The Witch

by Mary Johnston

  CHAPTER V

  THE ROAD TO HAWTHORN

  IT was full dusk when the London travellers did at last win away fromthe Rose Tavern. The evening was cold, the snow yet falling in slow,infrequent flakes. The merchants and their men, together with MasterAnthony Mull, first took the road. Then followed Master Harry Carthew,straight and stern, upon a great roan mare. In the rear came onslowly old John Hardwick, his servant Will, and the physician GilbertAderhold. These three soon lost sight of the others, who, pushing on,came to the town, rest, and bed, ere they had made half the distance.

  At last, very late, the place loomed before them. They passed throughdark and winding streets, and found an inn which Master Hardwick knew.Together Will and Aderhold lifted the old man from his horse and helpedhim into the house and into a great bed, where he lay groaning throughthe night, the physician beside him speaking now and again a soothingand steadying word.

  He could not travel the next day or the next. Finally Aderhold and Willwrung permission to hire a litter and two mules. On the third morningthey placed Master Hardwick in the litter and all took the streetleading to the road which should bring them in the afternoon to theOak Grange. Going, they passed a second inn, and here Master HarryCarthew suddenly appeared beside them upon his great roan. It seemedthat affairs had kept him likewise in this town, but that now he wasbound in their direction.

  The snow had passed into rain. The weather had moderated, the rainceased, and this morning there was pure blue sky and divine sunlight.The latter bathed the unpaved streets, the timbered, projecting frontsof houses, guildhall and shops and marketplace, and the tower and bodyof a great and ancient abbey church. Beyond the church the groundsloped steeply to the river winding by beneath an arched bridge ofstone. Above the town, commanding all, rose a castle, half-ruinous,half in repair. The streets were filled with people, cheerful in themorning air. Litter, mules, and horsemen moved slowly along. HonestWill drew a long breath. “Fegs! Who would live in the country thatcould live in a town?”

  Aderhold was riding beside him, Carthew being ahead on his great roanmare. “Tell me something,” said the physician, “of the country to whichwe are going.”

  “The country’s a good country enough,” said Will. “But the OakGrange—Lord! the Grange is doleful and lonely—”

  “Doleful and lonely?”

  “It’s all buried in black trees,” said Will, “and nobody lives therebut our old master.”

  “Where does Master Carthew live?”

  “He lives in the squire’s house beyond the village. He’s the squire’sbrother.”

  “You’re near a village?”

  “Aye, the village of Hawthorn.”

  They rode on, Will gazing busily about him. They were still in thetown, indeed in an important part of it, for before them rose theprison. Without it stood pillory and stocks, two men by the legs inthe latter, a dozen children deliberately pelting them with rottenvegetables, shards, and mud. Aderhold stared with a frown, thecountryman with a curious mixture of interest in the event and lumpishindifference as to the nature of it. “Aye,” he repeated, “the villageof Hawthorn.”

  “Is there,” asked Aderhold, “a physician in the village?”

  They had passed the prison, and were approaching the sculptured portalof the great church. “A physician?” said Will. “No. There was one,but he died two years ago. Now they send here, or the schoolmasterwill bleed at a pinch or give a drench. And sometimes they go—but theparson would stop that—to old Mother Spuraway.”

  They were now full before the great portal of the church. Carthew,ahead, stopped his horse to speak to some person who seemed anacquaintance. His halting in the narrow way halted the mules with thelitter. Master Hardwick had fallen into a doze. The physician andserving-man, standing their horses together, looked up at the hugepile of the church, towering like a cliff immediately above them. Oneach side of the vast arched doorway had stood in niches the figuresof saints. These were broken and gone—dragged down in the day whenthe neighbouring abbey was closed. But around and about, overhead andflanking the cavernous entrance, had been left certain carvings—atrain of them—imps and devils and woe-begone folk possessed by thefoul fiend. The fiend grinned over the shoulder of one like a monkey,he tugged like a wolf at the ear of another, he crept like a mousefrom a woman’s mouth.... Aderhold’s gaze was upon the great toweragainst the sky and the rose-window out of which the stained glass wasnot yet broken. But Will looked lower. Something presently causingthe physician to glance his way, he was startled at the serving-man’sposture and expression. It was as though he had never seen these stonefigures before—and, indeed, it proved that he had never been soclosely within the porch, and that, in short, they had never so caughthis attention. He was staring at them now as though his eyeballs andall imagination behind them were fastened by invisible wires to thegrotesque and horrible carvings. Into his countenance came a creepingterror and a kind of fearful exaltation. Aderhold knew the look—hehad seen it before, in France and elsewhere, upon peasant faces andupon faces that were not those of peasants. It was not an unusual lookin his century. Again, for the millionth time, imagination had beenseized and concentrated upon the Satanic and was creating a universe tocommand. Will shivered, then he put his hand to his ear.

