The Mayor raised an eyebrow. “Mister Sinclair is quite the expert. Now, is the bewitching at an end with four prisoners in my custody?”
“Oh no, your lordship. I’m still crucified by witches.” She screwed up her dimpled face. “They torment me all the harder because I’ve given up the others.”
“What are the names of your attackers? Where do they live? Where do they meet to cast their spells? It’s your duty to denounce then.”
“I want to do my duty, your lordship. They meet in different places now, to escape capture. Sometimes it’s in a cattleshed, sometimes out in the open.”
“And their names?”
“They come to me piecemeal: I can’t bring them to mind all at once. At times, I only hear part of a name.”
“But you must lead us to those who torment you. We will examine them, and see what they have to say for themselves.”
“There is one witch I can easily describe. She has a hand like a claw, all twisted up into a fist and turned in on her body, and –” Mary Dunbar let out a howl, bending her head back as if her hair was given a sharp yank. She shook her head free and ran under the table, crouching there.
Mayor Davies nodded at some of the deputies, who helped her to crawl back out.
“I can say nothing more at present, sir. If I speak, my tongue will burst into flames and consume me.”
The Mayor rounded on the Constable, his voice cold. “One of the women you brought in on this person’s say-so is known to attend her kirk regularly. A witch couldn’t kneel in God’s house and pray. It’s common knowledge.”
The Constable’s men grinned behind their hands at their master’s discomfort, and I wasn’t sorry to have him put back in his box.
“Somebody fetch my hat, I’ve seen enough,” said the Mayor.
I followed him outside to where his coach was waiting. It was pulled by a pair of matched greys, their tails docked short so they wouldn’t tangle in the harness or reins. A footman was mounted behind the coach, to open and shut the doors and carry a torch when it was dark. Before the Mayor climbed in, he stopped to give instructions to another footman trotting at his heels.
All at once a rumble came from the roof. It happened so fast, nobody saw it coming. A heavy chimney pot slid off the chimney stack, sailed down the roof as if gliding on ice, and crashed to the ground a matter of inches from the Mayor’s head. The Constable barked an order, while the mistress rushed up and fussed over the Mayor.
He looked shaken. “There’s no wind today. It’s as still as the grave,” he kept repeating.
“Is your roof in disrepair, Mistress Haltridge?” asked the Constable.
“No, James would never permit it. He’s most particular about such things.” The mistress stared at the broken remains of the chimney pot, while Mary Dunbar came to the door, looking equally dumbfounded.
“Step inside, Mayor Davies, while my men investigate this,” said the Constable.
“Wild horses wouldn’t drag me back inside that house.” The Mayor rubbed at his chest.
Meanwhile, two deputies appeared with our ladder. They must have been poking round the outhouses earlier, because they knowed where to find it. They laid it against the side of the house and climbed up to check the roof. All eyes followed the pair as they prodded the remaining pots on the stack.
The Mayor stopped petting himself long enough to cup a hand round his mouth. “Have you found anything?” he called.
They shook their heads, scrambled down the ladder and approached Brice Blan.
“Steady as a rock up there, Constable. No reason for what happened.”
“I can find a reason,” said the Mayor. “Witches must be given no quarter. It’s a mistake to show mercy, Constable Blan. Witchcraft breeds more witchcraft and infects the entire community.”
The Constable stood to attention. “There’ll be no slackness on my part, your lordship. I’ll round up every last one of these women.”
The Mayor whipped off his hat and bowed over Mary Dunbar’s hand. “Mistress, you have been chosen for an important task. We rely on you for a complete list of every person you suspect to be members of the coven here on Islandmagee. Don’t hold back. Describe them if you cannot name them. Constable, stay with the young lady, make a note of everything she tells you, and act on it at once. I’ll send to the Castle for extra militia to assist your work. This must take precedence over everything.” He drove away, still craning from his carriage window towards the roof.
The Mayor was easy swayed the minute he found himself in danger. When you get right down to it, fine folk and common folk aren’t much to the differ.
As soon as his party was lost to sight, the mistress turned to me. “What shall I do about the chimney? It must be fixed, and Noah is too old to go climbing about on a roof.”
“The minister’s man, Thomas Kane, is said to be handy at that kind of work.”
“I’ll send at once and beg the loan of him.”
“I’ll fetch my shawl, mistress.”
“No, not you. I need you here, Ellen. I’m sure the Mayor’s servant will run the errand for me, if I slip him a coin.”
She waved to the footman who had been ordered to stay behind, to gather up the remains of the chimney pot and bring them with him for evidence. He agreed to take the message, and while he tarried for her to write it, we passed the time of day.
“Your master looked quare and put out,” I said.
“He’s got it into his head witches are after him now. He wants some of the plasterwork taken down from an outside wall of his house, and a knife built in. It’s to be seen to before sunset the-night.”
We had a knife built into the house I grew up in. My ma mentioned it often, drawing comfort from its power to ward off witches. But I thought it was only the common folk took such steps. Imagine a gentleman as well got as the first citizen of Carrickfergus needing the same consolation!
