The Witch

by Mary Johnston

  CHAPTER XXII

  ESCAPE

  JOAN sat on the edge of her straw bed, with her arms around her kneesand her eyes upon the blank wall. For something to do she had beenplaiting straws, making braids of many strands and laying them besideher in squares and triangles and crosses. That had palled, and nowshe was determinedly using the inner vision. The one thing she wasbent upon was neither to think nor to feel these past days, weeks, andmonths, not to think or to feel at all closer than a year ago. Shecould bring back, she could recompose, she could live again, thoughwith much subtle difference, where she had lived before. She couldimage forth, too; she could guide a waking dream. Now, with all themight that was in her, she made her prison cell to grow what once asa child she had seen, the sandy shore of the boundless sea. That wasfreedom, that was light and wind and space! Then she had raced alongthe beach, and in mind she ran now, long-limbed, with flying hair,only she turned not, came not back.... The Joan Heron here in gaol satmotionless.... One by one she added the other prisoners, until they allran away by the sea beach, all hastening with the cool wind at theirback and the free blue sky before. She drew ahead. They were free andrunning to some happy land, but their presence made it harder not tothink or feel, and so she ran ahead. Sea and sky, and harm forgot....One was running beside her, leaving, too, the others. She would notimage this one plainly, but they ran and ran, the sand beneath theirfeet.... It never occurred to her that this _was_ magic, nor, if it hadoccurred, would she have cared. It was good magic.

  The rainbow vanished, the storm returned. Here was the creaking,creaking of the dungeon door; here came again the hateful gaoler, theman who had watched her that she should not sleep! She did not turn herhead or speak; perhaps to-day he would put down the jug of water andthe crust of bread and go without attempt at parley.

  But he was standing waiting, his hand upon the door which he had drawnto behind him. “Hist!” he said; “Joan Heron!”

  The voice was different. When she had turned swiftly she saw that itwas another man, a lean, nervous, quaint-faced man in a stained leatherjerkin. Across the years since the huntsman’s house and the castle woodand the castle and its servants there shot a memory. “Gervaise!” shesaid: “Gervaise, Sir Richard’s man!”

  “Ah,” said Gervaise with a jerk of his head; “you’ve got a good memory!I hope that others’ aren’t as good! I’ve been out of these parts forthe length of two Indies voyages.”

  He opened the door, put out his head and glanced up and down thepassageway, then, with a satisfied nod, drew back, shut the door, andcame close to Joan. “But I’m Sir Richard’s man still, though not, Iwould have you note, to the world—no, not to the world!—The man whoup till now locked and unlocked this door had a dream of a purse ofgold, and so yesterday he quit the gaol’s service with a speech to allmen that he was sick halfway to death with a shaking cold palsy! But bygood fortune he had a cousin to slip in his place. I am the cousin—forthe nonce, for the nonce! Hist, Joan; I remember thee well at thyuncle’s there in the wood! I’ll tell thee what I once said to him. Isaid, said I, ‘That niece of thine’s got courage and wit!’—Joan, seethis bundle!” He placed it beside her upon the straw.

  “Aye,” said Joan. “What’s in it?”

  “Good, plain apprentice doublet, hose, cap, and shoon! Scissorslikewise to cut long hair.”

  Joan’s hand closed upon it, but she said nothing. She looked at himwith parted lips and a light in her eyes.

  “Just so!” said Gervaise. “It’s now close to sunset. At nine of theclock I’ll be here again. Put everything you have on—put your longcut hair—into the smallest bundle you may. So, if I win you forth asa youth, my helper—God blinding them to the fact that I never broughtyou in!—they’ll find no stitch of you to-morrow. ‘The witch—thewitch hath vanished into thin air! No other one than Master Satan didever help her forth!’”

  “And when I’m forth?” said Joan.

  “One thing at a time!” answered the new gaoler. “A before B; bud beforeflower! Roads may open. Here’s no road at all.”

  “And that’s true,” said Joan. “But all the others?”

  Gervaise gazed at her with his head on one side. “The others—theothers! How do you think it possible that I should make a complete gaoldelivery? It is not possible—not in the least possible.”

  “Why do you choose out me? And I thank you, Gervaise, but I think thatI will not go.”

