The Witch

by Mary Johnston

  CHAPTER XII

  HERON’S COTTAGE

  IT was early spring again, and on the fruit trees pale emerald budsof yet unfolded leaves. The blackbirds came in flocks to the ploughedfields. But this year there were many fields that were not ploughed;dead men could not plough, nor those who had been to death’s door andwere coming halting, halting back.

  Joan sat in her kitchen, on a low stool by the hearth. The room wasclean, with shafts of sunlight slanting in. But her wheel was pushedback into a corner, and there lacked other signs of industry. She satstill and listless, bent over, her cheek resting upon her knees, andwith her forefinger she made idle marks and letters in the ashes. Thefire was smouldering out, the place seemed deadly still.

  There came a knock upon the door. She raised her head, and sat with afrozen look, listening. After a minute the knock was repeated. Rising,she moved noiselessly across the floor to the window, and, standingso that she could not be seen, looked out. The rigour passed from herface; she drew a breath of relief and went and opened the door.

  The sunshine flooded in and in the midst of it stood Aderhold. Helooked at her quietly and kindly. “I came again but to see if you werewell and lacked naught.”

  “I lack naught, thank you, sir,” said Joan. “And I am well—O me, O me,I would that it had taken me, too! O father, father!”

  She leaned against the wall, shaken with dry sobs. The fit did notlast; she was resolute enough. She straightened herself. “I’ve donewhat you told me to. Yesterday I washed and cleaned and let the sun ineverywhere, and burned in the room the powder you gave me. Everythingis clean—and lonely. No, I don’t feel badly anywhere. I feel terriblystrong, as though I would live to be an old woman.... I miss father—Imiss father!”

  “It looks so clean and bright,” said Aderhold, “and your cat purringthere on the hearth. Your father went very quickly, and without muchsuffering. His presence will come back to you, and you will takecomfort in it. You will feel it in this room, and upon this doorstep,and out here among the fruit trees, and under the stars at night.”

  “Aye,” said Joan, “I think it too. But now—” She stood beside him onthe doorstep, looking out past the budding trees to the gate and themisty green twisted path that led at last to the village road. Overheaddrove a fleecy drift of clouds with islands of blue. “All last nightthe countryside mourned low and wailed. It was the wind, but I knew itwas the other too! It is sad for miles and miles to be so woeful.”

  “The sickness is greatly lessening. By the time the spring is stronglyhere it will be over and Hawthorn beginning to forget.—You have beenhere now three days alone. Has no one come to enquire or help?”

  “Mother Spuraway from beyond the mill-race came. No one else.”

  “In a time like this all fear all. But presently friends will find outfriends again.”

  “It is not that way that I am lonely,” said Joan. “There are some thatI care not if they never come.”

  He had his round to go. The sickness in the town dwindling, he hadcome back, when it broke over Hawthorn, to the Oak Grange. Since thenhe had gone far and near, wherever it struck down the poorer sort. Ashe turned from the cottage door, Joan stepped, too, upon the flaggedpath, and they moved side by side toward the gate, between the linesof green lance-heads the daffodils were thrusting above the soil. Theymoved in silence, almost of a height, two simply, almost poorly dressedfigures, each with its load of sorrow and care for the morrow. And yetthey were not old, and about them was the low ecstatic murmur of winterswiftening into spring.

  “Do you remember,” asked Aderhold, “that day when we chanced to meet inthe forest and Master Harry Carthew came upon us?”

  “Aye,” said Joan, “I remember.”

  “Since then we have neither met nor spoken together until last weekwhen your father was stricken and you watched for me coming from thevillage.—And now to-day I come only for this moment and will come nomore.—Have you no close friends nor kindred?”

  “They are buried with father.... I mean to stay on here and spin flaxand keep myself. And if—I mean to stay.” Her hand went out to touchthe eglantine growing by the beehives. “I love it and I mean to stay.”

