CHAPTER VIII.
A STRANGE TRIAL.
For some distance he felt himself carried across a man's shoulder.Then another man took him up and carried him on more briskly. His headhung down, the cloak covered his face tightly; he felt himself attimes far on the way to suffocation. But, gagged and bound as he was,he could neither cry out nor help himself.
The shortest journey taken under such circumstances must needs seemendless, and so this one seemed to the child. He long remembered it;but at last it did come to an end, with all its misery andterror--things not to be described in words. His bearer stopped. Heheard voices, and the hollow sound of steps on a stone floor. He wasset on his feet, and the cloak roughly removed from his head. Helooked about him dazed. To his intense surprise and astonishment hefound himself standing in the middle of the kitchen at the farmhouse.There was the settle; there was the table at which he had eaten hismorning porridge!
For a moment the sight filled him with excess of joy. In the instantof recognition the familiar surroundings, the things and faces towhich, meagre and harsh as they were, he had grown accustomed, broughtblessed relief to the child's mind. He uttered Gridley's name with asob of joy, and tried to move towards him. But his hands and feet werestill bound, and he lost his balance and fell forward on the floor.
Simon Gridley, amid perfect silence, advanced and took him up and sethim in a chair. The other five, four men and a woman, stood round thetable looking at him. Each held a bible.
Between fright and perplexity, and the hurt of his fall, the boy beganto cry. Still, no one spoke to him. He stopped crying.
Then at last the strange way they looked at him, the strange silencethey kept, went to the boy's heart. He cried no longer, but he lookedfrom one to the other, terrified by the fierce glare in their eyes."Gridley," he said faintly; "Gridley, what is it, please?"
The butler, at the sound of his voice, sank down pale and trembling onthe meal chest. The woman shrank before his eye. But the four men methis look with stern, pitiless faces and set lips. It was Simon whospoke. "We have taken him in the act," he said, in a low, impassivevoice. "What shall we do with him?"
"Ye shall make him to cease!" Luke answered, in the monotonous tone ofone repeating a form. "He comes of an accursed brood, and he is inleague with the father of curses, whose child he is! He would havebewitched the Lord General and his army with his enchantments. We haveseen it with our eyes. What need have we of further evidence?"
But Simon Gridley thought otherwise. "Stand forward, woman," he said,disregarding his brother's last remark. "Say what you saw yesterday."
The woman, amid that strange silence, began to speak in a low voice.The rain was still falling, and the eaves dripped outside. The coldlight which found its way into the room showed her white to the lips.But she told without faltering her tale of the storm which had fallenon the moor when the child rubbed the cross; and no one doubted it,any more than, to do her justice, she doubted it herself. For was shenot confirmed by the presence of the cross itself, which lay in themiddle of the table for all to see! They looked at it with horror,never doubting that the knots were devil's knots, that the wood ofwhich it was formed came from no earthly tree.
Meantime the child, terrified by the stern, harsh faces and theglances of unintelligible abhorrence which met him wherever he looked,had no wit to understand the charge made against him. He knew onlythat the cross had something to do with it--that it was the cross atwhich they all looked; and he supposed from this that his brother wasin danger. For his simple soul this was enough. He seemed to be in adreadful dream. He cried and trembled, sobbing, while they spoke, likethe child he was. But his mind was made up. He would be cut to pieces,but he would never let Frank's name pass his lips.
Hence, when one of the Edgingtons, who had met Master Matthew Hopkins,the great witch-finder, and would fain have probed the matter furtherwith such skill as he fancied he had acquired, adjured him solemnly tospeak and say where he got the cross, the child was silent; soobstinately silent that it was plain he could have told something ifhe would.
"He is mute of malice," Simon said.
"He is mute of the devil!" Luke answered fiercely. "What need of talkwhen we saw him with our own eyes rule the storm? And it rains still.It rains, and will 'rain,' until his power is broken."
This monstrous idea seemed to his hearers in no way incredible. Thebelief in witchcraft and in demoniacal possession of every kind hadreached its height in England about this time, when men's minds,released from the wholesome leading-strings of custom and the church,evinced a natural proneness to run into all manner of extremes. Hadthe child been a woman, his fate had been sealed on the spot, thepopular fancy attributing the black art to that sex in particular. Butthe fact that he was a boy was so far abnormal, that it stuck in thethroat of the Edgington who had spoken before. "Has he any mark uponhim?" he asked.
He is mute of malice.--Page 156.]
The woman replied, almost in a whisper, that he had a black mole onhis left shoulder.
"Is it a common mark?"
She shook her head without speaking.