And then I understood. I saw it with the minister and again with the Mayor. Witches put fear in men’s hearts, no matter how powerful they be.
* * *
Events skited along brave and fast after that, thanks to the Mayor getting involved. Soldiers from Carrickfergus Castle marched into Islandmagee, putting households into turmoil as they searched for places where a coven might meet, and for proof of folk dabbling in the black arts. These soldiers wore the English redcoat, rather than grey homespun like the militia who lodged in houses round about us. They threw aside mattresses and poked among the ashes of fireplaces. Cattle stalls, hen huts, even pig pens were rummaged through. Later, I heard my parents’ cottage was among those torn apart.
A dose of smuggled goods were found and seized – French wines and brandies, swapped for warm woollens to avoid excise duty. This was not what the soldiers were after, though their officer had the liquors loaded onto a cart, because gift horses should never be looked in the mouth. It was not regarded as a serious transgression – after all, the gentry were up to the same tricks, and any landowner on whose land a transaction took place could expect his cellars stocked for his trouble.
Certain books on palmistry were found in the home of one man, who sailed the high seas on the crew of a square-rigger in his youth, but he swore he had forgotten about them. Still, he was thrown into the cart, hands roped together. Some suspicious jars of ointment were discovered in the possession of a widow-woman, living in a mean sort of cabin hard-by my family. Ma said you could see from her skirts she wet herself, as she joined the sailor in the cart.
Knowehead House was excused from the soldiers’ poking and prodding. The officer in charge, a popinjay called Captain Young, came by and told us so. He allowed his soot-black mount to rear up as he sat atop the beast, its hooves pawing the air – knowing right well we were watching. The mistress came to the door to see what all the commotion was about, and he introduced himself to her. What could she do but invite him in? Into the parlour he strutted, in his shiny thigh-high boots and spurs, accepting a glass of claret with the air
of a man doing her a favour. I never saw a man wear his breeches so tight to the skin. It was downright indecent.
For all his self-importance, he couldn’t help stealing peeks at Mary Dunbar. Not in the way a man looks at a pretty girl, mind you. I wondered if he was come to see Mary perform, since there could be no reason for him to call in person to Knowehead. We were able to see and hear for ourselves what was happening round and about us. Besides, it was what he didn’t say that mattered: we were let off because the soldiers were looking for hidden evidence of dabbling with the Devil. Whereas devilry was on public show at Knowehead – trumpeted far and wide.
Captain Young knocked back a bumper of claret and was eyeing the decanter when a knock came to the door. It was a lieutenant with dandelion-puff hair, informing him the search was completed and the prisoners were ready to be taken away and questioned.
“Duty calls,” said Captain Young, and back he clanked to his troops.
Master Jamesey would have loved to see such a soldier up close. Later, I heard the captain released the sailor with a lecture, and the threat of worse, for holding on to such dangerous papers. The books on palmistry were burned. The old woman was let go, too, when the ointment turned out to be made of softened beeswax and herbs, a cure for stiff joints.
After the soldiers did their work, it seemed as if half the women in the county were marched in and out of Knowehead House to answer to Mary Dunbar. The search was extended beyond Islandmagee, as far as Carrickfergus. The young lady told the Constable one of her tormentors had pockmarks on her face, while another squinted horribly, and then there was the one with a claw hand she mentioned before, so dozens of woman fitting those descriptions were rounded up. Most of them were let go, but not before they were quaking in their boots at what might happen to them. As for those who weren’t set free, it wasn’t hard to imagine the panic they were in.
Meanwhile, men were posted at the caves, but there was no sign of anybody going about the Devil’s work. Folk were staying indoors, and no wonder, for by now the island was in a state of bedlam. Word was out about Mary Dunbar. About what she could do to you, if she took the notion. Nobody knowed who’d be denounced next. Even the menfolk were nervous, though Mister Sinclair said women were more likely to be witches by a hundred to one, on account of a natural tendency to be false-hearted.
Sometimes Mary Dunbar looked a face over, debating with herself. Other times she had no hesitation, and Constable Blan would pull out his warrant from the inside pocket of his coat, and add another name to it. He liked to read it aloud, rolling the words: “Complaint being made to me this day by Mary Dunbar of Armagh, and lately of Kilcoan More, against Bessie Mean of Ballycarry, wife to Andrew Ferguson, a tanner by trade. Whereas the above Bessie Mean, being accused and suspected of perpetrating divers acts of witchcraft contrary to the form of the statute made and provided against witchcraft by the first King James, should be taken up and committed for the same unto Her Majesty’s gaol in Carrickfergus.”
Bessie Mean gave the Constable a wee fright. “What’s wrong with your head, man?” she said, after he read the warrant. “How can you not see this has more to do with Knowehead House than with thon Dunbar lassie?”
“Explain yourself.”
Her round eyes, bright as a squirrel’s, fastened on his. “Nothin’ good ever came out of this patch of land. It twists the folk that live on it. It twisted aul’ Mistress Haltridge, the minister’s wife.”
“Shame on you! You’re vilifying somebody who can’t defend herself,” cried the mistress.
