The Witch

by Mary Johnston

  CHAPTER XXXI

  THE HOUR-GLASS

  THEY were moving with the second mate through a busy street, towarda harsh old pile of buildings. The mate was a watchful man. To startaside from him into some court or lane or other street, to elude himand vanish, was from the start a clearly hopeless thing. Did theytry it he would raise a hue and cry. They went with him in silence,watching Fate to see what she would do.

  The street was narrow, the houses dark, and high, with overhangingstoreys, with swinging signs. Above showed only one pale stripe of sky.There were booths and shops, with an occasional stentor crying of “Whatd’ye lack?—What d’ye lack?” Many people went up and down—type aftertype that Aderhold recalled. The years since he had been in Londonhad made no great difference. He thought that he discerned more partymen—in many a greater stiffness of bearing, a darker hue and plainercut in apparel. The chance words and phrases caught in passing had aninterest....

  In old, old days there had come to him at times of crisis, adetachment, an awareness of impersonality, a perception that, actorhere, he was no less spectator of his action, safe in further spaceand time. The perception returned, and came with greater strength thanever before, and with it, too, an old sense of deepening light. Heturned his face toward Joan beside him.... She was gazing upon Londontown, her grey eyes calm and bright, her lips parted, rose colour inher cheeks. In a manner she looked as young, as free from care anddanger as when, on a holiday, Joan Heron had come with her father fromthe huntsman’s house in the castle wood and had strolled here andthere and to and fro in the town six miles from Hawthorn. She lookedas young and like a girl, and yet the next moment there moved besidehim the woman, the mind and soul that had grown. But the calmness held,the bright stillness, the manner of radiance. She put out her hand andtouched Aderhold’s. “Do you feel it?—I felt only fear this morning,but now, somehow, I do not believe that I shall ever feel fear again.The things that were so great have become little.”

  The early morning had been clear, but the sky, overcast when they leftthe Eagle, was now darkening rapidly. There came a silver dash of rain,increasing to a downpour. With slanted bodies and bent heads men andwomen hastened to shelter. Some hurried on to destinations not so faraway; others, with farther to go, took present refuge under overhangingeaves or in doorways. The rain fell with a steady, rushing sound; thegutters began to fill and overflow; the air grew dark and still. “Standby,” said the mate, “until the cloud empties!” The three stepped underthe cover of an antique porch, so jutting from the building of which itmade a part that the street had been forced to bend. Others were herebefore them, perhaps a dozen in all. Some were citizens, three or fourcountry or small town people, viewing the sights of London. These hadwith them for guide and showman some city friend.

  The latter was speaking with distinctness, in a cheerful and complacentvoice. “This was one of the old religious houses. Over yonder used tobe a field where in Queen Mary’s time they burned people.”

  The country folk looked with interest, not at the old religious house,but at the row of small buildings where once had been the field.

  One spoke. “Did you ever see a man or woman burned?”

  “No,” said the citizen. “It’s dying out. They mostly hang people now.”

  A man in a sad-coloured dress spoke with an abrupt, harsh voice. “Thereare sins that you should burn for. I believe not in your weak mercy.What is good enough for God on High is good enough for me. He burnssinners. If you do not believe in burning sinners, you do not believein God as shown forth in his written Word.”

  “I think witches should be burned,” said the citizen.

  The first country speaker put in his word again. “I saw one burned oncewhen I was a young man! She was a tall, fair wench, and when the flameswent up around her she cried out only one thing to the crowd of uswatching. She cried it thrice. ‘When you feel fire, feel what you havebelieved!’”

  “What did she mean?” asked the citizen.

  “I do not know,” answered the countryman. “There’s been an outbreak ofwitches this summer! They’re getting very bold in the North. If youhear of one, the next day you hear of another. For one thing, as soonas there’s known to be a witch abroad, people are on the lookout—”

  The downpour of rain had lessened into a shower.

  “Make sail!” said the mate.

  Leaving the porch, the three from the Eagle moved on up the narrowstreet between the rain-washed houses. They were now at no greatdistance from their destination. As they walked the two tried to hearthe questions that would be put to them and to frame answers.... Butit was difficult, difficult. In both the impulse that was gatheringstrength, that was, as they both now began to perceive, the destinedconqueror, was the impulse still to serve the truth. They were notfanatic, and they loved life. But side by side with the recognitionthat hardly, hardly could they escape, that they would have to make atissue of statements that could and in all human likelihood would bedisproved, streamed stronger and stronger the distaste for that web ofmisstatement, the liking for a plain relation of their being and itsacts. They were conscious of no ecstasy, no hot, martyr enthusiasm, butdirection was taken. With that deep inward movement came to each afeeling of strengthened personality, of unison, harmony....