  Gervaise looked at her with light blue eyes, not sharp but penetrative,with a kind of basal, earth understanding. “You listen to me, Joan, andwhile you listen, just bear in mind that this is a dangerous business!Figure some authority out there storming, ‘Where, in Cerberus’sname, is the new gaoler?’ Keep that in mind, I say, and that time’sgold—gold?—nay, rubies and diamonds! Now, look you! ’Tis no easyjaunt, forth from this prison and town, to some land of safety forwitches and warlocks! Naught but courage and wit and strength and goodluck by the armful will make it—and a crowd would never make it! Thereare two who are not to suffer death—but if they tried to flee and weretaken, as, of course, they most likely would be, they would suffer it!Common sense saith, ‘Those two are better where they are.’ The oldwoman named Dorothy died to-day. She’s gone anyhow—made her escapeclean, with Death and the scythe and hourglass. Do you think thatMother Spuraway could be dragged free—do you think that she could runand lie hidden and disguise herself, and starve if need be? For GraceMaybank—she hath pleaded that she is with child, and is not to behanged until the elfling is born. Naught can be done there. And ElspethNo-Wit sits and laughs, and the sweetest words would not persuade herforth.” He ceased speaking and stood with his light blue eyes upon her.

  “There is,” said Joan, “one other.”

  “Aye, aye,” said Gervaise. “Well, you see mine is the kindly feeling toyouward, and Sir Richard’s is the kindly feeling to himward. Not thatSir Richard hath not a kindly feeling to youward likewise! But, I knownot why, he hath the greatest liking for the sorcerer!”

  “Aye,” said Joan. “And after?”

  “In fact,” said Gervaise, “and though I would not hurt your feelings,making you seem of less importance to yourself, this is a rescueplanned in the first place for the sorcerer and not for the witch! Butwhen I am brought in—having, see you, watched you from a nook in thecrowd through the trial—I say to Sir Richard.... More than my saying,the sorcerer makes some such catechism as you’ve been making, and willonly have freedom on terms. So Sir Richard nods and agrees. Doubleperil! But if he will not come forth else? Then I may say that SirRichard, too, marked you, if for a witch, then a brave witch, and thathe hath a taste for the quality.”

  “Do you mean that Master Aderhold escapes this night?”

  “‘Escapes’!—’escapes’! I know not who escapes. It’s full of peril.But Humphrey Lantern, who takes him bread and water, served under SirRichard in the wars. He’s weary of turning keys, and hath an itch tosee far countries. I know not; Fate’s got it all hidden.—But if thestars are propitious, you might touch another prisoner’s hand on thedark, windy road.”

  He stopped speaking. Joan took up the braided straws and laid themagain in patterns, then brushed them aside. She sat with one hand inthe other, her eyes upon the wall. Then she stood up, tall in herragged gown. “Thank you, Gervaise! If it goes wrong, save yourself, forno worse harm can come to me. I’ll make ready.”

  The sunset light dyed the town, the looping river, the castle on thehill, the great church, and the prison a pale red. The glow faded,night came down. Within the prison every passageway was dim enough;here a smoky light and there at a distance another, and all betweena wavering dusk. The new gaoler and a youth, whom he mentioned toone they met as his nephew and helper, pursued these passages with aslow step and a halt here and a halt there, as the gaoler’s dutiespresented themselves.... But at last they turned a corner and sawbefore them a low portal. “Win through that and we’re outside!”muttered Gervaise. “I’ve the key—and it would make a story, my g
ettingit! Oiled, too.”

  Right and left and behind them they saw no one. He stopped. The keywent in noiselessly, turned noiselessly, the door opened outward, theyfelt, instead of the heavy breath of the gaol, the air of the widenight. They stepped into an alley, black as pitch. Gervaise stooped,reinserted the key, and turned it. “Lock Discovery in overnight,anyway! Take the key and drop it in the river with your bundle.”

  Joan touched his arm. “There are two men standing yonder by the wall.”

  Gervaise nodded. “There’s hope they’re Lantern and the other. Weagreed—”

  They crept toward the two. Hope changed to certainty. There were somewhispered words; then in the darkness the four figures stole forward,away from the prison walls that towered like the very form of Death.The night was black and quiet, but at the mouth of the alley as theyleft it for the wide darkness of the square they heard voices, andstaves striking against the stones, and saw the lanterns of the watch.The pillory was at hand; they drew into its shadow, pressing closebeneath the platform.