  Aderhold looked beyond at the wavy green path and the massed trees ofthe forest. He, too, loved this country. He had thought much here—onceor twice the light had shone through. But he was ready now to go. Justas soon as there was no more sick, just as soon as the plague was gone,he meant to steal from the Oak Grange and Hawthorn countryside. He andJoan came to the little gate, and he went out of it, then turning fora moment looked back at the thatched cottage, the pleasant beehives,the fruit trees that ere long would put forth a mist of bloom. Joanstood with a sorrowful face, but grey-eyed, vital. Her hand restedupon the worn wood. He laid his own upon it, lightly, for one moment.“Good-bye,” he said, “Mistress Friendly-Soul!”

  She stood in the pale sunshine until he was gone from sight, thenturned and went back to her kitchen. She must bake bread; there wasnothing for her to eat in the cottage. She must get water from thewell. She took her well-bucket, went forth and brought it backbrimming. From the faggot pile she fed the fire, then brought to thetable coarse flour and other matters for the bread, mixed and worked,moulded and set to bake. And all the time she tried to feel that herfather was sitting there, in the settle corner. She made the tableclear again, then looked at her wheel. But she did not feel likespinning; her heart was burdened again; she sat down on the stool bythe fire and bowed her head in her arms. “Day after day and day afterday,” she said; “day after day and day after day.” She rocked herself.“And a powerful man that I hate to come again and yet again to troubleme, and father not here.... Day after day and day after day.... AndI know not why it is, but I have no friends. They’ve turned againstme, and I know not why.... Day after day—” She sat with buried headand rocked herself slowly to and fro. Save for the youth in her formand the thick, pale bronze of her braided hair, she might have seemedMother Spuraway, or Marget Primrose, or any other old and desolatewoman. She rocked herself, and the faggot burned apart, and the catstretched itself in the warmth.

  From outside the cottage came a thin calling. “_Joan! Joan! Oh, Joan!_”

  Joan lifted her head, listened a moment, then rose and opened thedoor. “_Joan! Joan! Oh, Joan!_” She stepped without and saw who itwas,—Alison Inch and Cecily Lukin calling to her from the green pathwell beyond the gate. They would come at first no nearer. The plaguehad struck in the Lukin cottage no less than in Heron’s, and for weeksit had closely neighboured Alison Inch and her mother. But Joan mustbe made to feel comrades’ terror of her. “Joan! Joan! Have you got ityet?—We want but to see if you’re living!”

  With a gesture of anger Joan turned to reënter the cottage.

  But Alison did not wish that. “Joan! Joan! We were laughing. We’re notafraid if you don’t come very close.—I’ve got something to tell you.See! I’m not afraid.”

  Alison came to the gate, Cecily with her. Joan no longer liked Alison,and with Cecily she had never had much acquaintance. But they werewomen and young, and the loneliness was terrible about her. She wenthalfway up the path toward them. The grey and white cat came from thecottage and followed her.

  Alison regarded her with a thin, flushed, shrewish face and anexpression lifted, enlarged, and darkened beyond what might have seemedpossible to her nature. But Alison had drunk deep from an acrid springthat drew in turn from a deep, perpetual fount. She spoke in a thin andcutting voice. “Watching and weeping haven’t taken the rose away.—Whatare you going to do now, Joan?”

  “I do not think,” said Joan, “that it is necessary to tell thee.” Shelooked past her to Cecily. “They say your sister died. I am sorry.”

  But Alison had put poison into Cecily’s mind. “Yes, she died. They dosay that you would not be sorry if more of us died. Why people like youand—and Mother Spuraway should wish harm to us others—”

  “What are you talking of?” said Joan. “I wish no harm to
any—”

  Cecily was an impish small piece with no especial evil in her save ateasing devil. “Oh, they say that you and a black man understand eachother! Some boys told me—”

  “Nay, that’s naught, Cis!” said Alison impatiently. She came closer tothe gate, and Joan, as though drawn against her will, approached fromher side. “Joan—nay, don’t come any nearer, Joan—”

  “Yes?”

  “There’s one ill at the squire’s house. Ah!” cried Alison. “Do you lookjoyful?”

  “No—no!” stammered Joan.

