Mary J. L. Me Donald 
 
 T73 
 
(p. IS*) 
 
 " GOOD-BYE, MISTRESS FRIENDLY-SOUL! 
 
 I " 
 
THE WITCH 
 
 BY 
 
 MARY JOHNSTON 
 
 I 
 
 WITH FRONTISPIECE BY 
 N. C. WYETH 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 GEOSSET & DUNLAP 
 
 PUBLISHERS 
 
COPYRIGHT, 1914, BY MARY JOHNSTON 
 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 
 
 Published October iqt4 
 
 
 ': V 
 
 
I 
 
 ui 
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 I. THE QUEEN'S CHAMBER . i 
 
 II. THE CAP AND BELLS . . . 10 
 
 III. THE Two PHYSICIANS . . .24 
 
 IV. THE ROSE TAVERN 57 
 V. THE ROAD TO HAWTHORN . . 54 
 
 VI. THE MAN WITH THE HAWK . . 69 
 
 VII. JOAN 82 
 
 VIII. THE SQUIRE'S BROTHER . . . 97 
 
 IX. THE OAK GRANGE . . . .109 
 
 X. IN HAWTHORN FOREST . . 124 
 
 XI. THE PLAGUE ..... 136 
 
 XII. HERON'S COTTAGE . . . 151 
 
 XIII. HAWTHORN CHURCH . . . 165 
 
 XIV. NIGHT 176 
 
 XV. NEXT DAY 188 
 
 XVI. MASTER THOMAS CLEMENT . . 204 
 
 XVII. MOTHER SPURAWAY . . . .218 
 
 XVIII. THE GAOL ..... 235 
 
 XIX. ADERHOLD AND CARTHEW . . .246 
 
 XX. THE WITCH JUDGE . . . 260 
 
 980515 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 XXI. THE WITCH . . . .272 
 
 XXII. ESCAPE 281 
 
 XXIII. THE ROAD TO THE PORT . . . 298 
 
 XXIV. THE FARTHER ROAD . . . 312 
 XXV. THE SILVER QUEEN. . . .327 
 
 XXVI. THE OPEN BOAT ... 342 
 
 XXVII. THE ISLAND . . . 35* 
 
 XXVIII. FOUR YEARS .... 362 
 
 XXIX. THE SPANIARDS . . , . 376 
 
 XXX. THE ISLET .... 387 
 
 XXXI. THE HOUR-GLASS . . . .404 
 
 XXXII. A JOURNEY . . * .420 
 
THE WITCH 
 
THE WITCH 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 THE QUEEN'S: CHAMBER 
 
 .'*,... . 
 
 IT was said that the Queen was dying. She lay 
 at Richmond, in the palace looking out upon the 
 wintry, wooded, March-shaken park, but London, a 
 few miles away, had daily news of how she did. 
 There was much talk about her the old Queen 
 much telling of stories and harking back. She had 
 had a long reign "Not far from fifty years, my 
 masters!" and in it many important things had 
 happened. The crowd in the streets, the barge and 
 wherry folk upon the wind-ruffled river, the rois- 
 terers in the taverns drinking ale or sack, merchants 
 and citizens in general talking of the times in the 
 intervals of business, old soldiers and seamen ashore, 
 all manner of folk, indeed, agreed upon the one most 
 important thing. The most important thing had 
 been the scattering of the Armada fifteen years 
 before. That disposed of, opinions differed as to the 
 next most important. The old soldiers were for 
 all fighting wherever it had occurred. The seamen 
 and returned adventurers threw for the voyages of 
 Drake and Frobisher and Gilbert and Raleigh. With 
 these were inclined to agree the great merchants 
 
 i 
 
THE WITCH 
 
 and guild-masters who were venturing in the East 
 India and other joint-stock companies. The little 
 merchant and guild fellows agreed with the great. 
 A very large number of all classes claimed for the 
 overthrow of Popery the first place. On the other 
 hand, a considerable number either a little hurriedly 
 slurred this, or else somewhat too anxiously and 
 earnestly supported the assertion. One circle, all 
 churchmen, lauded the Act of Uniformity, and the 
 pains and penalties provided alike for Popish recu- 
 sant and non-conforming Protestant. Another cir- 
 cle, men of a serious cast of countenance and of a 
 growing simplicity in dress, left the Act of Uniform- 
 ity in obscurity, and after the deliverance from the 
 Pope, made the important happening the support 
 given the Protestant principle in France and the 
 Netherlands. A few extreme loyalists put in a claim 
 for the number of conspiracies unearthed and tram- 
 pled into nothingness Scottish conspiracies, Irish 
 conspiracies, Spanish conspiracies, Westmoreland 
 and Northumberland conspiracies, Throgmorton 
 conspiracies the death of the Queen of Scots, the 
 death, two years ago, of Essex. 
 
 All agreed that the Queen had had a stirring reign 
 
 all but the latter end of it. The last few years 
 
 despite Irish affairs had been dull and settled, 
 a kind of ditch-water stagnation, a kind of going 
 downhill. Fifty years, almost, was a long time for 
 one person to reign. . . . 
 
 On a time the Queen had been an idol and a cyno- 
 
 2 
 
THE QUEEN'S CHAMBER 
 
 sure for years the love of a people had been warm 
 about her. It had been a people struggling to be- 
 come a nation, beset with foreign foes and inner dis- 
 sensions, battling for a part in new worlds and 
 realms. She had led the people well, ruled well, come 
 out with tkem into the Promised Land. And now 
 there was a very human dissatisfaction with the Pro- 
 mised Land, for the streams did not run milk and 
 honey nor were the sands golden. As humanly, the 
 dissatisfaction involved the old Queen. She could 
 not have been, after all, the Queen that they had 
 thought her. . . . After crying for so many years 
 "Long live Queen Elizabeth !" there would come 
 creeping into mind a desire for novelty. King James, 
 King James! The words sounded well, and pro- 
 mised, perhaps, the true Golden Age. But they were 
 said, of course, under breath. The Queen was not 
 dead yet. 
 
 They told strange stories of her the old Queen ; 
 usually in small, select companies where there were 
 none but safe men. As March roared on, there was 
 more and more of this story-telling, straws that 
 showed the way the tide was setting. They were 
 rarely now stories of her youth, of her courage and 
 fire, of her learning, of the danger in which she lived 
 when she was only "Madam Elizabeth," of her im- 
 prisonment in the Tower nor were they stories of 
 her coronation, and of the way, through so many 
 long years, she had queened it, of her "mere English- 
 ness," her steady courage, her power of work, her 
 
 3 
 
THE WITCH 
 
 councillors, her wars, and her statecraft. Leaving 
 that plane, they were not so often either stones of 
 tragic errors, of wrath and jealousy, finesse and de- 
 ception, of arbitrary power, of the fret and weakness 
 of the strong. But to-day they told stories of her 
 amours, real or pretended. They repeated what she 
 had said to Leicester and Leicester had said to her, 
 what she had said to Alengon and Alengon had 
 answered. They dug up again with a greasy mind 
 her girlhood relations with Seymour, they created 
 lovers for her and puffed every coquetry into a full- 
 blown liaison; here they made her this man's mistress 
 and that man's mistress, and there they said that she 
 could be no man's mistress. They had stories to tell 
 of her even now, old and sick as she was. They told 
 how, this winter, for all she was so ill at ease, she 
 would be dressed each day in stiff and gorgeous 
 raiment, would lie upon her pillows so, with rings 
 upon her fingers and her face painted, and when 
 a young man entered the room, how she gathered 
 strength. . . . 
 
 The March wind roared down the streets and 
 shook the tavern signs. 
 
 In the palace at Richmond, there was a great 
 room, and in the room there was a great bed. The 
 room had rich hangings, repeated about the bed. 
 The windows looked upon the wintry park, and 
 under a huge, marble mantelpiece, carved with tri- 
 tons and wreaths of flowers, a fire burned. About 
 the room were standing women maids of honour, 
 
 4 
 
THE QUEEN'S CHAMBER 
 
 tiring- women. Near the fire stood a group of* men, 
 silent, in attendance. 
 
 The Queen did not lie upon the bed now she 
 said that she could not endure it, and now she said 
 that it was her will to lie upon the floor. They 
 placed rich cushions and she lay among them at their 
 feet, her gaunt frame stretched upon cloth of gold 
 and coloured silk. She had upon her a long, rich 
 gown, as full and rigid a thing as it was possible to 
 wear and yet recline. Her head was dressed with a 
 tire of false hair, a mass of red-gold ; there was false 
 colour upon her cheek and lip. She kept a cup of 
 gold beside her filled with wine and water which at 
 long intervals she put to her lips. Now she lay for 
 hours very still, with contracted brows, and now she 
 turned from side to side, seeking ease and finding 
 none. Now there came a moan, and now a Tudor 
 oath. For the most part she lay still, only the fingers 
 of one hand moving upon the rim of the cup or meas- 
 uring the cloth of gold beneath her. Her sight was 
 failing. She had not eaten, would not eat. She lay 
 still, supported upon fringed cushions, and the fire 
 burned with a low sound, and the March wind shook 
 the windows. 
 
 From the group of men by the fire stepped softly, 
 not her customary physician, but another of some 
 note, called into association during these last days. 
 He crossed the floor with a velvet step and stood 
 beside the Queen. His body bent itself into a curve 
 of deference, but his eyes searched without rever- 
 
 5 
 
THE WITCH 
 
 ence. She could not see him, he knew, with any 
 clearness. He was followed from the group by a 
 grave and able councillor. The two stood without 
 speaking, looking down. The Queen lay with closed 
 eyes. Her fingers continued to stroke the cloth of 
 gold ; from her thin, drawn lips, coloured cherry-red, 
 came a halting murmur: "England Scotland - 
 Ireland 11 
 
 The two men glanced at each other, then the 
 Queen's councillor, stepping back to the fire, spoke 
 to a young man standing a little apart from the main 
 group. This man, too, crossed the floor with a noise- 
 less step and stood beside the physician. His eyes 
 likewise searched with a grave, professional interest. 
 
 "Navarre," went the low murmur at their feet. 
 "Navarre and Orange. . . . No Pope, but I will have 
 ritual still. . . . England Scotland " 
 
 The Queen moaned and moved her body upon the 
 cushions. She opened her eyes. " Who's standing 
 there? God's death !" 
 
 The physician knelt. "Madam, it is your poor 
 physician. Will not Your Grace take the draught 
 now?" 
 
 " No. There's some one else " 
 
 "Your Grace, it is a young physician English 
 but who has studied at Paris under the best 
 scholar of Ambroise Pare. He is learned and skilful. 
 
 He came commended by the Duke of to Sir 
 
 Robert Cecil " 
 
 "God's wounds!" cried the Queen in a thin, im- 
 
 6 
 
THE QUEEN'S CHAMBER 
 
 perious voice. " Have I not told you and Cecil, too, 
 that there was no medicine and no doctor who could 
 do me good! Par6 died, did he not? and you and 
 your fellow will die ! All die. I have seen a many men 
 and matters die and I will die, too, if it be my 
 will!" 
 
 She stared past him at the strange physician. "If 
 he were Hippocrates himself I would not have him ! 
 I do not like his looks. He is a dreamer and born to 
 be hanged. Begone, both of you, and leave me at 
 peace." 
 
 Her eyes closed. She turned upon the cushions. 
 Her fingers began again to move upon the rich stuff 
 beneath her. ' ' England ' ' 
 
 The rejected aid or attempt to aid stepped, velvet- 
 footed, backward from the pallet. The physicians 
 knew, and all in the room knew, that the Queen 
 could not now really envisage a new face. She might 
 with equal knowledge have said of the man from 
 Paris, "He is a prince in disguise and born to be 
 crowned." But though they knew this to be true, 
 the Queen had said the one thing and had not said 
 the other, and what she said had still great and 
 authoritative weight of suggestion. The younger 
 physician, returning to his place a little apart alike 
 from the women attendants and from the group of 
 courtiers, became the recipient of glances of prede- 
 termined curiosity and misliking. Now, as it hap- 
 pened, he really did have something the look of a 
 dreamer thin, pale, and thoughtful-faced, with 
 
 7 
 
THE WITCH 
 
 musing, questioning eyes. While according to ac- 
 cepted canons it was not handsome, while, indeed, 
 it was somewhat strange, mobile, and elf-like, his 
 countenance was in reality not at all unpleasing. It 
 showed kindliness no less than power to think. But 
 it was a face that was not usual. ... He was fairly 
 young, tall and well-formed though exceedingly 
 spare, well dressed after the quiet and sober fashion 
 of his calling. Of their own accord, passing him 
 hastily in corridor or street, the people in the room 
 might not have given him a thought. But now they 
 saw that undoubtedly he was strange, perhaps even 
 sinister of aspect. Each wished to be as perspicacious 
 as the Queen. 
 
 But they did not think much about it, and as the 
 newcomer, after a reverence directed toward the 
 Queen, presently withdrew with the older physician, 
 who came gliding back without him, and as he 
 was seen no more in the palace, they soon ceased to 
 think about him at all. He had been recommended 
 by a great French lord to the favour of Sir Robert 
 Cecil. The latter, sending for him within a day or 
 two, told him bluntly that he did not seem fitted for 
 the Court nor for Court promotion. 
 
 The March wind roared through London and over 
 Merry England and around Richmond park and hill. 
 It shook the palace windows. Within, in the great 
 room with the great bed, the old Queen lay upon the 
 floor with pillows beneath her, with her brows drawn 
 together above her hawk nose. At intervals her mor- 
 
 8 
 
THE QUEEN'S CHAMBER 
 
 tal disease and lack of all comfort wrung a moan, or 
 she gave one of her old, impatient, round, mouth- 
 filling oaths. For the most part she lay quite silent, 
 uneating, unsleeping, her fleshless fingers keeping 
 time against the rich cloth beneath her. Her women 
 did not love her as the women of Mary Stuart had 
 loved that Queen. Year in and year out, day in and 
 day out, they had feared this Queen; now she was 
 almost past fearing. They took no care to tell her 
 that the carmine upon her face was not right, or that 
 she had pushed the attire of hair to one side, and 
 that her own hair showed beneath and was grey. 
 They reasoned, perhaps with truth, that she might 
 strike the one who told. She lay in her rich gar- 
 ments upon the floor, and the fire burned with a 
 low sound beneath the wreathed tritons and she 
 smoothed the gold cloth with her fingers. "England 
 Scotland Ireland. . . . Mere English ... The 
 Pope down, but I'll have the Bishops still " 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 THE CAP AND BELLS 
 
 THE inn was small and snug, near Cheapside Cross, 
 and resorted to by men of an argumentative mind. 
 The Mermaid Tavern, no great distance away, had 
 its poets and players, but the Cap and Bells was for 
 statesmen in their own thought alone, and for dispu- 
 tants upon such trifles as the condition of Europe, 
 the Pope, and the change in the world wrought by 
 Doctor Martin Luther. It was ill-luck, certainly, 
 that brought Gilbert Aderhold to such a place. 
 
 When he lost hope of any help from Cecil, the evi- 
 dent first thing to do upon returning from Richmond 
 to London, was to change to lodgings that were less 
 dear, indeed, to lodgings as little dear as possible. 
 His purse was running very low. He changed, with 
 promptitude, to a poor room in a poor house. It was 
 cold at night and dreary, and his eyes, tired with 
 reading through much of the day, ached in the one 
 candlelight. He went out into the dark and windy 
 street, saw the glow from the windows and open 
 door of the Cap and Bells, and trimmed his course 
 for the swinging sign, a draught of malmsey and 
 jovial human faces. 
 
 In the tavern's common room he found a seat 
 upon the long bench that ran around the wall. It 
 
 10 
 
THE CAP AND BELLS 
 
 was a desirable corner seat and it became his only by 
 virtue of its former occupant, a portly goldsmith, 
 being taken with a sudden dizziness, rising and 
 leaving the place. Aderhold, chancing to be standing 
 within three feet, slipped into the corner. He was 
 near the fire and it warmed him gratefully. A 
 drawer passing, he ordered the malmsey, and when 
 it was brought he rested the cup upon the table 
 before him. It was a long table, and toward the 
 farther end sat half a dozen men, drinking and talk- 
 ing. What with firelight and candles the room was 
 bright enough. It was warm, and at the moment of 
 Aderhold 's entrance, peaceable. He thought of a 
 round of wild and noisy taverns that he had tried 
 one after the other, and, looking around him, experi- 
 enced a glow of self-congratulation. He wanted 
 peace, he wanted quiet ; he had no love for the sud- 
 den brawls, for the candles knocked out, and lives 
 of peaceable men in danger that characterized the 
 most of such resorts. He sipped his wine, and after 
 a few minutes of looking about and finding that the 
 cluster at the far end of the table was upon a dis- 
 cussion of matters which did not interest him, he 
 drew from his breast the book he had been reading 
 and fell to it again. As he read always with a con- 
 centrated attention, he was presently oblivious of all 
 around. 
 
 An arm in a puffed sleeve of blue cloth slashed 
 with red, coming flat against the book and smother- 
 ing the page from sight, broke the spell and brought 
 
 ii 
 
THE WITCH 
 
 him back to the Cap and Bells. He raised his chin 
 from his hand and his eyes from the book or 
 rather from the blue sleeve. The wearer of this, a 
 formidable, large man, an evident bully, with a cap- 
 tious and rubicund face, frowned upon him from 
 the seat he had taken, at the foot of the table, just 
 by his corner. The number of drinkers and conver- 
 sers had greatly increased. There was not now just 
 a handful at this especial table; they were a dozen 
 or more. Moreover, he found that for some reason 
 their attention was upon him ; they were watching 
 him; and he had a great and nervous dislike of 
 being watched. He became aware that there was a 
 good deal of noise, coarse jests and laughter, and 
 some disputing. Yet they looked, for the most part, 
 substantial men, not the wild Trojans and slash- 
 swords that he sometimes encountered. For all his 
 physical trepidations he was a close and accurate 
 observer; roused now, he sent a couple of rapid 
 glances the length and breadth of the table. They 
 reported disputatious merchants and burgomasters, 
 a wine-flushed three or four from the neighbouring 
 congeries of lawyers, a country esquire, some one 
 who looked pompous and authoritative like a petty 
 magistrate, others less patent, and the owner of 
 the arm still insolently stretched across his book. 
 
 The latter now removed the arm. " So ho ! Master 
 Scholar, your Condescension returns from the moon 
 after we've halloaed ourselves hoarse! What 
 devil of a book carried you aloft like that?" 
 
 12 
 
THE CAP AND BELLS 
 
 Aderhold decided to be as placating as possible. 
 "It is, sir, the 'Chirurgia Magna' of Theophrastus 
 Bombast von Hohenheim, called Paracelsus." 
 
 The red and blue man was determined to bully. 
 "The Cap and Bells has under consideration the 
 state of the Realm. The Cap and Bells has ad- 
 dressed itself to you three times, requesting your 
 opinion upon grave matters. First you deign no 
 answer at all, and finally you insult us with trivial- 
 ities! 'S death! are you an Englishman, sir? 11 
 
 "As English as you, sir," answered Aderhold; 
 "though, in truth, seeing that I have lived abroad 
 some years and am but lately returned, my English 
 manners may have somewhat rusted and become 
 clownish. I crave pardon of the worshipful company, 
 and I shall not again read in its presence." 
 
 A roisterer addressed him from halfway down the 
 table. "We've got a ruling we that frequent the 
 Cap and Bells. You 're a stranger and a strange- 
 looking stranger, too, by your leave and you 
 must wipe out the offense of your outlandishness ! 
 A bowl of sack for the company you '11 pay for a 
 bowl of sack for the company?" 
 
 The colour flooded Aderhold 's thin cheek. He had 
 not enough in his purse or anything like enough. 
 To-morrow he expected or hoped rather than ex- 
 pected to receive payment from the alderman 
 whose wife, having fallen ill before the very door 
 of the house where he lodged, he had attended and 
 brought out from the presence of death. But to- 
 
 13 
 
THE WITCH 
 
 morrow was to-morrow, and to-night was to-night. 
 tie told the truth. "I am a poor physician, my 
 masters, who hath of late been set about with mis- 
 fortune" 
 
 The red and blue bully smote the table with his 
 fist. 
 
 "What a murrain is a man doing in the Cap and 
 Bells who cannot pay for sack? Poor physician, 
 quotha! I 've known a many physicians, but none so 
 poor as that " 
 
 One of the lawyers, a middle-aged, wiry man in 
 black, raised his head. "He says true. Come, 
 brother, out with thy gold and silver!" 
 
 "When I shall have paid," said Aderhold, "for the 
 malmsey I have drunk, I shall not have fourpence in 
 my purse." 
 
 "Pay for the sack," said the lawyer, "and leave 
 the malmsey go." 
 
 " Nay," said Aderhold, " I owe for the malmsey." 
 
 The red and blue man burst forth again. " Oons! 
 Would you have it that you do not owe the sack? 
 Call for the drink and a great bowl of it, aye ! If the 
 host is out at the end, he can take his pay with a 
 cudgel or summon the watch! Physician, quotha? 
 Now, as my name's Anthony Mull, he looks more to 
 me like a black seminary priest!" 
 
 Aderhold leaned back appalled. He wished him- 
 self in the windy street or the gloom of his lodgings, 
 or anywhere but here. Was it all to begin again, the 
 great weariness of trouble here and trouble there? 
 
 14 
 
THE CAP AND BELLS 
 
 To thread and dodge and bend aside, only in the enjd 
 to find himself at bay, bright-eyed and fierce at last 
 like any hunted animal he who wanted only peace 
 and quiet, calm space to think in! He groaned in- 
 wardly. " Ah, the most unlucky star!" There came 
 to his help, somewhat strangely, and, though none 
 noticed it, upon the start as it were of the red and 
 blue bully's closing words, the Inns of Court man 
 who had spoken before. He took his arms from the 
 table and, turning, called aloud, "William Host! 
 William Host!" 
 
 The host came a stout man with a moon face. 
 "Aye, sir? aye, Master Carnock?" 
 
 "William Host," said Carnock, " it is known, even 
 in that remnant of Bceotia, the Mermaid Tavern, 
 that thou *rt the greatest lover of books of all the 
 Queen's subjects " 
 
 The host assumed the look of the foolish-wise. 
 "Nay, nay, I would not say the greatest, Master 
 Carnock! But 't is known that I value a book " 
 
 "Then," said the other, "here is a learned doctor 
 with a no less learned book." Rising, he leaned half- 
 way over the table and lifted from before Aderhold 
 the volume with which he had been engaged. "Lo! 
 A good-sized book and well made and clothed ! Look 
 you, now! Is't worth thy greatest bowl of sack, hot 
 and sugared? It is I see it by thine eye of judi- 
 cious appraisement! I applaud thy judgement! I 
 call it a Solomon's judgement. Furnish the doctor 
 with the sack and take the book for payment!" 
 
 15 
 
THE WITCH 
 
 Aderhold thrust out a long and eager arm. " Nay, 
 sir! I value the book greatly " 
 
 "If you are not a fool " said the lawyer with 
 asperity. 
 
