by John Buchan
To his amazement he found himself looking on not in terror, but in curiosity. It was a graver dance than that of Beltane, not the mad riot of the bursting life of spring, but the more sober march of summer and the hot suns bringing on the harvest. . . . Seen from above, the figures were only puppets, moving at the bidding of a lilt that rose and fell like a lost wind. The passion of wrath with which he had watched the former Sabbath had utterly gone from him. He felt a curious pity and friendliness, for there was innocence here, misguided innocence.
“Will this be the way God looks down upon the follies of the world?” he asked himself. What was it that Reiverslaw had said? — If the Kirk confines human nature too strictly, it will break out in secret ways, for men and women are born into a terrestrial world, though they have hopes of Heaven. . . . That was blasphemy, and he knew it, but he did not shudder at it.
How long these gentle dances continued he did not know, for he was in a dream and under the spell of the piping. . . . Then suddenly there came a change. The dancing-floor became dark, and he saw that clouds were coming over the moon. A chill had crept into the air. Lights sprang up out of nowhere, and though the wind had begun to sigh through the trees, he noted that these lights did not flicker. . . . The music stopped, and the dancers crowded together around the altar.
The hound-faced leader stood above them with something in his hand. The mysterious light seemed to burn redly, and he saw that the thing was a bird — a cock which was as scarlet as blood. The altar top was bare, and something bright spurted into the hollow of the stone. From the watchers came a cry which chilled David’s marrow, and he saw that they were on their knees.
The leader was speaking in a high shrill voice like a sleepwalker’s, and David caught but the one word often repeated — Abiron. Every time it was uttered the man dabbled his finger in the blood on the altar and marked a forehead, and as each received the mark he or she fell prostrate on the ground. . . .
There was no innocence now in that spectacle of obscene abasement. Terror entered into David’s soul, and his chief terror was that he had not been afraid before. He had come very near falling himself under the spell.
There followed what seemed to be a roll-call. The leader read names out of a book, and the prostrate figures answered. The names seemed like an idiot’s muttering, not good Scots words, but uncouth gutturals. And always like an undercurrent came the word Abiron.
Then with an unholy cry the whole coven was on its feet. The pipes began again, and music other than pipes, which seemed to soak out of the ground and the adjacent coverts. Gone was every trace of gentleness and innocency. It was witch-music made by the Devil himself on the red-hot chanter-reeds of Hell, and the assembly capered as if their feet were on the lake of burning marl. The Israelitish prophet in David awoke, and he saw it all with clear eyes and horror-stricken soul.
If the Beltane dance had been hideous, this was the very heart of bestial lust. Round and round it swept, a fury and yet an ordered fury, in which madness and obscenity were mingled. He recognized the faces of women, old and young, who sat devoutly beneath him in kirk of a Sabbath. The men were all masked, but he knew that if he could tear off the beast coverings he would see features which were normally composed into a pious decency. Figure would clasp figure and then fling apart, but in each circuit he noted that the dancers kissed some part of the leader’s body, nozzling him like dogs on the roadside.
Up in his tree-top the minister had now an undivided mind. He had the names of several of the females of the coven firm in his memory, and for the men he must trust to Reiverslaw. There were some of the dancers with goat-horns, but as the rout swung round it seemed to him that a new goat-mask had appeared, a taller, wilder figure, who was specially devout in his obeisance before Hound-face. Was it Reiverslaw with his aniseed?
The night had become very dark, and the only light in the glade came from the candles which burned in its hidden hollows. And then suddenly a colder wind blew, and like the burst of a dam came a deluge of rain. The Lammas floods had broken, stealing upon the world, as is their fashion, out of a fair sky.
It seemed to David — and he held it part of the infernal miracle — that the torrent did not quench the lights. In a trice he himself was soaked to the skin, but the candles still burned, though the rain beat on the floor of the glade with a sound like a whip-lash. . . . But it ended the dance. The silver pipe sounded again, and as the wind rose higher and the falling water slanted under it to search out even the bield of the trees, he saw figures moving hurriedly off. The next time he looked down through the spears of rain — for the hidden moon still made a dim brightness in the world — the glade was empty. Above the noise of the storm he thought he heard the strange babble of tongues, but now it was departing to the far corners of the Wood.
