The Witch

by Mary Johnston

  CHAPTER XXIV

  THE FARTHER ROAD

  WHAT were Gervaise’s and Lantern’s adventures they would hear whenthey reached The Moon. Their own, throughout this day, led them to noharm. They had been for long in the hand of Ill Fortune; it seemed nowthat she slept and her grasp relaxed. The first outward happening camequickly, ere the sun was an hour high. They were crossing a heath-like,shelterless expanse, when a sudden _Hilloa!_ halted them. Two men wererapidly approaching over the heath.

  “If we can, we will evade them,” said Aderhold. “If we cannot and theywould keep us by force—?”

  “They are not wrestlers nor giants,” answered Joan. “If they have noweapon, mayhap we can give them as good as they send—”

  The two ran up, looked at them suspiciously. “What do you here? Who areyou?”

  “Nay, who are _you_?” said Aderhold. “We are lookers for a reward.”

  The opposing pairs stood and eyed each other. The newcomers were twolank and unhealthy-looking, plainly dressed, town-appearing young men.

  “Fie!” said one. “We also search, but not for love of lucre and silverpounds in purses! We would serve God by stamping his foes into dust!”

  “Which way have you looked?”

  The more garrulous of the two swept his arm around. “Unless the Princeof the Power of the Air hath held them invisible to the eyes of theElect, they are not in that direction nor in that! My companion, OnlyTruth Turner, and I were about to seek in the quarter to which I seeyou are addressed. Let us, then, seek for a while in company. And what,friends, may be your names?”

  “I am Relative Truth Allen, otherwise known as Giles Allen, and this ismy brother, Be-ye-kind-to-one-Another.—Four together, is it not so?Three fierce, foreign-looking men, and a short, dark woman.”

  “We didn’t,” said Only Truth, “hear them described. But there willassuredly be some devil’s mark whereby to know them.”

  They were now moving together over the heath. Each of the four had astout stick, broken at some time in their several journeyings. Withtheirs the two townsmen now and again beat some clump of furze orthorn. Once a hare rushed forth and away, and once a lark spread itswings and soaring vanished into the blue. “Do you think,” said thespeaker, whose name was Wrath Diverted, “do you think that that hareand bird might have been—? I understand that in the trial the Hawthornwitches all avowed that they became bird or beast at will.”

  Aderhold followed the lark with his eyes. “I have seen human beingswho reminded me of bird or beast, and I have seen bird and beast whoreminded me of human beings. If that one up yonder is a witch, she hathstrength of wing!”

  The lark disappeared; the hare came not back. “Even so,” said OnlyTruth, “there would be two left. But I hold that those were naturalcreatures.”

  They walked through the bright morning, over the high bare world. “Wecame out,” said Wrath Diverted, “to see my brother Another-Pays-my-Debtwho dwells at Win-Grace Farm. Yesterday came news of the loosing ofBeelzebub. Whereupon many made themselves into bands and went fortheven as hunters, and at dawn this morning Only Truth and I also.”

  “Let us keep our faces seaward,” said Aderhold. “You have looked thatway and we have looked this.”

  “Good,” answered Wrath Diverted; “but we should examine that dip in theearth I see yonder.”

  They searched the hollow and found naught to the purpose, which done,they went briskly on, but kept a constant watch to right and left.“This heath,” said Wrath Diverted, “will presently fall to tilled landswith roads and dwellings, byways and hedges. Then there will be placesto search, but here there is naught—Were you at the trial of thetroublers of Israel?”

  He spoke to Joan. “No,” she answered. “We heard of it. Everybody heardof it.”