 But the physician had already drawn back his 
 arm. He could be at times what the world might 
 call a fool, but his intelligence agreed that this occa- 
 sion did not warrant folly. He might somehow come 
 up with the book again; if the alderman paid, he 
 might, indeed, come back to-morrow to the Cap and 
 Bells and recover it from the host. When the first 
 starting and shrinking from danger was over, he was 
 quick and subtle enough in moves of extrication. 
 He had learned that in his case, or soon or late, a 
 certain desperate coolness might be expected to ap- 
 pear. Sometimes he found it at one corner, some- 
 times at another; sometimes it only came after long 
 delay, after long agony and trembling; and some- 
 times it slipped its hand into his immediately after 
 the first recoil. Whenever it came it brought, to his 
 great relief, an inner detachment, much as though 
 he were a spectator, very safe in some gallery above. 
 Up there, so safe and cool, he could even see the 
 humour in all things. Now he addressed the com- 
 pany. "My masters, Cleopatra, when she would 
 have a costly drink, melted pearls in wine ! The book 
 there may be called a jewel, for I prized it mightily. 
 Will you swallow it dissolved in sack? So I shall 
 make amends, and all will be wiser for having drunk 
 understanding ! ' ' 
 
 16 
 
THE CAP AND BELLS 
 
 The idea appealed, the sack was ordered. But the 
 red and blue bully was bully still. Aderhold would 
 have sat quiet in his corner, awaiting the steaming 
 stuff and planning to slip away as soon as might be 
 after its coming. At the other end of the table had 
 arisen a wordy war over some current city matter or 
 other so far as he was concerned the company 
 might seem to be placated and attention drawn. He 
 was conscious that the lawyer still watched him 
 from the corner of his eye, but the rest of the dozen 
 indulged in their own wiseacre wrangling. All, that 
 is, but the red and blue bully. He still stared and 
 swelled with animosity, and presently broke forth 
 again. "'Physician'! It may be so, but I do not 
 believe it! As my name's Anthony Mull, I believe 
 you to be a Jesuit spy " 
 
 The sack came at the moment and with it a diver- 
 sion. Cups were filled, all drank, and the lawyer 
 flung upon the board for discussion the growing use 
 of tobacco, its merits and demerits. Then, with 
 suddenness, the petty magistrate at the head of the 
 table was found to be relating the pillorying that 
 day, side by side, of a Popish recusant and a railing 
 B anbury man or Puritan. All at table turned out to 
 be strong Church of England men, zealous maintain- 
 ers of the Act of Uniformity, jealous of even a smack 
 of deviation toward Pope or Calvin. At the close of 
 a moment of suspension, while all drank again, the 
 red and blue bully, leaning forward, addressed the 
 man of justice. "Good Master Pierce, regard this 
 
THE WITCH 
 
 leech, so named, and put the question to him, will 
 he curse Popery and all its works." 
 
 It seemed, in truth, that this was Aderhold's 
 unlucky night. That, or there was something in 
 the Queen's declaration, there was something about 
 him different, something that provoked in all these 
 people antagonism. And yet he was a quiet man, of 
 a behaviour so careful that it suggested a shyness or 
 timidity beyond the ordinary. He was not ill-look- 
 ing or villainous-looking but yet, there it was ! 
 For all that he was indubitably of English birth, 
 "Foreigner" was written upon him. 
 
 The present unluckiness was the being again 
 involved in this contentious and noisy hour. He had 
 been gathering himself together, meaning to rise 
 with the emptying of the bowl, make his bow to the 
 company, and quit the Cap and Bells. And now it 
 seemed that he must stop to assure them that he was 
 not of the old religion! Aderhold's inner man might 
 have faintly smiled. He felt the lawyer's gaze upon 
 him a curious, even an apprehensive, gaze. The 
 justice put the question portentously, all the table, 
 save only the lawyer, leaning forward, gloating for 
 the answer, ready to dart a claw forward at the least 
 flinching. But Aderhold spoke soberly, with a quiet 
 brow. " I do not hold with cursing, Master Justice. 
 It is idle to curse past, present, or to come, for in all 
 three a man but curses himself. But I am far 
 removed from that faith, and that belief is become a 
 strange and hostile one to me. I am no Papist." 
 
 18 
 
THE CAP AND BELLS 
 
 The bully struck the table with his fist. "As my 
 name's Anthony Mull, that's not enough!" 
 
 And the justice echoed him with an owl-like look: 
 "That's not enough!" 
 
 A colour came into Aderhold's cheek. "There is, 
 my masters, no faith that has not in some manner 
 served the world and given voice to what we were 
 and are, good and bad. No faith without lives of 
 beauty and grace. No faith without its garland. But 
 since I am to clear myself of belonging to the old 
 religion then I will say that I abhor as in a 
 portion of myself, diseased, which I would have as 
 far otherwise as I might that I abhor in that faith 
 all its cruelties past and present, its Inquisition, its 
 torturers and savage hate, its wars and blood-letting 
 and insensate strife, its falseness and cupidity and 
 great and unreasonable pride, its King Know-No- 
 More and its Queen Enquire-No- Further! I abhor 
 its leasing bulls, its anathemas and excommunica- 
 tions, its iron portcullis dropped across the outward 
 and onward road, its hand upon the throat of knowl- 
 edge and its searing irons against the eyes of vision ! 
 I say that it has made a dogma of the childhood of 
 the mind and that, or soon or late, there will stand 
 within its portals intellectual death " 
 
 The table blinked. "At least," said the justice 
 sagely, "you are no Papist!" 
 
 But the red and blue man would not be balked 
 of his prey. "That's round enough, but little 
 enough as a true Churchman talks! You appear to 
 
 19 
 
THE WITCH 
 
 me not one whit less one of us than you did before! 
 Master Pierce, Master Pierce! if he be not a masked 
 Jesuit, then is he a Marprelate man, a Banbury 
 man, a snuffling, Puritan, holy brother! Examine 
 him, Master Pierce! My name is not Mull, if he be 
 not somehow pillory fruit - 
 
 It seemed that they all hated a Puritan as much 
 as a Papist. "Declare! Declare! Are you a Ban- 
 bury Saint and a Brother? Are you Reformed, a 
 Precisian, and a Presbyter? Are you John Calvin 
 and John Knox?" 
 
 But Aderhold kept a quiet forehead. " A brother 
 to any in the sense you mean no. A saint not 
 I! A Calvinist? No, I am no Calvinist." 
 
 1 ' Not enough ! Not enough ! ' ' 
 
 Aderhold looked at them, bright-eyed. "Then I 
 will say that Calvin burned Servetus. I will say that 
 where they have had power to persecute they have 
 persecuted ! I will say that ' ' 
 
 Outside the Cap and Bells arose a great uproar. 
 Whether it were apprentices fighting, or an issue of 
 gentry and sword-play with in either case the 
 watch arriving, or whether it were a fire, or news, 
 perhaps, of the old Queen's death whatever it 
 was it behooved the Cap and Bells to know the 
 worst ! All the revellers and disputers rose, made for 
 the door, became dispersed. Aderhold snatched up 
 his cloak and hat, laid a coin beside the empty 
 malmsey cup, sent one regretful glance in the direc- 
 tion of the volume lying beside the great bowl, and 
 
 00 
 
THE CAP AND BELLS 
 
 quitted the Cap and Bells. In the street was a glare 
 of light and the noise of running feet. The crowd 
 appeared to be rushing toward Thames bank, some 
 tall building upon it being afire. He let them go, and 
 drawing his cloak about him, turned in the direction 
 of his lodging. 
 
 He had not gone far when he felt himself touched 
 on the shoulder. "Not so fast! A word with you, 
 friend! You've put me out of breath " 
 
 It proved to be the lawyer who had befriended 
 him. They were standing before some church. 
 Wall and porch, it rose above them, dark and va- 
 cant. The lawyer looked about him, glanced along 
 the steps and into the hollow of the porch. "Bare 
 as is this land of grace! Look you, friend, we 
 know that it is allowable at times to do that in dan- 
 ger which we disavow in safety. Especially if we 
 have great things in trust. I marked you quickly 
 enough for a man with a secret and a secret more 
 of the soul and mind than of worldly goods. Hark 
 you! I'm as little as you one of the mass-denying 
 crew we 've left. What ! a man may go in troublous 
 times with the current and keep a still tongue 
 nay, protest with his tongue that he loves the cur- 
 rent else he'll have a still tongue, indeed, and 
 neither lands nor business, nor perhaps bare life! 
 But when we recognize a friend " He spoke 
 rapidly, in a voice hardly above a whisper, a sen- 
 tence or two further. 
 
 "You take me," said Aderhold, "to be Catholic. 
 
 21 
 
THE WITCH 
 
 You mistake; I am not. I spoke without mask." 
 Then, as the other drew back with an angry breath. 
 " You were quick and kindly and saved me from that 
 which it would have been disagreeable to experience. 
 Will you let me say but another word?" 
 
 "Say on," said the other thickly, "but had I 
 known " 
 
 The light from Thames bank reddening the street 
 even here, they drew a little farther into the shadow 
 of the porch. " I have travelled much," said Ader- 
 hold, "and seen many men and beliefs, and most 
 often the beliefs were strange to me, and I saw not 
 how any could hold them. Yet were the people 
 much what they were themselves, some kindly, some 
 unkindly, some hateful, some filled with all helpful- 
 ness. I have seen men of rare qualities, tender and 
 honourable women and young children, believe what 
 to me were monstrous things. Everywhere I have 
 seen that men and women may be better than the 
 dogma that is taught them, seeing that what they 
 think they believe is wrapped in all the rest of their 
 being which believes no such thing. Both in the old 
 religion and in the Reformed have I known many a 
 heroic and love- worthy soul. Think as well as you 
 may of me, brother, and I will think well of thee 
 and thank thee, besides, " 
 
 "Cease your heretic talk!" said the lawyer. "I 
 held you to be of holy Mother Church " With 
 suddenness, in the darkness, he put forth his foot 
 and swung his arm, at once tripping and striking the 
 
 02 
 
THE CAP AND BELLS 
 
 physician with such violence that he came to the 
 grotihd with his forehead against the stone step of 
 the church. When he staggered to his feet the law- 
 yer was gone. Around him howled the March wind 
 and far above the church vane creaked. He stood for 
 a moment until the giddiness passed, then gathered 
 his cloak about him and, hurrying on through the 
 nipping air, reached his lodging without further 
 adventure. 
 
 That night he slept well. The next morning, as he 
 was eating his breakfast, that was spare enough, he 
 heard a loud and formal crying in the street below. 
 He went to the window. A crier was approaching, at 
 his heels a mob of boys and of the idle generally. 
 " The Queen is Dead! The Queen is Dead! The 
 Queen is Dead! Long Live King James I 11 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 THE TWO PHYSICIANS 
 
 HE went that morning to visit the alderman, inop- 
 portune as he knew the visit would be esteemed. 
 But many things were inopportune hunger, for 
 instance. The alderman found the visit offensively, 
 unpatriotically inopportune. "What! The King's 
 Majesty's ascension day !" But one thing saved 
 Aderhold, and that was the presence in the alder- 
 man's parlour of some seven or eight cronies, men 
 and women. It would not do it would not do for 
 the alderman to seem haggling and unwilling. 
 Aderhold quitted the house the richer by twelve 
 shillings. 
 
 The narrow streets were crowded ; everybody was 
 out, excited and important as though he or she had 
 died or been crowned. The physician strolled with 
 the others. The morning was fine, he felt wealthy 
 and happy. The sunshine that stroked the project- 
 ing, timbered fronts of houses was the sunshine of 
 home, the soft and moist light of England. He 
 loved England. He wandered for an hour or two 
 here and there in the London of less than two hun- 
 dred thousand souls. He went down to the riverside, 
 and sat upon a stone step, and gazed into the purple, 
 brooding distance. ... At last he turned back, and 
 
 24 
 
THE TWO PHYSICIANS 
 
 after a time found himself in the street of his lodging, 
 and before the house. 
 
 It was a narrow, poor, and gloomy place, owned 
 by people whom he guessed to have fallen on evil 
 days. The plainly dressed elderly woman from 
 whom he had hired his room had told him, indeed, 
 as much. " Aye ?" said Aderhold. "Then, mother, 
 I '11 feel the more at home." He had lodged here now 
 ten days and he had seen only the elderly woman 
 and her son, a boy far gone in consumption who 
 coughed and coughed. The woman was a silent, 
 rigid person, withered but erect, wearing a cap and 
 over her gown of dark stuff a coarse white kerchief 
 and apron. This morning, when she brought him his 
 half loaf and tankard of ale, he had spoken with 
 casualness of the Cap and Bells. She looked at him 
 strangely. "The Cap and Bells! . . . Doubtless you 
 heard good talk there." Then had come the crying 
 about the Queen's death. When he turned from the 
 window the woman was gone. 
 
 Now he entered the house. As he laid his hand 
 upon the stair-rail the woman stood framed in a 
 doorway. "Tarry a little," she said. " I wish to tell 
 you that this house will lodge you no longer. " 
 
 Aderhold stood still, then turned. "And why, 
 good mother? I like my room and the house. I have 
 striven to be in no way troublesome." He put his 
 hand in his purse and drew it forth with the alder- 
 man's shillings upon the palm. "You see I have 
 money. You'll not lose by me." 
 
 25 
 
THE WITCH 
 
 A voice came from the room behind the woman. 
 "Let him enter, mother. We would see this fellow 
 who will make no trouble for us." 
 
 Aderhold noted a pale triumph in the woman's 
 strong, lined face and in her tense, updrawn figure. 
 ' ' Aye, it happened to give thanks for ! " she told him. 
 "Two things happened this morning. A King came 
 to the throne who, for all his mother's scarlet and 
 raging sins, has himself been bred by godly men to 
 godly ways! And my two sons came home from 
 overseas!" 
 
 She turned and passed through the doorway into 
 the room from which she had come. Aderhold, after 
 a moment of hesitation, followed. It was a large, 
 dark place, very cold and bare. Here, too, was a 
 table, drawn toward the middle of the room, with a 
 cloth upon it and bread and a piece of meat. Beside 
 it, chair and stool pushed back, stood two men - 
 the returned sons Aderhold was at once aware. He 
 had seen before men like these men English sec- 
 taries abroad, men who stood with the Huguenots in 
 France, and in the Low Countries fought Spain and 
 the Devil with the soldiers of Orange. Estranged or 
 banished from home, lonely and insular, fighting 
 upon what they esteemed the Lord's side, in the 
 place where they esteemed the fight to be hottest, 
 they exhibited small, small love and comradeship for 
 those in whose cause they fought. Only, truly, in 
 conventicles, could they seem to warm to people of 
 another tongue and history. Ultra-zealous, more 
 
 .26 ' 
 
THE TWO PHYSICIANS 
 
 Calvin than Calvin, trained to harshness in a fright- 
 ful war, iron, fanatic, back now they came to Eng- 
 land, the most admirable soldiers and the most 
 uncharitable men! 
 
 The two stood in their plain doublets, their great 
 boots, their small falling collars. They were tall and 
 hard of aspect, the one bearded, the other with a 
 pale, clean-shaven, narrow, enthusiast's face. The 
 home-keeping son also had risen from table. He 
 stood beside his mother, coughing and pressing a 
 cloth to his lips. 
 
 The bearded man spoke. "Good-morrow, friend !" 
 
 "Good-morrow, friend," answered Aderhold. 
 
 "You spoke that," said the bearded man, "as 
 though you were indeed a friend, whereas we know 
 you to be but a Cap and Bells friend." 
 
 " I do not take your meaning," said Aderhold. " I 
 would be friends no man knows how I would be 
 friends with men." 
 
 The shaven man spoke. "Thou hypocritical pre- 
 late's man! Why did you let slip to my mother that 
 the Cap and Bells was your place of revelling and 
 roistering and blackening God to his face? As if, 
 before we went to the wars, the Cap and Bells was 
 not known for what it was yea, and is ! for my 
 mother saith the leopard hath not changed his spots 
 nor the Ethiop his skin a bishop-loving, stained- 
 glass praising, Prayer- Book upholding, sacrament 
 kneeling, bowing, chanting, genuflecting, very pillar 
 and nest of prelacy ! drinking-place of all they who, 
 
 27 
 
THE WITCH 
 
 if they had their wicked will, would give into the 
 hand of ruin yea, would pillory and stock, yea, 
 would put to the rack if they might, yea, would give 
 to the flame if they were strong enough ! the Lord's 
 chosen people, sole fence between this land and the 
 fate of the cities of the plain!" 
 
 " There have been before now," said the bearded 
 man, " spies sent among the Lord's people, and 
 always such have been received and comforted in 
 that same house to wit, the Cap and Bells!" 
 
 The consumptive took the red cloth from his lips. 
 " Mother, mother, did I not say, when the man 
 came, that he had a strange look?" 
 
 "Aye, Andrew," said the mother, "he went like a 
 man with a guilty load and watched his shadow. 
 But I had you to think on, and the need for bread, 
 and he paid me, which, God knoweth! they do not 
 always do. And it came not into my head, until, 
 before he thought, he had said the 'Cap and Bells,' 
 that he might be here to spy and wring news of us 
 cozening us to tell reportable tales of the Lord's 
 Saints!" She stopped, then spoke on with a high, 
 restrained passion and triumph. "But now but 
 now I think that that is what he is ! But now I am 
 not afraid and now he may get his deserts see- 
 ing that the new King is surely for us, and that my 
 sons have come home!" 
 
 "The new King!" exclaimed the shaven man. 
 "The new King is an old Stuart! Lean upon that 
 reed and it will pierce your hand ! I tell that to my 
 
 28 
 
THE TWO PHYSICIANS 
 
 brother and to you, mother, and you will not be- 
 lieve " 
 
 "Time will show," said the bearded man impa- 
 tiently. "Time will show which of us is right. But 
 to-day my mother can turn out this bishop's man, 
 neck and crop! Yea, and if he murmurs " 
 
 He made a step forward, a big-boned, powerful 
 man, grim of countenance. His hand shot out 
 toward the physician. 
 
 Aderhold gave back a step, then recovered him- 
 self. "You are mistaken," he said. "I am no spy 
 and I am no bishop's man. Like you, I have been 
 from England. I return poor and seeking physician's 
 work. Desiring lodging, I asked at this house as I 
 had asked at others, and as honestly as a man may. 
 For the Cap and Bells, I knew naught of it nor of its 
 frequenters. I crossed its threshold but once, and so 
 ill did the place suit me that I am not like to go 
 again. I tell you the plain truth." 
 
 The woman and her sons regarded him fixedly. 
 "What think you," asked the shaven man at last, 
 abruptly and sternly, "of the law that maketh it an 
 offense for a man to worship his Creator after the 
 dictates of his own heart yea, that would compel 
 him to conform to practices which his soul abhor- 
 reth?" 
 
 "I think," said Aderhold, "that it is an evil 
 law." 
 
 "You say truth," answered the shaven man. 
 "Now tell me plainly. Believe you in copes and 
 
 29 
 
THE WITCH 
 
 stoles and altars and credence tables, in kneeling at 
 communion, in Prayer- Book and surplice and bow- 
 ing when the name is mentioned, in bishops and 
 archbishops and pride of place before God?" 
 
 Aderhold looked at him dreamily. The fear of 
 physical injury, which was the weakness that most 
 beset him, was gone by. He had at times a strange 
 sense of expansion, accompanied by a differentiation 
 and deepening of light. The experience he knew 
 it to be inward, and never steadfast, very fleeting 
 returned to him now. The room looked world-wide, 
 the four interlocutors tribes and peoples. "My 
 mind does not dwell overmuch," he said, "upon 
 matters such as these. They are little matters. The 
 wrong is that a man should be made to say they are 
 necessary and great matters, and, to avoid falseness, 
 be made to fight dwarfs as though fhey were giants. 
 I need no priest in cope or surplice or especial 
 dress when all that I am lifts in contemplation and 
 resolve. I need not kneel when All communes with 
 All. No slave is my soul. Would I pray, I can pray 
 without book, and would I not, no book held before 
 my face hath power to pray for me. If I bowed my 
 head at each thought of the mystery that surrounds 
 us, I would not with over-much frequency walk erect, 
 for I think much and constantly of that mystery. If 
 I bow my head without thought an idiot may do 
 the same. As for prelates and they who are called 
 1 spiritual princes ' - - 1 have seen not one who is not 
 a man-chosen master of a man-built house." 
 
 30 
 
THE TWO PHYSICIANS 
 
 The woman spoke uncertainly. " If we have been 
 nfistaken in you, sir, "* 
 
 " What you say has truth, " said the bearded man. 
 " But it also has a strangeness and rings not like our 
 truth. ... If you are a Brownist, this house will 
 have naught to do with you!" 
 
 "I am not a Brownist," said Aderhold wearily. 
 The sense of space widening off and intenser light 
 was gone. Never yet had it stayed but the fewest of 
 moments, and, going, it threw life back upon 
 itself. . . . 
 
 But the second son, who had been standing with 
 an abstracted and distant look, started and spoke. 
 " Let him alone, mother and my brother! Whatever 
 he be, he hath no ill-will nor guile " He turned to 
 the table. " Are you hungry?" he asked. "Sit down 
 and eat with us." 
 
 Aderhold dwelt in this house some days longer. 
 He did not again see the two sons ; they had taken 
 horse and ridden to visit some returned comrade 
 or officer in the country. The woman he saw, and 
 sometimes talked with, but she had ceased to be 
 curious about him, and they chiefly spoke of the 
 consumptive boy. He was near death. The physi- 
 cian could only give something that should make 
 the nights pass more swiftly, less painfully. 
 
 He himself wished to see a physician, the physi- 
 cian to whom, as to Cecil, he had been recommended 
 by a great noble of France, but whom he had not seen 
 since that day in Richmond, after that hour in the 
 
THE WITCH 
 
 Queen's chamber. He had gone to his house to en- 
 quire he was yet out of London, he would be 
 home on such a day. Aderhold went then, but could 
 not see him; waited two days, and was again denied; 
 went in another three, and was admitted. The phy- 
 sician was alone, in a small room, and his manner 
 dry and cold. 
 
 If Aderhold still nursed a hope it was a faint and 
 failing one. Before that day in Richmond the hope 
 had been strong. This physician was a skilled man 
 and knew skill when he saw it the great French- 
 man had written with a guarded enthusiasm, but yet 
 with enthusiasm of what Gilbert Aderhold might do 
 the London physician had let drop a hint that 
 he himself had thought at times of an assistant if 
 not that, he could certainly speak a word in season 
 in another quarter. Aderhold had hoped after 
 Richmond he had hoped less strongly. Now he 
 found that hope was failing. What had happened? 
 What always happened? 
 
 The physician continued standing. The room 
 opened upon a garden, and outside the lattice win- 
 dow there showed a tender mist of budding tree and 
 shrub. "You were so good," said Aderhold, "as to 
 bid me come to you upon your return." 
 
 "I wished," said the physician, "to give all 
 weight and recognition to the commendation of the 
 
 Duke of ." A grey cat came and rubbed against 
 
 his ankle. He stooped and lifting the creature to the 
 table beside him stood stroking it. "The commen- 
 
 32 
 
THE TWO PHYSICIANS 
 
 dation of great noblemen is at times like their lar- 
 gesse. It of ten falls through, of course, no fault of 
 theirs before the stranger and the unworthy." 
 
 " If I be unworthy," said Aderhold, "yet I am not 
 strange to that nobleman, nor, I think, unloved by 
 him. He has been my good patron, almost, I might 
 dare to say, my friend." 
 
 "Aye? 1 * said the physician. "It has come to 
 Court ears, with other French news, that the Duke 
 is out of favour. . . . Moreover, a friend of my own 
 has lately returned from Paris where he had long 
 resided. He is a man of the world, with a great 
 interest in life and a knowledge of what is talked 
 about, small things as well as great. He told me" 
 the physician paused "of you!" 
 
 "Yes," Aderhold said dully; "of me?" 
 
 " He brought you in as a slight case, but typical, of 
 what grows up in the narrow strip between religious 
 wars and factions, between Leaguer and Huguenot 
 to wit, something that is neither Catholic nor 
 Protestant, which the Leaguer would burn and the 
 Huguenot would flay ! He told me of your case and 
 your trial and imprisonment, and how none would 
 help you, neither Papist nor Reformed, but only this 
 one nobleman whose child, it seems, you had healed, 
 and even he could only help by helping you forth 
 from France." The physician continued to draw his 
 hand over the grey fur. " I quarrel with that noble- 
 man for considering that an atheist might prosper 
 here in England, and for deceivingly writing to me 
 
 33 
 
THE WITCH 
 
 only of his skill in all that pertained to his art! I 
 might/' said the physician, "have become involved 
 in what discovery and disfavour you may bring upon 
 yourself in this realm!" 
 