  Swinging lanterns, forms ebon and tawny, footsteps, voices, approached,seemed to envelop them, passed, lessened in bulk toward the HighStreet. The orange spheres of light dwindled to points, the voicesfrom frightfully hoarse and loud thinned to a murmur afar. The four,Gervaise leading, moved from the pillory, friendly for once, andstruck across the considerable open place. The hour was late andthe townspeople housed. They saw no one in all the square. But asthey came into the shadow of the great church tower they again heardvoices nearing them—roistering voices of young men, petty gallantsand citizens’ sons, homeward bound from some place of drinking andoutcasts’ favours. “The church porch,” motioned Gervaise. Like swallowsthey sped across and lodged themselves in the shadow-filled, cavernousplace.

  The roisterers came close, elected, indeed, just here to arrest theirsteps and finish out a dispute. “Black eyes are best!” averred one.“Grey eyes? Faugh! That vilest Hawthorn witch hath grey eyes! Ha, ha!Eyes like Joan Heron!”

  “That she hath not! They are green. A grey eye is well enough! Thatvile witch’s are green.”

  “Grey.”

  “I tell thee I saw them, green and wicked! Green beneath red gold hair.”

  “Grey! Grey as the sea, and hair like wheat when it is cut.”

  “Thou fool—”

  “Thou knave—”

  “Thou villain to liken my mistress’s eye to that of a vile witch anddevil’s whore! My sword shall make thee eat it—”

  “Will it? Will it? Out, tuck—”

  But a third and fourth, wiser or less flushed with wine, struckbetween. “Will you have the watch upon us and be clapped up for whethera vile witch’s eyes are grey or green? Grey or green or blue or blackor brown, ere the month be gone the crows will pick them out! Put upyour blades!—I told you so! The watch—”

  True it was that the watch was coming back. The roisterers fellsuddenly into hushed and amicable converse, began to move, too, frombefore the church. But the watch were coming hastily, were alreadywithin eyeshot of the porch. It was not so dark now, either.

  “The moon is up,” muttered Gervaise. “We should have been clear of thetown—”

  It was rising, indeed, above the housetops. The watch and the youngmen were in parley, fifty yards away. The four from the prison pressedmore closely into the shadow of the pillars. They stood in blacknessand watched the full round moon silver the houses and the uneven floorof the square. The moonbeams touched the portal, picked out the carvenfigures that adorned it. Watch and the explanatory tavern group,voices and glowworm lanterns moved farther, lessened into distance,disappeared in the dark mouth of some street. Windows had been opened,householders were looking forth. It needed to wait until all was againpeace and sleeping time.

  Aderhold spoke for the first time since the four had left the prisonalley. The apprentice youth stood near him. They leaned against theone pillar, and though they thought not of it, they had among otherseemings, in the lapping light and darkness, the seeming of two boundto one stake. He spoke in a whisper. “You are not afraid?”

  “No.”

  “I knew that you would not be. Little worse can come, and somethingthat is better may.”

  “Yes.... I had rather sink trying.”

  The moon whitened the carvings of the porch. Grotesque after grotesquecame into the light: the man with the head of a wolf, the woman with abat spreading its wings across her eyes, the demons, the damned, thebeatified exulting over the damned, fox and goat and ape crossed withman and woman. The silver, calm light turned all from black to grey.The wind whispered, the nearer stars shone, the moon travelled herancient road and threw transformed sunlight upon the earth. The minutespassed, the town lay fast asleep.