  “For my part,” said Only Truth, “I cannot conceive how a man when hehath choice of masters should choose so scurvy an one! Here is a Kingwhom you may serve who, if in this world He seemeth at times neglectfulof his servants and niggardly in comforts and rewards, yet, when youhave come to the next world which is his true city and court, you havehis sign manual for it that you will have honours and titles and richeswithout end! Moreover, your body will be happy and comforted, and youwill not again be sorrowful or tried, nor ever have to work, but onlystand and praise.—Not so with that other man, who will not kneel herenor wear this Master’s livery! Comes King Satan and claps him, ‘You aremine!’ Then mayhap he is led to a dance of unlawful and honey-sweetpleasures, or is given a heap of gold, or is dressed in a purple mantleand given a sceptre to hold, or is made drunk with worthless knowledge!But it is all a show and turneth to gall and wormwood. For incontinenthe dieth. Nay, oftenest there is not in his hire the honey-sweet northe gold and purple! For the other King’s servant even here triumpheth,and Satan’s man dieth a lazar and poor, even if he be not hanged, tornasunder, broken on the wheel, or burned. Then goeth the wicked wretchto his Master’s capital and court, even as the good man goeth to his.But the one servant lifteth his feet in haste from burning marl andfindeth no cool floor to set them on. He swalloweth smoke and flamesand findeth no water in all hell. His flesh blackeneth to a crisp, butis never burned senseless. A million years pass, and not one second buthe hath felt first pain and terror. Eternity, eternity! and never willhis anguish lessen. He looketh about him and seeth those for whom hehad affection—for like liketh like—burning with him, and about theirfeet, creeping and wailing, the unbaptized babes. He looketh up, and heseeth across the gulf the other King’s court, and the Happy Servant.And the Happy Servant looketh down and seeth him, and his own blisswaxeth great. Wherefore—”

  Wrath Diverted took the word. “Nay! You err, Brother Only Truth, inusing the word ‘choice.’ There is no choice, none!—that is, none onour part. Attribute no merit to us who attain Salvation! Attain it, doI say? Nay, we attain it not, we are _lifted_ into it. Another pays mydebt!”

  “Nay, I meant it in that wise,” said Only Truth. “A babe in the faithknoweth that all are rightly lost and damned. Lost, lost! all are lost.Five thousand and more years ago it happened! One day, nay, one hour,one minute—and all was done and over! Then all souls sank to hell, andall put on Satan’s livery. In hell are folk who have burned and howledfive thousand years! Lost, lost, all are lost! But the King, because ofthe Prince’s intercession, holds out his sceptre to those among us whomhe chooses out. But we have no goodness or merit of our own! Miserablesinners are we all, and the due of perdition!”

  “Precisely so,” said Wrath Diverted. “In Adam’s fall, we sinned all.Wherefore they in hell, whether they be pagan or heathen or ignorantor babes, have no reason to complain. But while all are guilty therebe some who have added rebellion to rebellion, and sewed the web ofdisobedience with the needle of blasphemy! They be those who refuse toworship! They be those who will not admire the Plan of Salvation!”

  “Aye,” said Only Truth. “Apostates, Sadducees, atheists, miscreants,infidels, unbelievers, witches, warlocks, wizards, magicians, andsorcerers! Damned and lost! They howl in the hottest cauldron and burnin a furnace seven times heated!”

  So discoursing they came insensibly into a strip of country, green andpleasant with late summer. Before them was a hillside with a parcel ofchildren at play, a dozen or more, and among them a big boy or two.These now gathered into a knot and stared down at the pedestrians.“Four—coming across Blackman’s Heath!”

  There arose a buzzing sound, half from fright, half from a sense ofexciting adventure. One bolder than his fellows called down. “Be youthe witches?”

  “Witches!—witches—!”

  “They be all men—”

  “Ho! Satan could make them all seem men! They pray to Satan and he letsthem turn what they will. Bats and red mice and ravens and horses—”

  “So he could! Witches!”

  “They be four, and they come running over Blackman’s Heath—”

  A stone leaped down the hillside. Another followed, and struck OnlyTruth, who grew red an
d angry and brandished his stick. The assailantsshouted, half in fear, half in glee, and gave somewhat back; thenseeing that they were safe, well above the assailed and with the openhill behind them, stopped and threw more stones. Only Truth would havemade after them, up the hillside, but Aderhold checked him. “Do notfight bees and children—”

  They were presently out of stoneshot. But the children might carry newsand set others on their path. “Those escaped are four,” said Aderholdto Wrath Diverted, “and we are four. It will not be convenient to bestopped and questioned on that ground.”

  “I believe that you are right,” answered Wrath Diverted. “Moreover,you and your brother are evidently country-bred, and walk more swiftlythan is comfortable for us who dwell in towns. Let us part, thereforein amity. I see yonder a road which should furnish easier walking thanthis growth and unevenness beneath our feet.”

  “Then,” said Aderhold, “we, being as you say, country-bred, will keepon seaward over these fields and downs.”