 " I am not," said Aderhold, "an atheist. Sanction 
 and authority and restraint are within." 
 
 The other shrugged . " Oh , your fine distinctions ! ' ' 
 He went to the window and set it wider so that the 
 whole green garden and white and rosy branches of 
 bloom seemed to come into the room. " I am not," 
 he said, with his back to the lattice, "myself a 
 theologian. By nature I am a * live and let live' man. 
 Peter, Luther, Calvin, Mohammed, and Abraham 
 each may have had his own knowledge of heaven and 
 hell! I will not quarrel with knowledge for being 
 various. I am tolerant I am tolerant, Master 
 Aderhold ! But I hold with emphasis that you must 
 not inculpate others no, you must not let the edge 
 of your mantle of heresy touch another ! It were base 
 ingratitude, for instance, were you " 
 
 "I have been careful," said Aderhold, "to men- 
 tion your name to no one. I have led since seeing 
 you a retired and soundless life. I am a stranger in 
 this city and none knows my life, nor feels an inter- 
 est in it." 
 
 The physician's countenance showed relief. "I 
 did not know of what folly you might not have been 
 capable!" He stroked the cat, moved a few paces 
 about the room and returned. " I regret that I can 
 give you no aid. Indeed, I must tell you plainly that 
 
 34 
 
THE TWO PHYSICIANS 
 
 I owe it to my family and my patients and my place 
 which is no slight one in the esteem of this 
 city, to refuse all association with a man who at any 
 hour may fall under suspicion and prosecution." 
 He paused. " I may say to you once, and this once 
 only, that I find your case a hard one. I certainly 
 advise you not to be stiff-necked, but living in the 
 world to conform to the world. Philosophize, if you 
 choose, but inwardly, inwardly, man!" 
 
 He spoke quite amiably, even genially. It was 
 apparent that Aderhold had taken his dismissal, 
 that he was not going to beg or be distressful. He 
 considered through the open casement the height of 
 the sun. He could give the unfortunate man a 
 minute or two longer. " Let us speak a moment," he 
 said, "of our art. London is thronged with doctors. 
 I tell you truly that there is scant room for another, 
 even were the circumstances not as they are, and 
 you were as like others as you are unlike. However 
 still a tongue you may keep, and I think you may 
 betray yourself oftener than you think, you will 
 eventually be found out." He lifted his finger im- 
 pressively. " Now the temper of the time is religious 
 and growing ever more so. The Italian and antique 
 spirit that I remember is going is almost gone. 
 We are all theologians and damn the whole world 
 outside of our particular ark. People of the old 
 faith, people of the established faith, people of the 
 Presbytery each of the three detests and will 
 persecute the remaining two. Right and left suffer 
 
 35 
 
THE WITCH 
 
 from the middle, which is in power, as the middle 
 and the remaining other would suffer were the 
 right or left in power. War, secret or open, war, war! 
 and they only unite to plague a witch or to run to 
 earth and burn for heresy one like you who belongs 
 not to right nor left nor middle. The tolerant, 
 humane, philosophic heart dissents but few, my 
 friend, are tolerant and humane, too few, too few! 
 All this being so, I do not advise you to remain in 
 London no, I should not, were you Galen 
 himself!" 
 
 Aderhold stood gazing at the garden without. 
 There were thorn hedges everywhere across all 
 paths. "I do not know," he said, "where I should 
 go-" 
 
 "My advice," said his fellow physician, "would 
 be to travel to some smaller town that hath never 
 received a whisper from France. And now" he 
 rose "and now I must bid you good-bye, for an 
 important personage expects me at this hour." 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 THE ROSE TAVERN 
 
 THREE days after this conversation Gilbert Ader- 
 hold said good-bye to the Puritan woman and her 
 son, shouldered a stick with a bundle at the end, and 
 set his face toward the periphery of London and the 
 green country beyond. He had no money. The idea 
 of asking his fellow physician for a loan haunted him 
 through one night, but when morning came the 
 ghost was laid. He strongly doubted if the other 
 would make the loan and he did not wish to ask it 
 anyhow. Since he had been in London he had given 
 a cast of his art more than once or twice in this 
 neighbourhood. But it was a poor neighbourhood, 
 and those whom he had served had been piteous 
 folk, and he did not think that they could pay. He 
 had not asked them to pay. He had no connections 
 in London, no friends. His knowledge of men told 
 him that, for all his tolerance and humanity, the 
 fellow physician might be expected to drop a word 
 of warning, here and there, among the brotherhood. 
 His hope had been that his case was so obscure that 
 no talk would come from Paris. ... It was not only 
 that the arm of religion had been raised; he had 
 invoked in medicine, too, strange gods of observa- 
 tion and experience; he had been hounded forth 
 
 37 
 
THE WITCH 
 
 with a double cry. To linger in fcondon, to try to 
 work and earn here with a shudder he tasted 
 beforehand the rebuff that might come. He would 
 leave London. 
 
 He was without near kindred. His parents were 
 dead, a sister also. There was an elder brother, a 
 sea-captain. Aderhold had not seen him for years, 
 and fancied him now somewhere upon the ocean or 
 adventuring in the New World. He remembered 
 his mother telling him that there were or had 
 been cousins to the north. She had spoken of an 
 elderly man, living somewhere in a Grange. The 
 name was Hard wick, not Aderhold. . . . He had no 
 defined idea or intention of seeking ; kinsmen, but 
 eventually he turned his face toward the north. 
 
 It was six in the morning when he stepped forth. 
 Slung beside his bundle of clothing and a book or 
 two, wrapped in a clean cloth, was a great loaf of 
 bread which the Puritan woman had given him. 
 There was a divine, bright sweetness and freshness 
 in the air and the pale-blue heaven over all. He 
 turned into Fleet Street and walked westward. 
 The apprentices were opening the shops, country 
 wares were coming into town, the city was beginning 
 to bustle. Aderhold walked, looking to right and 
 left, interested in all. He was not a very young 
 man, but he was young. Health and strength had 
 been rudely shaken by anxiety, fear, and misery. 
 Anxiety still hovered, and now and then a swift, up- 
 starting fear cut him like a whip and left him quiver- 
 
THE ROSE TAVERN 
 
 ing. But fear and anxiety were going further,, 
 Weakening, toning down. Calm was returning, calm 
 and rainbow lights. 
 
 Hereabouts in the street were all manner of small 
 shops, places of entertainment, devices by which to 
 catch money. The apprentices were beginning their 
 monotonous crying, "What d'ye lack? What d'ye 
 lack?'\ 
 
 He came to- a booth where there was a raree show. 
 A shock-headed, ragged youth was taking down 
 the boards, which were painted with figures of In- 
 dians, copper-hued and feathered. Half a dozen 
 children stood watching. 
 
 Aderhold stopped and watched also. "Have you 
 an Indian here," he asked the boy. "I have never 
 seen one." 
 
 The youth nodded. "He sleeps in the corner back 
 of the curtain. You pay twopence to see him " 
 He grinned, and looked at the children. "But it's 
 before hours, and if so be you won't tell master on 
 me " 
 
 "We won't, master, we won't!" chorused the 
 children. 
 
 The boy took down the last board, showing a 
 concave much like a den with a black curtain at the 
 back. He whistled and the curtain stirred. "We 
 got him," said the boy, "from two Spaniards who 
 got him from a ship from Florida. They trained him. 
 They had a bear, too, that we bought, but the bear 
 died." He whistled again. The curtain parted and 
 
 39 
 
THE WITCH 
 
 the Indian came forth and sat upon a stool planted 
 in the middle of the den. 
 
 It was evident that he had been "trained." 
 Almost naked, gaunt, dull and hopeless, he sat with 
 a lack-lustre eye. The boy whistled again and he 
 spoke, a guttural and lifeless string of words. The 
 children gathered close, flushed and excited. But 
 Aderhold's brows drew upward and together and 
 he turned a little sick. He was a physician ; he was 
 used to seeing wretchedness, but it had not dead- 
 ened him. Every now and then the wave of human 
 misery came and went over him, high as space, in- 
 effably dreary, unutterably hopeless. . . . He stood 
 and looked at the Indian for a few moments, then, 
 facing from the booth, walked away with a rapid 
 and disturbed step which gradually became slower 
 and halted. He turned and went back. " Has he eaten 
 this morning? You don't give him much to eat? " 
 
 "Times are hard," said the boy. 
 
 Aderhold took the smaller bundle from his stick, 
 unwrapped it and with his knife cut from the loaf a 
 third of its mass. "May I give him this?" 
 
 The boy stared. "If you choose, master." 
 
 The physician entered the booth, went up to the 
 Indian and placed the bread upon his knee. "Woe 
 are we," he said, "that can give no efficient help!" 
 
 The savage and the European looked each other 
 in the eyes. For a moment something hawk-like, 
 eagle-like, came back and glanced through the pupils 
 of the red man, then it sank and fled. His eyes grew 
 
 40 
 
THE ROSE TAVERN 
 
 dull again, though he made a guttural sound and his 
 hand closed upon the bread. The physician stood a 
 moment longer. He had strongly the sacred wonder 
 and curiosity, the mother of knowledge, and he had 
 truly been interested to behold an Indian. Now he 
 beheld one but the iron showed more than the 
 soul. "I am sorry for thee, my brother," Aderhold 
 said softly. 
 
 The boy spoke from without. "Hist, hist! Mas- 
 ter's coming down the street." 
 
 Aderhold left the booth, shouldered his stick and 
 bundle and went on his way. 
 
 He walked steadily, the sun at his back, lifting 
 through the mist and at last gilding the whole city. 
 He was now upon its northwestern fringe, in the 
 "suburbs." They had an evil name, and he was 
 willing to pass through them hurriedly. They had a 
 sinister look, net- work of foul lanes, low, wooden, 
 squinting houses, base taverns that leered. 
 
 A woman came and walked beside him, paint on 
 her cheeks. 
 
 "Where are you going, my bonny man?" Then, 
 as he would have outstepped her, "What haste? 
 Lord! what haste?" 
 
 " I have a long way to go," said Aderhold. 
 
 "As long and as short as I have to go," said the 
 woman. " If you are willing we might go together." 
 
 Aderhold walked on, "I am not for that gear, 
 mistress." 
 
 " No? " said the woman. "Then for what gear are 
 
THE WITCH 
 
 you? . . . Perhaps I am not for it, either, but 
 Lord God! one must eat!" She began to sing in a 
 cracked voice but vaguely sweet. 
 
 " A lass there dwelled in London town 
 ' Alas! ' she said, ' Alas! ' she said, 
 'Of gold and land 
 I Ve none in hand ' " 
 
 They were coming flush with the opening of a 
 small, dim courtyard. She broke off her song. 
 " Bring your stick and bundle in front of you! This 
 is a marked place for snatchers." 
 
 Her warning was not idle. As he shifted the stick 
 a shaggy, bull-headed man made a move from 
 shadow to sunlight, lurched against him and grasped 
 at the bundle. Aderhold slipping aside, the fellow 
 lost his balance and came almost to the ground. The 
 woman laughed. Enraged, the bull-headed man 
 drew a knife and made at the physician, but the 
 woman, coming swiftly under his raised arm, turned, 
 and grasping wrist and hand, gave so sudden a 
 wrench that the knife clanked down upon the 
 stones. She kicked it aside into the gutter, her 
 face turned to Aderhold. " Be off, my bonny man ! " 
 she advised. "No, he'll not hurt me! We're old 
 friends." 
 
 Aderhold left the suburbs behind, left London 
 behind. He was on an old road, leading north. For 
 the most part, during the next few days, he kept to 
 this road, though sometimes he took roughly parallel- 
 ing, less-frequented ways, and sometimes footpaths 
 
 42 
 
THE ROSE TAVERN 
 
 through fields and woods. Now he walked briskly, 
 enjoying the air, hopeful with the hopeful day. 
 Sometime in the morning an empty cart overtook 
 him, the carter walking by his horse. They walked 
 together up a hill and talked of the earth and the 
 planting and the carting of stuffs and the rates paid 
 and the ways of horses. Level ground reached, the 
 carter offered a lift, and the two travelled some miles 
 together, chiefly in a friendly silence. At midday 
 Aderhold unwrapped his loaf of bread, and the car- 
 ter produced bread, too, and a bit of cheese and a 
 jug containing ale. They ate and drank, jogging 
 along by April hedges and budding trees. A little 
 later the carter must turn aside to some farm, and, 
 wishing each other well, they parted. 
 
 This day and the next Aderhold walked, by green 
 country and Tudor village and town, by smithy and 
 mill, by country houses set deep in giant trees, by 
 hamlet and tavern, along stretches of lonely road 
 and through whispering, yet unvanished forests. 
 The sun shone, the birds sang, the air was a ripple of 
 zephyrs. The road had its traffic, ran an unwinding 
 ribbon of spectacle. There were the walls of country 
 and the roof of sky and a staccato presence of brute 
 and human life. Now horsemen went by knightly 
 travel or merchant travel, or a judge or lawyer, or 
 a high ecclesiastic. Serving-men walked or rode, 
 farming folk, a nondescript of trade or leisure. 
 Drovers came by with cattle, country wains, dogs. 
 A pedlar with his pack kept him company for a 
 
 43 
 
THE WITCH 
 
 while. Country women passed, carrying butter and 
 eggs to market, children coming from school, three 
 young girls, lithe, with linked arms, a parson and his 
 clerk, an old seaman, a beggar, a charcoal-burner, a 
 curious small troupe of mummers and mountebanks, 
 and for contrast three or four mounted men some- 
 what of the stripe of the widow's sons. One looked 
 a country gentleman and another a minister of the 
 stricter sort. They gazed austerely at the mummers 
 as they passed. Now life flowed in quantity upon the 
 road, now the stream dwindled, now for long dis- 
 tances there was but the life of the dust, tree and 
 plant, and the air. 
 
 When the second sunset came he was between 
 hedged fields in a quiet, solitary country of tall trees, 
 with swallows circling overhead in a sky all golden 
 like the halos around saints' heads in pictures that 
 he remembered in Italy. No house was visible, nor, 
 had one been so, had he made up his mind to ask the 
 night's lodging. The day had been warm, even the 
 light airs had sunk away, the twilight was balm and 
 stillness. He possessed a good cloak, wide and warm. 
 With the fading of the gold from the sky he turned 
 aside from the road upon which, up and down as far 
 as he could see, nothing now moved, broke through 
 the hedge, found an angle and spread his cloak 
 within its two walls of shelter. The cloak was wide 
 enough to lie upon and cover with, his bundle made 
 a pillow. The stars came out; in some neighbouring, 
 marshy place the frogs began their choiring. 
 
 44 
 
THE ROSE TAVERN 
 
 Although he was tired enough, he could not sleep 
 at once, nor even after a moderate time of lying 
 there, in his ears the monotonous, not unmusical 
 sound. He thought of what he should do to-morrow, 
 and he could not tell. Walk on? Yes. How far, and 
 where should he stop? So far he had not begged, but 
 that could not last. The colour came into his cheek. 
 He did not wish to beg. And were there no pride in 
 the matter, there was the law of the land. Beggars 
 and vagabonds and masterless men, how hardly 
 were they dealt with ! They were dealt with sav- 
 agely, and few asked what was the reason or where 
 was the fault. Work. Yes, he would work, but how 
 and where? Dimly he had thought all along of stop- 
 ping at last in some town or village, of some merciful 
 opportunity floating to him, of tarrying, staying 
 there finding room somewhere his skill shown 
 some accident, perhaps, some case like the alder- 
 man's wife ... a foothold, a place to grip with the 
 hand, then little by little to build up. Quiet work, 
 good work, people to trust him, assurance, a cranny 
 of peace at last . . . and all the time the light grow- 
 ing. But where was the cranny, and how would he 
 find the way to it? 
 
 Over him shone the Sickle. He lay and wondered, 
 and at last he slept, with the Serpent rising in the east. 
 
 Late in the night, waking for a moment, he saw 
 that the sky was overcast. The air, too, was colder. 
 He wrapped the cloak more closely about him and 
 slept again. When he woke the day was here, but 
 
 45 
 
THE WITCH 
 
 not such a day as yesterday. The clouds hung grey 
 and threatening, the wind blew chill. There set in a 
 day of weariness and crosses. It passed somehow. 
 Footsore, at dusk, he knocked at a cotter's door, 
 closed fast against the wind which was high. When 
 the family questioned him, he told them that he was 
 a poor physician, come from overseas, going toward 
 kinspeople. There chanced to be a sick child in the 
 cottage; they let him stay for reading her fever and 
 telling them what to do. 
 
 The next day and the next and the next the sky 
 was greyer yet, and the wind still blew. It carried 
 with it flakes of snow. The road stretched bare, 
 none fared abroad who could stay indoors. Aderhold 
 now stumbled as he walked. There was a humming 
 In his ears. In the early afternoon of his sixth day 
 from London he came to as lonely a strip of country 
 as he had seen, lonely and grey and furrowed and 
 planted with a gnarled wood. The flakes were com- 
 ing down thickly. 
 
 Then, suddenly, beyond a turn of the road, he 
 saw a small inn, set in a courtyard among trees. As 
 he came nearer he could tell the sign a red rose on 
 a black ground. It was a low-built house with a 
 thatched roof, and firelight glowed through the 
 window. The physician had a bleeding foot; he 
 was cold, cold, and dizzy with fatigue. He had no 
 money, and the inn did not look charitable. In the 
 last town he had passed through he had bought food 
 and the night's lodging with a portion of the con- 
 
 46 
 
THE ROSE TAVERN 
 
 tents of his bundle. Now he sat down upon the root 
 of a tree overhanging the road, opened his shrunken 
 store, and considered that with most of what was 
 left he might perhaps purchase lodging and fare 
 until the sky cleared and his strength came back. A 
 while before he had passed one on the road who told 
 him that some miles ahead was a fairly large town. 
 He might press on to that . . . but he was tired, hor- 
 ribly tired, and shivering with the cold. In the end, 
 keeping the bundle in his hand, he went and knocked 
 at the door of the Rose Tavern. 
 
 The blowsed servant wench who answered finally 
 brought her master the host, a smooth, glib man 
 with a watery eye. He looked at the stuff Aderhold 
 offered in payment and looked at the balance of the 
 bundle. In the end, he gestured Aderhold into the 
 house. It was warm within and fairly clean with a 
 brightness of scrubbed pannikins, and in the kitchen, 
 opening from the chief room, a vision of flitches of 
 bacon and strings of onions hanging from the rafters. 
 Besides the serving-maid and a serving-man there 
 was the hostess, a giant of a woman with a red ker- 
 chief about her head. She gave Aderhold food. 
 When it was eaten he stretched himself upon the 
 settle by the kitchen hearth, arms beneath his head. 
 The firelight danced on the walls, there was warmth 
 and rest. . . . 
 
 Aderhold lay and slept. Hours passed. Then, as 
 the day drew toward evening, he half roused, but lay 
 still upon the settle, in the brown warmth. There 
 
 47 
 
THE WITCH 
 
 was a feeling about him of peace and deep forests, 
 of lapping waves, of stars that rose and travelled to 
 their meridians and sank, of long, slow movements 
 of the mind. The minutes passed. He started full 
 awake with the hearing of horses trampling into the 
 courtyard and a babel of voices. -He sat up, and the 
 serving- wench coming at the moment into the kitchen 
 he asked her a question. She proved a garrulous 
 soul who told all she knew. The Rose Tavern stood 
 some miles from a good-sized town. Those in the yard 
 and entering the house were several well-to-do mer- 
 chants and others with their serving-men. They had 
 been to London, travelling together for company, and 
 were now returning to this town. There was with 
 them Master she could n't think of his name of 
 Sack Hall in the next county. And coming in at the 
 same time, and from London, too, there was old 
 Master Hardwick who lived the other side of Haw- 
 thorn village, in a ruined old house, and was a miser. 
 If he had been to London it would be sure to have been 
 about money. And finally there was Squire Carthew's 
 brother, also from Hawthorn way. He was a fine 
 young man, but very strict and religious. The com- 
 pany was n't going to stay it wished food and hot 
 drink and to go on, wanting to reach the town before 
 night. And here the hostess descended upon the girl 
 and rated her fiercely for an idle, loose-tongue gab- 
 bling wench 
 
 Aderhold, rested, rose from the settle and went 
 into the greater room. Here were the seven or eight 
 
 48 
 
THE ROSE TAVERN 
 
 principal travellers the serving-men being with- 
 out, busy with the riding and sumpter horses. All in 
 the room were cold, demanding warmth and drink, 
 peremptory, authoritative, well-to-do burghers 
 of a town too large for village manners and not large 
 enough for a wide urbanity. In a corner, on a bed 
 made of a bench and stool, with a furred mantle for 
 cover, lay a lean old man with a grey beard. He was 
 breathing thick and hard, and now and again he 
 gave a deep groan. A young serving-man stood 
 beside him, but with a dull and helpless aspect 
 toward sickness. Across the room, standing by a 
 window, appeared a man of a type unlike the others 
 in the room. Tall and well-made, he had a handsome 
 face, but with a strange expression as of warring 
 elements. There showed a suppressed passionate- 
 ness, and there showed a growing austerity. His 
 dress was good, but dark and plain. He was booted 
 and cloaked, and his hat which he kept upon his 
 head was plain and wide-brimmed. Aderhold, 
 glancing toward him, saw, he thought, one of the 
 lesser gentry, with strong Puritan leanings. This 
 would be " Squire Carthew's brother." 
 
 As he looked, the serving-man left the greybeard 
 stretched upon the bench, went across to the win- 
 dow, and, cap in hand, spoke a few words. The man 
 addressed listened, then strode over to the chim- 
 ney-corner and stood towering above the sick man. 
 "Are you so ill, Master Hardwick? Bear up, until 
 you can reach the town and a leech ! " 
 
 49 
 
THE WITCH 
 
 Aderhold, who had not left the doorway, moved 
 farther into the room. Full in the middle of it, a man 
 who had had his back to him swung around. He 
 encountered one whom he had encountered before 
 to wit, the red and blue bully of the Cap and Bells. 
 Master Anthony Mull did not at first recognize him. 
 He was blustering against the host of the Rose 
 because there was no pasty in the house. The phy- 
 sician would fain have slipped past, but the other 
 suddenly gave a start and put out a pouncing hand. 
 "Ha, I know you! You're the black sorcerer and 
 devil's friend at the Cap and Bells who turned a 
 book into a bowl of sack!" 
 
 He had a great hectoring voice. The travellers in 
 the room, all except the group in the corner, turned 
 their heads and stared. Aderhold, attempting to 
 pass, made a gesture of denial and repulsion. "Ha! 
 Look at him!" cried Master Anthony Mull. "He 
 makes astrologer's signs warlock's signs ! Look if 
 he does n't bring a fiend's own storm upon us ere we 
 get to town!" 
 
 Very quiet, kindly, not easily angered, Aderhold 
 could feel white wrath rise within him. He felt it 
 now felt a hatred of the red and blue man. The 
 most of those in the room were listening. It came 
 to him with bitterness that this bully and liar with 
 his handful of idle words might be making it difficult 
 for him to tarry, to fall into place if any place invited, 
 in the town ahead. He had had some such idea. 
 They said it was a fair town, with some learning. . . , 
 
 50 
 
THE ROSE TAVERN 
 
 He clenched his hands and pressed his lips to- 
 gether. To answer in words was alike futile and 
 dangerous; instead, with a shake of the head, he 
 pushed by the red and blue man. The other might 
 have followed and continued the baiting, but some 
 further and unexpected dilatoriness exhibited by the 
 Rose Tavern fanned his temper into conflagration. 
 He joined the more peppery of the merchants in a 
 general denouncement and prophecy of midnight ere 
 they reached the town. Aderhold, as far from him 
 as he could get, put under the surge of anger and 
 alarm. He stood debating within himself the propri- 
 ety of leaving the inn at once, before Master Mull 
 could make further mischief. The cold twilight 
 and the empty road without were to be preferred to 
 accusations, in this age, of any difference in plane. 
 
