what life in such a house was when it was first built, and in
the piping times of landlords’ prosperity, and not least now,
when, if money is not so plentiful, taste is more varied and
life quite as interesting. I wish to have one of these houses
and enough money to keep it together and entertain my
friends in it modestly.
But this is a digression. I have to tell you of a curious series
of events which happened in such a house as I have tried to
describe. It is Castringham Hall in Suffolk. I think a good
deal has been done to the building since the period of my
story, but the essential features I have sketched are still
there—Italian portico, square block of white house, older inside than out, park with fringe of woods, and mere. The one feature that marked out the house from a score of others is
gone. As you looked at it from the park, you saw on the right
a great old ash-tree growing within half a dozen yards of the
wall, and almost or quite touching the building with its
branches. I suppose it had stood there ever since Castringham
ceased to be a fortified place, and since the moat was filled
in and the Elizabethan dwelling-house built. At any rate, it
had well-nigh attained its full dimensions in the year 1690.
In that year the district in which the Hall is situated was
the scene of a number of witch-trails. It will be long, I think,
before we arrive at a just estimate of the amount of solid
reason—if there was any—which lay at the root of the universal fear of witches in old times. Whether the persons accused of this offence really did imagine that they were possessed of unusual power of any kind; or whether they had
the will at least, if not the power, of doing mischief to their
neighbours; or whether all the confessions, of which there
are so many, were extorted by the mere cruelty of the witch-
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59
finders—these are questions which are not, I fancy, yet solved.
And the present narrative gives me pause. I cannot altogether
sweep it away as mere invention. The reader must judge for
himself.
Castringham contributed a victim to the auto-da-fe. Mrs.
Mothersole was her name, and she differed from the ordinary
run of village witches only in being rather better off and in a
more influential position. Efforts were made to save her by
several reputable farmers of the parish. They did their best
to testify to her character, and showed considerable anxiety
as to the verdict of the jury.
But what seems to have been fatal to the woman was the
evidence of the then proprietor of Castringham Hall—Sir
Matthew Fell. He deposed to having watched her on three
different occasions Bom his window, at the full of the moon,
gathering sprigs “ from the ash-tree near my house.’’ She had
climbed into the branches, clad only in her shift, and was
cutting off small twigs with a peculiarly curved knife, and as
she did so she seemed to be talking to herself. On each occasion Sir Matthew had done his best to capture the woman, but she had always taken alarm at some accidental noise he
had made, and all he could see when he got down to the
garden was a hare running across the path in the direction of
the village.
On the third night he had been at the pains to follow at his
best speed, and had gone straight to Mrs. Mothersole’s house;
but he had had to wait a quarter of an hour battering at her
door, and then she had come out very cross, and apparently
very sleepy, as if just out of bed; and he had no good explanation to offer of his visit.
Mainly on this evidence, though there was much more of
a less striking and unusual kind from other parishioners, Mrs.
Mothersole was found guilty and condemned to die. She was
hanged a week after the trial, with five or six more unhappy
creatures, at Bury St. Edmunds.
Sir Matthew Fell, then Deputy-Sheriff, was present at the
execution. It was a damp, drizzly March morning when the
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M. R. James
cart made its way up the rough grass hill outside Northgate,
where the gallows stood. The other victims were apathetic or
broken down with misery; but Mrs. Mothersole was, as in
life so in death, of a very different temper. Her “ poysonous
Rage,” as a reporter of the time puts it, “ did so work upon
the Bystanders—yea, even upon the Hangman—that it was
constantly affirmed of all that saw her that she presented the
living Aspect of a mad Divell. Yet she offer’d no Resistance
to the Officers of the Law; onely she looked upon those that
laid Hands upon her with so direfull and venomous an Aspect
that—as one of them afterwards assured me—the meer
Thought of it preyed inwardly upon his Mind for six Months
after.”
However, all that she is reported to have said were the
seemingly meaningless words: “ There will be guests at the
H all." Which she repeated more than once in an undertone.
Sir Matthew Fell was not unimpressed by the bearing of
the woman. He had some talk upon the matter with the Vicar
of his parish, with whom he travelled home after the assize
business was over. His evidence at the trial had not been very
willingly given; he was not specially infected with the witchfinding mania, but he declared, then and afterwards, that he could not give any other account of the matter than that he
had given, and that he could not possibly have been mistaken
as to what he saw. The whole transaction had been repugnant
to him, for he was a man who liked to be on pleasant terms
with those about him; but he saw a duty to be done in this
business, and he had done it. That seems to have been the
gist of his sentiments, and the Vicar applauded it, as any
reasonable man must have done.
