by John Buchan
Suddenly he came into a broad glade over which the moonshine flowed like a tide. It was all of soft mossy green, without pebble or bush to break its carpet, and in the centre stood a thing like an altar.
At first he thought it was only a boulder dropped from the hill. But as he neared it he saw that it was human handiwork. Masons centuries ago had wrought on it, for it was roughly squared, and firmly founded on a pediment. Weather had battered it, and one corner of the top had been broken by some old storm, but it still stood foursquare to the seasons. One side was very clear in the moon, and on it David thought he could detect a half-obliterated legend. He knelt down, and though the lower part was obscured beyond hope, the upper letters stood out plain. I. O. M. — he read: “Jovi Optimo Maximo.” This uncouth thing had once been an altar.
He tiptoed away from it with a sudden sense of awe. Others had known this wood — mailed Romans clanking up the long roads from the south, white-robed priests who had once sacrificed here to their dead gods. He was scholar enough to feel the magic of this sudden window opened into the past. But there was that in the discovery which disquieted as well as charmed him. The mysteries of the heathen had been here, and he felt the simplicity of the woodland violated and its peace ravished. Once there had been wild tongues in the air, and he almost seemed to hear their echo.
He hurried off into the dark undergrowth. . . . But now his mood had changed. He felt fatigue, his eyes were drowsy, and he thought of the anxious Isobel sitting up for him. He realized that this was the night of Rood-Mass — pagan and papistical folly, but his reason could not altogether curb his fancy. The old folk said — folly, no doubt, but still — He had an overpowering desire to be safe in his bed at the manse. He would retrace his steps and strike the road from Reiverslaw. That would mean going west, and after a moment’s puzzling he started to run in what he thought the right direction.
The Wood, or his own mind, had changed. The moonlight was no longer gracious and kind, but like the dead-fires which the old folk said burned in the kirkyard. Confusion on the old folk, for their tales were making him a bairn again! . . . But what now broke the stillness? for it seemed as if there were veritably tongues in the air — not honest things like birds and winds, but tongues. The place was still silent so far as earthly sounds went — he realized that, when he stopped to listen — but nevertheless he had an impression of movement everywhere, of rustling — yes, and of tongues.
Fortune was against him, for he reached a glade and saw that it was the one which he had left and which he thought he had avoided. . . . There was a change in it, for the altar in the centre was draped. At first he thought it only a freak of moonlight, till he forced himself to go nearer. Then he saw that it was a coarse white linen cloth, such as was used in the kirk at the seasons of sacrament.
The discovery affected him with a spasm of blind terror. All the tales of the Wood, all the shrinking he had once felt for it, rushed back on his mind. For the moment he was an infant again, lost and fluttering, assailed by the shapeless phantoms of the dark. He fled from the place as if from something accursed.
Uphill he ran, for he felt that safety was in the hills and that soon he might come to the clear spaces of the heather. But a wall of crag forced him back, and he ran as he thought westward towards the oaks and hazels, for there he deemed he would be free of the magic of the pines. He did not run wildly, but softly and furtively, keeping to the moss and the darker places, and avoiding any crackling of twigs, for he felt as if the Wood were full of watchers. At the back of his head was a stinging sense of shame — that he, a grown man and a minister of God, should be in such a pit of terror. But his instinct was stronger than his reason. He felt his heart crowding into his throat, and his legs so weak and uncontrollable that they seemed to be separate from his body. The boughs of the undergrowth whipped his face, and he knew that his cheeks were wet with blood, though he felt no pain.
The trees thinned and he saw light ahead — surely it was the glen which marked the division between pine and hazel. He quickened his speed, and the curtain of his fear lifted ever so little. He heard sounds now — was it the wind which he had left on the hilltops? There was a piping note in it, something high and clear and shrill — and yet the Wood had been so airless that his body was damp with sweat. Now he was very near air and sanctuary.
His heart seemed to stop, and his legs wavered so that he sunk on his knees. For he was looking again on the accursed glade.
It was no longer empty. The draped altar was hidden by figures — human or infernal — moving round it in a slow dance. Beyond this circle sat another who played on some instrument. The moss stilled the noise of movement, and the only sound was the high, mad piping.