  Gervaise moved from the porch, the others followed. They would not passthrough the town; they took a steep street which led them first downto the river, and then, as steeply mounting, up to the castle wood.They went in silence, with a rapid step, and came without mishap underthe shadow of the summer trees. Here was a wall which they climbed,dropping from its top into fern and brush. Joan knew the path that theytook, a skirting path, walled with bracken, arched over by oak boughs.They heard wild things moving, but no human tongue questioned them. Itwas cool and dim, and because the moon was riding high and they mustmake all haste, they ran along this path which stretched a mile andmore. Gervaise was light and spare as a jester; the wry-mouthed, surly,one-time soldier strong enough, though somewhat rusty in the joints;Aderhold was a thinker who lived much out of doors, a leech who walkedto his patients, and where there was need walked fast; Joan, a woman ofArcady, with a step as light as a panther’s. These two had behind themprison inaction and weakening, prison fare, anxiety, despair, strain,and torment. They were not in health and strength as they had been.But instinct furnished a mighty spur; if they must run to live, theywould run! They ran in the scented darkness, the bracken brushing theirarms, the moon sending against them, between the oak boughs, a silverflight of hurtless arrows. The mile was overpast, the path widened intoa moonlit vale, the vale swept downward to a fringing cliff, by daynot formidable, but difficult in this gliding, watery light. The four,with some risk of broken limbs, swung themselves down by jutting rootand stone, dropped at last a sheer twelve feet, and found themselvesclear of the wood and the castle heights, clear of the town, out uponthe grassy edge of the London road. It stretched before them, gleaming,bare, silent as to the feet which even now might be coming after them,silent as to whether or no they would outstrip those feet, silent asto the ends that it would serve. They lay for a minute upon the bank,breathing hard, regathering force. An owl hooted, _Tu-whoo! Tu-whoo!_They rose from the wayside growth and took the road. It ran so hard andgleaming—it might be a friend, it might be an enemy! Over them soaredthe night, far off they saw sleeping houses. The air was astir, theshadows of the trees dancing on the road.

  They measured a mile, two miles. The road climbed somewhat; beforethem, in the flooding moonlight, they saw a gibbet with its arm anddown-hanging chains.

  “I know this place,” said Aderhold.

  The wry-mouthed man wagged his head. “Creak, creak! Once I saw fiftysuch in a lane, and the air was black with birds! This one’s stoodclean for a year.”

  It was like a letter against the sky. Joan stared at it. Her lipsparted. “I would cut it down and set fire to it, and warm some beggarand her child.”

  Gervaise was looking about him. “The crossroads are not far from here.He said—”

  “Stand still. There’s a horseman there.”

  Gervaise nodded his head and continued to move forward. The horsemanmoved from the lane mouth into the road. Even before Gervaise turnedand beckoned, Aderhold saw who it was. “The man with the hawk,” hesaid, and smiled.

  The man of the hawk and of the silver box dismounted, threw the reinsover his horse’s neck, and stepped forward to meet them. Road and laneand fields, the heap of rock amid fox-gloves where Aderhold had satone summer afternoon, the kn
oll crowned by the gibbet—all lay bare ofhuman life, whitened by the moon.

  “Ha, philosopher!” said Sir Richard. “Places called of ill omen areoften just the other way round! Well met again, under a harmless tree!”He put out his hand.

  Aderhold clasped it. “Poor enough to say, ‘I thank you, friend!’ Andyet enough when it is the very truth. I thank you, friend!”

  He spoke to Joan. “This is the man who opened our prison doors.”

  She came and stood beside him. “I thank you, sir. May you be throughall time a friend to folk and find them friends to you!”

  She stood tall and straight in man’s dress. She had cut away thelengths of hair. A man’s cap rested upon the short, thick locks. Atfirst she made no motion to remove this cap; instead, as she facedSir Richard, she made, involuntarily, the bend of knee that formed acurtsy; then, as instantly, she caught herself, recovered her height,and lifting her hand doffed the cap, and stood with it held against herbreast.

  The man from the castle gave a genial laugh. There was admiration inthe sound. “Quick to learn! A flexible free mind—and courage! Goodyouth, I seem to remember you at the old huntsman’s house.”

  “At times my father wrote for you, please you, Sir Richard. And twiceor thrice you came and sat in the porch and talked with him and myuncle. And once it was cherry time, and I brought you a dish ofcherries.”

  “I remember! And then you both went away.” His kindly look dwelled uponher. “I watched you through that five-days’ comedy in the JudgementHall yonder. I found it worth my mind’s while to watch you; no lessworth it than to watch this other that they called servant of Evil! Asfor thanks, it is yet to be seen if there is much reason.” He spoketo them both. “I am putting you on the road to the nearest port, andwhen you reach it I can bring you to a ship there. But before you reachit, you may be taken, and if you reach it and enter the ship, I cannotanswer for what will come to you afterwards in life. I may be no friendat all.”