  Taken by surprise, shaken and unstable as she was to-day, she gaveback a step, lifted her hands to her forehead. As for Alison—Alisonhad not expected Joan to look joyful. She had spoken, burning her ownheart, to make Joan feel the hot iron, knowing that the pang she gavewould not be lasting, for truly it was but one of the maidservants atthe great house that was stricken and not that person of overshadowingimportance. She had believed with all her heart that it would smiteJoan to the heart until she told her true—and now there had been inher face an awful joy, though at once it had shrunk back and somethingpiteous had come instead. But it was the first look with which Alisonwas concerned. There went through her a keen hope like a knife-blade.Perhaps he no longer liked Joan!—perhaps that made Joan angry, hurtingher vanity—so, perhaps she would have liked to hear that he was sickof the plague! Alison stood astare, revolving Joan’s look.

  Cecily, who had never come before so close to Heron’s cottage, gazedabout her. “And Katherine Scott says there’s something ‘no canny’ aboutthe bees in your beehives. She says she had them while you were away tothe castle, and they did naught for her and made, besides, her own beesidle and sick. But she says they make honey for you, great combs ofit—”

  “There is none that is sick at the squire’s house,” said Alison in astrange voice, “but Agnes, Madam Carthew’s woman. They’ve taken herfrom the house and put her in a room by the stable, and the family goesfreely forth.—Why did you look as you were glad, Joan?”

  “If I did, God forgive me!” said Joan. “In the deep of me there is noill-wishing.—Presently, the leech says, it will be all safe here, as,indeed, it’s clean and sun-washed and safe to-day. Then I hope you’llboth come to see me—”

  Cecily gave a gibing, elfin laugh. “Are you going to live here allalone—like a witch?”

  The grey and white cat had advanced beyond Joan and now stood upon thesunny path between the daffodil points. What happened none of the threesaw; perhaps a dog crossed the track behind the two visitors, perhapsthe creature recognized human hostility—be that as it may, the catsuddenly arched its back, its hair rose, its mouth opened.

  “Ah-h!” cried Cecily. “Look at her cat!”

  A curious inspiration, not of light, passed like a cloud-shadowover Alison’s face. “It doesn’t like what you said, Cis! It’s herfamiliar.—Come away! We’d best be going.”

  They turned. Lightning came against them from Joan’s grey eyes. “Yes,go! And come not here again! Do you hear?—Come not here again!” Hervoice followed them up the green path. “Come not here again—”

  The next day she went to get wood from the edge of the forest. Shehad gathered her load of faggots, and was sitting upon them, resting,in her hand a fallen bird’s nest, when Will the smith’s son happenedthat way. The two had known each other to speak to in a friendly wayfor many a year; it used to be that, coming or going from the Grange,he might at any time stop for a minute before the cottage for a crackwith old Heron and maybe with Joan herself. That time had come to anend with Joan and her father’s going to the castle; when they came backhe had been, as it were, afraid of new graces and manners. Moreover,old Master Hardwick had presently died, and so Will left the employmentof the Grange and had little need any more to come and go by HawthornForest. It might be that, save at church, they had not seen each otherfor months. Moreover, he had been away to the nearest port.

  Now he greeted her with friendliness and an honest-awkward speechof sorrow for old Heron’s death. “He was a good man and, fegs! solearned!—Am sorry for thee, Joan. And what will’t do now?”

  Joan turned the grey and empty nest in her hands. “I do not know,” shesaid drearily; then, with a backward fling of her shoulders and a liftof courage, “The cottage’s mine. And I always sell the flax I spin.I’ll bide and spin and keep the place.”

  Will shook his head compassionately. “A lass like thou—! In no timethou’dst be talked of and called ill names. Either thou must takeservice or marry—”

  Joan turned upon him heavy-lidded grey orbs. “Why should I marry or bea serving-woman if I wish neither, and can keep myself?—Oh, I like notthe way we’ve made this world!” She turned the nest again. “This thingof ill names—Well, ill names do not kill.”