 The sick man near him gave a deep groan, strug- 
 gled to a sitting posture, then fell to one side in a fit 
 or swoon, his head striking against the wall. The 
 young serving-man uttered an exclamation of dis- 
 tress and helplessness. The man with the plain hat, 
 who had turned away, wheeled and came back with 
 knitted brows. There was some commotion in the 
 room among those who had noticed the matter, but 
 yet no great amount. The old man seemed unknown 
 to some and to others known unfavourably. 
 
 Aderhold crossed to the bench and bending over 
 the sufferer proceeded to loosen his ruff and shirt. 
 "Give him air," he said, and then to the tall man, 
 " I am a physician." 
 
THE WITCH 
 
 They laid Master Hardwick upon a bed in an 
 inner room, where, Aderhold doing for him what he 
 might, he presently revived. He stared about him. 
 " Where am I? Am I at the Oak Grange? I thought 
 I was on the road from London. Where is Will, my 
 man?" 
 
 "He is without," said Aderhold. "Do you want 
 him? I am a physician." 
 
 Master Hardwick lay and stared at him. "No, 
 no! You are a leech? Stay with me. . . . Am I going 
 to die?" 
 
 " No. But you do not well to travel too far abroad 
 nor to place yourself where you will meet great 
 fatigues." 
 
 The other groaned. " It was this one only time. I 
 had monies at stake and none to straighten piatters 
 out but myself." He lay for a time with closed eyes, 
 then opened them again upon Aderhold. "I must 
 get on I must get home I must get at least as 
 far as the town to-night. Don't you think that I 
 can travel?" 
 
 " Yes, if you go carefully," said Aderhold. " I will 
 tell your man what to do " 
 
 The old man groaned. "He works well at what he 
 knows, but he knows so little. ... I do not know if I 
 will get home alive." 
 
 "How far beyond the town have you to go?" 
 
 "Eight miles and more. . . . Doctor, are you not 
 travelling, too? You've done me good and if I 
 were taken again " He groaned. "I'm a poor 
 
 5* 
 
THE ROSE TAVERN 
 
 man, they make a great mistake when they say 
 I 'm rich, but if you '11 ride with me I '11 pay 
 somehow " 
 
 Aderhold sat in silence, revolving the matter in 
 his mind. "I have," he said at last, "no horse." 
 
 But Master Hard wick had with him a sumpter 
 horse. "Will can now ride that and now walk. You 
 may have Will's horse." He saw the long miles, 
 cold and dark, before him and grew eager. "I'm a 
 sick man and I must get home." He raised himself 
 upon the bed. "You go with me you've got a 
 kindly look you do not seem strange to me. 
 What is your name?" 
 
 "My name is Gilbert Aderhold." 
 
 "Aderhold!" said Master Hardwick. "My mo- 
 ther's mother was an Aderhold/' 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 THE ROAD TO HAWTHORN 
 
 IT was full dusk when the London travellers did at 
 last win away from the Rose Tavern. The evening 
 was cold, the snow yet falling in slow, infrequent 
 flakes. The merchants and their men, together with 
 Master Anthony Mull, first took the road. Then 
 followed Master Harry Carthew, straight and stern, 
 upon a great roan mare. In the rear came on slowly 
 old John Hard wick, his servant Will, and the physi- 
 cian Gilbert Aderhold. 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 through dark and winding streets, and 
 found an inn which Master Hardwick knew. To- 
 gether Will and Aderhold lifted the old man from his 
 horse and helped him into the house and into a great 
 bed, where he lay groaning through the night, the 
 physician beside him speaking now and again a 
 soothing and steadying word. 
 
 He could not travel the next day or the next. 
 Finally Aderhold and Will wrung permission to hire 
 a litter and two mules. On the third morning they 
 placed Master Hardwick in the litter and all took the 
 street leading to the road which should bring them 
 
 54 
 
THE ROAD TO HAWTHORN 
 
 in the afternoon to the Oak Grange. Going, they 
 passed a second inn, and here Master Harry Car- 
 thew suddenly appeared beside them upon his great 
 roan. It seemed that affairs had kept him likewise 
 in this town, but that now he was bound in their 
 direction. 
 
 The snow had passed into rain. The weather had 
 moderated, the rain ceased, and this morning there 
 was pure blue sky and divine sunlight. The latter 
 bathed the unpaved streets, the timbered, projecting 
 fronts of houses, guildhall and shops and market- 
 place, and the tower and body of a great and ancient 
 abbey church. Beyond the church the ground 
 sloped steeply to the river winding by beneath an 
 arched bridge of stone. Above the town, command- 
 ing all, rose a castle, half-ruinous, half in repair. The 
 streets were filled with people, cheerful in the morn- 
 ing air. Litter, mules, and horsemen moved slowly 
 along. Honest Will drew a long breath. " Pegs ! Who 
 would live in the country that could live in a town?" 
 
 Aderhold was riding beside him, Carthew being 
 ahead on his great roan mare. ' * Tell me something, ' ' 
 said the physician, "of the country to which we are 
 going. " 
 
 "The country's a good country enough," said 
 Will. " But the Oak Grange Lord! the Grange is 
 doleful and lonely " 
 
 "Doleful and lonely?" 
 
 "It's all buried in black trees," said Will, "and 
 nobody lives there but our old master." 
 
 55 
 
THE WITCH 
 
 "Where does Master Carthew live?" 
 
 11 He lives in the squire's house beyond the village. 
 He's the squire's brother." 
 
 "You're near a village?" 
 
 "Aye, the village of Hawthorn." 
 
 They rode on, Will gazing busily about him. They 
 were still in the town, indeed in an important part 
 of it, for before them rose the prison. Without it 
 stood pillory and stocks, two men by the legs in the 
 latter, a dozen children deliberately pelting them 
 with rotten vegetables, shards, and mud. Aderhold 
 stared with a frown, the countryman with a curious 
 mixture of interest in the event and lumpish indif- 
 ference as to the nature of it. "Aye," he repeated, 
 "the village of Hawthorn." 
 
 "Is there," asked Aderhold, "a physician in the 
 village?" 
 
 They had passed the prison, and were approach- 
 ing the sculptured portal of the great church. "A 
 physician? " said Will. " No. There was one, but he 
 died two years ago. Now they send here, or the 
 schoolmaster will bleed at a pinch or give a drench. 
 And sometimes they go but the parson 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 an acquaintance. His 
 halting in the narrow way halted the mules with the 
 litter. Master Hardwick had fallen into a doze. The 
 physician and serving-man, standing their horses 
 
 56 
 
THE ROAD TO HAWTHORN 
 
 together, looked up at the huge pile of the church, 
 towering like a cliff immediately above them. On 
 each side of the vast arched doorway had stood in 
 niches the figures of saints. These were broken and 
 gone dragged down in the day when the neigh- 
 bouring abbey was closed. But around and about, 
 overhead and flanking the cavernous entrance, 
 had been left certain carvings a train of them 
 imps and devils and woe-begone folk possessed by 
 the foul 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 mouse from a woman's 
 mouth. . . . Aderhold's gaze was upon the great 
 tower against the sky and the rose-window out 
 of which the stained glass was not yet broken. But 
 Will looked lower. Something presently causing the 
 physician to glance his way, he was startled at the 
 serving-man's posture and expression. It was as 
 though he had never seen these stone figures before 
 and, indeed, it proved that he had never been 
 so closely within the porch, and that, in short, they 
 had never so caught his attention. He was staring at 
 them now as though his eyeballs and all imagination 
 behind them were fastened by invisible wires to the 
 grotesque and horrible carvings. Into his counte- 
 nance came a creeping terror and a kind of fearful 
 exaltation. Aderhold knew the look he had seen 
 it before, in France and elsewhere, upon peasant 
 faces and upon faces that were not those of peasants. 
 It was not an unusual look in his century. Again, 
 
 57 
 
THE WITCH 
 
 for the millionth time, imagination had been seized 
 and concentrated upon the Satanic and was creating 
 a universe to command. Will shivered, then he put 
 his hand to his ear. 
 
 14 There is nothing there," said the physician, 
 "but your ear itself." 
 
 "Mice never come out of men's mouths," said 
 Will. The physician knew the voice, too, the dry- 
 throated, rigid-tongued monotone. "The comfort 
 is that most of the wicked are women." 
 
 "Then take comfort," said Aderhold, "and come 
 away. Those figures are but the imagination of men 
 like yourself." 
 
 But Will was hot ready to budge. "Twelfth night, 
 I was going through the fields. They were white 
 with snow. Something black ran across and howled 
 and snapped at me." 
 
 "A famished wolf," said Aderhold. 
 
 "Aye, it looked like a wolf. But this is what 
 proved it was n't," said Will. "That night in Haw- 
 thorn Forest Jock the forester set a trap. In the 
 night-time he heard it click down on the wolf and the 
 wolf howl. He said, 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 tuft of grizzled hair, but nothing else. And so he 
 and his son followed red spots on the snow right 
 through the forest and across Town Road. And on 
 the other side of the road, where the hedge comes 
 down, they lost it clean not a drop of blood nor 
 
 58 
 
THE ROAD TO HAWTHORN 
 
 the mark of a paw on the snow. But the dog 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 led them to the hut of old 
 Marget Primrose between Bkck Hill and Hawthorn 
 Brook. And Marget was lying huddled, crying with 
 a bloody cut across her ankle. And they matched 
 the hair from the trap with the hair under her cap.'* 
 
 "They did not match with care," said Aderhold. 
 "And there are many ways by which a foot may be 
 hurt." 
 
 "Nay," said the serving-man, "but when they 
 brought the trap and thrust her leg in it the marks 
 fitted." He continued to stare at the stone wolf 
 tearing the ear. "That's been four years, and never 
 since have I been able to abide the sight of a wolf! 
 . . . Witches and warlocks and wizards and what 
 they call incubi and succubi and all the demons and 
 fiends of hell, and Satan above saying, 'Hist! this 
 one!' and 'Hist! that one!' and your soul lost and 
 dragged to hell where you will burn in brimstone, 
 shrieking, and God and the angels mocking you and 
 crying, 'Burn! Burn forever!' Nay, an if they do 
 not get your soul, still they ravage and ruin what 
 you have on earth blast the fields and dry the 
 streams, slay cow and sheep and horse, burn your 
 cot and wither your strength of a man. . . . Thicker 
 than May flies in the air all the time close around 
 you, whether you see them or you don't see them 
 monkeys and wolves and bat wings flapping. . . . 
 
 59 
 
THE WITCH 
 
 Once something came on my breast at night 
 Satan, Satan avaunt!" 
 
 Aderhold leaned across, seized the bridle of the 
 other's horse, and forcibly turned Will from further 
 contemplation of the sculptured portal. "Come 
 away, or you will fall down in a fit!" 
 
 Carthew ahead was in motion, the mules with the 
 litter following. Will rode for a few paces with a 
 dazed look which was gradually replaced by his 
 usual aspect. The red came back into his cheeks, the 
 spring into his figure. By the time they had reached 
 the bridge he was ready for something palely re- 
 sembling a disinterested discussion of the super- 
 natural. 
 
 "Isn't it true, sir, that witch or warlock, how- 
 ever they've been roaming, 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 the other. 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 an- 
 swer, "They're hatching thick and thicker in Eng- 
 land, though not so thick as they are in Scotland. 
 In Scotland they're very thick. Our new King, 
 they say, does most fearfully hate them! Parson 
 preached about them not long ago. He said that 
 we'd presently see a besom used in this kingdom 
 that would sweep such folk from every corner into 
 
 60 
 
THE ROAD TO HAWTHORN 
 
 the fire! He read from the Bil51e and it saW, '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 sparkling water, above their heads the 
 vivid sky. "They are neither man nor woman," 
 said Aderhold. "They are naught. There are no 
 witches." 
 
 He had spoken abstractedly, and more unguard- 
 edly than was his wont. The words were no sooner 
 from his tongue than he felt alarm. They were not 
 safe words to have spoken, even in such simple 
 company as this. He looked aside and found that 
 Will was staring, round-eyed. " No witches? " asked 
 Will slowly. " Parson saith that none but miscreants 
 and unbelievers " 
 
 ."Tell me about your church and parson," said 
 Aderhold calmly, and, aided by a stumble of Will's 
 horse and some question from the litter behind them, 
 avoided for that time the danger. 
 
 They crossed the bridge and left behind the wind- 
 ing river and the town that climbed to the castle, 
 clear-cut and dark against the brilliant sky. Before 
 them, lapped in the golden sunshine, spread a rich 
 landscape. Field and meadow, hill and dale, crystal 
 stream and tall, hanging woods, it flickered and 
 waved in the gilt light and the warm, blowing wind. 
 There were many trees by the wayside, and in their 
 
 61 
 
THE WITCH 
 
 branches a singing and fluttering of birds. The dis- 
 tance shimmered ; here was light and here were violet 
 shadows and everywhere hung the breath of spring. 
 From a hilltop they saw, some miles away, roofs and 
 a church tower. " Hawthorn Village," said Will. 
 "The Oak Grange is two miles the other side." 
 
 Master Hard wick parted the curtains of the litter 
 and called to the physician. His heart, he said, was 
 beating too slowly; it frightened him, 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 Hard wick 
 was comforted and said that he thought he could 
 sleep a little more. His lean hand clutched the 
 other's wrist as he stood dismounted beside him, 
 litter and mules and Will on the sumpter horse hav- 
 ing all stopped in the lee of a green bank disked with 
 primroses. Master Hard wick made signs for the 
 physician to stoop. "Eh, kinsman," he whispered. 
 11 You and I are the only Ader holds in this part of the 
 world. And you are a good leech a good leech! 
 Would you stay at the Oak Grange for your lodging, 
 man? I 've no money no money at all but I 'd 
 lodge you ' ' 
 
 The miles decreased between the cavalcade and 
 the village. Aderhold was riding now alone, Car- 
 thew still ahead, and Will fallen back with the litter. 
 Looking about him, the physician found something 
 very rich and fair in the day and the landscape. Not 
 
 62 
 
THE ROAD TO HAWTHORN 
 
 for a long time had he had such a feeling of health 
 and moving peace, a feeling that contained neither 
 fever nor exhaustion. There was a sense of clarity, 
 strength, and fineness; moreover, the scene itself 
 seemed to exhibit something unusual, to have a 
 strangeness of beauty, a richness, a quality as of a 
 picture where everything is ordered and heightened. 
 It had come about before, this certain sudden inter- 
 fusion, or permeation, or intensity of realization, 
 when all objects had taken on a depth and glow, 
 lucidity, beauty, and meaning. The countryside 
 before him was for an appreciable moment trans- 
 figured. He saw it a world very lovely, very rich. 
 It was noble and good in his eyes it was the 
 dear Earth as she might always be. . . . The glow 
 went as it had come, and there lay before him only 
 a fair, wooded English countryside, sun and shadow 
 and the April day. 
 
 He saw the village clearly now, with a sailing of 
 birds about the church tower. Carthew, who had 
 kept steadily ahead, occupied apparently with his 
 own meditations, checked his horse and waited until 
 the other came up with him, then touched the roan 
 with his whip and he and the physician went on 
 together. 
 
 There was something about this young man that 
 both interested and repelled. He was good-looking 
 and apparently intelligent. Silence itself was no bar 
 to liking, often it was quite the reverse. But Car- 
 thew's was no friendly and flowing quiet. His silence 
 
 63 
 
THE WITCH 
 
 had a harsh and pent quality. He looked often like a 
 man in a dream, but the dream had in it no suavity, 
 but appeared to contemplate high and stern and 
 dreadful things. Aderhold looked instinctively first 
 at a man's eyes. Carthew's eyes were earnest and 
 intolerant. In the lower part of his face there was 
 something 'that spoke of passions sunken, covered 
 over, and weighted down. 
 
 The two rode some little distance without speak- 
 ing, then Carthew opened his 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 other region under the primal Curse 
 The old man, back there, has taken a fancy to you 
 and calls you his kinsman. Do you expect to bide at 
 the Oak Grange?" 
 
 "I think it truth that I am his kinsman," an- 
 swered Aderhold. "For the other 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 spend with them, 
 and those who have none like him not because he 
 gives nothing. The Oak Grange is a ruinous place." 
 
 The village now opened before them, a consider- 
 able cluster of houses, most of them small and poor, 
 climbing a low hill and spreading over a bit of 
 meadow. The houses were huddled together, but 
 
 64 
 
THE ROAD TO HAWTHORN 
 
 they enclosed a village green and here and there rose 
 old trees, or showed a tiny garden. At the farther 
 end, on the higher ground, the church lifted itself, 
 dominating. Beyond it ran the highway still. The 
 landscape was 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 had passed through much of harm 
 and peril. Body and mind he wanted rest, quiet 
 routine, for a time some ease. "It looks a place 
 where peace might be found/' he said. 
 
 "Five years ago," said Carthew, "we had the 
 sweating sickness. Many died. Then all saw the 
 shadow from the lifted Hand." 
 
 "It is wholesome now?" 
 
 "Aye," answered the other, "until sin and denial 
 again bring bodily grief." 
 
 Aderhold glanced aside at his companion. The lat- 
 ter was riding with a stern and elevated countenance, 
 his lips moving slightly. The physician knew that 
 look no less than he had known the serving-man's. 
 
 " Is it not," demanded Carthew, " is it not marvel- 
 lous how the whole Creation groaneth and travail- 
 eth with the knowledge of her doom ! How contempt- 
 ible and evil is this world ! Yet here we are sifted 
 out and not the wise man of old, nor the heathen, 
 nor the ignorant, nor the child in his cradle is ex- 
 cused! Is it not marvellous how, under our very 
 feet, men and women and babes are burning in 
 
 65 
 
THE WITCH 
 
 hell ! How, for Adam's sin, all perish save only the 
 baptized believer and he is saved in no wise of his 
 own effort and merit, but only of another's! How 
 God electeth the very damned and yet is their 
 guilt no whit the less! Is it not marvellous!" 
 
 "Aye, fabulously- marvellous," said Aderhold. 
 
 "The sense of sin!" pursued Carthew. "How it 
 presses hard upon my heart! The sense of sin!" 
 
 Aderhold was silent. He possessed a vivid enough 
 realization of his many and recurring mistakes and 
 weaknesses, but, in the other's meaning, he had no 
 sense of sin. 
 
 They came to the village and rode through it, the 
 litter arousing curiosity, allayed every few yards by 
 Will's statements. Aderhold observed the lack of 
 any sympathy with the sick old man, even the growl- 
 ing note with which some of the people turned aside. 
 There was the usual village traffic in the crooked 
 street, the small shops and the doorways. Children 
 were marching with the geese upon the green, where 
 there was a pond, and near it the village stocks. 
 Housewives, witfrtucked-up skirts and with pattens, 
 for an April shower had made mire of the ways, 
 clattered to and fro or sat spinning by window or 
 door. Many of the men were in the fields, but there 
 were left those who 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, 
 poor enough, far from clean, ignorant and full of 
 talk, and yet not without its small share of what 
 
 66 
 
THE ROAD TO HAWTHORN 
 
 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 rose a plain stone house. 
 "Master Thomas Clement, the minister's," said 
 Carthew. " Hawthorn hath a godly and zealous pas- 
 tor! The town behind us is all for prelates and vest- 
 ments and a full half at least of the old superstitions. 
 But Hawthorn and the country to the north have 
 purged themselves as far as they safely may." 
 
 Out upon the open road again they saw to the left, 
 back among trees upon a low hilltop, a large and 
 well-built house. "Carthew House," said Carthew, 
 "where I live. But I think that I will ride on with 
 you to the Oak Grange." 
 
 Presently, leaving the highway, they took a rough 
 and narrow road that led, first through fields and 
 then through uncultivated country, toward the 
 great wood that had been for some time visible. 
 "Hawthorn Forest," said Carthew. They rode a 
 mile in silence, the wood growing darker and taller 
 until it reared itself immediately before them. To 
 the right, at some little distance from the road and 
 almost upon the edge of the -forest, stood a thatch- 
 roofed cottage with a dooryard where, later, flowers 
 would bloom, and under the eaves a row of bee- 
 hives. "Heron's cottage," said Carthew. "Old He- 
 ron lives there, who in the old times was clerk to 
 the steward of the castle." 
 
 They entered the wood. It was dark and old, 
 
 67 
 
THE WITCH 
 
 parts of it not having been cut since Saxon times. 
 Their road, which was now hardly more than a cart 
 track, crossed but an angle, the Oak Grange lying 
 beyond in open country. But for some minutes they 
 were sunk in a wilderness of old trees, with a 
 spongy, leaf-thickened earth beneath the horses' 
 hoofs. The sunshine fell shattered through an inter- 
 lacing of boughs just beginning to take on a hue of 
 spring. Every vista closed in a vaporous blue. 
 
 A woman was gathering faggots in the wood. As 
 they came nearer she straightened herself and stood, 
 watching them. She was young and tall, grey-eyed, 
 and with braided hair the colour of ripe wheat. 
 "Heron's daughter," said Carthew when they had 
 passed. "She should cover her hair like other wo- 
 men with a cap. It is not seemly to wear it so, in 
 braids that shine." 
 
 They were presently forth from the forest ; before 
 them a stretch of fields no longer well husbanded, a 
 stream murmuring among stones, a bit of 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 place its name, 
 but it, too, looked forlorn, ruinous, and empty. 
 "The Oak Grange," said Carthew. " People say that 
 once it was a great haunt of elves and fairies, and 
 that they are yet seen of moonlight nights, dancing 
 around yonder oak. They dance but every seven 
 years they pay a tithe of their company to hell." 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 THE MAN WITH THE HAWK 
 
 ADERHOLD saw no fairies, though sometimes of 
 moonlight nights he pleased his fancy by bringing 
 them in his mind's eye in a ring around the oak. 
 Hours days weeks passed, and still he abode 
 at the Oak Grange. 
 
 Together he and Master Hard wick had gone over 
 an ancient record. There was the Aderhold line, 
 intertwining with the Hardwick. The blood-tie was 
 not close, but it was there. Back in the reign of the 
 sixth Henry they found a common ancestor in one 
 Gilbertus Aderhold, slain on Bosworth Field. The 
 blood-warmth was between them. Moreover, the 
 old man had turned with a strong liking to this 
 present Aderhold, and besides all there was his fear 
 of illness and death. How well to have a leech 
 always at hand! At last it came to "Will you live 
 here for your roof and keep? I could not give you 
 money no, no! I have no money to give." 
 
 Refuge security here in this silent place, 
 behind the great screen of Hawthorn Wood. . . . 
 Aderhold stayed and was glad to stay, and served 
 the old man well for his keep. The region grew to 
 know that here was old Master Hardwick's kinsman, 
 brought with him when he came back from London, 
 
 69 
 
THE WITCH 
 
 to live with him and doubtless become his heir. He 
 was a leech. Goodman Cole, living by the forest, fell 
 ill of a racking cough and a burning fever, sent for 
 the doctor at the Grange, was swiftly better, and 
 sang the leech's praises. As time wore on he began 
 to be sent for here and there, chiefly to poor people's 
 houses. Eventually he doctored many of such 
 people, now in the village, now in the country round- 
 about. Few of the well-to-do employed him; they 
 sent to the town for a physician of name. He asked 
 little money for his services; he did not press the 
 poor for payment, and often as not remitted the 
 whole. He earned enough to keep him clad, now and 
 then to purchase him a book. 
 