  An hour later the two lay in a pit dug long since for some purposeand now half filled with old dead brush, while a formidable chasewent by. These were mounted men, officers of the law, armed with anaccurate description, among them, indeed, a sheriff’s man who knew theescaped by sight. They came trampling by; they looked down into thepit as they passed, and thought they saw true bottom and naught therebut a litter of dead leaves and twigs; they checked their horses notmany yards from the opening and stood conferring. Their voices camedown in an indistinguishable hoarse murmur like the sea against thestrand. They shook their bridles and rode away.... The two, who hadlain half-stifled, covered by the bed of brush, stirred, heaved thestuff away, rose gasping to their knees. Silence and the blue sky. Theycrouched, eye above the rim of the pit, until sight gave reassurance,then climbed forth and brushed from each other dead leaf and ancientdust.

  “That was like a grave,” said Joan.

  Aderhold stood gazing, his hand above his eyes. “Far off yonder—thatis ocean.”

  “Where?”

  They stood in silence. About them was sunny stillness; far off lay thesapphire streak. Tension—action—the mind held to an arduous matter inhand—in the moments between, exhaustion, concern only with rest—sohad passed the time since they had crept from the gaol into the blackgaol alley. Now suddenly there came a sense of relaxation, then ofpoise, then of time before them. Years—there might be years.... Eventhat set amount and partition dissolved like a mist. They were going tobe together, and their minds placed no term.

  They were, the two of them, sincere and powerful natures. Now theyceased to look at the ocean which their bodies would sail, and turnedand met each other’s eyes.... Another division melted from betweenthem. He had been to her a learned man, of a station higher than herown. She had said “Sir,” and “Master Aderhold.” He was still, throughcircumstance, more learned than she, with a wider range of knowledgeand suffering, with a subtler command of peace and mind’s joy. But shehad power to learn and to suffer and to weave joy; there was no naturalinequality. The other inequality, the unevenness in station, now meltedinto air. Given substance only by long convention, it now faded like adream and left a man and woman moulded of one stuff, peers, unity intwain.

  “The ocean!” said Joan: “to sail upon the ocean! What things happenthat once you thought were dreams!”

  “Aye,” said Aderhold. “Long to the height—imagine to the height—buildin the ether....”

  They moved toward the sea. The country was not populous. Avoidingas they did all beaten ways, taking cover where they might of woodor hillside, they seemed to have come into a realm of security.They were faint with hunger. Before them rose a solitary cottagebowered in trees. After weighing it this way and that, they wentforward soft-footed, and peered from behind a stout hedge of thorn. Ablue feather curled from the chimney, the door stood open, and on asunny-space of grass three young women were spreading linen to bleach.They hummed and chattered as they worked; they were rosy and comely,and looked kind.

  Aderhold spoke with his hands on the top of the gate. “Maidens, willyou give two hungry folk a bite and a sup? We can pay a penny for it.”

  The three looked up and stood in doubt; then one ran to the cottagedoor. An elderly woman, tall and comely, appeared, hearkened to herdaughter, then stepped across the bit of green to the gate. “Be youvagrants and masterless men?”

  “No,” answered Aderhold. “We are honest folk seeking work, which welook to find in the port. We are not far from it, good mistress?”

  “Less than three miles by the path, the lane, and the road,” said thewoman. “You can see the roofs and towers and, if you listen, hear thechurch bells.”

  They were, indeed, ringing, a faint, silver sound. Aderhold listened;then, “We are very hungry. If we might buy a loaf of you we would eatit as we walked—”

  “Nay, I’ll give you bread,” said the woman. “I or mine might be hungry,too, sometime—and what odds if we never were!” She spoke to one ofthe three standing amid the bleaching linen. “Alice! get the new-bakedloaf—”

  Alice turned toward the cottage. The two others came nearer to thegate. The church bells were still ringing, fine and far and faint. Theyseemed to bring something to the woman’s mind. “They say they’ve takenthe Hawthorn folk who ran from prison.”

  “Where—”

  “Two men came by and told us. A miller and his men and dogs tookthem last night. They fought with fire and Satan was seen above themill-wheel. But they took them all, the two men said, and gave themto the nearest constable, and so now the countryside can rest.” Shestood with her capable air of strength and good nature, looking overthe green earth to the distant town. “There must be witches becauseGod wrote the Bible and it cannot be mistaken. Otherwise, of course,there are a lot of things.... I used to know Hawthorn when I was agirl. And Roger Heron. More years than one I danced with him about themaypole—for then we had maypoles.”