A few weeks after, when the moon of May was at the full,
Vicar and Squire met again in the park, and walked to the
Hall together. Lady Fell was with her mother, who was dangerously ill, and Sir Matthew was alone at home; so the Vicar, Mr. Crome, was easily persuaded to take a late supper at the
Hall.
Sir Matthew was not very good company this evening. The
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61
talk ran chiefly on family and parish matters, and, as luck
would have it, Sir Matthew made a memorandum in writing
of certain wishes or intentions of his regarding his estates,
which afterwards proved exceedingly useful.
When Mr. Crome thought of starting for home, about half
past nine o ’clock, Sir Matthew and he took a preliminary
turn on the gravelled walk at the back of the house. The only
incident that struck Mr. Crome was this: they were in sight
of the ash-tree which I described as growing near the windows of the building, when Sir Matthew stopped and said:
“ What is that that runs up and down the stem of the ash?
It is never a squirrel? They will all be in their nests by now.”
The Vicar looked and saw the moving creature, but he
could make nothing of its colour in the moonlight. The sharp
outline, however, seen for an instant
, was imprinted on his
brain, and he could have sworn, he said, though it sounded
foolish, that, squirrel or not, it had more than four legs.
Still, not much was to be made of the momentary vision,
and the two men patted. They may have met since then, but
it was not for a score of years.
Next day Sir Matthew Fell was not downstairs at six in the
morning, as was his custom, nor at seven, nor yet at eight.
Hereupon the servants went and knocked at his clumber door.
I need not prolong the description of their anxious listenings
and renewed batterings on the panels. The door was opened
at last from the outside, and they found their master dead and
black. So much you have guessed. That there were any marks
of violence did not at the moment appear; but the window
was open.
One of the men went to fetch the parson, and then by his
directions rode on to give notice to the coroner. Mr. Crome
himself went as quick as he might to the Hall, and was shown
to the room where the dead man lay. He has left some notes
among his papers which show how genuine a respect and
sorrow was felt for Sir Matthew, and there is also this passage, which I transcribe for the sake of the light it throws
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M. R. James
upon the course of events, and also upon the common beliefs
of the time:
‘ ‘There was not any the least Trace of an Entrance having
been forc’d to the Chamber: but the Casement stood open,
as my poor Friend would always have it in this Season. He
had his Evening Drink of small Ale in a silver vessel of about
a pint measure, and tonight had not drunk it out. This Drink
was examined by the Physician from Bury, a Mr. Hodgkins,
who could not, however, as he afterwards declar’d upon his
Oath, before the Coroner’s quest, discover that any matter
of a venomous kind was present in it. For, as was natural,
in the great Swelling and Blackness of the Corpse, there was
talk made among the Neighbours of Poyson. The Body was
very much Disorder’d as it laid in the Bed, being twisted
after so extream a sort as gave too probable Conjecture that
my worthy Friend and Patron had expir’d in great Pain and
Agony. And what is as yet unexplain’d, and to myself the
Argument of some Horrid and Artfull Designe in the Perpetrators of this Barbarous Murther, was this, that the Women which were entrusted with the laying-out of the Corpse and
washing it, being both sad Pearsons and very well Respected
in their Mournful Profession, came to me in a great Pain and
Distress both of Mind and Body, saying, what was indeed
confirmed upon the first View, that they had no sooner touch’d
the Breast of the Corpse with their naked Hands than they
were sensible of a more than ordinary violent Smart and
Acheing in their Palms, which, with their whole Forearms,
in no long time swell’d so immoderately, the Pain still continuing, that, as afterwards proved, during many weeks they were forc’d to lay by the exercise of their Calling; and yet no
mark seen on the Skin.
“ Upon hearing this, I sent for the Physician, who was still
in the House, and we made as careful a Proof as we were
able by the Help of a small Magnifying Lens of Crystal of
the condition of the Skinn on this Part of the Body: but could
not detect with the Instrument we had any Matter of Importance beyond a couple of small Punctures or Pricks, which
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63
we then concluded were the Spotts by which the Poyson might
be introduced, remembering that Ring of Pope Borgia, with
other known Specimens of the Horrid Act of the Italian Poy-
soners of the last age.