He waited for a little and then tried to descend. But he found it harder to get down than to get up, for he could not find the branch by which he had swung himself from the lesser tree, and in the end had to drop a good twenty feet into the bracken, whence he rolled into the empty glade. . . . He scrambled to his feet and made haste to get out of it, but not before he had sniffed the odour of unclean pelts. — And yes — surely that was the stink of Reiverslaw’s aniseed.
He had no difficulty about his homeward course. Most of the way he ran, but fear had completely left his heart. The rain in his face seemed to cleanse and invigorate him. He had looked upon great wickedness, but he had looked down on it, like the Almighty, from above, and it seemed a frail and pitiful thing — a canker to be rooted out, but a thing with no terror for a servant of God. The Devil was but a botcher after all. And then he remembered how the first notes of the music had melted him, and he felt humbled.
Reiverslaw had arrived at the Greenshiel before him. The place was filled with the reek of burning hides, and David saw that the goat-mask and cloak had been laid on the peats. His ally, a weird dripping figure, sat on a stool sipping the aqua vitæ which Rab Prentice had brought with him. He, who had started the night’s venture with such notable sang-froid, was now in a sweat of fright.
“Be thankit ye’re safe,” he stuttered, while the spirits spilled over his beard. “I never thocht to see ye mair, for I never thocht to win out o’ yon awesome place. My legs are a’ gashed and scartit, for I cam’ here through stane and briar like a dementit staig [young horse]. Oh, sir, siccan a sicht for mortal een!”
“Saw ye the Foul Thief?” asked the awed Prentice.
“I saw ane in his image, and I got a drap o’ the red cock’s bluid, and I loupit like the lave, but it wasna wi’ their unholy glee. Sir, I was fair wud wi’ terror — me that am no gien to fear muckle — for I got a cauld grue in my banes and my een turned back in their sockets. I tell ye, I forgot the errand I had come on, I forgot my name and my honest upbringing, and I was like a wean forwandered among bogles. . . . I’ve burnt thae skins, and when I get name I’ll burn every stitch o’ cleading, for the reek o’ the Pit is on it.”
“Did you recognize many?” David asked.
“No me. I had nae een to see wi’. I spun round like a teetotum, and I wadna say but I let out skellochs wi’ the best — may God forgie me!”
“But the oil — the aniseed?”
Reiverslaw held up something which David saw was an empty bottle.
“I didna fail ye there. For the ae man I kenned in the coven was him that piped. When I cam’ near him I felt a stound o’ black hate, and there’s but the ae man on God’s earth that can gar me scunner like yon. So when it was my turn to bow down afore him, he gat mair frae me than a kiss. Unless he burns his breeks this very nicht there’ll be a queer savour aboot the toun o’ Chasehope the morn.”
CHAPTER XI. THE MINISTER GIRDS UP HIS LOINS
Next day David returned to the manse in time for the noontide meal. He was greeted by Isobel with a hospitable bustle, in which was apparent a certain relief. She had known of the Lammas festival; she guessed, no doubt, that David too was aware of it, and she evident
ly took his visit to Newbiggin as a sign that he had at last taken her prudent counsel. But from her master she got no response. When questioned as to the welfare of his kin at Newbiggin he answered in civil monosyllables, ate his dinner in silence, and thereafter secluded himself in his study.
That evening he walked to the Greenshiel, where Reiverslaw and Prentice met him. The former was in an excited state and had clearly been drinking — to the scandal of the two shepherds, who wore portentous faces. Richie Smail had the air of an honest man compelled to walk in abhorred paths; he had been reading his Bible before their arrival, and sat with a finger in the leaves, saying nothing, but now and then lifting puzzled eyes to his master. Prentice’s hard jaw was set, and he swung his crutch as if it had been a pikestaff.
“We were at Chasehope by eleven hours this mornin’,” Reiverslaw announced. “I took Richie and Rab, as I forewarned Ephraim, to have a look at his new tups. But I needna tell you there was nae word of Ephraim. The wife said he was awa’ to Kirk Aller, but she was like a hen on a het girdle a’ the time, and I think we wad hae found him if we had ripit the press-beds. If he was lurking there he maun hae gotten a sair fricht, for I spak’ that loud ye could hae heard me on the tap o’ Chasehope hill.”
“Did you find what you sought?” David asked.
“I fand eneuch.” He drew from a pocket a bunch of feathers. “I got these last nicht in the Wud. Doubtless there’ll be mair in the same place, if they havena been soopit up. But there’s nae red cock the day in the toun o’ Chasehope. I admired the wife’s hens and speired what had become o’ the cock, and was telled that it was deid — chokit last nicht on a grosart. I ken the kind o’ grosart that ended the puir beast.”
