forced it beneath the bronze-leafed, drooping boughs of asycamore. Here she left the boat, tying it to the tree, and hoping that itwas well hidden. The great fear at her heart was that, when she wasmissed, Hugon would undertake to follow and to find her. He had the skillto do so. Perhaps, after many days, when she was in sight of themountains, she might turn her head and, in that lonely land, see himcoming toward her.
The sun was shining, and the woods were gay above her head and gay beneathher feet. When the wind blew, the colored leaves went before it likeflights of birds. She was hungry, and as she walked she ate a piece ofbread taken from the glebe-house larder. It was her plan to go rapidlythrough the settled country, keeping as far as possible to the greatspaces of woodland which the axe had left untouched; sleeping in such darkand hidden hollows as she could find; begging food only when she must, andthen from poor folk who would not stay her or be overcurious about herbusiness. As she went on, the houses, she knew, would be farther andfarther apart; the time would soon arrive when she might walk half a dayand see never a clearing in the deep woods. Then the hills would riseabout her, and far, far off she might see the mountains, fixed, cloudlike,serene, and still, beyond the miles of rustling forest. There would be nomore great houses, built for ladies and gentlemen, but here and there, atfar distances, rude cabins, dwelt in by kind and simple folk. At such ahome, when the mountains had taken on a deeper blue, when the streams werenarrow and the level land only a memory, she would pause, would ask if shemight stay. What work was wanted she would do. Perhaps there would bechildren, or a young girl like Molly, or a kind woman like Mistress Stagg;and perhaps, after a long, long while, it would grow to seem to her likethat other cabin.
These were her rose-colored visions. At other times a terror took her bythe shoulders, holding her until her face whitened and her eyes grew wideand dark. The way was long and the leaves were falling fast, and shethought that it might be true that in this world into which she hadawakened there was for her no home. The cold would come, and she mighthave no bread, and for all her wandering find none to take her in. Inthose forests of the west the wolves ran in packs, and the Indians burnedand wasted. Some bitter night-time she would die.... Watching the sky fromFair View windows, perhaps he might idly mark a falling star.
All that day she walked, keeping as far as was possible to the woods, butforced now and again to traverse open fields and long stretches of sunnyroad. If she saw any one coming, she hid in the roadside bushes, or, ifthat could not be done, walked steadily onward, with her head bent and herheart beating fast. It must have been a day for minding one's ownbusiness, for none stayed or questioned her. Her dinner she begged fromsome children whom she found in a wood gathering nuts. Supper she hadnone. When night fell, she was glad to lay herself down upon a bed ofleaves that she had raked together; but she slept little, for the windmoaned in the half-clad branches, and she could not cease from countingthe stars that shot. In the morning, numbed and cold, she went slowly onuntil she came to a wayside house. Quaker folk lived there; and they askedher no question, but with kind words gave her of what they had, and lether rest and grow warm in the sunshine upon their doorstep. She thankedthem with shy grace, but presently, when they were not looking, rose andwent her way. Upon the second day she kept to the road. It was loss oftime wandering in the woods, skirting thicket and marsh, forced ever andagain to return to the beaten track. She thought, also, that she must besafe, so far was she now from Fair View. How could they guess that she wasgone to the mountains?
About midday, two men on horseback looked at her in passing. One spoke tothe other, and turning their horses they put after and overtook her. Hewho had spoken touched her with the butt of his whip. "Ecod!" heexclaimed. "It's the lass we saw run for a guinea last May Day atJamestown! Why so far from home, light o' heels?"
A wild leap of her heart, a singing in her ears, and Audrey clutched atsafety.
"I be Joan, the smith's daughter," she said stolidly. "I niver ran for aguinea. I niver saw a guinea. I be going an errand for feyther."
"Ecod, then!" said the other man. "You're on a wrong scent. 'Twas no doltthat ran that day!"
The man who had touched her laughed. "'Facks, you are right, Tom! B
ut I'dha' sworn 't was that brown girl. Go your ways on your errand for'feyther'!" As he spoke, being of an amorous turn, he stooped from hissaddle and kissed her. Audrey, since she was at that time not Audrey atall, but Joan, the smith's daughter, took the salute as stolidly as shehad spoken. The two men rode away, and the second said to the first: "AWilliamsburgh man told me that the girl who won the guinea could speak andlook like a born lady. Didn't ye hear the story of how she went to theGovernor's ball, all tricked out, dancing, and making people think she wassome fine dame from Maryland maybe? And the next day she was scored inchurch before all the town. I don't know as they put a white sheet on her,but they say 't was no more than her deserts."