  The wet and glistening street, the houses, the roofs, the sky, thepeople passing up and down,—the windows, the signs—Before them theysaw a swinging tavern sign, painted and cut in the shape of a greathourglass. The tavern had a wide window, overhanging the street, and inthe window, as the three from the Eagle came in line with it, appearedthe ruddy, determined face of the agent of the Company. He lookedout upon the street from which the rain had in great part driven thepeople; saw and hailed his fellow voyagers.

  “Well met, good folk! Whither away—”

  The second mate told the port to which they were making. The man in thewindow was a person of importance to the Eagle and its seamen. The matespoke with deference, and was ready to listen when the agent proposedthat he and the two shipwrecked folk enter the Hour-Glass and drink acup of wine. He knew that the agent had seemed to have a liking for thecastaways—and they were not precisely folk under suspicion, but onlyto be, as it were, certified for. The agent spoke again with a touch ofauthority, and the mate said, “Very good, sir, and thank you kindly! Afew minutes won’t matter.”

  The determined-faced man had the inn’s best room and had it to himself.He welcomed into it Giles and Ellice Herne, but left the mate in thecommon room with the host and a command for what he pleased to drink.

  The mate spoke again. “I’m ordered, sir, not to let the shipwreckedpeople out of my sight.”

  “If you stay where you are you will see them still,” said the agent.“There is but one door to this room, and I leave it open.”

  The room had a sanded floor, a table, and benches. Outside the cloudswere parting, and now a stormy sunlight broke through the window. Thestreet began again to fill with people and their voices came confusedlyinto the room. A drawer brought wine.

  “I frequent this inn,” said the agent. “Moreover, by good luck, Ifind that a man whom I greatly desire to see is in London and sleepshere at the Hour-Glass. I await him now, and in the mean time lackentertainment.—I was glad to see you coming up the street.” He pouredwine. “Here’s to the Eagle and freedom!—Has England changed to youreyes?”

  “Yes and no,” said Aderhold.

  Bow bells were ringing. The sunlight suddenly flooded the room. Withoutthe door the mate’s rumbling voice was heard. “Two castaways—”

  “I have been gone a year,” said the agent. “The man that I am lookingfor is a coming man in England, and I expect to learn from him—”

  The agent and Aderhold were standing by the table, but Joan had seatedherself where through the open casement she could see the clearingsky. The movement brought her into the shaft of light. It bathed, itetherealized face and form. She looked an immortal.... Placed so,she came first before the eye when th
e man, whose step was now heardwithout, swung the door wider and entered the room.

  The agent started from the table. “Ha, Harry Carthew! I looked to findyou—”

  But Carthew had neither eye nor ear for the returned acquaintance andfellow-resister of the King. Harry Carthew stood like a man turned tostone.... Six years alone could not have made him look so much older.He looked much older—a stern and worn man, with a grim mouth and eyeswhere enthusiasm now burned bright and now sank among the embers ofitself. He was dressed much as he used to dress. It was the face andfigure of the man who had come to Heron’s cottage, but there had been along warfare in the nature and some degree of change. He stood starklysilent, with a great, arrested look, as if the very elements of hisbeing stood still.... Joan, rising, passed from the beam of light intothe shadow by Aderhold. They stood side by side, hand touching hand.With a final crash and clangour the bells stopped ringing.

  “What is it?” demanded the agent. “You know these people—”

  Carthew moistened his lips. They parted, but at first there came forthonly an uncertain and broken sound. Then,—“You were long sought. Butwhen the Silver Queen came back from Virginia we learned that you hadescaped upon her, but had been thrown from her for what you were, andwere dead. Years ago ... and you stand there....”

  The mate of the Eagle came to the door. “Sir, may we be going now?”

  The agent crossed to him. “Not yet. Wait a little, there without—”A voice spoke from behind the mate. “I am with Master Carthew. I mayenter, sir?”

  The agent turned back into the room, and with him came a slight manwith a steeple-crowned hat and a Geneva cloak. Joan and Aderhold facedMaster Thomas Clement.

  At last there came from the minister’s lips, “Thou witch! Thou atheistand sorcerer!”

  The agent of the Company struck his hand against the table. “Who arethese?”

  Harry Carthew turned and walked stiffly to the window-seat. When hereached it he sank down, rested his locked arms against the sill, andhis forehead upon his arms. But Master Clement was of more iron make.His long forefinger shot out toward the two; he raised his arms, theblack cloak falling away from them, his small figure dilated; he shookhis lean and nervous hands; his voice, beginning on a low tone, grewshrill and rapid; his eyes burned. Zeal for the honour of his God hadhim.