 He soon came to the conclusion that whatever 
 store of gold Master Hardwick might once have had, 
 it was now a dwindling store. In whatever secret 
 place in his gaunt, bare room the old man kept his 
 wealth, he was, Aderhold thought, nearing the bot- 
 tom layer. There was a rueful truth in the anxiety 
 with which he regarded even the smallest piece of 
 either metal he must produce and part with. And if, 
 at the Oak Grange, there was little of outgo, there 
 was still less of income. The land which went with 
 the Grange was poor and poorly tilled. There was a 
 cot or two with tenants, dulled labourers, dully 
 labouring. Mostly they paid their rent in kind. He 
 heard it said that in his middle life Master Hard- 
 wick had ventured with some voyage or other to the 
 Indies, and had received in increase twenty times 
 
 70 
 
THE MAN WITH THE HAWK 
 
 his venture. If so, he thought that his venture must 
 have been but small. 
 
 Master Hardwick kept but the one man, Will the 
 smith's son, who did not sleep at the Grange, but 
 came each morning and cared for the horse and the 
 cow and the garden. Within doors there was old 
 Dorothy, who cooked and cleaned, and, now in and 
 now out, there strayed a lank, shy, tousle-headed 
 boy, her nephew. The old house was dim and still, 
 as out of the world as a house may be. Master Hard- 
 wick rarely stirred abroad. There was in truth a lack 
 of health. The physician thought that the old man 
 had not many years to live. Aderhold set himself 
 with a steady kindness to doing what could be done, 
 to giving sympathy and understanding, and when 
 the old man wished it, companionship. Sitting in 
 the dim house with him, facing him at table over 
 their scant and simple fare, listening to his brief talk, 
 the physician came to find, beneath a hard and re- 
 pellent exterior, something sound enough, an hon- 
 esty and plain-dealing. And Master Hardwick, with 
 a hidden need both to feel and receive affection, 
 turned and clung to the younger man. 
 
 Visitors of any nature rarely came to the Oak 
 Grange. The place was as retired as though fern- 
 seed had been sprinkled about and the world really 
 could not see it. Once, during this early summer, 
 Harry Carthew came, riding across the stream upon 
 his great roan. But this day Aderhold was away, one 
 of the tenants breaking a leg and a small child being 
 
THE WITCH 
 
 sent wailing with the news to the Grange. And Mas- 
 ter Thomas Clement came, alike afresh to reason 
 with the miser and to view this new parishioner. 
 
 Aderhold saw him cross the stream by the foot- 
 bridge and come on beneath the fairy oak. He knew 
 who it was, and he had time to map his course. He 
 had made up his mind he was worn and weary 
 and buffeted, he was now for peace and quiet living. 
 He tied a millstone around the neck of the Gilbert 
 Aderhold of Paris and sank him deep, deep! The 
 minister stayed no great while and directed most of 
 his discourse toward Master Hardwick. When he 
 turned to Aderhold, the latter said little, listened 
 much, answered circumspectly, and endued himself 
 with an agreeing inclination of the head and an air of 
 grave respect. When the minister was gone, he went 
 and lay beneath the fairy oak, in the spangly twi- 
 light, his head buried in his arms. 
 
 The next Sunday he went to church and sat with a 
 still face, watching the sands run from the pulpit 
 glass. There were facts about the region which he 
 had gathered. The town a few miles away with the 
 earl's seat above it was prelatical and all for " super- 
 stitious usages." The country between town and 
 village might be called debatable ground. But 
 Hawthorn Village and the region to the north of it 
 might have been approved by Calvin or by Knox. 
 
 Sitting far back, in the bare, whitewashed church, 
 he remarked men and women truly happy in their 
 religion, men and women who showed zeal if not 
 
 72 
 
THE MAN WITH THE HAWK 
 
 happiness, men and women who wore zeal because 
 it was the fashionable garment, men and women, 
 born followers, who trooped behind zeal in others, 
 and uttered war-cries in a language not their own. 
 In the pulpit there was flaming zeal. The sermon 
 dealt with miracles and prodigies, with the locali- 
 ties of heaven and hell, with Death and the Judge- 
 ment Death that entered the world five thousand 
 and six hundred and odd years ago. "For before 
 that time, my hearers, neither man nor animal nor 
 flower nor herb died!" 
 
 Aderhold walked that summer far and wide, learn- 
 ing the countryside. Now he wandered in deep 
 woods, now he climbed the hills and looked upon the 
 fair landscape shining away, now he entered leafy, 
 hidden vales, or traced some stream upward to its 
 source, or downward to the murmur of wider waters. 
 Several times he walked to the town. Here was a 
 bookshop, where, if he could not buy, he could yet 
 stand awhile and read. . . . He loved the view of this 
 town with the winding river and the bridge, and 
 above the climbing streets the old castle and the 
 castle wood. He liked to wander in its streets and to 
 mark the mellow light upon its houses. Now and 
 then he went into the great church where the light 
 fell through stained glass and lay athwart old pillars. 
 Once he found himself here, sitting in the shadow of 
 a pillar, when people began to enter. Some especial 
 service was to be held, he knew not wherefore. The 
 organ rolled and he sat where he was, for he loved 
 
 73 
 
THE WITCH 
 
 music. There was a sermon, and it was directed 
 against Puritan and Presbyterian, and more espe- 
 cially against that taint of Republicanism which 
 clung to their Geneva cloaks. No such imputation 
 breathed against the surplice. The Divine Right of 
 Kings. The duty of Passive Obedience. Authority! 
 Authority! Authority! It rolled through the church, 
 boomed forth with passion. 
 
 Aderhold, coming out into the sunshine, walked 
 through the town and found himself upon the Lon- 
 don road. It was high summer, the sun yet far aloft, 
 and when it sank the round pearl of the moon would 
 rise. He had not before walked upon this road. An 
 interest stirred within him to view the country to- 
 ward the Rose Tavern, travelled through in the dark- 
 ness that night. He left the town behind him and 
 walked southward. Between two and three miles 
 out, he saw before him a little rise in the road, and 
 crowning it, a gibbet with some bones and shrivelled 
 flesh swinging in the chains. It was nothing uncom- 
 mon ; he had seen in France a weary number of such 
 signposts, and on this great road, coming north from 
 London, he had twice passed such a thing. It was so 
 fair and soft a summer's day, the gauzy air filled 
 with dancing sunbeams, the sky a melting blue - 
 the very upright and cross of the gibbet faded into it 
 and seemed robbed of horror. Indeed, long usage 
 had to the eyes of most robbed it of frightfulness at 
 any hour, unless it was in the dead of night when the 
 chains creaked, creaked, and something sighed. 
 
 74 
 
THE MAN WITH THE HAWK 
 
 The traffic of the road went talking and jesting by, 
 with hardly a glance aside at the arm across the 
 sky. 
 
 Aderhold sat down upon the opposite bank, amid 
 fern and foxglove, and with his chin in his hand 
 regarded the gibbet. Now and again man and beast 
 passed, but they paid no attention to the dusty, 
 seated figure. For the greater while the road lay 
 bare. He gazed, dreaming, and through the mists of 
 time he seemed to see Judea. . . . 
 
 At last he spoke. " Carpenter of Nazareth! Man 
 as we are men, but a Prince in the house of Moral 
 Genius ! Born with thy heritage, also, of an ancient, 
 savage faith, in thine ears, still, old saws of doom, 
 on thy lips at times hard sayings of that elder 
 world, in thy mind, yet unresolved, more than one 
 of the ancient riddles. . . . But thou thyself, through 
 all the realm of thy being, rising into the clearer 
 light, lifting where we all shall lift one day, trans- 
 figuring life ! . . . Genius and Golden Heart and Pure 
 Courage and Immortal Love. . . . Condemned by a 
 Church, handed over by it to the secular arm, gone 
 forth to thy martyr's death and still, Sage and 
 Seer ! misunderstood and persecuted, and still thou 
 standest with the martyrs . . . slain afresh by many, 
 and not least by those who call themselves thine. 
 Wisdom, freedom, love. . . . Love Love Love!" 
 
 The fox-gloves nodded around him. He drew 
 toward him a long stem and softly touched, one by 
 one, the purple bells. " Freedom love! . . . Thou 
 
 75 
 
THE WITCH 
 
 flower! When shall we see how thou flowest into 
 me and I into thee?" 
 
 He let the purple stem swing back, and with his 
 hands about his knees again regarded the gibbet; 
 then, when some minutes had gone by, rose and pur- 
 sued his way. Another half-hour and he came to a 
 place where three roads met. A passing shepherd 
 boy told him the name was Heron's Cross-Roads. 
 It was a lonely place, wold and stunted wood, and in 
 an angle, amid heath and briar, was set a blackened 
 stake. Aderhold went across to it. In the wood was 
 a rudely cut name, with a word or two below; the 
 stake was set through the heart of a suicide. Nettles 
 were about it, and some one passing had thrown an 
 empty and broken jug of earthenware. It lay in 
 shards. Aderhold knelt, gathered them together, 
 and rising, laid the heap beneath the hedge. 
 
 Back upon the highway, he turned his face again 
 to the town. It was a long way to the Oak Grange, 
 and Master Hard wick was concerned if the house 
 were not closed and fast at a most early hour. 
 Heron's Cross-Roads. As Aderhold walked an asso- 
 ciation arose with the name. Heron that was the 
 name of the old man who owned the cottage on the 
 edge of Hawthorn Forest. He was not there now; 
 the cottage had been shut up and tenantless since 
 early summer. He and his daughter were gone, Will 
 had told him, on a long visit to the old man's brother, 
 the earl's huntsman who lived in the castle wood 
 above the town. No one knew when they would be 
 
 76 
 
THE MAN WITH THE HAWK 
 
 back. Most coheir furnishings and household things 
 had been loaned here or there. The dairy woman 
 had taken their cow, some one else the beehives. 
 Heron! He had a moment's drifting vision of the 
 girl gathering faggots in the forest. It passed and 
 the present day and landscape took its place. Soon 
 he came again to the rise of ground and the gibbet 
 so stark against the blue. He hesitated, then 
 paused, resting as he had rested before upon a stone 
 sunk in the wayside growth. 
 
 A horse and rider emerged with suddenness from a 
 sunken lane upon his left, and stood still in the mid- 
 dle of the road : a fine horse, and a fine, richly 
 dressed rider, a man of thirty-five with a hawk upon 
 his gauntleted fist. Turning in the saddle he looked 
 about him, and espying Aderhold where he sat, 
 called to him. 
 
 '* "Hey, friend! Have the earl and his train passed 
 this way?" 
 
 "I have not seen them, sir." 
 
 The other glanced around again, then beckoned 
 with an easy command. Aderhold rose and went to 
 him, to find that he was wanted to hold the hooded 
 falcon while the horseman waited for the hawking 
 party from which some accident had separated him. 
 Aderhold took the peregrine from the other's wrist 
 and stood stroking softly with one finger the blue- 
 black plumage. The rider rose in his stirrups, 
 swept <the x horizon with his eye, and settled back. 
 "Dust in the distance." His voice went with his 
 
 77 
 
THE WITCH 
 
 looks he seemed a rich and various person, who 
 could show both caprice and steadfastness. Now he 
 glanced downward at Aderhold. "Ha, I had not 
 observed you before! A travelling scholar? " 
 
 "A travelling physician, an it please you," said 
 Aderhold, smoothing the bird with his finger, " bid- 
 ing at present at the Oak Grange, beyond Hawthorn 
 Village." 
 
 "You take," said the horseman with a glance at 
 the gibbet, "a merry signpost to rest beneath!" 
 
 "It is neither merry nor dismal," said Aderhold, 
 "but a subject for thought. That which swung 
 there swings there now though shrunken and 
 dark and answering to no lust of the eye. But that 
 which never swung there swings there now neither. 
 I trouble it not. It is away from here." 
 
 The other swung himself from his saddle. " I had 
 rather philosophize than eat, drink, or go hawking 
 and philosophers are most rare in this region!" 
 He took his seat upon a heap of stones, while his 
 horse beside him fell to grazing. " Come, sit and talk, 
 travelling scholar ! That fellow on the gibbet 
 that small, cognized part of him that was hanged, as 
 you would say. Being hungry, he slew a deer for his 
 own use, then violently resisted and wounded those 
 sent to his hut to take him, and finally, in court he 
 miserably defamed and maligned the laws of the 
 land and the judge in his chair. So there he swings 
 for an example to stealers of deer and resisters of 
 constables, to say naught of blasphemers of proce- 
 
 78 
 
THE MAN WITH THE HAWK 
 
 dure and churls to magistrates! . . . What is yqur 
 opinion, travelling scholar, of Authority?" 
 
 "Nay," said Aderhold, "what is yours?" 
 
 The other laughed. "Mine, Sir Prudence? 
 Well, at times I have thought this and at times that. 
 Once or twice a head like Roger Bacon's has spoken. 
 'The swollen stream forgets its source, and the over- 
 weening son turns and with his knotted and sinewy 
 hands chokes his mother that bore him.'" 
 
 "It is a good parable," said Aderhold. "I trust 
 that your worship, being obviously of those in 
 authority, will often listen to that brazen head!" 
 
 "Ah!" answered the other. "I am of that camp 
 and not of it. My brazen head will yet get me into 
 trouble ! " He sat regarding the mound opposite, the 
 tall upright and arm, the creaking chain, and the 
 shapeless thing, now small, for most of the bones 
 had fallen, which swung and dangled. "And, 
 friend, what do you think of this matter of the 
 Golden Age, man's perfection, Paradise, the friend- 
 ship of angels and all wisdom and happiness lying, 
 in the history of this orb, behind us?" 
 
 " If it were so," said Aderhold, "then were it well 
 to walk backwards." 
 
 "So saith my brazen head ! Hark ! ' ' 
 
 It was a horn winding at no great distance. There 
 came a sound of approaching horsemen, of voices 
 and laughter. The waiting cavalier rose to his feet, 
 caught his horse by the bridle and mounted. Ader- 
 hold gave him back the falcon. The earl and his 
 
 79 
 
THE WITCH 
 
 train, a dozen in all, gentlemen, falconers, and 
 grooms, coming across the fields, leaped the hedge 
 and crowded into the road, gathering into their 
 number the rider with the hawk. Aderhold heard 
 him named as "Sir Richard/* He waved his hand 
 to the physician all rode away with a flash of 
 colour and a blare of sound. A few moments, and 
 there was only the bare highway, the little rise of 
 ground, and the gibbet with its outstretched arm 
 against the blue and serene sky. 
 
 Aderhold, keeping on to the town, passed along 
 its bustling high street, and down the steep slope, 
 beneath the shadow of the great church and the 
 castle in its woods above, to the river and its many- 
 arched, ancient bridge. Before him lay the fair 
 country between the town and Hawthorn village. 
 He travelled through it in the late, golden light, and 
 at sunset came into Hawthorn. Children were play- 
 ing and calling in the one street and several lanes, 
 on the green, by the pond, and the village stocks. 
 The alehouse had its custom, but, as he presently 
 saw, most of the inhabitants of Hawthorn were 
 gathered in a buzzing cluster before the church. A 
 post, riding from London north, had passed through 
 the village and left behind a dole of news. Among 
 his items, principal to Hawthorn was this: The 
 King, they say, will presently of his good pleasure, 
 lighten the pains and penalties now imposed upon 
 Papists. 
 
 Aderhold, touching the fringe of the crowd, 
 
 80 
 
THE MAN WITH THE HAWK 
 
 caught a glimpse of Master Clement, standing upon 
 tne church steps, haranguing. He caught the words, 
 " The Scarlet Woman . . . Babylon . . . Lighten? 
 Rather double and treble and quadruple " Near 
 the minister he saw Harry Carthew. He did not 
 pause ; he went by like a moth in the dusk. As the 
 moon rose he came to the stream before the Grange, 
 crossed it by the footbridge, and went on beneath 
 the fairy oak to the house where one candle shone 
 from a single window. In the middle of the night 
 he was wakened by some one calling and throwing 
 pebbles against his casement. The miller, a mile 
 down the stream, was ill and groaning for the leech. 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 
 JOAN 
 
 IT was May three years since Joan had smelled the 
 apple tree in blossom by the well, or had marked 
 the heartsease amid the grass. She drew her bucket 
 of water, flashing, dripping, and cold, rested it upon 
 the well-stone, and regarded with grey eyes the 
 cottage and its handbreadth of garden. 
 
 She sighed. There had been much of advantage 
 in that long sojourn with her uncle the huntsman, in 
 his better house than this, a mile in the castle wood, 
 above the town so much greater than Hawthorn 
 Village! There had been the town to walk to, the 
 bright things to see, the bustle in the streets, the 
 music in the church, the occasional processions and 
 pageants, the fairs and feast days. For the castle 
 itself, the great family was not often there, but 
 the housekeeper had been friendly to her, and she 
 had been let to roam as she pleased through the 
 place, half -mediaeval stronghold, half new walls and 
 chambers echoing Tudor luxury. Four times in the 
 three years the family had been in residence, and 
 then there were other things to watch, though at a 
 most respectful distance ! . . . Once there had been 
 a masque in the park, and, as many figures were 
 needed, there had come an order from the countess. 
 
 82 
 
JOAN 
 
 A page had brought it, and had explained in detail, 
 what was wanted. There was to be a whole pageant 
 of scenes from the mythology. She was to enact a 
 virgin who had been very swift of foot she was to 
 run swiftly from north to south across the great 
 pleasaunce a young gentleman, who would be 
 running likewise, would throw before her, one after 
 the other, three yellow apples. She would stoop and 
 pick them up while he ran on. She nodded. " Yes, I 
 know. Atalanta." The page, who was younger than 
 herself but comely and court-bred, evinced surprise. 
 ''Wherever, Phyllis, didst get that learning?" She 
 said that her father was clerkly and talked to her of 
 things in books. . . . The masque! It was a world 
 to remember, the masque ! How beautiful all things 
 had been, and everybody and kind ! But there 
 had never been but the one masque, and soon the 
 family had gone away. 
 
 She was thinking, as she stood by the well, that 
 now perhaps they would come back this May and 
 she would not be there. She drew a long sigh, and 
 missed the castle, the park and the wood, the town 
 and the sight of the river and the bridge, over which 
 something was always passing. She missed, too, her 
 uncle the huntsman, who had died; missed his 
 larger house and the greater coming and going; 
 missed her room, where, standing at her window, she 
 saw the moon rise behind the Black Tower. And 
 now her uncle was dead who had been a single man, 
 and who had kept them from month to' month and 
 
 83 
 
THE WITCH 
 
 year to year with his loud protest each time they 
 talked of lifting a burden and going back to Haw- 
 thorn Forest. . . . But he was dead, and his house 
 passed to the new huntsman. Joan and her father 
 loaded their clothes and such matters upon a cart, 
 mounted it themselves, and with some farewells to 
 castle neighbours took the road to their own small 
 cottage, miles away. 
 
 She sighed, but then, with her eyes upon the 
 heartsease, determined to make the best of it. It 
 was not as though she did not love the cottage and 
 the garden, where presently all the flowers would 
 bloom again, and Hawthorn Forest, where she had 
 wandered freely from childhood. She did love them, 
 she had a warm love for them ; and sometimes at her 
 uncle's she had pleased herself with being pensive 
 and missing them sadly. She loved her father, too; 
 the old clerk and she were good friends, so good 
 friends, in an age of parental severity and filial awe, 
 as to have scandalized the housekeeper at the 
 castle. Moreover, though they were poor and had 
 always lived so retired, and though the country 
 hereabouts afforded few neighbours, and though she 
 had never known many people in the village, having 
 been but a young maid when she went away, there 
 were those whom she remembered, and she looked 
 forward to a renewal of acquaintance. And the day 
 was very rich and fair, and a robin singing, and 
 waves of fragrance blowing from the fruit trees, and 
 she was young and strong and innately joyous. She 
 
 84 
 
JOAN 
 
 broke a branch of apple blossom and stuck it into 
 the well water; she stooped and plucked a knot of 
 heartsease and fastened it at her bodice throat. 
 Then she lifted the bucket to her head, and moved 
 with it, tall and steady, over the worn stones of the 
 path to the cottage door. 
 
 Arrived within, she fell to her baking, in a clean 
 kitchen with doors and windows wide. She was a 
 notable cook, her mother having trained her before 
 she died. Moreover, what she touched she touched 
 like an artist. She made no useless steps or move- 
 ments, she neither dallied nor hurried ; all went with 
 a fine assurance, an easy "Long ago I knew how 
 but if you ask me how I know !" She sang as she 
 worked, a brave young carolling of Allan--Dale and 
 John--Green and Robin Hood and Maid Marian. 
 
 The good odour of the bread arose and floated out 
 to mingle with the may time of the little garden. 
 Old Roger Heron, short, ruddy, and hale for all he 
 was so clerkly, came in from his spading. "That 
 smells finely!" he said. He dipped a cup into the 
 well water and drank. 
 
 "Aye, and it is going to taste finely !" answered 
 Joan. 
 
 '"I have heard talk of bold Robin Hood, 
 
 And of brave Little John, 
 Of Friar Tuck and Will Scarlet, 
 Locksley and Maid Marian ' " 
 
 Her father put down the cup, moved to the settle, 
 and sitting deliberately down, began with delibera- 
 
 85 
 
THE WITCH 
 
 tion one of his talks of a thinking man. " Look you, 
 Joan! Goodman Cole and I have been discoursing. 
 We were talking of religion." 
 
 " Aye? " said Joan. She spread a white cloth upon 
 the table and set in the midst a bow-pot of cherry 
 bloom. "Religion. Well?" 
 
 "You should say the word with a heavier tone/' 
 said old Roger. " ' Religion/ Things are n't here 
 as they were at your uncle's rest his soul ! Mod- 
 esty in religion and a decent mirth seemed right 
 enough, seeing that the earl was minded that way 
 and on the whole the town as well. So the old games 
 and songs and ways went somehow on though 
 everything was stiffening, even there, and not like 
 it was when I was young and the learned were talk- 
 ing of the Greeks. But times have changed! It 
 seems the Lord wishes gloom, or the minister says he 
 does. If it was begun to be felt in the castle and the 
 town, and it was, your uncle and I often talked 
 about it, it shows ten times more here. Aye, it 
 showed three years ago, but Goodman Cole says it 
 grows day by day, and that now if you appear not 
 with a holy melancholy you are little else than a 
 lost soul!" 
 
 "Holy melancholy' and 'lost souls,'" said Joan. 
 "I know not why it is that those words together 
 sound to me so foolish. Doth it help anything 
 when I am sad? 
 
 " ' Friar Tuck and Will Scarlet, 
 
 Locksley and Maid Marian '" 
 86 
 
JOAN 
 
 "Stop, child!" said old Roger. "I'm in earnest 
 and so must you be. Look you, Joan ! you 're all I 've 
 got, and folk will be fanciful about all they've 
 got and try to guard it all around. And it came 
 into my head while Goodman Cole was talking 
 and it was he who put it there, talking of your 
 looks, and saying that you had better go mim-mouth 
 to church, and that you had a strange way of looking 
 straight at a body when you spoke, which did n't 
 become a woman, who ought always to go with a 
 downcast look it came into my head, I say, that 
 we're poor and without any protector and fairly 
 strange here now, and how evil tongues are as com- 
 mon as grass, and I said to myself that I 'd give you 
 a good cautioning " 
 
 " Mim-mouth and downcast look and go to heaven 
 so!" said Joan. "I wonder what that heaven's 
 like!" 
 