A film cleared from his eyes, and something lost came back to him — manhood, conscience, courage. Awe still held him, but it was being overmastered by a human repulsion and anger. For as he watched the dance he saw that the figures were indeed human, men and women both — the women half-naked, but the men with strange headpieces like animals. What he had taken for demons from the Pit were masked mortals — one with the snout of a pig, one with a goat’s horns, and the piper a gaping black hound. . . . As they passed, the altar was for a moment uncovered, and he saw that food and drink were set on it for some infernal sacrament.
The dance was slow and curiously arranged, for each woman was held close from behind by her partner. And they danced widdershins, against the sun. To one accustomed to the open movement of country jigs and reels the thing seemed the uttermost evil — the grinning masks, the white tranced female faces, the obscene postures, above all that witch-music as horrid as a moan of terror.
David, a great anger gathering in his heart, was on his feet now, and as he rose the piping changed. Its slow measure became a crazy lilt, quick and furious. The piper was capering; the dancers, still going widdershins, swung round and leaped forward, flinging their limbs as in some demented reel. . . . There were old women there, for he saw grey hair flying. And now came human cries to add to the din of the pipe — a crying and a sighing wrung out of maddened bodies.
To David it seemed a vision of the lost in Hell. The fury of an Israelitish prophet came upon him. He strode into the glade. Devils or no, he would put an end to this convention of the damned.
“In the name of God,” he cried, “I forbid you. If you are mortal, I summon you to repent — if you are demons, I command you to return to him that sent you.”
He had a great voice, but in that company there were no ears to hear. The pipe screeched and the dance went on.
Then the minister of Woodilee also went mad. A passion such as he had never known stiffened every nerve and sinew. He flung himself into the throng, into that reek of unclean bestial pelts and sweating bodies. He reached the altar, seized the cloth on it, and swept it and its contents to the ground. Then he broke out of the circle and made for the capering piper, who seemed to him the chief of the orgiasts.
In his flight through the wood David had lost his staff, and had as weapon but his two hands. “Aroynt you, Sathanas,” he cried, snatched the pipe from the dog-faced figure, and shivered it on his masked head.
With the pause in the music the dance stopped suddenly, and in an instant the whole flock were on him like a weasel pack. He saw long-nailed claws stretched towards his face, he saw blank eyes suddenly fire into a lust of hate. But he had a second’s start of them, and that second he gave to the piper. The man — for the thing was clearly human — had dealt a mighty buffet at his assailant’s face, which missed it, and struck the point of the shoulder. David was whirled round, but, being young and nimble, he slipped in under the other’s guard, and had his hands on the hound-mask. The man was very powerful, but the minister’s knee was in his groin, and he toppled over, while David tore the covering of wood and skin from his head. It crumpled under his violent clutch like a wasps’ nest, and he had a glimpse of red hair and a mottled face.
A glimpse and no more. For by this time the press w
as on him and fingers were at his throat, choking out his senses.
CHAPTER VII. THE FIRST BLAST
Late in the forenoon of the next day David awoke in his own bed in the manse of Woodilee. He awoke to a multitude of small aches and one great one, for his forehead was banded with pain. The room was as bright with sunshine as the little window would permit, but it seemed to him a dusk shot by curious colours, with Isobel’s head bobbing in it like a fish. Presently the face became clear and he saw it very near to him — a scared white face with red-rimmed eyes. Her voice penetrated the confused noises in his ears.
“The Lord be thankit, sir, the Lord be praised, Mr. David, ye’re comin’ oot o’ your dwam. Here’s a fine het drink for ye. Get it doun like a man and syne ye’ll maybe sleep. There’s nae banes broke, and I’ve dressed your face wi’ a sure salve. Dinna disturb the clouts, sir. Your skin’s ower clean to beal [fester], and ye’ll mend quick if ye let the clouts bide a wee.”