  “Roger Heron!” It was Joan who spoke.

  “Aye. I was thinking.... He’s dead of the plague. And his daughter’sJoan Heron, the main witch. Life’s a strange thing.”

  Her daughter brought the loaf of bread and also a pitcher of milk andtwo earthenware cups. The other girls left the white, strewn linen anddrew near. The cottage was a lonely one, and few passed, and by natureall were kind-hearted and social. Alice gave a cup to each of thewanderers, and then, tilting the pitcher, filled the cups with milk.Giles and John Allen thanked her and, hungry and thirsty to exhaustion,drank and were refreshed.

  But Joan, when she had put down the cup, moved nearer to the mother ofthe three. “Did you ever see—the witch?”

  The woman, who had been listening to the church bells, turned herstrong and kindly face. “Roger Heron brought her here once when she wasa child. There was no ill in her then—or I saw it not. Roger Heronshould not have had an evil child. There was little evil in him.”

  The middle daughter was more prim of countenance than the others. Shenow put on a shocked look. “But, mother! That is to deny Original Sinand Universal Guilt!”

  The elder woman made a gesture with her hand. It had in it a slightimpatience. “I do not mean,” she said, “that we haven’t all ofeverything in us. But Roger Heron was a good man.”

  “Ah!” said the youngest daughter, “how any one can be a witch and hurtand harm, and be lost for aye, and leave a vile name—”

  “Aye,” said the second; “to know that your name was Joan Heron, andthat it would be a byword for a hundred years!”

  “I am glad that Roger Heron died of the plague and waited not for abroken heart,” said the mother, and took the pitcher from the grass.“How far have you walked to-day?”

  Aderhold answered. Presently, the loaf of bread in hand, he said thatthey must go on if they would reach the port before night, and thatthey gave warm thanks for kindness.... They left the friendly cottagewith the sunny spread of grass and the bleaching linen and the kindlywomen. A dip of the land, a turn of the path, and al
l vanished as ifthey had sunk into earth. Before them, fraying the horizon, they sawthe distant town.

  Aderhold spoke. “You were there when you were a child. Do you rememberit?”

  She answered. “I remembered at last—not at first: not plainly. Iremember the sea.”

  Her voice was broken. He looked and saw that she was weeping.

  He had not seen her so since the last time he had come to Heron’scottage, and she had wept for her father’s death. There had been noweeping in prison, nor in that Judgement Hall, nor since. He knewwithout telling that though she felt grief, she controlled grief. Butnow, startled by a tide she had not looked for, control was beatendown. All about them was a solitariness, a green and silent, sunnyworld. She struggled for a moment, then with a gesture of wild sorrow,sank upon a wayside rise of earth and hid her face. “Weep it out,” saidAderhold in a shaken voice; “it will do you good.”

  He stood near her, but did not watch her or touch her. Instead hebroke the loaf of bread into portions and kept a lookout north andsouth and east and west. No human being came into range of vision. Theslow minutes went by, then came Joan’s voice, broken yet, but steadyingwith every word. “All that is over now—I’ll not do that again.”

  She came up to him and took a piece of the bread. “Let us go on. We caneat it as we go.”

  They walked on.

  “It was Gervaise and Lantern,” said Aderhold, “who told her that taleof a capture at the mill. They are ahead.... I have seen brave men andwomen, but I have seen none braver than you, Joan.... Life is verygreat. There are in it threads of all colours and every tone that is,and if happiness is not stable, neither is misery. You are brave—bebrave enough to be happy!”

  The sun declined, the town ahead grew larger against a soft and vividsky. Now they could see the harbour and that there were ships atanchor. They now met, overtook, or were passed by people. Some spoke,some went on preoccupied, but none stopped and questioned them. Theyentered the town by a travelled way, slipping in with a crowd of cartsand hucksters. Within, and standing for a moment looking back, they sawcoming with dust and jingling the party that had passed them lying inthe pit.

  They turned, struck into a narrow way that led downward to the sea, andcame upon the waterside in the red sunset light. A fishwife crossedtheir path. “The Moon Tavern? Yonder, beyond the nets.” They came toit in the dusk, its sign a great, full moon with a man, a dog, and athornbush on the golden ground. As it loomed before them, Gervaisestepped from the shadow of a heap of timber. “Greeting, Giles and John!George Dragon and I have been here this hour.—And yonder lies theSilver Queen.”