  “There is nothing there,” said the physician, “but your ear itself.”

  “Mice never come out of men’s mouths,” said Will. The physician knewthe voice, too, the dry-throated, rigid-tongued monotone. “The comfortis that most of the wicked are women.”

  “Then take comfort,” said Aderhold, “and come away. Those figures arebut the imagination of men like yourself.”

  But Will was not ready to budge. “Twelfth night, I was going throughthe fields. They were white with snow. Something black ran across andhowled and snapped at me.”

  “A famished wolf,” said Aderhold.

  “Aye, it looked like a wolf. But this is what proved it wasn’t,” saidWill. “That night in Hawthorn Forest Jock the forester set a trap. Inthe night-time he heard it click down on the wolf and the wolf howl. Hesaid, says he, ‘I’ve got you now, old demon!’ and went back to sleep.But at dawn, when he went to the trap, there was blood there and a tuftof grizzled hair, but nothing else. And so he and his son followed redspots on the snow—right through the forest and across Town Road. Andon the other side of the road, where the hedge comes down, they lost itclean—not a drop of blood nor the mark of a paw on the snow. But thedog they had he ran about, and at last he lifted his head and bayed,and then he started—And where, sir, do you think he led them? He ledthem to the hut of old Marget Primrose between Black Hill and HawthornBrook. And Marget was lying huddled, crying with a bloody cut acrossher ankle. And they matched the hair from the trap with the hair underher cap.”

  “They did not match with care,” said Aderhold. “And there are many waysby which a foot may be hurt.”

  “Nay,” said the serving-man, “but when they brought the trap and thrusther leg in it the marks fitted.” He continued to stare at the stonewolf tearing the ear. “That’s been four years, and never since have Ibeen able to abide the sight of a wolf!... Witches and warlocks andwizards and what they call incubi and succubi and all the demons andfiends of hell, and Satan above saying, ‘Hist! this one!’ and ‘Hist!that one!’ and your soul lost and dragged to hell where you will burnin brimstone, shrieking, and God and the angels mocking you and crying,‘Burn! Burn forever!’—Nay, an if they do not get your soul, still theyravage and ruin what you have on earth—blast the fields and dry thestreams, slay cow and sheep and horse, burn your cot and wither yourstrength of a man.... Thicker than May flies in the air—all the timeclose around you, whether you see them or you don’t see them—monkeysand wolves and bat wings flapping.... Once something came on my breastat night—Satan, Satan avaunt!”

  Aderhold leaned across, seized the bridle of the other’s horse, andforcibly turned Will from further contemplation of the sculpturedportal. “Come away, or you
will fall down in a fit!”

  Carthew ahead was in motion, the mules with the litter following. Willrode for a few paces with a dazed look which was gradually replacedby his usual aspect. The red came back into his cheeks, the springinto his figure. By the time they had reached the bridge he was readyfor something palely resembling a disinterested discussion of thesupernatural.

  “Isn’t it true, sir, that witch or warlock, however they’ve beenroaming, must take their own shape when they cross running water?”

  “Whatever shape matter takes is its own shape,” said the physician,“and would be though we saw it in a thousand shapes, one after theother. I have never seen, nor expect to see, a witch or warlock.”

  “Why, where have you travelled, sir?” asked the yeoman bluntly; then,without waiting for an answer, “They’re hatching thick and thickerin England, though not so thick as they are in Scotland. In Scotlandthey’re very thick. Our new King, they say, does most fearfully hatethem! Parson preached about them not long ago. He said that we’dpresently see a besom used in this kingdom that would sweep such folkfrom every corner into the fire! He read from the Bible and it said,‘Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live!’”

  He spoke with considerable cheer, the apple-red back in his cheeks.“It’s good to feel,” he said, “that they are nearly all women.”

  They were trampling across the bridge, on either hand the sparklingwater, above their heads the vivid sky. “They are neither man norwoman,” said Aderhold. “They are naught. There are no witches.”

  He had spoken abstractedly, and more unguardedly than was his wont.The words were no sooner from his tongue than he felt alarm. Theywere not safe words to have spoken, even in such simple company asthis. He looked aside and found that Will was staring, round-eyed. “Nowitches?” asked Will slowly. “Parson saith that none but miscreants andunbelievers—”

  “Tell me about your church and parson,” said Aderhold calmly, and,aided by a stumble of Will’s horse and some question from the litterbehind them, avoided for that time the danger.