“I’m questioning this prisoner. Pray, don’t interrupt,” said Constable Blan.
“Is it nonsense, mistress?” said Bessie Mean. “Look me in the eye and tell me you’ve never felt something amiss in Knowehead. Look me in the eye an’ say it. You, too, Constable.”
“Hold your blether. It’s not your place to quiz me.”
“Are you sure there’s nothin’ in what I say, Constable? In your heart, are you sure? I’m tellin’ you here an’ now, this house is crookedy. How could it be any other, when it stands on land where it has no right to be? Knowehead House is named wrong. By rights, it should be called Repentance House. Because them that live here have reason to repent it.”
I’d seen enough and slipped back to the kitchen. A shape on the table caught my eye, and I stood stock still, looking. Time slowed right down. The flour jar was lying on its side, contents spilling out. I didn’t leave the jar on the table – there had been no baking since Peggy went off with the bairns – but that wasn’t what made me stare. It was the letters drawn in the flour. An A and a H were written there, clear as the skies above.
“I’ve been watching you.”
My knee banged on the edge of the table as I jumped. It was the Constable. Quickly, I swiped the palm of my hand over the flour to wipe out the letters, acting on instinct to protect the Haltridges.
“You take everything in, don’t you?” he went on. “That mind of yours is tickin’ away under your neat linen cap. Tell me, do you know what Bessie Mean was on about?”
“Folk said daft things about my master’s mistress when she was dyin’. Maybes that’s what she’s on about.”
“What sort of daft things?”
My eyes fell on the patch of flour, with the track of my hand through it. I shivered. “They thought she was,” my voice dropped to a whisper, “witched.”
“Speak up, lass.”
“Witched. ’Twas said she was witched into her grave.”
His face turned red, the pockmarks standing out white against the skin. “Why was I never told about this? Answer me. Did nobody think it worth their while to let me know Mary Dunbar is not the first victim of witchcraft in this house? If this house was troubled before, it shows there may be a history of possession here.”
“I thought you knowed, sir.”
“I didn’t. You folk up here on Kilcoan More keep your cards close to your chest. But how am I supposed to investigate something when I am not given all the facts? Well?”
“Sir, the mistress doesn’t like us mentioning the aul’ dame’s death. She takes it to heart.”
“Mister Sinclair could have said something. Or one of the elders.” He was getting worked up, parading up and down the kitchen, muttering to himself.
I racked my brains for a way to calm him. “Maybes they judged it as well to let it lie. We all hoped that would be an end to it, when the aul’ mistress went to her eternal reward.”
“I’m the one to judge what information is important and what’s not. And clearly it didnae end there, or Mistress Dunbar wouldnae have been plagued. Tell me, was your master’s mistress bothered by the same witches putting Mistress Dunbar through her ordeal?”
“I would’n know, sir. I know nothin’ about witches.”
“Hmm. It stands to reason it would be one and the same coven. Islandmagee could hardly accommodate several. These witches must be exterminated – they cannot have licence to persecute decent folk. By the by, when is your master due home? It strikes me as downright peculiar for him to be away at such a time.”
“We expect him any day now, Constable.”
“I should hope so. I have questions I need to put to him. Such as why thon Bessie Mean thinks the land here at Knowehead House is – what was the word she used – ‘crookedy’? Do you know why she should make such a claim?”
“She’s upset, sir, she’s just been outed as a witch. I doubt if she knows what she’s ravin’ about herself.”
He flicked his riding crop against the elf stone Peggy had hung above the door. “I have no power to put crookedy plots of land in gaol, any more than I can imprison dead men. But I can throw the Devil’s gets into a dungeon. Tell me, do you ken any more witches on Islandmagee?’
“No, sir. Maybes they’ve all been caught now, and we can go back to how it was before.”
“It’s never that simple. How about any that try their hand at doctoring, like Bessie Mean? Or whose babbies never live to s
ee the light of day?”
“No, sir, never a one.”
He frowned. “What about any meddlesome or quarrelsome women?”
I was scared at the way his questions were going. Any of us could be named a witch, if that was all it took. I breathed in, trying to stay calm. Don’t lose the head, Ellen, I told myself. All you have to rely on are your wits.
“Sir, I be kept busy here – I dinna get much chance to pay attention to what goes on outside Knowehead.”
“And how about what goes on inside Knowehead?”
“I can make no sense of it, Constable. I do as I’m told and get on with my work. I mind my place.”
He rocked back on his heels, and changed tack. When he spoke again, his voice was wheedling. “You’re a bright lassie, Ellen Hill. If you hear anythin’, come straight to me. There’s a guinea in it for you, if you name the right names, and give us something by way of proof.”
A guinea was more money than I’d seen in my life. To whet my appetite, he produced a half crown with the Queen’s face on it. He spun it in the air a lock of times, before reaching it to me.
“Anna,” it read, and then some foreign words.
I handed back the coin right and quick, for fear I’d be tempted to keep it. It wouldn’t be right to profit by others’ misfortune. But when I saw the surprise on his face, I passed some remark about there being no need to pay me until after I did him a service.
The House Where It Happened Page 23