Audrey, left standing in the sunny road, retook her own countenance,rubbed her cheek where the man's lips had touched it, and trembled like aleaf. She was frightened, both at the encounter and because she couldmake herself so like Joan,--Joan who lived near the crossroads ordinary,and who had been whipped at the Court House.
Late that afternoon she came upon two or three rude dwellings clusteredabout a mill. A knot of men, the miller in the midst, stood and gazed atthe mill-stream. They wore an angry look; and Audrey passed them hastilyby. At the farthest house she paused to beg a piece of bread; but thewoman who came to the door frowned and roughly bade her begone, and achild threw a stone at her. "One witch is enough to take the bread out ofpoor folks' mouths!" cried the woman. "Be off, or I'll set the dogs onye!" The children ran after her as she hastened from the inhospitableneighborhood. "'T is a young witch," they cried, "going to help the oldone swim to-night!" and a stone struck her, bruising her shoulder.
She began to run, and, fleet of foot as she was, soon distanced hertormentors. When she slackened pace it was sunset, and she was faint withhunger and desperately weary. From the road a bypath led to a smallclearing in a wood, with a slender spiral of smoke showing between thetrees. Audrey went that way, and came upon a crazy cabin whose door andwindow were fast closed. In the unkempt garden rose an apple-tree, withthe red apples shriveling upon its boughs, and from the broken gate a lineof cedars, black and ragged, ran down to a piece of water, here ghastlypale, there streaked like the sky above with angry crimson. The place wasvery still, and the air felt cold. When no answer came to her firstknocking, Audrey beat upon the door; for she was suddenly afraid of theroad behind her, and of the doleful woods and the coming night.
The window shutter creaked ever so slightly, and some one looked out; thenthe door opened, and a very old and wrinkled woman, with lines of cunningabout her mouth, laid her hand upon the girl's arm. "Who be ye?" shewhispered. "Did ye bring warning? I don't say, mind ye, that I can't makea stream go dry,--maybe I can and maybe I can't,--but I didn't put a wordon the one yonder." She threw up her arms with a wailing cry. "But theywon't believe what a poor old soul says! Are they in an evil temper,honey?"
"I don't know what you mean," said Audrey. "I have come a long way, and Iam hungry and tired. Give me a piece of bread, and let me stay with youto-night."
The old woman moved aside, and the girl, entering a room that was mean andpoor enough, sat down upon a stool beside the fire. "If ye came by themill," demanded her hostess, with a suspicious eye, "why did ye not stopthere for bite and sup?"
"The men were all talking together," answered Audrey wearily. "They lookedso angry that I was afraid of them. I did stop at one house; but the womanbade me begone, and the children threw stones at me and called me awitch."
The crone stooped and stirred the fire; then from a cupboard brought forthbread and a little red wine, and set them before the girl. "They calledyou a witch, did they?" she mumbled as she went to and fro. "And the menwere talking and planning together?"
Audrey ate the bread and drank the wine; then, because she was so tired,leaned her head against the table and fell half asleep. When she rousedherself, it was to find her withered hostess standing over her with a slyand toothless smile. "I've been thinking," she whispered, "that sinceyou're here to mind the house, I'll just step out to a neighbor's aboutsome business I have in hand. You can stay by the fire, honey, and be warmand comfortable. Maybe I'll not come back to-night."
Going to the window, she dropped a heavy bar across the shutter. "Ye'llput the chain across the door when I'm out," she commanded. "There beevil-disposed folk may want to win in." Coming back to the girl, she laida skinny hand upon her arm. Whether with palsy or with fright the handshook like a leaf, but Audrey, half asleep again, noticed little beyondthe fact that the fire warmed her, and that here at last was rest. "Ifthere should come a knocking and a calling, honey," whispered the witch,"don't ye answer to it or unbar the door. Ye'll save time for me that way.But if they win in, tell them I went to the northward."