  “Who are they? Scorners of God and deniers of Revelation! Yoke-fellowswith Satan and blaspheming workers and doers of evil! Who are they?Breakers forth from prison and just doom—cheaters of stake andgallows—froth of hell! Who are they? Say not that you have forgottenthe Hawthorn trials!”

  “The Hawthorn trials!”

  “Who in England heard not of them? Of the wicked certain ones werehanged, but there broke gaol and escaped the unbeliever and sorcererGilbert Aderhold and the witch Joan Heron!” He stretched his armshigher, he shook his hands more vehemently. “But God for his glory,” hesaid, “bringeth them back!”

  Aderhold and Joan stood straight and silent. The shock of the encounterhad driven the colour from cheek and lip, but there was no othersign of cowing. They knew now that they were in the arms of death.The knowledge did not frighten. This very day they had taken theirdirection—they were moving now as they had determined.... The agentleaned against the table, pale and staring.

  Aderhold turned and spoke to him. “Our names are Joan Heron andGilbert Aderhold. We are not witch and sorcerer—nor yoke-fellows withSatan—nor blasphemers of good. But we were judged by our neighboursand by the law to be such, and we were condemned to death and put inprison. By the help of a gaoler who is dead we escaped. We managed tostow ourselves upon the Silver Queen. In the seas near the island wherethe Eagle found us, our names were discovered and the Silver Queencast us adrift. By this fortune and by that we came first to a largerisland and then to the islet from which the Eagle took us. That, sofar as is needful to tell you, is our story. You have been good to us,knowing only what we showed. If you will believe, what we showed wasourselves.”

  Joan’s voice, a rich, clear, low voice, followed his. “I am no witch,and he is no sorcerer. I was a country girl and he a physician whohelped many. Now we are a man and woman who fare forward, wishing noill to any.”

  As she spoke she moved, unconsciously, a step nearer to the table. Theagent of the Company recoiled, put out his hand against her closerapproach. In his face was a white horror. He remembered the Hawthornwitch trial. That year he had chanced to be in company with the elderCarthew, and no detail but had been given him. The very words of aballad made upon the witch Joan Heron came into mind—forgotten, hemight have thought, long since, but now flashing out in letters offire—hell fire. It had been a ballad sold and bought throughoutEngland, and it spared no strange assertion, nor none that was gross._The Witch Joan Heron._ The ballad rang in his ears. He saw its title.THE ABHORRED WITCH; or, THE MONSTROUS LIFE OF JOAN HERON.... A look ofsickness passed over the agent’s face, no longer ruddy. He put his armabove his eyes. “Avaunt, witch!” he said.

  Joan stepped back. Her eyes sought Aderhold’s. He bent toward her, tookher hands. She smiled and said in the Indian tongue they had learnedupon that island. “Heart of my heart! The great sea is cold at first—”

  “Hark!” cried Master Clement. “She speaks the tongue she learned ofApollyon!”

  Harry Carthew rose from the window-seat. His face was yet withoutcolour, drawn and sunken, grim and set. For the most part, with aniron effort, he kept his voice under control, but now it broke andsank and now it took a cadence of pain and horror. He leaned againstthe wall for support, and once or twice he lifted his eyes to where,in his thought, there sat God whom he had angered. “Master Clement,and my friend here,” he said, “God knows I cannot doubt that this manis a sorcerer and this woman a witch! In his Bible God tells us thatthere are such and commands that they be done to death. Moreover, fromold time, wise judges and men of law and knowledge, and devout andholy preachers of the Word have showed us how these wicked abound! Asfor these two, all manner of witness was brought against them, andproof irrefragable. Yea, and those who were hanged confessed thatthese two kept by day and by night companionship with Satan and didmonstrous wickednesses. And that the man is an apostate and blasphemer,an atheist worthy of death, has been proved—nay, he himself deniednothing in that sort. All that, and the doom pronounced against them,in this world and in the next, stands for true and lasting, and I haveno part in it, and there the shadow comes not against me.... But thereis a sin upon my soul, and God gives me no rest until I tell it—”He wheeled toward Master Clement. “I will tell it here and now, andappoint me a day and I will tell it in open church—So may offended Godpardon me!”