  They crossed the bridge and left behind the winding river and thetown that climbed to the castle, clear-cut and dark against thebrilliant sky. Before them, lapped in the golden sunshine, spread arich landscape. Field and meadow, hill and dale, crystal stream andtall, hanging woods, it flickered and waved in the gilt light and thewarm, blowing wind. There were many trees by the wayside, and in theirbranches a singing and fluttering of birds. The distance shimmered;here was light and here were violet shadows and everywhere hung thebreath of spring. From a hilltop they saw, some miles away, roofs anda church tower. “Hawthorn Village,” said Will. “The Oak Grange is twomiles the other side.”

  Master Hardwick parted the curtains of the litter and called to thephysician. His heart, he said, was beating too slowly; it frightenedhim, he thought it might be going to stop. Aderhold reassured him.He had a friendly, humorous, strengthening way with his patients;they brightened beneath his touch, and this old man was no exception.Master Hardwick was comforted and said that he thought he could sleepa little more. His lean hand clutched the other’s wrist as he stooddismounted beside him, litter and mules and Will on the sumpter horsehaving all stopped in the lee of a green bank disked with primroses.Master Hardwick made signs for the physician to stoop. “Eh, kinsman,”he whispered. “You and I are the only Aderholds in this part of theworld. And you are a good leech—a good leech! Would you stay at theOak Grange for your lodging, man? I’ve no money—no money at all—butI’d _lodge_ you—”

  The miles decreased between the cavalcade and the village. Aderholdwas riding now alone, Carthew still ahead, and Will fallen back withthe litter. Looking about him, the physician found something very richand fair in the day and the landscape. Not for a long time had he hadsuch a feeling of health and moving peace, a feeling that containedneither fever nor exhaustion. There was a sense of clarity, strength,and fineness; moreover, the scene itself seemed to exhibit somethingunusual, to have a strangeness of beauty, a richness, a quality as of apicture where everything is ordered and heightened. It had come aboutbefore, this certain sudden interfusion, or permeation, or intensity ofrealization, when all objects had taken on a depth and glow, lucidity,beauty, and meaning. The countryside before him was for an appreciablemoment transfigured. He saw it a world very lovely, very rich. It wasnoble and good in his eyes—it was the dear Earth as she might alwaysbe.... The glow went as it had come, and there lay before him only afair, wooded English countryside, sun and shadow and the April day.

  He saw the village clearly now, with a sailing of birds about thechurch tower. Carthew, who had kept steadily ahead, occupied apparentlywith his own meditations, checked his horse and waited until the othercame up with him, then touched the roan with his whip and he and thephysician went on together.

  There was something about this young man that both interested andrepelled. He was good-looking and apparently intelligent. Silenceitself was no bar to liking, often it was quite the reverse. ButCarthew’s was no friendly and flowing quiet. His silence had a harshand pent quality. He looked often like a man in a dream, but the dreamhad in it no suavity, but appeared to contemplate high and stern anddreadful things. Aderhold looked instinctively first at a man’s eyes.Carthew’s eyes were earnest and intolerant. In the lower part of hisface there was something that spoke of passions sunken, covered over,and weighted down.

  The two rode some little distance without speaking, then Carthew openedhis lips abruptly. “How do you like this country?”

  “I like it well,” said Aderhold. “It is a fair country.”

  “Fair and unfair,” answered the other. “It rests like every otherregion under the primal Curse—The old man, back there, has taken afancy to you and calls you his kinsman. Do you expect to bide at theOak Grange?”

  “I think it truth that I am his kinsman,” answered Aderhold. “For theother—I do not know.”

  “He is misliked hereabouts,” said Carthew. “He is old and miserly.Those who have goods and gear like him not because he will not spendwith them, and those who have none like him not because he givesnothing. The Oak Grange is a ruinous place.”

  The village now opened before them, a considerable cluster of houses,most of them small and poor, climbing a low hill and spreading over abit of meadow. The houses were huddled together, but they encloseda village green and here and there rose old trees, or showed a tinygarden. At the farther end, on the higher ground, the church lifteditself, dominating. Beyond it ran the highway still. The landscapewas fair, with hill and dale, and to the right, against the horizon,violet-hued and misty, an old forest.

  Aderhold looked somewhat wistfully at the scene before him. He hadpassed through much of harm and peril. Body and mind he wanted rest,quiet routine, for a time some ease. “It looks a place where peacemight be found,” he said.