Audrey looked at her with glazed, uncomprehending eyes, while thegnome-like figure appeared to grow smaller, to melt out of the doorway. Itwas a minute or more before the wayfarer thus left alone in the hut couldremember that she had been told to bar the door. Then her instinct ofobedience sent her to the threshold. Dusk was falling, and the waters ofthe pool lay pale and still beyond the ebony cedars. Through the twilitlandscape moved the crone who had housed her for the night; but she wentnot to the north, but southwards toward the river. Presently the duskswallowed her up, and Audrey was left with the ragged garden and thebroken fence and the tiny firelit hut. Reentering the room, she fastenedthe door, as she had been told to do, and then went back to the hearth.The fire blazed and the shadows danced; it was far better than last night,out in the cold, lying upon dead leaves, watching the falling stars. Hereit was warm, warm as June in a walled garden; the fire was red like theroses ... the roses that had thorns to bring heart's blood.
Audrey fell fast asleep; and while she was asleep and the night was yetyoung, the miller whose mill stream had run dry, the keeper of a tipplinghouse whose custom had dwindled, the ferryman whose child had peaked andpined and died, came with a score of men to reckon with the witch who haddone the mischief. Finding door and window fast shut, they knocked, softlyat first, then loudly and with threats. One watched the chimney, to seethat the witch did not ride forth that way; and the father of the childwished to gather brush, pile it against the entrance, and set all afire.The miller, who was a man of strength, ended the matter by breaking in thedoor. They knew that the witch was there, because they had heard hermoving about, and, when the door gave, a cry of affright. When, however,they had laid hands upon her, and dragged her out under the stars, intothe light of the torches they carried, they found that the witch, who, aswas well known, could slip her shape as a snake slips its skin, was nolonger old and bowed, but straight and young.
"Let me go!" cried Audrey. "How dare you hold me! I never harmed one ofyou. I am a poor girl come from a long way off"--
"Ay, a long way!" exclaimed the ferryman. "More leagues, I'll warrant,than there are miles in Virginia! We'll see if ye can swim home, yewitch!"
"I'm no witch!" cried the girl again. "I never harmed you. Let me go!"
One of the torchbearers gave ground a little. "She do look mortal young.But where be the witch, then?"
Audrey strove to shake herself free. "The old woman left me alone in thehouse. She went to--to the northward."
"She lies!" cried the ferryman, addressing himself to the angry throng.The torches, flaming in the night wind, gave forth a streaming, uncertain,and bewildering light; to the excited imaginations of the rustic avengers,the form in the midst of them was not always that of a young girl, but nowand again wavered toward the semblance of the hag who had wrought themevil. "Before the child died he talked forever of somebody young and fairthat came and stood by him when he slept. We thought 't was his deadmother, but now--now I see who 't was!" Seizing the girl by the wrists, heburst with her through the crowd. "Let the water touch her, she'll turnwitch again!"
The excited throng, blinded by its own imagination, took up the cry. Thegirl's voice was drowned; she set her lips, and strove dumbly with hercaptors; but they swept her through the weed-grown garde
n and broken gate,past the cedars that were so ragged and black, down to the cold and deepwater. She thought of the night upon the river and of the falling stars,and with a sudden, piercing cry struggled fiercely to escape. The bank wassteep; hands pushed her forward: she felt the ghastly embrace of thewater, and saw, ere the flood closed over her upturned face, the cold andquiet stars.
So loud was the ringing in her ears that she heard no access of voicesupon the bank, and knew not that a fresh commotion had arisen. She wassinking for the third time, and her mind had begun to wander in the FairView garden, when an arm caught and held her up. She was borne to theshore; there were men on horseback; some one with a clear, authoritativevoice was now berating, now good-humoredly arguing with, her late judges.
The man who had sprung to save her held her up to arms that reached downfrom the bank above; another moment and she felt the earth again beneathher feet, but could only think that, with half the dying past, thesestrangers had been cruel to bring her back. Her rescuer shook himself likea great dog. "I've saved the witch alive," he panted. "May God forgive andyour Honor reward me!"