“And the aniseed?”
Reiverslaw laughed tipsily.
“We were just in time, sir. The wife had a fire lowin’ in the yaird. ‘What’s burnin’, mistress?’ says I. ‘Just some auld clouts,’ says she. ‘There was a gangrel body sleepit ae nicht in the loft,’ says she, ‘and he left some duds ahint him, as fu’ o’ fleas as a cadger’s bonnet. I’m haein’ them brunt,’ says she, ‘for fear o’ the weans.’ Weel, me and Richie and Rab stood aside the fire, and it loupit as if an oil can had been skailed on it, and the reek that rase frae it was just the reek o’ my wee bottle. Mair nor that, there was a queer smell ayont the hallin — Richie and Rab fand it as weel as me. What name wad ye gie it, Rab?”
“It was the stink o’ the stuff ye showed us in this house last nicht,” said Prentice solemnly.
“Sae muckle for that,” said Reiverslaw. “We’ve proof that the lad in the dowg’s cap was nae ither than him we ken o’. Na, na, I never let on to the wife. I was jokesome and daffin’ wi’ her, and made a great crack o’ the tups, and praised a’ I saw about the toun, and Rab and Richie were as wise as judges. I had a dram inside me, and was just my canty ordinar’. But my een and my nostrils werena idle, and I saw what I’ve telled ye. . . . My heid was in sic a thraw last nicht that I canna sweir wi’ ony certainty to ither faces, though I hae my suspeecions about the weemen. But you, sir, sittin’ aloft on the tree-tap, ye maun hae had a graund view, for there was licht eneuch to read prent.”
“I recognized certain women, to whom I can swear on my oath. About some I dare not be positive, but there were five of whom I have no doubt. There were Jean Morison and her daughter Jess.”
“The folk o’ the Chasehope-fit,” Reiverslaw cried. “Ay, they wad be there. They’ve aye been ill-regarded.”
“And old Alison Geddie in the kirkton.”
“A daft auld wife, that skellochs like a sea-maw!”
“And Eppie Lauder from Mirehope road-end.”
Richie Smail groaned. “The widow of a tried Christian, Mr. Sempill. A dacenter body than Wattie Lauder never walked the roads. It’s terrible to think o’ the Deil’s grip on the household o’ faith.”
“And Bessie Tod from the Mains.”
“Peety on us, but I sat neist her at the March fast-day when Mr. Proudfoot preached, and she was granin’ and greetin’ like a bairn. Ye surely maun be in error, sir. Bessie was never verra strong in the heid, and she hasna the wits for the Deil’s wark!”
“Nevertheless she was there. I am as certain of it as that I was myself in the tree-top. Of others I have suspicions, but of these five I have certainty.”
Reiverslaw rubbed his great hands. “Our business gangs cannily forward. We’ve gotten the names o’ six o’ the coven and can guess at ithers. Man, we’ll hae a riddlin’ in Woodilee that will learn the folk no to be ill bairns. Ye’ll be for namin’ them frae the pu’pit, sir?”
“I must first bring the matter before the Presbytery. I will prepare my dittay, and bring it before Mr. Muirhead of Kirk Aller as the Presbytery’s moderator, and I must be guided by him as to the next step. It is a matter for the courts of the Kirk and presently for the secular law.”
Reiverslaw cried out. “What for maun ye gang near the Presbytery? If ye stir up yon byke ye’ll hae commissioners of justiciary and prickers and the haill clamjamphrie, and in the lang end an auld kimmer or twa will suffer, and the big malefactors will gang scot free. Chasehope’s ower near the lug o’ the law to tak’ ony scaith, and yon’s the kail-worm I wad be at. Be guidit by me, Mr. Sempill, and keep the thing inside the pairish. As the auld saying gangs, bleach your warst hanks in your ain yaird, for I tell ye if the Kirk and the Law hae the redding o’t it’s little justice will be done. Name and upbraid and denounce a’ and sindry, but dinna delate to the Presbytery. A man may like the kirk weel eneuch, and no be aye ridin’ on the riggin’ o’t. . . . I’ll tell ye my way o’t. Now that we ken some o’ the coven, the four o’ us can keep our een open, and watch them as a dowg watches a ratton; and at their next Sabbath, as they ca’ it, we’ll be ready for them. I can get a wheen Moffat drovers that fear neither man nor deil, and aiblins some o’ Laird Hawkshaw’s folk frae Calidon, and we’ll break in on their coven and tear the masks frae the men, and rub their nebs in their ain mire, and dook the lot in the Water o’ Aller. I’ll wager that’s the way to get rid o’ witchcraft frae the parochine, for we’ll mak’ it an unco painfu’ business to tak’ the Wud. A witch or a warlock is a fearsome thing to the mind o’ man, but they’re bye wi’t gin we mak’ them gowks and laughing-stocks.”