Her arm raised his aching head, and he swallowed the gruel. It made him drowsy, and soon he was asleep again, a healthy natural sleep, so that when he awoke in the evening he was in comparative ease and his headache had gone. Gingerly he felt his body. There were bruises on his legs, and one huge one on his right thigh. His cheeks under the bandages felt raw and scarred, and there was a tenderness about his throat and the muscles of his neck, as if angry hands had throttled him. But apart from his stiffness he seemed to have suffered no great bodily hurt, and the effects of the slight concussion had passed.
With this assurance his mind came out of its torpor, and he found himself in a misery of disquiet. The events of the night before returned to him only too clearly. He remembered his exaltation in the Wood — the glade, the altar. He recalled with abasement his panic and his flight. The glade again, the piping, the obscene dance — and at that memory he had almost staggered from his bed. He felt again the blind horror and wrath which had hurled him into the infernal throng.
Isobel’s anxious face appeared in the doorway.
“Ye’ve had a graund sleep, sir. And now ye’ll be for a bite o’ meat?”
“I have slept well, and I am well enough in body. Sit you down, Isobel Veitch, for I have much to say to you. How came I home last night?”
The woman sat down on the edge of a chair, and even in the twilight her nervousness was manifest.
“It wasna last nicht. It was aboot the hour o’ three this mornin’, and sic a nicht as I had waitin’ on ye! Oh, sir, what garred ye no hearken to me and gang to the Wud on Rood-Mass?”
“How do you know I was in the Wood?”
She did not answer.
“Tell me,” he said, “how I came home.”
“I was ryngin’ the hoose like a lost yowe, but I didna daur gang outbye. At twal hours I took a look up the road, and again when the knock was chappin’ twa. Syne I dozed off in my chair, till the knock waukened me. That was at three hours, and as I waukened I heard steps outbye. I keekit oot o’ the windy, but there was naebody on the road, just the yellow mune. I prayed to the Lord to strengthen me, and by-and-by I ventured out, but I fand naething. Syne I took a thocht to try the back yaird, and my hert gied a stound, for there was yoursel’, Mr. David, lyin’ like a cauld corp aneath the aipple tree. Blithe I was to find the breath still in ye, but I had a sair job gettin’ ye to your bed, sir, for ye’re a weary wecht for an auld wumman. The sun was up or I got your wounds washed and salved, and syne I sat by the bed prayin’ to the Lord that ye suld wauken in your richt mind, for I saw fine that the wounds o’ your body would heal, but I feared that the wits micht have clean gane frae ye. And now I am abundantly answered, for ye’re speakin’ like yoursel’, and your een’s as I mind them, and the blood’s back intil your cheeks. The Lord be thankit!”
But there was no jubilation in Isobel’s voice. Her fingers twined confusedly, and her eyes wandered.
“Do you know what befell me?” he asked.
“Eh, sirs, how suld I ken?”
“But what do you think? You find me in the small hours lying senseless at your door, with my face scarred and my body bruised. What do you think I had suffered?”
“I think ye were clawed by bogles, whilk a’body kens are gi’en a free dispensation on Rood-Mass E’en.”
“Woman, what is this talk of bogles from lips that have confessed Christ? I was assaulted by the Devil, but his emissaries were flesh and blood. I tell you it was women’s nails that tore my face, and men’s hands that clutched my throat. I walked in the Wood, for what has a minister of God to fear from trees and darkness? And as I walked I found in an open place a heathen altar, and that altar was covered with a linen cloth, as if for a sacrament. I was afraid — I confess it with shame — but the Lord used my fear for His own purpose, and led me back in my flight to that very altar. And there I saw what may God in His mercy forbid that I should see again — a dance of devils to the Devil’s piping. In my wrath I rushed among them, and tore the mask from the Devil’s head, and then they overbore me and I lost my senses. When I wrestled with them I wrestled with flesh and blood — perishing men and women rapt in a lust of evil.”
He stopped, and Isobel’s eyes did not meet his. “Keep us a’!” she moaned.
“These men and women were, I firmly believe, my own parishioners.”
“It canna be,” the old woman croaked. “Ye werena yoursel’, Mr. David, sir. . . . Ye were clean fey wi’ the blackness o’ the Wud and the mune and the wanchancy hour. Ye saw ferlies [marvels], but they werena flesh and bluid, sir. . . .”