"Nay, worthy constable, you must look to Sathanas for reward!" cried thegentleman who had been haranguing the miller and his company. Thesegentry, hardly convinced, but not prepared to debate the matter with ajustice of the peace and a great man of those parts, began to slip away.The torchbearers, probably averse to holding a light to their owncountenances, had flung the torches into the water, and now, heavilyshadowed by the cedars, the place was in deep darkness. Presently therewere left to berate only the miller and the ferryman, and at last thesealso went sullenly away without having troubled to mention the witch'slate transformation from age to youth.
"Where is the rescued fair one?" continued the gentleman who, for his ownpleasure, had led the conservers of law and order. "Produce the sibyl,honest Dogberry! Faith, if the lady be not an ingrate, you've henceforth afriend at court!"
"My name is Saunders,--Dick Saunders, your Honor," quoth the constable."For the witch, she lies quiet on the ground beneath the cedar yonder."
"She won't speak!" cried another. "She just lies there trembling, with herface in her hands."
"But she said, 'O Christ!' when we took her from the water," put in athird.
"She was nigh drowned," ended the constable. "And I'm a-tremble myself,the water was that cold. Wauns! I wish I were in the chimney corner at theCourt House ordinary!"
The master of Westover flung his riding cloak to one of the constable'smen. "Wrap it around the shivering iniquity on the ground yonder; and you,Tom Hope, that brought warning of what your neighbors would do, mount andtake the witch behind you. Master Constable, you will lodge Hecate in thegaol to-night, and in the morning bring her up to the great house. Wewould inquire why a lady so accomplished that she can dry a mill stream toplague a miller cannot drain a pool to save herself from drowning!"
At a crossing of the ways, shortly before Court House, gaol, and ordinarywere reached, the adventurous Colonel gave a good-night to the constableand his company, and, with a negro servant at his heels, rode gayly onbeneath the stars to his house at Westover. Hardy, alert, in love withliving, he was well amused by the night's proceedings. The incident shouldfigure in his next letter to Orrery or to his cousin Taylor.
It figured largely in the table-talk next morning, when the sprightlygentleman sat at breakfast with his daughter and his second wife, a fairand youthful kinswoman of Martha and Teresa Blount. The gentleman,launched upon the subject of witchcraft, handled it with equal wit andlearning. The ladies thought that the water must have been very cold, andtrusted that the old dame was properly grateful, and would, after such alesson, leave her evil practices. As they were rising from table, word wasbrought to the master that constable and witch were outside.
The Colonel kissed his wife, promised his daughter to be merciful, and,humming a song, went through the hall to the open house door and thebroad, three-sided steps of stone. The constable was awaiting him.
"Here be mysteries, your Honor! As I serve the King, 't weren't GoodyPrice for whom I ruined my new frieze, but a slip of a girl!" He waved hishand. "Will your Honor please to look?"
Audrey sat in the sunshine upon the stone steps with her head bowed uponher arms. The morning that was so bright was not bright for her; shethought that life had used her but unkindly. A great tree, growing closeto the house, sent leaves of dull gold adrift, and they lay at her feetand upon the skirt of her dress. The constable spoke to her: "Now,mistress, here's a gentleman as stands for the King and the law. Look up!"
A white hand was laid upon the Colonel's arm. "I came to make sure thatyou were not harsh with the poor creature," said Evelyn's pitying voice."There is so much misery. Where is she? Ah!"
To gain at last his prisoner's attention, the constable struck her lightlyacross the shoulders with his cane. "Get up!" he cried impatiently. "Getup and make your curtsy! Ecod, I wish I'd left you in Hunter's Pond!"
Audrey rose, and turned her face, not to the justice of the peace andarbiter of the fate of witches, but to Evelyn, standing aboveher,--Evelyn, slighter, paler, than she had been at Williamsburgh, butbeautiful in her colored, fragrant silks and the air that was hers ofsweet and mournful distinction. Now she cried out sharply, while "Thatgirl again!" swore the Colonel, beneath his breath.
Audrey did as she had been told, and made her curtsy. Then, while fatherand daughter stared at her, the gentleman very red and biting his lip, thelady marble in her loveliness, she tried to speak, to ask them to let hergo, but found no words. The face of Evelyn, at whom alone she looked,wavered into distance, gazing at her coldly and mournfully from milesaway. She made a faint gesture of weariness and despair; then sank down atEvelyn's feet, and lay there in a swoon.
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