 "You mustn't talk that way," said old Heron. 
 " No, I know, you don't do so when others are by, but 
 you'll forget sometime. Mistress Borrow at the 
 castle said that you were a very pagan, though an 
 innocent one ! That came into my head, too, while 
 he talked. And another thing came that sounds 
 fanciful but a myriad of women and girls have 
 found it no fancy! Listen to me, Joan. Since 
 we got our new King, and since the land has grown 
 so zealous and finds Satan at any neighbour's hearth, 
 there's been a growing ferreting out and hanging 
 of witches. In Scotland it 's a fever and a running 
 
 87 
 
THE WITCH 
 
 fire and we're not as far as the antipodes from Scot- 
 land. Now I'm not denying that there are witches; 
 the Bible says there are, and so, of course, there 
 must be. But it knocks at my head that many a 
 silly old woman and many a young maid has been 
 called a witch that was none! And it came to me 
 that Hawthorn's not the castle and the castle wood, 
 and that if Mistress Borrow called you pagan and 
 said that you stepped and spoke too freely for a 
 woman, it's like that some here might take it on 
 themselves to think pure ill " 
 
 " I see not how they could," said Joan. " There is 
 no ill to think. Do you mean that I am not to 
 sing about Robin Hood and Maid Marian?" 
 
 "I like to hear you," said old Roger; "but are n't 
 there godly hymns? Use your own good sense, my 
 girl." 
 
 Joan at the window looked out upon the flowering 
 trees and the springing grass and robin redbreast 
 carolling in the pear tree. When she turned her eyes 
 were misty. "I like to sing what I feel like singing. 
 If it chances to be a hymn, well and good but a 
 forced hymn, meseems, is a fearful thing! I like to 
 go free, and I like not a mim-mouth and a downward 
 look. But I like not to bring trouble on you, and I 
 do not like either to have them set upon me for 
 ungodliness, nor to have some fool cry upon me for 
 a witch! So I '11 be careful. I promise you. She laid 
 the trenchers upon the table and turned out from its 
 pan a warm and fragrant loaf. "I'll be careful 
 
 88 
 
JOAN 
 
 oh, careful! And now when are we going to get 
 our beehives from the forester's wife?" 
 
 That afternoon she took her distaff and sat in the 
 doorway and span. The cottage stood some dis- 
 tance from Hawthorn Forest road, but there was a 
 narrow greened-over path that wound between. 
 The robin sang lustily ; daffodils, edging the walk to 
 the gate, were opening their golden cups. Old 
 Heron had gone a mile to engage Hugh the thatcher 
 to come to-morrow to mend the roof. Joan span and 
 span and thought of the castle and the masque. 
 
 An hour passed. The gate-latch clicked and she 
 looked up. An old woman, much bent and helping 
 herself with a knobby stick, was coming toward 
 her between the rows of daffodils. When she reached 
 the doorstone Joan saw how wrinkled and drear were 
 her face and form. "Good-day," she said in a 
 quavering voice. 
 
 "Good-day," answered Joan. 
 
 "Good-day," said the old woman again. "You 
 don't remember me, but I remember you, my pretty 
 maid! I mind you running about in the woods, 
 playing as it were with your shadow, with your hair 
 braided down! Now you wear it under a cap as is 
 proper. I'm Mother Spuraway, who lives beyond 
 the mill-race." 
 
 " I remember now," saidjjoan. " I had forgotten. 
 Will you sit down?" 
 
 She brought a stool and set it for her visitor. The 
 other lowered herself stiffly. "Oh, my old bones! 
 
 89 
 
THE WITCH 
 
 I '11 sit for a minute, sweetheart, but what I wanted 
 to ask you " She took Joan by the apron and 
 held her with shaking fingers. " I wanted to ask you 
 if you would n't be Christian enough to spare me a 
 measure of meal? I '11 swear by the church door and 
 the book of prayer that I have n't had bite nor sup 
 since this time yesterday !" She fell to whimpering. 
 
 Joan stood, considering her with grey eyes. "Yes, 
 I '11 give you some meal. But what ! They used to 
 say that you were well-to-do." 
 
 "Aye, aye!" said Mother Spuraway. "They said 
 sooth. I did n't lack baked nor brewed, no, nor 
 silver sixpences! for, look you, I knew all the good 
 herbs. But alack, alack! times are changed with 
 me. . . . I 'm hungry, I 'm hungry, and my gown 's 
 ragged that once was good and fine, and my shoes 
 are not fit to go to church in. Woe's me woe's 
 me woe's me!" 
 
 Joan went indoors and returned with a piece of 
 bread and a cup of milk. Mother Spuraway seized 
 them and ate and drank with feeble avidity. "Good 
 maid a good maid! " 
 
 "Why do they come to you no more?" asked 
 Joan. 
 
 Mother Spuraway put down the empty cup. 
 "Partly, there's a leech come to these parts has 
 stolen my trade. I '11 not say he does n't know the 
 herbs, too, but I knew them as well as he, and I knew 
 them first! But mostly, oh, dear heart! because 
 there's been raised a hue and cry that I did n't cure 
 
 90 
 
JOAN 
 
 with innocence as though I did n't cure as inno- 
 cently as him ! But I 'm old I 'm old ! . . . I never 
 had aught to do even with white magic. There 
 was healing in the herbs and that and good sense 
 was enough. But I 'm old old, and they bear 
 hard upon women. . . . And I hear that there 's a 
 buzz of talk and I may be taken up. I know Mas- 
 ter Clement's been against me since ever he came 
 to the parish " She began to weep, painful slow 
 tears of age. 
 
 Joan looked at her with a knitted brow. "There, 
 mother, there, mother! I would not let them that 
 hurt me make me weep. See! I'll give you your 
 meal, and it will all come straight." She brought 
 her a full measure, and a great, share of her baking 
 of bread besides. 
 
 Mother Spur away blessed her for a pitiful maid, 
 got painfully to her feet, and said she would be go- 
 ing. ..." You've good herbs in your garden, but I 
 see no rue. If I be straying this way again I '11 bring 
 you a bit for planting." 
 
 She went away, her stick supporting her, her eyes 
 still searching the little leaves and low plants on each 
 side of the garden path and the faint, winding track 
 between gate and forest road. Joan, in the door- 
 way, let her distaff fall and sat pondering, her elbow 
 on her knee, her chin in her hand, and her grey eyes 
 upon the fruit trees. " Shall I tell father or shall 
 I not tell father? If I tell him, he will say she must 
 not come again. . . . And how am I going to help 
 
/ THE WITCH 
 
 her coming again ?" In the end, she determined to 
 tell her father, but to represent to him how hard it 
 was going to be and how it seemed to her poor- 
 spirited, loveless, and mean And as she got this 
 far, she saw another visitor coming. 
 
 She knew this visitor, and springing up, went to 
 the gate to greet her. Before she left this country- 
 side she had often, of Sundays in Hawthorn Church, 
 sat beside Alison Inch, the sempstress's daughter. 
 And after she went to the castle Alison had twice 
 been with her mother to the town, and they had 
 climbed the hill to the castle wood and the hunts- 
 man's house to see their old neighbours, though, 
 indeed, they had not been such near neighbours. 
 Alison was older than she, but at the castle hers had 
 been the advantage, she being at home with a number 
 of goodly things, and Alison showing herself some- 
 what shy and deferential. But now the castle and 
 the park and her uncle's house were a dream, and 
 Joan was back in Heron's cottage that was not on 
 the whole so good as the Inches' nor so near the vil- 
 lage. Moreover, she was now almost a stranger, and 
 knowledge and familiarity with all matters were on 
 Alison's side, to say nothing of her year or two 
 longer in the world. Alison felt her advantages, and 
 was not averse to the other's recognition of them. 
 Joan and she kissed, then moved somewhat saunter- 
 ingly up the path to the doorstone. 
 
 "Mother and I went to take her new smocks to 
 Madam Carthew, and then when we came back it 
 
 92 
 
JOAN 
 
 was so fine, and mother said that she would go to see 
 Margery Herd, and if I chose I might walk on here. 
 The place looks," said Alison, "as though you 
 had never gone away." 
 
 "Nay, there are things yet to do," said Joan, 
 "and that though we've been here well-nigh a 
 month. You would not think how hard it is to get 
 back the gear we left with folk! They had the use 
 until we came back, and they knew that we would 
 come back but now you might think that we 
 were asking their things instead of our own ! Three 
 women have looked as black at me! We got our 
 churn but yesterday, and the forester's wife still 
 has our beehives. A dozen of her own, and when we 
 ask for our poor three back again, you might sup- 
 pose we 'd offered to steal the thatch from over her 
 head!"' 
 
 They sat down, facing each other, on the sun- 
 flecked doorstone. 
 
 Alison looked about her. " I Ve never seen daffo- 
 dillies bloom like these ! Joan, I heard a story on 
 thee the other day." 
 
 "What story?" 
 
 "They said thou hadst a lover^in the town a 
 vintner." 
 
 "I never had a lover, town or country." 
 
 Alison made round eyes. "What! no one ever 
 asked you to wed?" 
 
 "I said not that. I said that I never had a 
 lover." 
 
 93 
 
THE WITCH 
 
 Alison fell to plaiting her apron, her head on one 
 side. " Mother says that your father's that sunk in 
 notions of the learned that he'd never think of it, 
 but she wonders that your uncle did n't see fit to 
 find you a husband." 
 
 " Does she? Well, one wonders over one thing and 
 one over another." 
 
 "There are very few bachelors and marriageable 
 men hereabouts," said Alison, "but I suppose you'll 
 get that one of them you set your cap for." 
 
 "And why do you suppose that?" 
 
 Alison, her head still on one side, looked aslant at 
 the returned friend. "Oh, men are all for strange 
 and new! Your tallness, now, that most people 
 count a fault, and that colour hair and that colour 
 eyes . . . Yes, you'll get the one you want." , 
 
 "And if I want none?" 
 
 "Oh!" said Alison, and laughed somewhat shrilly. 
 "Have you got an elfin man for your true-love? 
 You'll not cheat me else with your 'And if I want 
 none?'" 
 
 Joan twirled her distaff. "I do not wish to cheat 
 you. And you went with the smocks to Madam 
 Carthew's?" 
 
 Alison bent, slipped off her shoe, and shook out of 
 it a minute pebble. "And what do you mean by 
 that?" 
 
 "Mean? I mean naught," said Joan. "I meant 
 that she was a great lady, and the squire's house 
 must be fine to see. What didst think I meant?" 
 
 94 
 
JOAN 
 
 But Alison would not divulge. All that came was, 
 "I noted you last Sunday, how you looked aside, 
 during the singing, at the gentry in the squire's pew! 
 But they are godly people, and if you think that they 
 looked aside " 
 
 " In God's name!" said Joan, "what is the matter 
 with the wench?" 
 
 But before she could find that out, here came one 
 back Mother Spuraway, to wit. She came hob- 
 bling up the green path to the gate, and stood beck- 
 oning. Joan rose and went to her. Mother Spur- 
 away held in her hand a green herb taken up by the 
 root with earth clinging to it. 
 
 " It is rue, dearie," she said. "There was a clump 
 of it left by the burned cot a little way off. So I dug 
 it up for you " 
 
 Joan took it. "Thank you. I'll plant it now." 
 
 "You've got company," said Mother Spura- 
 way. "I'll not come in. But I wanted to do some- 
 what for you " 
 
 She turned and hobbled off, her wavering old 
 figure wavering away upon the twisting path. 
 
 Joan went back to the doorstone with the rue in 
 her hand. 
 
 "Was n't that Mother Spuraway?" asked Ali- 
 son. "I would n't be seen talking to her. She's a 
 witch." 
 
 "She's no such thing," said Joan. "She's only a 
 wretched, poor old woman. Now, what did you 
 mean about Sunday and church?" 
 
 95 
 
THE WITCH 
 
 But her father came round the corner of the cot- 
 tage, bringing with him Hugh the thatcher to have a 
 look at the torn roof. Alison rose; the sun was get- 
 ting low and she must be going. She went, and 
 Joan, at that time, did not find out what she had 
 meant. 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 THE SQUIRE'S BROTHER 
 
 FOUR days later she went to walk in Hawthorn 
 Forest. It was a golden afternoon, and she had has- 
 tened her work and got it out of hand. The roof was 
 mended, the beehives were back, the cottage taking 
 on an air of having been lived in all this while. Old 
 Heron earned by scrivener's work. It was not much 
 that he found to do, but it gave them plain fare and 
 plain clothes to wear. Joan, too, from time to time 
 sold to a merchant flax that she had spun. . . . She 
 had gone no way into the forest since their return, 
 there had been each day so much to do ! But to-day 
 an image had haunted her of how the forest used to 
 look in its garb of May. 
 
 She let the gate-latch fall behind her and went out 
 in the grey-green gown that she had spun and dyed 
 herself. She wore a small cap of linen and a linen 
 kerchief. Sunday she would wear a bluish gown, and 
 a cap and kerchief of lawn. She was tall and light 
 upon her feet, grey-eyed and well-featured, with hair 
 more gold than brown, with a warm, sun-flushed, 
 smooth, fine-textured skin, and a good mouth and 
 chin and throat. The sun was three hours high ; she 
 meant to have a long and beautiful time. 
 
 So close to the forest edge was the cottage that 
 \97 
 
THE WITCH 
 
 almost immediately great trees were about her, 
 leaf-mould and flowerets beneath her feet. The forest 
 was hardly yet in full leaf. There spread about her 
 a divine pale emerald fretwork, and gold light in 
 lances and arrows, and closing the vistas purple light 
 in gauzy sheets and curtains. The boles of the 
 trees were marvels, the great spreading branches 
 kings' wonders, every slight fern illustrious. The 
 stir and song of hidden birds, the scurrying of a hare, 
 a glimpse down a beechen aisle of a doe and fawn, 
 filled a cup of delight. She was Greek to it all, a 
 country girl of Attica. Merely to live was good, 
 merely to vibrate and quiver to the myriad straying 
 fingers of life, merely to be, and ever more to be, with 
 a fresh intensity! 
 
 On she wandered with a light step and heart, now 
 by some handbreadth of sward, now in a maze of 
 trees. Now and then she stood still, gazing and 
 listening and smelling the good earth. Once or twice 
 she rested upon some protruding root or fallen log, 
 nursed her knees and marked the minute life about 
 her. 
 
 Happy, happy, happy! with the blood coursing 
 warmly and sanely through her veins, with her sen- 
 ses keen at the intake and her brain good at com- 
 bining. . . . Open places, small clearings, existed here 
 and there in the forest with, at great intervals, some 
 hut or poor cottage. So it was that she soon came 
 in sight of the burned cot and trodden bit of garden 
 whence Mother Spuraway had plucked the rue. 
 
 98 
 
THE SQUIRE'S BROTHER 
 
 The place lay curiously, half in gold light, half in 
 deep shadow. The stone chimney was standing, to- 
 gether with some portion of charred rafter. There 
 were currant and gooseberry bushes, and a plum 
 tree, but the bit of garden-hedge was broken down 
 and all things had run to waste. Joan, drawing near, 
 heard children's voices, and presently, touching the 
 cleared space, came into view of six or seven village 
 boys, who, roaming at will or sent on some errand 
 through the wood, had found here a resting-stage 
 and fascination. They were after something she 
 thought a bird's nest in a crotch of the plum tree 
 that brushed the blackened chimney. She stood and 
 watched for a moment, then called to them. "Leave 
 that poor bird alone!" Two or three, turning, 
 laughed and jeered, and one small savage at the foot 
 of the tree threw a stone. Joan was angry, but she 
 could not help the bird they probably had nest 
 and eggs by now. She went on, past the burned cot, 
 and was presently in the greenwood again. 
 
 After a time she found herself upon the Oak 
 Grange road, running across this corner of the forest. 
 She had not meant to go this way, but a memory 
 came to her of a stream flowing over pebbles, of an 
 old house and an oak tree around which they used to 
 say the fairies danced at night. She walked on upon 
 the narrow and grass-grown road, and after a little 
 time it led her out of the wood and to the edge of the 
 pebbly stream. There was a footbridge thrown 
 across, but she did not mean to go over to the other 
 
 99 
 
THE WITCH 
 
 bank. She had no acquaintance at the Grange. She 
 had heard Goodman Cole say that the old miser, 
 Master Hard wick, was still alive, but was rarely 
 seen without the house. Will the smith's son had 
 once worked at the Grange, but she did not know if 
 he were there yet. . . . She sat down on a stone at 
 this end of the bridge, and regarded now the old 
 ruinous house sunk in ivy, with the long grass and 
 ragged shrubs before it, and now the giant oak where 
 the fairies danced, and now the bright blue sky 
 behind with floating clouds, and now the shallow, 
 narrow river with its pebbly shore, and now she 
 regarded all in one. Ripple, ripple! sang the water. 
 
 She sat there some time, but at last, with a long 
 breath, she stood up, looked a moment longer, then 
 turned and, reentering the wood, faced homeward. 
 She had strolled and sauntered and spent her time. 
 Now the sun was getting low in the west. Presently 
 she left the road and took the forest track that 
 would bring her again by the burned cot. 
 
 Through the thinning wood she saw the place 
 before her, in shadow now, except that the top of 
 the plum tree was gold. She thought that she still 
 heard the boys' voices. Then, just at the edge of the 
 clearing, she came suddenly face to face with a man. 
 
 He was a tall man, plainly dressed in some dark 
 
 stuff. Stopping as he did when he saw her, stepping 
 
 aside a pace to give her room, he chanced to come 
 
 'Into a ray of the last slant suplight. It showed his 
 
 face, a lined, rather strange, not unpleasing face. 
 
 ICO 
 
.THE SQUIRE'S BROTHER 
 
 He was carrying in the hollow of -his ainra grey and 
 white cat. The creature lay stretched out, hdi-d'c^d, 
 blood upon its fur. 
 
 "Ah," said Joan, "it was that they were tor- 
 menting!" She stood still. She was sympathetic 
 with animals; they were like everything else, living 
 and loving to live. She thought they were very like 
 human beings. 
 
 "Aye," said the man. "But it can recover. It is 
 starved as well." He looked at this chance-met 
 young woman. " I meant to carry it back to Doro- 
 thy at the Grange," he said. " But I am on my way 
 to visit a sick man and it will be much out of my 
 road. Do you live anywhere near?" He knit his 
 brows a little. He thought that by now he knew all 
 faces for a long way around, but he did not know her 
 face. 
 
 "Aye," said Joan. "I live at Heron's cottage. 
 If you wish me to, I '11 take her and give her milk to 
 drink and let her lie by the hearth for a while." 
 
 They were standing beneath the very last line of 
 trees, before there began the bit of waste and the 
 ruined garden. The village boys were there yet, 
 turned all but two of them to some other idle 
 sport about the chimney and the fallen beams. 
 These two, loath to give up the beast they were tor- 
 menting, and childishly wrathful against the in- 
 truder, stood watching him from behind a thorn 
 bush. 
 
 "Will you do so?" said Aderhold. "That is well! 
 101 
 
THE WITCH 
 
 I am going your way through the wood. I will carry 
 it until we reach the path to the cottage." 
 
 They moved from the clearing and the sight of the 
 thorn bush. It was dim now in the wood, with an 
 evening wind and darkness stealing through. They 
 walked rather swiftly than slowly. 
 
 11 1 heard that Goodman Heron had come back," 
 said Aderhold. "You are his daughter?" 
 
 "Yes. I'm Joan." 
 
 "You have been away a long time." 
 
 "Aye. Three years come Saint John's Eve." 
 
 "Three years. I have been here three years." 
 
 "You are the physician?" asked Joan. " You live 
 at the Oak Grange with Master Hard wick?" 
 
 "Aye. At the Oak Grange." 
 
 "They say that fairies dance there and that a 
 demon haunts it." 
 
 " ' They say ' is the father and mother of delusion." 
 
 " I would wish there were no demons," said Joan, 
 "but some fairies are not ill folk. But the minister 
 saith that God hates all alike." 
 
 They came to the edge of the forest, before them 
 the threadlike green path to Heron's cottage. "I 
 must go on now by the road," said Aderhold. Joan 
 held out her hands and he put in them the white and 
 grey cat. "You are a good maid to help me," he 
 said. " I have little power to do aught for any one, 
 but if I can serve you ever I will." He turned to the 
 road and the sick man, she to the cottage gate. 
 
 The next morning there came a visitor, indeed, 
 
 102 
 
THE SQUIRE'S BROTHER 
 
 to Heron's cottage, Master Harry Carthew, the 
 squire's brother, who fastened his horse to the elm at 
 the gate, and came up the path between the daffodils 
 in his great boots and his sad-coloured doublet and 
 wide-brimmed hat. Joan, watching from the win- 
 dow, her father was just without and would meet 
 him, thought how handsome a man he was, but 
 also how stern was his aspect, stern almost as if the 
 world were all a churchyard, with graves about. . . . 
 It seemed that he had some writings that he wished 
 copied. As she moved about the kitchen she heard 
 his voice in .explanation. The voice, she thought, 
 was like the gentleman, a well-made voice, and yet 
 hard, and yet melancholy, too. She heard him say 
 that he would ride by in a day or so for the writing 
 and then he said that the day was warm and 
 asked for a cup of water. 
 
 Old Heron turned his head. "Joan! 11 
 Joan filled a cup with fresh well water, set it on a 
 trencher for salver, and brought it forth to the 
 squire's brother. He lifted it to his lips and drank. 
 Goodman Cole's advice to the contrary, Joan stood 
 with a level gaze, with the result that she was aware 
 that as he drank he looked steadily at her over the 
 rim of the cup. It was not a free or distasteful look, 
 rather it had in it melancholy and wonder. He put 
 the cup down and presently went away. 
 
 Two days thereafter he came with other papers to 
 be copied. A pouring rain arrived upon his heels and 
 he must sit with old Heron in the kitchen until it 
 
 103 
 
THE WITCH 
 
 was over. The room was bright and clean. Joan, 
 having put for him her father's chair, sat to one side 
 spinning; old Heron took a stool. They were yeoman 
 stock, and the squire's brother was gentry. Carthew 
 spoke little and the others waited for him to speak. 
 The room was quiet save for the whirr of the wheel 
 and the rain without. The white and grey cat lay 
 by the hearth. Old Heron had thrown fresh faggots 
 on the fire, and the tongues of flame threw a danc- 
 ing light. 
 
 The little speech there was, and that solely be- 
 tween the two men, fell upon the affairs of the coun- 
 try. The discovery of the Gunpowder Plot was 
 seven months old, but England still echoed to the 
 stupendous noise it had made. Old Heron said 
 something that bore upon the now heavily penalized 
 state of the Catholics. 
 
 " Aye, they pulled down their own house on their 
 own heads!" answered Carthew. He spoke with a 
 Stern, intense triumph. "I would have them forth 
 from England! There is warrant for it in all his- 
 tories. As the Spaniards pushed out the Jews, so 
 I would push them out!" 
 
 The rain stopped ; he rose to go. Old Heron open- 
 ing the door, let in a burst of fresh sweetness. Joan 
 stood up from her wheel, and, as Carthew passed, 
 curtsied. He made an inclination of his head, their 
 eyes met. There was that in his look that both 
 challenged and besought, that, at all events, left her 
 troubled enough. 
 
 104 
 
THE SQUIRE'S BROTHER 
 
 Again two days and he came to recover what 
 copied. Again she sat and span, and again she was 
 conscious that he looked at her rather than at her 
 father, and that, though he spoke aloud only to her 
 father, there was some utterance trying to pierce its 
 way to her. He went away but the next day he 
 came again, when there was no looking for him. 
 
 Her father was away to the village. She was at the 
 well, beneath the apple tree, by the heartsease bed. 
 She turned from lifting the cool, brimming, dripping 
 bucket, and saw him close beside her. 
 
 "Good-day," he said. 
 
 "Good-day, sir. He is not here. Father is not 
 here!" 
 