“I saw the bodies of men and women in Woodilee who have sold their souls to damnation. Isobel Veitch, as your master and your minister, I charge you, as you will answer before the Judgment Seat, what know you of the accursed thing in this parish?”
“Me!” she cried. “Me! I ken nocht. Me and my man aye keepit clear o’ the Wud.”
“Which is to say that there were others in Woodilee who did not. Answer me, woman, as you hope for salvation. The sin of witchcraft is rampant here, and I will not rest till I have rooted it out. Who are those in Woodilee who keep tryst with the Devil?”
“How suld I ken? Oh, sir, I pray ye to speir nae mair questions. Woodilee has aye been kenned for a queer bit, lappit in the muckle Wud, but the guilty aye come by an ill end. There’s been mair witches howkit out o’ Woodilee and brunt than in ony ither parochine on the Water o’ Aller. Trust to your graund Gospel preachin’, Mr. David, to wyse folk a better gait, for if ye start speirin’ about the Wud ye’ll stir up a byke that will sting ye sair. As my faither used to say, him that spits against the wind spits in his ain face. Trust to conviction o’ sin bringin’ evildoers to repentance, as honest Mr. Macmichael did afore ye.”
“Did Mr. Macmichael know of this wickedness?”
“I canna tell. Nae doot he had a glimmerin’. But he was a quiet body wha keepit to the roads and his ain fireside, and wasna like yoursel’, aye ryngin’ the country like a moss-trooper. . . . Be content, sir, to let sleepin’ tykes lie till ye can catch them rauvagin’. Ye’ve a congregation o’ douce eident folk, and I’se warrant ye’ll lead them intil the straucht and narrow way. Maybe the warst’s no as ill as ye think. Maybe it’s just a sma’ backslidin’ in them that’s pilgrims to Sion. They’re weel kenned to be sound in doctrine, and there was mair signed the Covenant—”
“Peace,” he cried. “This is rank blasphemy, and a horrid hypocrisy. What care I for lip service when there are professors who are living a lie? Who is there I can trust? The man who is loudest in his profession may be exulting in secret and dreadful evil. He whom I think a saint may be the chief of sinners. Are there no true servants of Christ in Woodilee?”
“Plenty,” said Isobel.
“But who are they? I had thought Richie Smail at the Greenshiel a saint, but am I wrong?”
“Na, na. Ye’re safe wi’ Richie.”
“And yourself, Isobel?”
Colour came into her strained face. “I’m but a broken vessel, but neither
my man nor me had ever trokin’s wi’ the Enemy.”
“But there are those to your knowledge who have? I demand from you their names.”
She pursed her lips. “Oh, sir, I ken nocht. What suld a widow-woman, thrang a’ the day in your service, ken o’ the doings in Woodilee?”
“Nevertheless you know something. You have heard rumours. Speak, I command you.”
Her face was drawn with fright, but her mouth was obstinate. “Wha am I to bring a railin’ accusation against onybody, when I have nae certainty of knowledge?”
“You are afraid. In God’s name, what do you fear? There is but the one fear, and that is the vengeance of the Almighty, and your silence puts you in jeopardy of His wrath.”
Nevertheless there was no change in the woman’s face. David saw that her recalcitrance could not be broken.
“Then listen to me, Isobel Veitch. I have had my eyes opened, and I will not rest till I have rooted this evil thing from Woodilee. I will search out and denounce every malefactor, though he were in my own Kirk Session. I will bring against them the terror of God and the arm of the human law. I will lay bare the evil mysteries of the Wood, though I have to hew down every tree with my own hand. In the strength of the Lord I will thresh this parish as corn is threshed, till I have separated the grain from the chaff and given the chaff to the burning. Make you your market for that, Isobel Veitch, and mind that he that is not for me is against me, and that in the day of God’s wrath the slack hand and the silent tongue will not be forgiven.”
The woman shivered and put a hand to her eyes.
“Will ye hae your bite o’ meat, sir?” she quavered.
“I will not break bread till God has given me clearness,” he said sternly; and Isobel, who was in the habit of spinning out her talks with her master till she was driven out, slipped from the room like a discharged prisoner who fears that the Court may change its mind.