  “Five years ago,” said Carthew, “we had the sweating sickness. Manydied. Then all saw the shadow from the lifted Hand.”

  “It is wholesome now?”

  “Aye,” answered the other, “until sin and denial again bring bodilygrief.”

  Aderhold glanced aside at his companion. The latter was riding with astern and elevated countenance, his lips moving slightly. The physicianknew that look no less than he had known the serving-man’s.

  “Is it not,” demanded Carthew, “is it not marvellous how the wholeCreation groaneth and travaileth with the knowledge of her doom! Howcontemptible and evil is this world! Yet here we are sifted out—andnot the wise man of old, nor the heathen, nor the ignorant, nor thechild in his cradle is excused! Is it not marvellous how, under ourvery feet, men and women and babes are burning in hell! How, forAdam’s sin, all perish save only the baptized believer—and he is savedin no wise of his own effort and merit, but only of another’s! How Godelecteth the very damned—and yet is their guilt no whit the less! Isit not marvellous!”

  “Aye, fabulously marvellous,” said Aderhold.

  “The sense of sin!” pursued Cart
hew. “How it presses hard upon myheart! The sense of sin!”

  Aderhold was silent. He possessed a vivid enough realization of hismany and recurring mistakes and weaknesses, but, in the other’smeaning, he had no sense of sin.

  They came to the village and rode through it, the litter arousingcuriosity, allayed every few yards by Will’s statements. Aderholdobserved the lack of any sympathy with the sick old man, even thegrowling note with which some of the people turned aside. There wasthe usual village traffic in the crooked street, the small shops andthe doorways. Children were marching with the geese upon the green,where there was a pond, and near it the village stocks. Housewives,with tucked-up skirts and with pattens,—for an April shower had mademire of the ways,—clattered to and fro or sat spinning by window ordoor. Many of the men were in the fields, but there were left thosewho traded or were mechanic, as well as the aged, sitting, half-awake,half-asleep, in sunny spots. It was the usual village of the time, poorenough, far from clean, ignorant and full of talk, and yet not withoutits small share of what then counted for human flower and fruition,nor without promise of the future’s flower and fruition.

  They rode by the church, set in dark yews. Almost in its shadow rosea plain stone house. “Master Thomas Clement, the minister’s,” saidCarthew. “Hawthorn hath a godly and zealous pastor! The town behind usis all for prelates and vestments and a full half at least of the oldsuperstitions. But Hawthorn and the country to the north have purgedthemselves as far as they safely may.”

  Out upon the open road again they saw to the left, back among treesupon a low hilltop, a large and well-built house. “Carthew House,” saidCarthew, “where I live. But I think that I will ride on with you to theOak Grange.”

  Presently, leaving the highway, they took a rough and narrow road thatled, first through fields and then through uncultivated country, towardthe great wood that had been for some time visible. “Hawthorn Forest,”said Carthew. They rode a mile in silence, the wood growing darker andtaller until it reared itself immediately before them. To the right,at some little distance from the road and almost upon the edge of theforest, stood a thatch-roofed cottage with a dooryard where, later,flowers would bloom, and under the eaves a row of beehives. “Heron’scottage,” said Carthew. “Old Heron lives there, who in the old timeswas clerk to the steward of the castle.”

  They entered the wood. It was dark and old, parts of it not havingbeen cut since Saxon times. Their road, which was now hardly more thana cart track, crossed but an angle, the Oak Grange lying beyond in opencountry. But for some minutes they were sunk in a wilderness of oldtrees, with a spongy, leaf-thickened earth beneath the horses’ hoofs.The sunshine fell shattered through an interlacing of boughs justbeginning to take on a hue of spring. Every vista closed in a vaporousblue.

  A woman was gathering faggots in the wood. As they came nearer shestraightened herself and stood, watching them. She was young and tall,grey-eyed, and with braided hair the colour of ripe wheat. “Heron’sdaughter,” said Carthew when they had passed. “She should cover herhair like other women with a cap. It is not seemly to wear it so, inbraids that shine.”

  They were presently forth from the forest; before them a stretch offields no longer well husbanded, a stream murmuring among stones, a bitof orchard, and an old, dilapidated dwelling, better than a farm house,less than a manor house, all crusted with lichen and bunched with ivy.A little removed stood the huge old granary that had given the placeits name, but it, too, looked forlorn, ruinous, and empty. “The OakGrange,” said Carthew. “People say that once it was a great haunt ofelves and fairies, and that they are yet seen of moonlight nights,dancing around yonder oak. They dance—but every seven years they pay atithe of their company to hell.”