 "I am sorry for that," he answered; then, after 
 a silence in which she became aware that he was 
 fighting, she knew not why, for breath, "But you 
 are here." 
 
 "Aye," said Joan. "I I have so much to do." 
 She left the bucket on the coping of the well and 
 started toward the cottage. "Father went but a 
 little while ago. You may overtake him, sir, " 
 
 Carthew stood before her. "I have seen you at 
 church three times. I have seen you here three 
 times. For years I had not thought of earthly toys 
 my mind was set on the coming of the Kingdom 
 of God. . . . And now you you come. ... I think 
 you have bewitched me." 
 
 Joan's heart beat violently. A strong presence 
 was beside her, before her. She wrenched herself free. 
 
 105 
 
THE WITCH 
 
 " You must not speak so, sir. You must not speak 
 so, Master Car thew! I am naught to you you 
 can be naught to me." Brushing by him, she began 
 to walk swiftly toward the cottage. 
 
 He kept beside her. " You are much to me and 
 I will be much to you. . . . God knoweth the strug- 
 gle, and knoweth if I be damned or no ! But now 
 I will abide in this land that I believed not in but 
 I will serve Him still ; even where I am, I will serve 
 Him more strictly than before! So perhaps He will 
 accept, and not too dreadfully condemn. . . . Do not 
 doubt that I mean honestly by you." 
 
 "What you mean or mean not, I know not!" said 
 Joan. "But I am all but a stranger to you, sir, and 
 I will to remain so! Will you not go? and my 
 father shall bring you the writings " 
 
 Carthew's hand clasped and unclasped. He had 
 gone further than he ever meant to go to-day. 
 Indeed, he had no plan, no gathered ideas. He might 
 have pleaded that he was himself a victim, struck 
 down unawares. Forces within had gathered, no 
 doubt, for a violent reaction after violent, long- 
 continued repression, and chance had set a woman, 
 young and fair, in the eye of the reaction and 
 now in his soul there was a divided will and war, 
 war! His brow showed struggle and misery, even 
 while his eyes and parted lips desired wholly. 
 
 With effort he won a temporary control. "I did 
 not mean to frighten you. I mean no harm. I will 
 say nothing more not now, at least. Yes, I will 
 
 106 
 
THE SQUIRE'S BROTHER 
 
 ride away now, and come for the writing another 
 day. See, I am naught now but friend and well- 
 wisher!" 
 
 That a squire's brother should conceive that he 
 might take some slight liberty with a cotter's daugh- 
 ter, that he might, on a May day and none looking, 
 snatch a kiss or steal an arm about her, was truly, 
 in Joan's time, neither a great rarity nor a great 
 matter. If it went no further than that, it need 
 not be especially remembered. Rebuff with vigour, 
 if you chose, but so that the thing ended there, it 
 was no hanging matter! At the castle, page or es- 
 quire might have been more forward than Carthew, 
 and Joan, though she sent them about their busi- 
 ness, might have done so with some inward laughter. 
 But Master Harry Carthew! He was a Puritan, 
 strict and stern, he was always with the minister, 
 he walked with the Bible and by the Bible. He was 
 no hypocrite either; it was easy to see that he was 
 earnest. Then what did he have to do with com- 
 ing here so, troubling her so? Joan felt a surge of 
 anger and fright. Something boding and pestilential 
 seemed to gather like a mist about her. 
 
 The two, both silent now, moved out of the 
 shadow of the fruit trees into the blossomy hand- 
 breadth before the cottage door. As they did so, 
 Alison Inch came by the gate, saw the horse fas- 
 tened to the elm, and, looking through the wicket, 
 Carthew and Joan. If she had meant to come in 
 or no did not appear; she stood stock-still for a 
 
 107 
 
THE WITCH 
 
 moment, then put herself into motion again and 
 passed on. 
 
 If Carthew saw her, he paid no attention. But 
 Joan saw her, saw her face quite plainly. When Car- 
 thew with a sudden and harsh " Good-bye for 
 this time; or, good-bye forever, if so be I can yet 
 kill this thing within me!" strode away and 
 through the gate, and, mounting his horse, rode off 
 with a stiff bearing, not looking back, she stood for a 
 moment or two with a still, expressionless face, then, 
 moving slowly to the doorstep, sat down and took 
 her head into her hands. She was seeing again Ali- 
 son's face. "That's what she meant the other day 
 she meant that at church I was minding, not the 
 psalm, but that man. . . . Then, doth she mind him 
 so herself that she looked so, there at the gate? . . . 
 Woe 's me ! " mourned Joan. ' ' Here 's a coil ! " 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 
 THE OAK GRANGE 
 
 ADERHOLD sat in the moth-eaten old chair, in the 
 bare room, beside the bed in which, seventy-odd 
 years before, Master Hard wick had been born and 
 in which he was now to die. The old man lay high 
 upon the pillows. He slept a good deal, but when he 
 waked his mind was clear, not weakened like his 
 body. Indeed, the physician thought that the men- 
 tal flame burned more strongly toward the end, as 
 though Death fanned away some heavy and dulling 
 vapour. 
 
 Master Hard wick was sleeping now. Old Dorothy 
 had tiptoed in to see how matters went, and, after 
 a whispered word, had tiptoed out again. She was 
 fond of Aderhold she said that the Oak Grange 
 had been human since he came. 
 
 He sat musing in the great chair. Four years. 
 . . . Four years in this still house. He felt a great 
 pity for the old man lying drawn and crumpled there 
 beside him, a pity and affection. The two were 
 kindred. He had this refuge, this nook in the world, 
 this home to be grateful for, and he was grateful. 
 Moreover, the old man depended upon him, de- 
 pended and clung. . . . Four years four years 
 of security and peace. They had t^en bought at a 
 
 109 
 
THE WITCH 
 
 price. He saw himself, a silent figure, watching all 
 things but saying naught, keeping silence, conform- 
 ing, agreeing by his silence. He thought a braver 
 man would not have been so silent. . . . Four 
 years four years of the quietest routine, going 
 where there was sickness and he was called, wander- 
 ing far afield in a country not thickly peopled, lying 
 musing by streams or in deep woods, or moving upon 
 long bare hilltops with the storm sky or the blue 
 sky, going punctually to church each Sunday, pay- 
 ing to the tithing-man some part of his scant earn- 
 ings. . . then at the Oak Grange sitting with this 
 old man, drawing him, when he could, out of his 
 self -absorption and his fears. Aderhold was tender 
 with his fears; that which weighed upon his own 
 soul was his own fear, and it made him comprehend 
 the other's terrors, idle though he thought they 
 were. He thought that from some other dimension 
 his own would seem as idle and yet they bowed 
 him down, and kept him forever fabricating a mask. 
 Four years. In the small bare room which was 
 called his and which, through care for old Dorothy, 
 he himself kept and cleaned, there stood an oakeit 
 press, where under lock and key he guarded ink 
 and pen and paper and a book that he was writing. 
 That guess at qualities, at origins and destinies, that 
 more or less mystical vision, taste and apprehension 
 of ground and consequence, that intuition of all 
 things in flood, of form out of form, of unity in 
 motion all that in France he had outspoken, and 
 
 no 
 
THE OAK GRANGE 
 
 in speaking had like to have lost liberty and life 
 all that he had not spoken of here these four years, 
 hard-by Hawthorn Village and church all this he 
 was striving to put there upon paper. He rose at 
 dawn and wrote while the light strengthened; he 
 bought himself candles and wrote at night when all 
 the place was so still that silence grew sound. Four 
 years 
 
 Master Hardwick stirred, opened his eyes. 
 " Gilbert !" 
 
 "I am here, cousin." 
 
 " How long?" 
 
 " I do not know. You do not fail fast nor easily. 
 Your body is courageous." 
 
 He gave him to drink. As he put down the cup 
 Dorothy opened the door. Behind her appeared a 
 man with a black dress, close-cut hair, and a steeple- 
 crowned hat. Although the day was warm he had 
 about him a wide cloak. He was short and thin, 
 with a pale, acrimonious, zealot's face. He carried 
 in his hand a Geneva Bible. 
 
 Dorothy stammered out, " Master Clement did 
 not wish to wait, master " 
 
 Clement spoke for himself. " While I waited your 
 master's soul might have perished, for a soul can 
 perish in a twinkling." He put the old woman aside 
 with his hand and came forward from the door to 
 the bed. "How do you do to-day, Master Hard- 
 wick?" 
 
 The old man made a feeble movement upon his 
 in 
 
THE WITCH 
 
 pillows. "I do as I have done, Master Clement, - 
 I run rapidly toward this life's end." 
 
 "Yea," said the minister, "and I fear me that you 
 run toward worse than this life's end ! I am come 
 I am come, Master Hard wick, to wrestle with the 
 Devil for thy soul ! I tell thee, it stands in mortal 
 danger of dropping from life's end into that gulf 
 where Dives burns and is mocked from Abraham's 
 bosom!" 
 
 Aderhold had risen. Dorothy, having placed a 
 chair for Master Clement, was on the point of van- 
 ishing, but the minister called her back. "Stay, 
 woman, and be edified likewise! Or wait! Call also 
 the serving-man and the lad that I saw without. It 
 befits that a dying man, suing for pardon to an 
 offended King, should have his household about 
 him." 
 
 Dorothy brought them in, Will and the boy, her 
 nephew. The three stood in a solemn row. Long 
 habit had made them accept old master and his 
 ways, but they did not doubt that he stood in peril 
 of his soul. It was proper that the minister should 
 exhort him. They stood with slightly lifted and 
 exalted countenances. After all, so little came into 
 their lives to make them feel a comparative right- 
 eousness, to set them in any wise upon a platform 
 of honour! 
 
 Master Hard wick lay awake and conscious but 
 passed beyond much speaking. Aderhold withdrew 
 into the shadow of the bed-curtains, and out of 
 
 112 
 
 
 
THE OAK GRANGE 
 
 this twilight regarded Master Clement. He knew 
 of more than one or two heroic things which this man 
 had done. Moreover, he had heard that years before, 
 when Calvin had by no means as yet tinctured 
 England, Master Clement had stoutly set up his 
 standard and kept strict vigil before it. It was whis- 
 pered that he had stood in the pillory for "No Pope 
 
 and No Prelates!" Aderhold, gazing upon him, 
 was aware that Master Clement would endure per- 
 secution as unflinchingly as, indubitably, he would 
 inflict it. Each quality somehow cancelled the other 
 
 Master Clement was out of it and there was 
 left only the gross waste and suffering. . . . 
 
 Aderhold had heard priest and preacher, after 
 pulpit cries of human worthlessness, of the insignifi- 
 cance of the soul, of universal and hopeless guilt, of 
 the inflamed mind of God, of the hell which, in the 
 course of nature, awaited every child of Adam, of 
 the predestination of some, indeed, through grace 
 of another, to an unearned glory, of the eternal, 
 insufferable loss and anguish of those multitudes 
 and multitudes and multitudes, who either had 
 never known or heard of that remedy, or who, the 
 Devil at their ear, had made bold to doubt its utter 
 efficacy he had heard and seen such men, at 
 death-beds, in the presence of solemn and temperate 
 Death, turn from what they preached to Reason 
 and Love. He had heard them try to smooth away 
 the deep and dark trenches in the bewildered brain 
 which they themselves had done their best to dig. 
 
 113 
 
THE WITCH 
 
 He thought their conversion the saddest miracle 
 sad, for it did not last. Death passed for that 
 time from their view, back they went to preach to 
 listening throngs who must die, Inherited Guilt, In- 
 herited, fiendish punishment, an Inherited, fearful 
 God, an Inherited curse upon enquiry, and the hum- 
 bling, indeed, of an Inherited vicarious atonement. 
 . . . He wondered that they never foresaw their 
 own death-bed. He thought that they never truly, 
 bone and marrow, believed what they said, but that 
 the reverberating voices of the ages behind them 
 stunned, went through them, produced, an automatic 
 voice and action. To resist that insistence, to breast 
 the roaring stream of the past he acknowledged 
 that it was difficult, difficult ! 
 
 Three or four times in these years he had chanced 
 to find himself together with Master Clement at 
 some death-bed. Once he had seen him soften a 
 child dying and crying out in terror of the Judgement 
 Day. ' 1 You were baptized you were baptized ' ' 
 repeated the minister to him over and over again. 
 " I baptized you myself. You are safe you are 
 safe, my dear child ! The Lord Christ will help you 
 - the Lord Christ will help you " But the child 
 had died in terror. 
 
 To-day there was no softening in the aspect of 
 Master Clement. This old man before him was a 
 wretched miser hoarding gold, a solitary who in this 
 dark old house as probably as not practised alchemy, 
 lusting to turn lead and iron into gold, and as prob- 
 
 114 
 
THE OAK GRANGE 
 
 ably as not practised it by unlawful and demoniacal 
 aid. Rarely was he seen in church too feeble to 
 come, he said ; too unwilling, thought Master Clem- 
 ent. He did not give of his substance, he was bitter 
 and misliked, he asked no prayers Master Clem- 
 ent had many counts against him, and was fain 
 to believe that they tallied with God's counts. He 
 girded himself and came forth to wrestle with and 
 throw this soul, and by the hair of its head to drag 
 it from the edge of the bottomless pit. He wrestled 
 for the better part of an hour. 
 
 Master Hard wick lay unwinking, high upon his 
 pillows. Aderhold could not tell how much really 
 entered ear and mind; the old man seemed to be 
 regarding something far away, something growing 
 in the distance. The pity of it, he thought, was for 
 Will and old Dorothy and, the boy; they were drink- 
 ing, drinking . 
 
 At last Master Clement desisted. He stared with 
 a fixed face at Master Hard wick who stared be- 
 yond him. "Thou impenitent old man !" He 
 rose and with a gesture dismissed the three in line. 
 Will and Dorothy and the boy filed out, primed 
 to discuss among themselves master's impenitency. 
 "I go now, Master Hardwick," said the minister, 
 "but I shall come again to-morrow, though I fear me 
 thou art as utterly lost as any man in England!" 
 
 Aderhold accompanied him from the chamber 
 into the hall. He knew that it was in order to speak 
 with unction of the just closed exhortation ; to won- 
 
 "5 
 
THE WITCH 
 
 der at the minister's fervent power, and deprecate 
 with sighs and shaken head the horrible wickedness 
 of the human heart; to marvel that any could hold 
 out against the truth so presented how many 
 times had he heard such an utterance and seen the 
 self-congratulation behind how many times ! He 
 knew that the pause which the minister made, un- 
 conscious as it certainly was, was a pause for the 
 accustomed admiration. When it did not come he 
 saw that, as unconsciously again, Master Clement's 
 mistrust of him deepened. He knew that, for all 
 his locked lips and eyes withheld from expression, 
 for all his stillness, repression, and church-going, 
 the minister liked him not. The clash of minds 
 came subtly through whatever walls ^ou might 
 build around it. 
 
 " I fear, Master Aderhold," now said the minister, 
 "that you have done little during your residence 
 with your kinsman to bring him to repentance. 
 Surely, in these years of such close communion, a 
 godly man could have done much! Such a man as 
 Harry Carthew would have had him by now day 
 and night upon his knees!" 
 
 Aderhold sighed, then dropped the veil, and rais- 
 ing his head, spoke eye to eye. " I would that I could 
 make you believe, Master Clement, that there is in 
 this old man who is coming to die more good than 
 ill. In these years that you speak of, I have seen 
 that good grow, of its own motion, upon the ill. 
 Why may it not continue, throughout oceans yet of 
 
 116 
 
THE OAK GRANGE 
 
 experience, to suffuse and gain upon and dissolve 
 and reconcile unto itself the ill?" 
 
 Master Clement drew a sharp " Ha!" of triumph. 
 Here was heterodoxy raising its head, and the man 
 had always looked to him heterodox! "Ha! 1 OJ its 
 own motion! ' Beware beware, Master Aderhold ! 
 I have marked you I am marking you still ! Be- 
 ware lest one day you be cited for a creeping, insidi- 
 ous doubter and insinuator of false doctrine!" 
 
 He went away, striding by the fairy oak in his 
 wide cloak and steeple hat, with a pale, wrathful, 
 intense face. Aderhold returned to the room and his 
 patient. Master Hard wick lay upon his pillows, 
 with a countenance much as it had been. Aderhold, 
 saying nothing, sat beside him, and presently he fell 
 asleep. Outside it was high summer, but cool, with 
 a moving air and a rustling of every leaf. Hours 
 passed, the day waned, the dusk set in. Aderhold, 
 moving softly, made a fire in the cavernous fire- 
 place, where, even in winter, Master Hardwick 
 rarely wasted firewood. 
 
 When he came back the old man was awake. 
 
 "Gilbert!" 
 
 "Yes, cousin." 
 
 "I have a feeling that I am going to-night " 
 
 "It is possible." 
 
 "Gilbert . . . you've been comfortable to me 
 these four years. You've been a kind of warmth 
 and stay, asking nothing, not wasting or spending, 
 but giving. . . . They think I am rich, but I am not. 
 
 117 
 
THE WITCH 
 
 I was never very rich. ... I ventured in the Indies' 
 voyage and gained, and then I was a fool and ven- 
 tured again and lost. Since then I have been a poor 
 man. It is the truth. . . . Give me something to keep 
 me up " 
 
 Aderhold gave him wine. After a moment he 
 spoke again. " There are creditors in the town 
 that you '11 hear from. They '11 take the land all 
 but the bit about the house. That and the house 
 I 've willed you kin to me, and kind as well. . . . 
 The gold they say I Ve buried I 've buried none. 
 There are twenty pieces that you '11 find in an open- 
 ing of the wall behind the panel there ' He 
 pointed with a shaking hand that sank at once. 
 "It's all that's left and you'll have to bury me 
 from it. ... A miser. . . . Maybe, but what I saved 
 only lasted me through with spare living. If I had 
 told them of that heavy loss my gold gone down 
 at sea, and that, even so, it was not so much I had 
 had to venture . . . would they have believed me? 
 No ! I was a miser I lied and hid my gold. . . . 
 Well, I did not tell them. ... Do not tell all that 
 you know and empty yourself like a wine skin " 
 His voice sank, he slept again. 
 
 Aderhold thought that he might sink from sleep 
 into stupor and so die painlessly and without words. 
 But in the middle of the night he waked again. 
 
 "Gilbert!" 
 
 "Yes, I am here." 
 
 "What did you think of all that which Master 
 118 
 
THE OAK GRANGE 
 
 Clement had to say? . . . How much was true and 
 how much was false?" 
 
 "There was some truth. But much of it was false. 
 It is false because reason and feeling, the mind and 
 the spirit recoil from it. Whatever is, that is not." 
 
 " I never thought it was. . . . I 've been called sour 
 and hard and withholding, and maybe I am it all. 
 But I would not make an imperfect creature and 
 then plague it through eternity for its imperfection, 
 ...Gilbert" 
 
 "Yes?" 
 
 "What would you do?" 
 
 Aderhold came and knelt beside the bed, and laid 
 his hands over the cold and shrunken hand of Mas- 
 ter Hard wick. " I would trust and hope and that 
 not less in myself than in that Other that seems to 
 spread around us. I think that ourselves and that 
 Other may turn out to be the same. I would think of 
 myself as continuing, as journeying on, as surely 
 carrying with me, in some fashion, memory of the 
 past, as growing endlessly through endless experi- 
 ence. I would take courage. And if, in my heart, I 
 knew that in this life I had at times not all the 
 time, but at times been sour and hard and with- 
 holding and fearful, and if I felt in my heart that 
 that made against light and love and wisdom and 
 strength for all then, as I lay here dying, and as 
 I died, I would put that withholding and fear from 
 me, and step forth toward better things. . . There 
 is within you a fountain of love and strength. 
 
 119 
 
THE WITCH 
 
 Trust yourself to your higher self. . . . Hoist sail 
 and away!" 
 
 The night passed, and at dawn Master Hard wick 
 died. Aderhold closed his eyes, straightened his 
 limbs, and smoothed the bed upon which he lay. 
 Going to the window he set the casement wide. The 
 dawn was coming up in stairs and slopes of splendour. 
 The divine freshness, the purity, the high, austere 
 instigation, the beginning again. . . . The dawn per- 
 petual, never ceasing, the dawn elsewhere when here 
 would be noon, the dawn elsewhere when here would 
 be night Never, from the first mists upon earth 
 rising to the great sun, had dawn failed, dawn rising 
 from the bath of night and sleep, dawn the new birth, 
 the beginning again, the clean-washed. . . . Ader- 
 hold breathed the divine air, the blended solemnity 
 and sweetness. The light was growing, a thousand 
 beauties were unfolding, and with them laughter and 
 song. The water rippling over the stones came to 
 him with a sound of merriment. The window was 
 clustered around with ivy and a spray nodded, 
 nodded against his hand with an effect of familiarity, 
 a friend tapping to call his attention. From some 
 near-by bush a thrush began to sing so golden, 
 so clear. "O moving great and small!" said Ader- 
 hold; "O thought of all sense and soul, gathered, 
 interfused, and aware of a magic Oneness ! O mac- 
 rocosm that I, the microcosm, will one day lift to 
 and be and know that I am O sea of all faiths, 
 O temperer of every concept, O eternal permission 
 
 J2O 
 
THE OAK GRANGE 
 
 and tolerance, nurse of growth and artifex of form 
 from form! . . . These children's masks which we lift 
 upon a stick and call Thee, crying, Lo, this is God 
 with the fixed face " 
 
 He rested a little longer in the window, listening 
 to the thrush, then turned, looked again at the quiet 
 figure upon the bed, and going from the room 
 wakened old Dorothy and the boy. Later that day, 
 Will, Goodman Cole, old Heron, and a lawyer from 
 the town being present, he searched for and found the 
 spring that opened the panel Master Hard wick had 
 indicated. Behind was a recess, and within it twenty 
 gold-pieces. He gave them into the lawyer's hands 
 for keeping. 
 
 They buried Master Hard wick in Hawthorn 
 Churchyard. Hard upon the end of that, there ap- 
 peared a merchant and a man of means from the 
 town with a note-of-hand. The farm land, such as 
 it was, would go there in satisfaction. The lawyer 
 produced a will made one year before. Lacking issue 
 and near kindred, Master Hard wick left all that he 
 had, his creditors being satisfied, to his loving cousin, 
 the physician, Gilbert Aderhold. What that was in 
 reality was solely the decaying old house and the 
 few acres of worn garden and orchard immediately 
 surrounding it. The twenty pieces of gold, when all 
 was paid, shrunk to three. 
 
 Aderhold dwelled solitary in the Oak Grange as 
 he and his kinsman had dwelled solitary before. The 
 land around went no longer with the Grange, but 
 
 121 
 
THE WITCH 
 
 there was no change else. The old tenants hung on ; 
 it still spread, poor in soil, poorly tilled, shut off from 
 the richer vale by Hawthorn Forest. Will no longer 
 came to the Grange; Aderhold, old Dorothy, and 
 the boy lived in the place and kept it. There was no 
 other money than the scant sixpences and shillings 
 that the physician gained. To sell the house sounded 
 well, but there was no purchaser. The place was 
 ruinous, lonely, and without advantage, said to be 
 haunted as well. Aderhold, only, had grown to 
 love it, the ivied walls and the wild garden, the oak 
 and the stream, and the room where he took from 
 behind locked doors his book and sat and wrote. 
 All was so quiet, still, secure, there behind the shield 
 of Hawthorn Forest. . . . 
 