“ So much is to be said of the Symptoms seen on the
Corpse. As to what I am to add, it is meerly my own Experiment, and to be left to Posterity to judge whether there be anything of Value therein. There was on the Table by the
Beddside a Bible of the small size, in which my Friend—
punctuall as in Matters of less Moment, so in this more
weighty one—used nightly, and upon his First Rising, to read
a sett Portion. And I taking it up—not without a Tear duly
paid to him wich from the Study of this poorer Adumbration
was now pass’d to the contemplation of its great Originall—
it came into my Thoughts, as at such moments of Helplessness we are prone to catch at any the least Glimmer that makes promise of Light, to make trial of that old and by
many accounted Superstitious Practice of drawing the Sortes;
of which a Principall Instance, in the case of his late Sacred
Majesty the Blessed Martyr King Charles and my Lord Falkland, was now much talked of. I must needs admit that by my Trial not much Assistance was afforded me: yet, as the
Cause and Origin of these Dreadful Events may hereafter be
search’d out, I set down the Results, in the case it may be
found that they pointed the true Quarter of the Mischief to a
quicker Intelligence than my own.
“ I made, then, three trials, opening the Book and placing
my Finger upon certain Words: which gave in the first these
words, from Luke xiii. 7, Cut it down; in the second. Isaiah
xiii. 20, It shall never be inhabited; and upon the third Experiment, Job xxxix. 30, Her young ones also suck up blood.”
This is all that need be quoted from Mr. Crome’s papers.
Sir Matthew Fell was duly coffined and laid into the earth,
and his funeral sermon, preached by Mr. Crome on the following Sunday, has been printed under the title of “ The Unsearchable Way; or, England’s Danger and the Malicious
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M. R. James
Dealings of Antichrist,” it being the Vicar’s view, as well as
that most commonly held in the neighbourhood, that the
Squire was the victim of a recrudescence of the Popish Plot.
His son, Sir Matthew the second, succeeded to the title
and estates. And so ends the first act of the Castringham
tragedy. It is to be mentioned, though the fact is not surprising, that the new Baronet did not occupy the room in which his father had died. Nor, indeed, was it slept in by anyone
but an occasional visitor during the whole of his occupation.
He died in 1735, and I do not find that anything particular
marked his reign, save a curiously constant mortality among
his cattle and live-stock in general, which showed a tendency
to increase slightly as time went on.
Those who are interested in the details will find a statistical
account in a letter to the Gentlemen’s Magazine of 1772,
which draws the facts from the Baronet’s own papers. He put
an end to it at last by a very simple expedient, that of shutting
up all his beasts in sheds at night, and keeping no sheep in
his park. For he had noticed that nothing was ever attacked
that spent the night indoors. After that the disorder confined
itself to wild birds, and beasts of chase. But as we have no
good account of the symptoms, and as all-night watching was
quite unproductive of any d ue, I do not dwell on what the
Suffolk farmers called the “ Castringham sickness.”
The second Sir Matthew died in 1735, as I said, and was
duly succe
eded by his son, Sir Richard. It was in his time
that the great family pew was built out on the north side of
the parish church. So large were the Squire’s ideas that several of the graves on that unhallowed side of the building had to be disturbed to satisfy his requirements. Among them was
that of Mrs. Mothersole, the position of which was accurately
known, thanks to a note of a plan of the church and yard,
both made by Mr. Crome.
A certain amount of interest was excited in the village when
it was known that the famous witch, who was still remembered by a few, was to be exhumed. And the feeling of surprise, and indeed disquiet, was very strong when it was found
The Ash-Tree
65
that, though her coffin was fairly sound and unbroken, there
was no trace whatever inside it of body, bones, or dust. Indeed, it is a curious phenomenon, for at the time of her burying no such things were dreamt of as resurrection-men, and it is difficult to conceive any rational motive for stealing a
body otherwise than for the uses of the dissecting-room.
The incident revived for a time all the stories of witch-
trials and of the exploits of the witches, dormant for forty
years, and Sir Richard’s orders that the coffin should be burnt
were thought by a good many to be rather foolhardy, though
they were duly carried out.
Sir Richard was a pestilent innovator, it is certain. Before
his time the Hall had been a fine block of the mellowest red
brick; bur Sir Richard had travelled in Italy and become infected with the Italian taste, and, having more money than his predecessors, he determined to leave an Italian palace
where he had found an English house. So stucco and ashlar
masked the brick; some indifferent Roman marbles were
planted about in the entrance-hall and gardens; a reproduction of the Sibyl’s temple at Tivoli was erected on the opposite bank of the mere; and Castringham took an entirely new, and, I must say, a less engaging, aspect. But it was much
admired, and served as a model to a good many of the neighbouring gentry in after-years.
One morning (it was in 1754) Sir Richard woke after a
night of discomfort. It had been windy, and his chimney had
smoked persistently, and yet it was so cold that he must keep
up a fire. Also something had so rattled about the window
that no man could get a moment’s peace. Further, there was
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