  Will stood, biting a piece of thorn. “You’d see how it would turn out.No one would believe—”

  He looked at her with rustic meditativeness. He was slow andcountry-living; he had no great acquaintance with Alison or Cecily,and it had never occurred to him to mark Master Harry Carthew, wherethe squire’s brother rode or whom his looks pursued. He had heard ofthe vintner in the town, and had dimly supposed that Joan would marryhim, or maybe the new huntsman or some other fine-feathered person atthe castle. But now the plague had swept the town, and the vintnermight be of those taken—and here was old Heron gone. He looked at heragain, and the hand that held the piece of thorn against his lips beganto shake a little. It occurred to him more strongly than it had donebefore that she was a fair woman—and then, Heron’s cottage. There wasa tiny plot of ground, the cow, some poultry. As things went, she hada good dowry. Will the smith’s son might go farther and fare worse.It was not the right time, all Hawthorn being so gloomy and everybodyafraid, and his own heart knocking at times against his side withfear. But it wouldn’t hurt just to drop a hint. He moistened his lips.“Joan,” he said; “Joan—”

  And then, by the perversity of her fortune, Joan herself shook him fromthis base. She lifted sombre eyes, still turning the little grey nestabout in her hands. “Why do you think we had the plague? The ministerpreached that it was sent against the town for its false doctrine, andwe gave thanks that we were not as the town.... And then in a littlewhile it was upon us, and my father, who was a good man, took it anddied....”

  Gloom that had lifted this bright afternoon on the forest edge settledagain. Will the smith’s son had a strong taste for the supernatural,all the emotional in him finding that vent. It could grow to light upwith strange lightnings and transform every humdrum corner of his mind.He liked to discuss these matters and feel a wind of terror prick histemples cold. He spoke oracularly, having, indeed, listened to talk atthe sexton’s the night before. “There’s always an Evil Agent behind anypest, or a comet or a storm that wrecks ships or blows down chimneys.At times God uses the Evil Agent to punish the presumptuous with—asHe might give Satan leave to spot with plague the town over yonder,seeing that if it could it would have the old mass-priests back! And atother times He gives the Evil Agent leave to prick and try his chosenpeople that they may turn like a wauling babe and cling the closer toHim. And again there may be one patch of weed in the good corn andSatan couching and holding his Sabbat there. In which case God willsend plagues of Egypt, one after the other, until every soul wearingthe Devil’s livery is haled forth.—Now,” said Will, and he laid itoff with the sprig of thorn, “Hawthorn is for the pure faith of theHoly Scriptures, so we haven’t the plague for the reason the town hathit.—Again, put case that so we’re to love the Lord the more. NowHawthorn and all to the north of it is known for religion. I’ve beena traveller,” said Will with unction, “and I know how we’re lookedon, clear from here to the sea, and held up to the ungodly! MasterClement’s got a name that sounds to the wicked like the trump of doomand Master Harry Carthew isn’t far behind him—What did you say?”

  “I said naught,” said Joan.

  Will closed his exposition. “Now it may be that God wisheth to pr
ickup Hawthorn to fresh zeal, and, indeed, the sexton holds that it is sothat Master Clement interprets the matter. But it seemed to me and thetinker, who was there talking, too, that the third case is the likelierand that there are some ill folk among us!” Will dropped the bit ofthorn. “It’s the more likely because there’s another kind of mischiefgoing around and growing as the plague dies off. I know myself of threeplough-horses gone lame in one night, and Hodgson’s cow dying withoutrhyme or reason, and a child at North-End Farm falling into fits andtalking of a dog that runs in and out of the room, but no one else cansee it. The tinker”—Will spoke with energy—“the tinker has come notlong since over the border from Scotland. He says that if Hawthorn wasScotland we’d have had old Mother Spuraway and maybe others in thepennywinkis and the caschielawis before this!”

  Joan rose and lifted her bundle of faggots to her shoulders. The greybird-nest she set between two boughs of the thorn tree. “What are thepennywinkis and the caschielawis?”

  “The one’s your thumbscrew,” said Will, “and the other’s a hollow ironcase where they set your leg and build a fire beneath.”

  Joan turned her face toward the cottage. Her old acquaintance walkedbeside her. It was afternoon and there was over everything a tender,flickering, charming light. It made the new grass emerald, of themisting trees veil on veil of soft, smiling magic. Primroses andviolets bloomed as though dropped from immortal hands. The blue vaultof air rose height on height and so serene and kind....

  Joan spoke in a smothered voice. “I would believe in a good God.”

  The young countryman beside her had gone on in mind with the tinker andhis talk. “What did you say, Joan?”

  “I said naught,” said Joan.