The two shepherds stared at the speaker with upbraiding eyes, and David’s face looked as if a blasphemy had been spoken.
“You would fight the Devil in your own carnal strength,” he said sadly. “It’s little you would make of it. You talk as if this wickedness of the Wood were but a natural human prank, when it is black sin that can only be combated by the spirit of God and such weapons as God has expressly ordained. Man, man, Reiverslaw, you’ve but a poor notion of the power of the Adversary. I tell you last night I was trembling like a weaned child before yon blast that blew out of Hell, and you yourself were no better when I found you here. I durstna have entered the Wood except as a soldier of the Lord.”
Reiverslaw laughed.
“I was sair fleyed [frightened], I’ll no deny, but I got a juster view o’ things wi’ the daylicht.”
“It would appear that you got courage also from Lucky Weir.”
“True. I had my mornin’ and my meridian and an orra stoup or twa sinsyne. I’m a man that’s aye been used wi’ a guid allowance o’ liquor. But the drink, if so be ye’re no fou, whiles gi’es ye a great clearness, and I counsel ye, sir, to keep wide o’ the law, whether it be of the Kirk or the State. It’s a kittle thing, and him that invokes it is like to get the redder’s straik [the peacemaker’s blow]. It’s like a horse that flings its heels when ye mount and dings out the rider’s teeth. . . . But hae your ain way o’t, and dinna blame me if it’s a fashious way. There’s me and Rab Prentice and Richie Smail waitin’ to sweir to what’s in our knowledge, and if there’s mair speirin’ to be done in the Wud, I’ll no fail ye. But keep in mind, Mr. Sempill, that I’m a thrang body, and maun be drawin’ my crocks and sellin’ my hog-lambs afore
the back-end, and it’s like I’ll hae to traivel to Dumfries, and maybe to Carlisle. Richie will aye hae word o’ my doings, and if ye want me it wad be wise to tell Richie a week afore.”
That night on his return David summoned Isobel to his presence. The housekeeper appeared with a more cheerful countenance than she had worn for weeks, but the minister’s first words solemnized her.
“Isobel Veitch, I asked you a question after Beltane and you refused me an answer. I, your minister, besought your aid as a confessing Christian, and you denied it me. I told you that I would not rest until I had rooted the idolatry of the Wood from this parish. Since then I have not been idle, and I have found men who did not fail me. Three days back I rode to Newbiggin, as I told you, but I returned on Lammas Eve, and on Lammas Eve I was a witness a second time to the abominations of the heathen. Not only myself, but another with me, so that the thing is established out of the mouths of two witnesses, while Robert Prentice and Richard Smail can speak in part to confirm me. Now I have got my tale complete, and it is to the Presbytery that I shall tell it. Will you implement it with such knowledge as you possess, or do you continue stiff in your recusancy?”
The old woman’s eyes opened like an owl’s.
“Wha went with you — wha was sae left to himsel’?” she gasped.
“Andrew Shillinglaw in Reiverslaw. . . . One man and five women stand arraigned on our witness. I will speak their names, and I care not if you put it through the parish, for soon the names will be thundered from the pulpit. The man was Ephraim Caird.”
“I’ll no believe it,” she cried. “Chasehope’s aye been a polished shaft in Christ’s kirk. . . . He’s o’ your ain Session. . . . He cam’ here, ye mind, when ye first broke bread in this house. Ay, and he was here when ye were awa’ at Newbiggin. I was seilin’ the milk when I heard his voice at the door — cam’ here wi’ ane o’ his wife’s skim-milk kebbucks that she kens weel how to mak’, for she’s frae the Wastlands — spoke sae kind and neeborlike, and was speirin’ after the health o’ the gude man my maister. . . Tak’ it back, sir, for ye maun be mistook. Ephraim’s weel kenned for a fair Nathaniel.”