Luke waited for no more. "This is folly!" he cried wildly. "What needhave we of signs? We have seen. Bolts and bars will not hold him, norwill water receive him."
"That is to be seen!" Edgington answered quickly. "There is a poolbelow. Let us make trial of him there, Master Gridley. If the ladsinks, well and good. If he will not sink, well and good also. Weshall know what to do with him."
Simon nodded sternly. "Good," he said; "let it be so."
But this the boy had still the sense to understand. A vision of thedark bog pool sullenly lipping the rocks which fringed its shoresflashed before his childish eyes. In a second the full horror of thefate which threatened him burst upon him, and those eyes grew largewith terror. The color left his face. He tried to rise, he tried toframe the word Gridley, he tried to ask for mercy. He could not. Fearhad deprived him of the power of speech, and he could only look. Buthis look was one to melt the heart of any save a fanatic.
Gridley the butler was no fanatic, and though he was a bad man he wasnot inhuman. Something in the boy's piteous look went straight to hisheart. He alone of those present, though he never doubted theexistence of witchcraft, doubted the boy's guilt, for he alone hadknown him all his life, and could see nothing unfamiliar in him. Heremembered him a baby, prattling and crawling, and playing like anyother baby; and despite himself--for there was nothing noble or bravein the man--he stepped forward and interposed between Simon and hisvictim.
"I have known the child all his life," he said hoarsely. "He has beenas other children, Simon."
His brother looked at him coldly. "Is he as other children to-day?" hesaid, and he pointed to the cross on the table.
The butler, thus challenged, made as if he would take up the talisman.But at the last moment, when his hand was near it, his heart failedhim. He doubted, he was a coward, and he drew back. "He was always asother children," he muttered again, hopelessly, helplessly. "I haveknown him from his birth."
"Very well," Simon answered, with pitiless logic. "We shall seepresently if he is as other children now. The water will show."
He stepped towards the boy as he spoke, but Jack saw him coming, andreading his fate in the grim, unrelenting looks which everywhere methis eyes, screamed loudly. The child was fast bound, and could notfly, but bound as he was he managed to fling himself on the floor, andlay there screaming. Simon plucked him up roughly, and looked roundfor something to muffle his cries. "The cloak!" he said hurriedly--thenoise discomposed him. "The cloak!"
Luke went to fetch it from the dresser on which it had been laid, butbefore he could bring it, the boy on a sudden stopped screaming, andstiffened himself in Simon's arms. "I will tell," he cried wildly."Let me go! Let me go, and I will tell."
The man was astonished, as were they all. But he set the boy back inthe chair, and took his hands off him, and stood waitin
g, with a sternlight in his eyes, to hear this devil's tale.
For a moment the boy lay huddled up and panting, with his lips apart,and the sweat on his flushed brow. He had said--with the man's hands,on him and the black water before his eyes--that he would tell. But ashe crouched there, getting his breath, and looking from one to anotherlike a frightened animal, thoughts of his brother whom he must betray,thoughts of devotion and love, all childish but all living, surgedthrough his brain. The men and the woman waited, some sternly curious,and some in fear; but the boy remained dumb. He had conquered histerror. He was learning that what men suffer for others is nosuffering.
Simon lost patience at last. "Speak!" he cried, "or to the water!"
The boy eyed him trembling, but remained silent. "Give him a littlemore time," said one of the other men.
"Ay, hurry him not," said Luke.
"He has had time enough," Simon retorted. "He is but playing with us."
Yet he left him a little longer, while all stood round and looked,greedy to hear with their own ears one of those strange confessions ofwitchcraft, which, whether they had their origin in delusion or insome interested motive, were not uncommon in the England of that day.But the child, though his breath came quick and fast, and his heartthrobbed like the heart of a little bird, and he feared unspeakably,remained obstinately silent.
"Enough!" Simon cried at last, his patience utterly exhausted; "he isdumb. We shall get nothing from him here. Let us see what the waterwill do for him. Luke, the cloak!"
Jack controlled his fears until the man's hands were actually uponhim. Then instinct prevailed, and in despair he gave way to shriekupon shriek, so that the house rang with the pitiful outcry. "Thecloak!" Simon cried impatiently, looking this way and that for it,while the butler turned pale at the sounds. "That is better; now openthe door."