  “Friend, whatever comes,” said Aderhold. “If we die to-morrow, friendon the other side of that.”

  “We’ll touch hands on that,” answered Sir Richard. “And now, seeingthat you must go on to the crossroads, I will speak while we walk.”

  They put themselves into motion, five human figures now upon the road,and the horse following his master. The two escaped prisoners andtheir helper moved ahead; behind them came Gervaise and the gaoler,discoursing in whispers. The moon shone down, the wind took a harp-liketone.

  “At the crossroads you four—Humphrey Lantern, that was a goodman-at-arms in the Low Countries, and Gervaise, a born wanderer and aman of mine between long flittings, and one Giles Allen, a chirurgeon,and John his brother—will take the road that runs to the port. If youreach it or reach it not, one wiser than I may tell! Gervaise knows aplace where you may lie hidden to-morrow, going on at nightfall. Youmay or may not save yourselves. On the way thither I can give you butmy wishes. But when you come to the port,—if you come to the port,—goat once to the harbour and find out the Silver Queen.” He gave a packetwrapped in silk to Aderhold. “Give the letter therein to the captain.There is also a purse.—Nay, the thing must be done rightly!”

  “The Silver Queen.”

  “The Silver Queen, sailing to Virginia. I have a venture in her,and the captain owes me somewhat. She carries a Virginia lading ofadventurers and indentured men.—In Virginia are forests and savagemen and wild beasts, but less preoccupation, maybe, with ExclusiveSalvation and the Guilt of Doubt—though even in Virginia a stilltongue were certainly best!—To Virginia is the only help that I cangive.”

  “I am content,” said Aderhold.

  The man of the hawk looked at Joan.

  “I am content,” she said.

  “Good!” said Sir Richard. “Humphrey Lantern is all for adventure anda new world. But Gervaise, when he has seen you safely shipped, willmanage to cross to Ireland and take service for a time with my brotherthere. Next year I’m for France, and I look to find Gervaise droppedlike an acorn on the road to Paris. But Lantern goes with you. What,good Humphrey, is now your name?”

  The red-faced, wry-mouthed man scratched his head. “I hadn’t thought,Your Honour.... George is a good name—George Dragon, Sir Richard.”

  The little company fell silent, walking in the moonlight upon a roadbare as a sword.... Behind Joan and Aderhold receded the old life,sunk away the town, the road to Hawthorn and Hawthorn and its church,the Oak Grange and Hawthorn Forest, people a many, the two Carthews,Master Thomas Clement, Alison, Cecily, other names, folk a many, thingsdone and suffered, old life. Before them stretched something new,strange life, bare as yet of feature as the road before them. Theirimaginations were not busy with it; they left it veiled, but yet theyfelt its presence.... Undoubtedly, even at this moment, even earlierthan this moment, their escape might be discovered. Already the hue andcry might be raised. Even now the finders might be on their track. Theymight be seized long ere they could reach the port, or, having reachedit, before they could reach the Silver Queen. The Silver Queen mightbe searched before it sailed. They might be dragged back. The gallowsand the stake might be cheated no moment of their prey. They mightagain see Hawthorn faces. They knew all this, but their thought did notdwell upon it. Their minds saw dimly something new, bare yet of feature.

  The man of the hawk walked musing beside Aderhold. At last he spoke.“We are not far from the crossroads. When we are there you will go yourways and I shall turn and go back to the castle.... If we grow by meansof all circumstance as it flows by and through us, how are you changedby what has lately passed?”

  “This summer,” said Aderhold, “I grew somewhat past bodily fear. Ishould like you to know that.”

  “I saw no great cowardice before.... How now do you feel toward yourfellow man?”

  “My fellow man is myself.”

  “And toward that which we call God?”

  “As I did.... I seek that which is high within me.”

  The other nodded. “I understand....” They walked on in silence untilthey saw before them the crossroads. Aderhold remembered the raggedtrees, the dyke-like bank, the stake through the heart of the suicide.The night was wearing late. The moon shone small and high. Charles’sWain was under the North Star. The five came to a stand, and here thefour said good-bye to the one.