  “Harry Carthew! Harry Carthew!” cried Master Clement. “Every man alivehas sin against his soul! The soul of every man alive is black asmidnight, and no dawn cometh to it save from one that is not himself!Unless and save the dayspring chooseth to shine upon that soul, itresteth black and lost—it hath in itself no power of motion and light!But God hath elected thee, Harry Carthew! But this man and woman are ofthe deep gulf of hell, predestined and damned of eternity! What haveyou to do with them, my brother, my son—for Christ knoweth I love theeas a son—”

  “What had I to do with them?” said Carthew. “I will tell you! Atthe trial in the town I gave evidence that he struck me in the sidewith a dagger that eve upon his road to prison. I lied. Sorcerer andatheist though he be, he told truth when he said that he did not so.And witch though she be, this woman told truth when there in the courtshe cried out against me. She told truth when she cried that thatnight I had come to her cottage to tempt her and that she struck mewith a hunting-knife.... What was I? I was a young man, mad for afair woman—fair as her mother Eve who sinned before her! What wasI? I was a man desirous to increase in name and fame, desirous ofleadership—who therefore must not let men view his sin! But it wassin, and I know not if there be a greater—”

  If he began as to a more general audience, he ended with a haggard-eyedappeal to
Master Clement.... The minister’s frame trembled; with a paleand scared face he fronted Harry Carthew whom he truly loved. “HarryCarthew! Harry Carthew! Pray to God—”

  “I pray,” said Carthew. “Night and day, I wrestle in prayer. I thoughtthat He had answered and given me peace in service. The moment I ceasedto serve and to act for this England, that moment Gehenna opened inmy soul.... But now I see that He wanteth open confession.” He turnedupon the two where they stood beyond the shaft of light. “Joan Heron,I wronged you,—and Gilbert Aderhold, I wronged you,—and that I mustsay, though you be the Fiend’s own! I must say it, though I stood inheaven and looked across the gulf upon you in hell—” He sank upon abench by the table and flung his clasped hands above his head. “God,God! Grant me but to save my soul alive!”

  Silence held in the room at the Hour-Glass. The agent of the Companyleaned against the table, white and shaken. Master Clement came toCarthew, put his hand on his shoulder, and spoke in a tremblingvoice. “A great sin verily, and greatly to be repented.... But notthe great sin, Harry Carthew—not the Unpardonable Sin.... God willhave mercy. He will forgive. Have you not served Him well, and willyou not do so, ever the more zealously? And will you not forever moreguard your ways, that you fall not again into the pit? I trow that youwill! Harry Carthew—Harry Carthew, we will pray together! You are toovaluable—This very night I will come, and on our knees we will wrestlewith Him as did Jacob of old—”

  Joan and Aderhold stood hand in hand. What now they felt and thoughtwas simple and whole. This room with its occupants seemed not to haveover-greatly to do with them—it had widened out—they felt a largerworld.... It was as though these old quarrels were childish concernsand fears and quarrels—small, intense, unknowing things—childish,pitiful. They felt them so, and yet they did not feel old, they feltyoung....

  Aderhold spoke, again to the agent of the Company. “Knowing nothingof our story, save that we were shipwrecked folk, you showed us muchkindness. It does not hurt to take the thanks of shipwrecked folk.Believe that we are grateful for that kindness. This is to end, weknow, in giving us into the hands of the law. Then let them call thosewho will take us.”

  Carthew rose from the seat where he had thrown himself. What wildemotion had possessed and actuated him was driven to cover andstillness. His face was grey, but set and grim with no softening in itslines. He would have said that softening were further sin. Out like aburned candle had gone long since his passion for Joan Heron that hadnever been high love.

  His eyes met those of Master Clement, “Aye,” he said, “end it!”

  Master Clement nodded, turned, and left the room.

  There was, it seemed, no great distance to send, and those sent forwere not long in coming. Without the Hour-Glass it was now brightafternoon and many people going up and down. Whenever and whereverwatch or ward was summoned the act of its summoning was apt immediatelyto become known. It was so here and now, and a crowd began to gatherbefore the Hour-Glass. How there started a whisper of heinous crime,of escaped and retaken caitiffs, it were hard to say. Perhaps the hostor the now staring and greatly excited mate of the Eagle had heardsomewhat and had repeated what he had heard. But there started a murmurwhich grew to a buzzing sound and threatened to become clamour. “Whatwas done?—Who is it? Ho, there, Hour-Glass! What happened?” The lawappeared—half a dozen burly armed men with an officer at their head.“Within the Hour-Glass! Let us pass, good people, let us pass!” Theyentered the tavern. Outside the crowd and the noise grew. “Traitors?”cried one, and another, “Poisoners?” but a third, “I can see throughthe window. It’s a woman—_Witch! Witch!_”