One of the Edgingtons went towards it, but when he was close to it,stopped on a sudden and held up his hand. The gesture was one ofwarning, but it came too late; for before those behind could profit byit, or do more than surmise what it meant, the door shook under aheavy knock, and a hand outside lifted the latch. The neighing ofhorses and the sound of hoofs trampling the stones of the fold gavethe party some idea what they had to expect; but late also, for ereSimon could lay down the child, or Edgington move from his position,the door was thrown wide open. Half a dozen figures appeared on thethreshold, and one detatching itself from the crowd strode in with anair of sturdy authority.
The person who thus put himself forward was a middle-aged man of goodheight, strongly and squarely made. His reddish face and broad,massive features were shaded by a wide-leaved hat, in the band ofwhich a little roll of papers was stuck. He wore a buff coat andbreastplate, and a heavy sword, and had, besides, a pistol and aleather glove thrust through his girdle. For a second after hisentrance, he looked from one face to another with quick, searchingglances which nothing escaped. Then he spoke.
"Tut-tut-tut-tut!" he said. "What is this? Have we honest, God-fearingsoldiers here, halting by the way, whether such halting is in the wayor not, or in the morning orders? Or have we ramping, roystering,babe-killing free-companions?--eh, man? Speak!" he continued rapidly,his utterance somewhat thick. "What have you here? Unfasten thiscloak, some one!"
Thunderstruck, and taken completely by surprise--for the doorway wasfilled with faces--the party in the room fell back a step. Simonmechanically laid the boy down, but still maintained his position byhim. Nor did the Puritan, though he found himself thus abruptlychallenged by one who seemed to be able to make good his words, lose ajot of his grim aspect. He was aware of no wrong he had done. Hisconscience was clear.
"They are not soldiers, your excellency," one of the persons in thedoorway said briskly. "Four of them live here, and the other two arehonest men from Bradford."
"That man has worn the bandoliers," the first speaker retorted, in avoice which brooked no denial. "Sirrah, find your tongue," hecontinued sternly, bending a brow which was never of the lightest."Have you not served?"
"I was in the forlorn of horse at Naseby," Simon answered sullenly.
"In what troop?"
"Captain Rawlins's."
"Is it so?" his excellency answered, dropping his voice at once to amore genial note. "Well, friend, you had for commander a good man andserviceable. You could no better. And who are these with you?"
"Two are his brothers," the voice in the doorway explained. "They werevery forward against Langdale's horse in the skirmish at Settle threedays ago, your excellency."
"Good, good, all this is good," Cromwell answered briskly; for thatredoubtable man, Lieutenant-General at this time of the armies of theParliament, it was. "Then why were you backward to answer myquestions, friend, being questions it lay in me to put, I being at thehead of this poor army and in authority? But there, you were modest.Here, Pownall," he continued, "lay the maps on the table. We canexamine them here in shelter. 'Twas a happy thought of yours. And letthe prisoners be brought here also. Yet, stay," he added, feeing roundonce more, his brow dark. "Methinks there comes a strange whimperingfrom that cloak! Is't a dog? To it, Pownall, and see what it is."
The officer he addressed sprang zealously forward, and whipping up thecloak disclosed the child lying bound on the floor. Terror and theexertion of screaming had reduced the boy to the last stage ofconsciousness. He lay motionless, his face pale, and his eyes halfclosed; his little bound hands appealing powerfully to the feelings ofthe spectators. Even the presence of so many strangers failed to rousehim, or move him to a last appeal. He appeared to be unconscious oftheir entrance, or of any change in his surroundings.
The sight was one to awaken indignation in a man, and Cromwell was aman. "What!" he exclaimed roundly, and with something like an oath;"what is this? Why have you bound him? Who is he? Is he your son?"
"No," Simon answered, scowling.
"Who is he?"
"His name is Patten."
"Patten, Patten, Patten? Where have I heard the name?" Cromwellanswered. "Ho, I remember! There is a young malignant of that name onthe black list, is there not? For this county, too!"
An officer replied that there was; adding that the young man wassupposed to be in Duke Hamilton's army.
"Very well! We will deal with him when we catch him," Cromwellanswered sharply. "But, in the name of sense, what has that to do withthis boy? Why, 'tis a child! His mother's milk is hardly dry on hislips! Why have you bound him, man?"
Simon Gridley strove to give back look for look, and to make theoutward countenance answer to the inward innocence. But the General'ssharp questions, and the astonished and indignant faces which filledthe room, made this difficult. A sudden doubt springing up in his ownmind, thus untimely, lent additional gloom to his manner, as heanswered: "He is no child. He is a witch!"
"A witch!" Cromwell cried, his voice drowning a dozen exclamations ofastonishment. "Why, mercy on us, a witch is a woman! And 'tis a boy!"
"Ay, but 'tis a witch too," Simon answered stubbornly.
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