 But Hawthorn countryside and village refused to 
 believe that the gold was gone. It was known that 
 the dead miser had had a chest-full of broad pieces. 
 Probably he had buried this great store some 
 said under the house itself, some said under the 
 fairies* oak. Wherever it was buried, certainly the 
 leech must know where it was; or if he did not know 
 yet, he would. If one were to go that way through 
 Hawthorn Forest, and come into sight of the house 
 and see a candle passing from window to window, 
 or hear a digging sound in the orchard or beneath 
 the ill-named oak, that would be he. ... A whisper 
 arose, none knew how, that Master Hardwick had 
 practised alchemy, and that his kinsman practised 
 it too ; that he knew how to make gold. If he knew, 
 
 122 
 
THE OAK GRANGE 
 
 then, of course, he would be making it, in" the dead of 
 night. Could you make gold alone, unaided by any 
 but your own powers? Alchemists, it was known, 
 did not hesitate to raise a spirit or demon. Then 
 there was little difference between an alchemist and 
 a sorcerer? . . . There came among the whispers a 
 counter-statement from several cotters and poor 
 folk. Master Aderhold was no sorcerer he was 
 a good leech ; witness such and such a cure ! Where- 
 upon opposition sharpened the whisperers', ingen- 
 uity. Aye, perhaps the demon helped him cure as 
 well as make gold ! Came another counter he was 
 a good church-goer. So ! but Master Clement thinks 
 not highly of him. 
 
 How this vortex and whirling storm began, whose 
 breath first stirred it up, it were hard to say. It had 
 moved in widening rings for months, before Ader- 
 hold discovered how darkened was the air about 
 him. 
 
CHAPTER X 
 
 IN HAWTHORN FOREST 
 
 IT was winter a mild, bright, winter's day when, 
 for the second time, he met and spoke to Joan in the 
 forest. She was standing beneath a beech tree, in 
 her hand a dry, fallen bough which she was brand- 
 ishing and making play with as though it had been 
 a quarter-staff. She was singing, though not in the 
 least loudly, 
 
 "'I have heard talk of bold Robin Hood, 
 
 And of brave Little John, 
 Of Friar Tuck and Will Scarlet, 
 
 Locksley and Maid Marian "' 
 
 When she saw Aderhold close to her she started 
 violently. 
 
 "Good-day," he said. "I meant not to frighten 
 you!" 
 
 She looked at him curiously and shook her head. 
 "No. . . . You did not frighten me. I am not at all 
 frighted." 
 
 He smiled. "You say that as though you were 
 surprised at yourself." 
 
 She looked at him again with grey eyes half- 
 troubled, half-fearless. " It is n't so hard to surprise 
 yourself. . . . You did take that cat you gave me from 
 the boys who were stoning her at the burned cot?" 
 
 124 " 
 
IN HAWTHORN FOREST 
 
 "Yes," said Aderhold, surprised in his turn. 
 "Why?" 
 
 She stammered. "I heard them talking, and 
 though I believe not such things, I I " 
 
 "What things?" 
 
 She was silent for a moment, then faced him with 
 courage. " I have heard talk that you don't believe 
 what other people believe, that you deny things that 
 are in the Bible, and that maybe you practise sor- 
 cery there in the Oak Grange. . . . And and some 
 one once told me, that that people like that had 
 always familiars which went mostly like little ani- 
 mals such as a cat or small dog, or sometimes a bird 
 or a frog, and that and that if they offered to 
 give you such a thing for a gift and and you took 
 it, you signed yourself so to the Evil One. . . . But 
 but I do not believe such things. They are 
 against all goodness and and good sense." 
 fc She ended somewhat breathlessly ; for all her cour- 
 age, which was great, her heart was beating hard. 
 
 "You are right," said Aderhold. "Such things 
 are against all goodness and good sense and they 
 do not happen. ... I was going to see ^a sick man, 
 and passing by the burned cottage, I heard the cat 
 crying, and went and took her from the boys. She 's 
 naught but just your fireside cat. And I am a solitary 
 man who has no familiar and knows no magic." 
 
 He drew a heavy, oppressed breath. "I did not 
 know that there was any such talk. ... It is miser- 
 able that there should be." 
 
 125 
 
THE WITCH 
 
 He stood leaning against a tree, with half-shut 
 eyes. Old fears came over him in a thick and sicken- 
 ing wave. 
 
 "Oh talk!" said Joan. "There's always such 
 a weary deal of talk." She had regained her calm; 
 at least she was no longer afraid of the physician. 
 But for all that and for all her comparative hap- 
 piness this beautiful day and for her singing she 
 looked older and less care-free than she had done 
 last year. Her face was thinner, and there ap- 
 peared in her, now and again, a startled, listening 
 air. It came now. "Do you hear a horse coming?" 
 
 At no part in the forest were you far from some 
 cart track along which might, indeed, push a horse- 
 man. One was here now, leaving the track and com- 
 ing between the tree boles. Presumably he had 
 heard voices. 
 
 Joan rose to her feet. Her eyes were glittering. 
 "No peace " she said. "He leaves me no peace 
 at all. I wish he were dead." 
 
 She spoke in a very low voice, hardly above a 
 whisper, measured, but tinctured with both anger 
 and dread. It was Harry Carthew, Aderhold now 
 saw, who approached. He caught sight of them, 
 checked the roan a perceptible moment, then came 
 on. The great horse stopped within ten feet of the 
 two beneath the beech tree. Carthew sat looking at 
 them, a strange expression upon his face. 
 
 Aderhold had no knowledge of the why or where- 
 fore of his look, though Joan's ejaculation might be 
 
 126 
 
IN HAWTHORN FOREST 
 
 making for illumination. But his mind was preoccu- 
 pied with those pale fears which her earlier speech 
 had awakened. He was thinking only of these or 
 rather he was not consciously thinking at all ; he was 
 only gathering his forces forward after the recoil. 
 He answered Carthew's look with a somewhat blank 
 gaze. " Good-day/' he said. 
 
 " Give you good-day," answered Carthew. " How 
 long have you and Joan Heron been trysting?" 
 
 Aderhold 's thoughts were still away. He repeated 
 the word after the other, but put no meaning to it. 
 "' Trysting ' " 
 
 It was Joan who took it up, with a flame of anger. 
 "Who is trysting, Master Carthew? Not one of 
 these three not he with me, nor I with him, nor I 
 with you! God's mercy! Cannot a girl speak a civil 
 word to a chance-met neighbour " 
 
 "'Neighbour/" said Carthew. "That is true. I 
 had not thought of that. The Grange and Heron's 
 cottage are not so far apart might be said to be 
 neighbours. ' Neighbours ' it is easy for neigh- 
 bours to meet with this dark wood touching each 
 house." He lifted his hand to his throat, then 
 turned upon Aderhold with a brow so black, a ges- 
 ture so violent that the other instinctively gave back 
 a pace. " I have been blind ! " cried Carthew thickly. 
 "I have been blind!" 
 
 Aderhold, amazed, spoke with an awakening and 
 answering anger. "I do not know what you mean, 
 Master Carthew, or, if I guess, seeing that your 
 
 127 
 
THE WITCH 
 
 words will bear that interpretation, I will tell you 
 that your bolt goes wide! Mistress Joan Heron 
 and I chanced to meet five minutes before you ap- 
 peared before us and I do think in my soul that 
 it is the second time we have spoken together in our 
 lives! And I know not your right " 
 
 " ' Right ! ' " broke in Joan with passion. " He has 
 no right! And I will not have him couple my name 
 here and couple it there! Oh, I would" her eyes 
 blazed at Carthew' " I would that so great a saint 
 would leave this earth and go to heaven if that, 
 indeed, is where you belong!" 
 
 Carthew sat his horse, dark as a thunder-cloud, 
 and for all his iron frame and power of control, shak- 
 ing like a leaf. -'I believe neither of you," he said 
 thickly. He looked at Joan. " This is why you will 
 not turn to me." 
 
 Her eyes flamed against him. " I never thought to 
 hate a human creature as you have made me hate 
 you! And now I am going home." 
 
 She snatched up the staff with which she had been 
 playing and turned with decision. He turned his 
 horse also, but uncertainly, with his eyes yet upon 
 Aderhold. Black wrath and jealousy were written 
 in his face, and something else, a despairing struggle 
 against total self-abandonment. "Stay a moment ! " 
 he cried to Joan. "Will you swear by God on high 
 that you and this man have not been meeting, meet- 
 ing in Hawthorn Forest?" 
 
 Joan turned, stood still the moment asked. 
 128 
 
IN HAWTHORN FOREST 
 
 % 
 
 "Master Carthew, shall I tell you what I' shall 
 shortly do if you leave me not alone? I shall go with 
 my father to the squire your brother, and to the 
 minister, and to the three most zealous men in 
 Hawthorn Parish, and I shall say to them, 'This 
 holy^and zealous young man whom I have heard you, 
 Master Clement, call Joseph, and young David, and 
 what-not this same Master Harry Carthew, who 
 will speak and exhort and pray with sinners, this 
 same man has for months made a harmless girl's life 
 wretched to her, offering loathed love and insult' " 
 
 Her voice broke; she threw up her arms in a ges- 
 ture of anger and unhappiness and fled away. Car- 
 thew sat like a graven image, watching her go. He 
 spoke to himself, in a curious voice from the lips 
 only. * ' If ever I should come to hate you as now I " 
 and again "She will never dare " The last 
 flutter of her skirt vanished among the trees. Sud- 
 denly he said with violence, "She denied it not!" 
 and turned upon Aderhold as though he would ride 
 him down. 
 
 The physician caught the bridle of the roan. 
 "You are mad, Master Carthew! Look at me!" 
 
 He forced the other's gaze upon him and a some- 
 what cooler judgement into his eyes. Each, with his 
 inner vision, was viewing in waves and sequences 
 past relations, knowledge, and impressions. For the 
 first time, general observation and lukewarm inter- 
 est quickened into the keen and particular and well- 
 warmed. Aderhold saw again Carthew at the Rose 
 
 129 
 
THE WITCH 
 
 Tavern, and Carthew upon the road; heard again 
 Carthew's cosmic speculations and Carthew's ex- 
 pressed sense of sin. Four years gone by, and yet 
 that impression remained the most deeply graved. 
 After that came the long stretch of time in this re- 
 gion, and, during it, little speech, few meetings with 
 Carthew. There had been knowledge that at times 
 he was away, often for months, from Hawthorn, 
 and there had been observation at church and else- 
 where of the sterner sort in him of Puritan zeal and 
 faith, together with hearsay that the minister and 
 he were like elder and younger brother in the word, 
 and the younger a growing power in this part of 
 England and a chosen vessel. And there had been 
 a kind of half-melancholy, half-artistic and philo- 
 sophic recognition of the perfection of the specimen 
 Carthew afforded. In look, frame, dress, counte- 
 nance, temper, and inward being, he seemed the 
 exactest symbol ! Nowhere further than all this 
 had Aderhold come until to-day. 
 
 As for Carthew, with far narrower powers of re- 
 flection, and with those concentrated with hectic 
 intensity in a small round, it might be said that in 
 these years he had barely regarded or thought of the 
 physician at all. Such a statement would be true of 
 all sides but one. Master Clement had, within the 
 past year, doubted to him any true zeal in religion 
 on the part of the physician, and had set up a faint 
 current of observation and misliking. It had been 
 nothing much; at times, when he thought of it, he 
 
 130 
 
IN HAWTHORN FOREST 
 
 marked Aderhold at church, how he looked and de- 
 meaned himself ; once or twice when he had overheard 
 some peasant speak of the leech, he had come in with 
 his deep and stern voice. "Aye? Can he doctor thy 
 soul as well as thy body?*' But the whole together 
 had weighed little. He had the soul of Harry Car- 
 thew to be concerned for ... though, of course, for 
 that very soul's salvation, it behooved to see that 
 other lamps were kept burning. . . . Nay, it behooved 
 for those others' salvation for the warfare of the 
 true saint was for the salvation of every soul alive ! 
 All this was before the past few months. Through 
 these months he had thought but of one thing or 
 if at all of another thing, then of how his own soul 
 was on the brink of the pit, with the Devil whisper- 
 ing, and the heat of the flame of hell already burn- 
 ing within him. . . . And now, suddenly, it seemed 
 that the physician living at the Oak Grange was a 
 figure in the sum. He looked at him, and where 
 before he had seen but a silently coming and going 
 learned man, to be somewhat closely watched by 
 God's saints lest mysterious knowledge should lead 
 him astray, he saw now a tall man, still young, not 
 ill-looking, with strange knowledge that might teach 
 him how to ingratiate. ... He spoke in a hollow 
 voice. " I have been blind." 
 
 "Whatever you may have been," said Aderhold 
 with impatience, "you are blind in this hour. Look 
 at me ! Not for the sake of myself, but for the sake of 
 truth, and to guard another from misapprehension, 
 
THE WITCH 
 
 and to take a strange poison from your mind, I 
 swear most solemnly that that maid and I were 
 chance-met but now beneath this tree; that we 
 spoke most generally, and far afield from what you 
 madly imagine; and that, save for once before as 
 chance and momentary a meeting, never have we 
 been alone together! I swear that I think in that 
 wise of no woman, and no woman of me!" 
 
 "I would," said Carthew heavily, "that I knew 
 that you speak truth." 
 
 "I speak it," said Aderhold. "And in turn I 
 would that you might bring wisdom and better love 
 into your counsel, and leave the maid alone!" 
 
 Carthew looked at him. "Is there idle talk. Have 
 you heard such tongue-clatter?" 
 
 "Not I," answered the other. "What I perceive 
 you yourself have shown." 
 
 "Or she has said," said Carthew. He moistened 
 -his lips. "Foolish maids will make much of slight 
 matters! If I have slipped a little if Satan hath 
 tempted me and the foul weakness of universal 
 nature so that I have chanced, perhaps, to give 
 her a kiss or to tell her that she was fair what hath 
 it been to her hurt? Naught no hurt at all. But 
 to me. . . . Nay, I will recover myself. God help 
 me! I will not put my soul in perdition. God help 
 me!" He lifted his clasped hands, then let them 
 drop to his saddle-bow. "I will begin by believing 
 #everF where I believe not! What hurt to me if nqw 
 and again you ,and Joan Heron speak in passing? 
 
 132, 
 
IN HAWTHORN FOREST 
 
 ,so be it that with your evil learning and ygjir 
 commerce who knows where, you put not the maid's 
 soul in peril ... so be it that you touch not her lips 
 nor her hand " He ceased to speak, his face work- 
 ing. 
 
 "You are much to be pitied," said Aderhold. 
 "Have you finished? for I would be going." 
 
 He drew his cloak about him, and made to pass 
 the other. 
 
 Carthew did not detain him ; he only said, " But I 
 shall watch you," gathered up the roan's reins, and 
 himself rode starkly off in the direction of the village. 
 
 Back upon the forest track which he had pursued, 
 and then upon the road that ran between Hawthorn 
 and the Oak Grange, he saw naught of Joan, though 
 he looked for her. She was fleet-footed ; by now she 
 was within her own door. But on the road, no great 
 distance beyond the cottage, he came upon another 
 woman, walking toward the village. This was the 
 sempstress's daughter, Alison Inch. . . . Two years 
 gone by, Alison had spent some weeks in Carthew 
 House, sewing for Madam Carthew. He had been 
 reading aloud that winter to his sister-in-law, who 
 was a learned and pious lady, and Alison had sat 
 in a corner, sewing and listening. - The reading 
 done, he had at times explained the discourse of 
 added illustration, encouraging the women to ask 
 questions. He felt friendly toward Alison, and 
 -Qjways, since that time, answered her curtsy when 
 they chanced to meet by a grave enquiry as to 
 
 133 
 
THE WITCH 
 
 her health and welfare, the spiritual being meant 
 rather than the bodily. To-day he walked his horse 
 beside her. 
 
 "You have been riding through the forest, sir?" 
 she asked. " It is a fine day for riding." 
 
 "Yes I wished to enquire for a man at the 
 North-End Farm." 
 
 He rode and she walked in silence, then she spoke 
 in a dry, thin, and strained voice. " I was walking to 
 Heron's cottage to see Joan. But she was not there. 
 She 's not much like others. When she gets her 
 work done, she 's off to herself somewhere - maybe 
 to the wood, maybe elsewhere. It's often so that 
 you can't find her." 
 
 Now Carthew had found, too, that you could n't 
 always find her. Suddenly his brow grew black 
 again; he had not put that two and two together. 
 "Alison," he said and paused. 
 
 Alison, with an air of not looking at him at all, 
 was watching closely. " Yes, Master Carthew?" 
 
 He rode a little farther in silence, then he said 
 determinedly: "Master Aderhold who lives at the 
 Oak Grange " He paused. 
 
 "Yes, sir?" said Alison. 
 
 " He is a strange man," said Carthew. " I remem- 
 ber when he came to Hawthorn, when I rode with 
 him from the town, I thought him of a strange and 
 doubtful mind. We have not caught him tripping 
 yet, but Master Clement holds that he thinks per- 
 versely, not according to sound doctrine." 
 
 134 
 
IN HAWTHORN FOREST 
 
 "People say that he makes gold and hoards it," 
 said Alison, "and that he hath a familiar." She was 
 not interested in Master Aderhold, but she would 
 keep up whatever ball Master Harry Carthew tossed. 
 
 "I know not as to that," said Carthew. "It is 
 enough if he setteth up his own judgement and 
 denieth essential doctrines. It were surely ill for 
 any upon whom he might thrust his company ill, 
 I mean, for them to be seen with him often and in 
 close talk. In common charity any such should be 
 warned. I dare aver he is often straying through the 
 forest or upon this road." 
 
 if Alison looked aside. She did not know yet what he 
 would be at, but her every sense was sharpened. 
 
 "Have you ever seen," asked Carthew with care- 
 ful carelessness " have you ever chanced to see him 
 and Goodman Heron's daughter Joan together?" 
 
 Alison walked thrice her own length upon the 
 shadowy road before she answered. It took a little 
 time to get it straight. It was n't Joan's soul that he 
 was concerned about thought one. He was put- 
 ting her name with that of the leech had he seen 
 them together, and now was eaten with jealousy? 
 She knew how it felt to be eaten with jealousy 
 thought two. If he believed that Joan played him 
 false put him off for another it could not but 
 help, his thinking that. . . . 
 
 "Oh,*aye!" said Alison. " I have seen them a dozen 
 times walking and talking together in the forest. 
 But what a sin, sir, if he should teach her heresy!" 
 
CHAPTER XI 
 
 THE PLAGUE 
 
 LATE that winter, after long immunity, black sick- 
 ness came to the town with the great church and the 
 castle, and cast a long, crooked finger across the 
 river and in the direction of Hawthorn Village. In 
 the streets of the town burned fires of juniper. Wak- 
 ing in the. night you might hear the wheels of the 
 death-cart. They stopped before this house, they 
 stopped before that house. The thought trembled 
 and shrank one night will they stop before this 
 house? In the daytime the bells were tolled. 
 
 'Hawthorn Village tolled no bells, for to toll bells 
 savoured of "superstitious usages." But it looked 
 with a clammy terror at the black finger which had 
 touched a farmhouse midway between village and 
 town. 
 
 The plague grew worse in the town. More and yet 
 more houses were marked and shut. The richer sort 
 and those who could left the place, scattered through 
 the country, not always welcome where they ap- 
 peared. The mass who must stay saw the horror 
 increase. A pall came over the place ; there grew an 
 insistent and rapid murmur of prayers. Side by side 
 with that occurred^ relaxation ^nd neglect- of usual 
 order. A The strict rule in such cases was against 
 
 136 
 
THE PLAGUE 
 
 people coming together in any manner of congrega- 
 tion whereby the infection might spread; but the 
 watch grew sick and fear constantly sought compan- 
 ions. There was much drinking in alehouses and 
 taverns, no little gathering together of one sort and 
 another. Side by side with wild appeals and suppli- 
 cations to Heaven wavered a sick and wan determ- 
 ination to some sort of mirth. At times this spirit 
 rose to dare-deviltry. Small crimes increased. The 
 poor were the hardest stricken, seeing that for them 
 starvation clanked behind disease. Theft and house- 
 breaking grew common, while professional thieves 
 might and did make a harvest feast. The church bells 
 tolled. At night the death-carts increased in num- 
 ber, the closed houses increased in number, the juni- 
 per smoke rolled thicker and thicker. 
 
 But after one death in the farmhouse, halfway to 
 Hawthorn, the black finger drew back. No one else 
 at the farm was taken, the scattered houses between 
 it and the village went unscathed ; time passed and 
 no harm came to Hawthorn. Some said the river 
 barred the infection, others that the air was different. 
 One or two at most called attention to the great 
 crowding in the town, to the massed poverty and 
 dirt, whereas the village was open-built and rea- 
 sonably clean, and to the traffic between the 
 town and a large seaport, whereas small was the 
 business of Hawthorn and few 1 the strangers. But 
 the most part of Hawthorn Village and the country 
 to the north of it knew otherwise and said otherwise 
 
 137 
 
THE WITCH 
 
 'with unction and lifted looks. Pestilence came like 
 comets, as a visitation and a sign from on high. 
 Jehovah launched the one and the other. Fire 
 against the cities of the plain plague against pre- 
 latical towns and castles, only not Popish by a nar- 
 row line, retainers of stained glass and images, organ- 
 players and bowers of the head, waiting but their 
 chance to reinstate a wearing of copes and lighting 
 of candles! The wonder was not that the plague 
 came, but that Jehovah had so long withheld his 
 hand ! In Hawthorn Church they prayed that the 
 plague might cease from the afflicted town, but 
 prayed knowing that the plague had been deserved. 
 Now that the outstretched black finger had been de- 
 finitely withdrawn, the analyst might have found 
 in the prayer of some not of all a flavour of tri- 
 umph. Was it not also Jehovah's doing that the pure 
 faith was so adorned with health and vindicated? 
 
 The town grew a gloomy place indeed, filled with 
 apprehension. People viewing it from distant hills 
 professed to see hanging over it a ^darkened and 
 quivering air of its own. The streets had a deserted 
 look, with fires burning and none around them. The 
 death-carts went more frequently, and the bells 
 clanged, clanged. There was a need of physicians, 
 those in the place being overworked and one smitten. 
 About the time that the black finger drew back from 
 the farmhouse, Gilbert Aderhold walked to the town 
 and offered his services. Thereafter for weeks he was 
 busied, day and night. 
 
 138 
 
THE PLAGUE 
 
 Up in the castle above the town, a kinsman of the 
 earl's stayed on after the hurried departure of the 
 great family to another seat in an untouched coun- 
 tryside. Heir to a burdened estate and courtier out 
 of favour, not pleased for reasons of his own to 
 remove with the earl, and liking for another set of 
 reasons the very solitariness of the huge old abode, 
 assured that the infection would not mount the cliff 
 and pass the castle wood, and constitutionally care- 
 less of danger, he asked leave to stay on, keep ward 
 with the old housekeeper, the armour in the hall, the 
 earl's regiment of books, and his own correspond- 
 ence with foreign scholars. He stayed, and for 
 exercise rode through the country roundabout, and 
 now and then, to satisfy a philosophic curiosity, 
 through the town itself. The ideas of the time as to 
 quarantine were lax enough. The sick were shut 
 away in the houses, purifying fires burned in the 
 streets; if you were careful to avoid any who looked 
 in the faintest degree as though they might be sick- 
 ening, life and business might go on. The rider from 
 the castle, when he came down into the place, car- 
 ried with him and put often to his nostrils a quantity 
 of medicated spices and perfumed grains from the 
 Orient, carried in a small perforated silver box. 
 
 Riding so through the streets one day he came 
 upon Aderhold, his foot upon the doorstep of a 
 marked house. He drew rein. "Ha, the travelling 
 scholar! Are you physician here?" 
 
 "Until the trouble is abated." 
 139 
 
THE WITCH 
 
 " Black enough trouble ! ' ' said the rider. "Toll, toll ! 
 The place is more ghastly than a row of gibbets." 
 
 "Abroad," said Aderhold, "I have seen this sick- 
 ness in a far worse form. I have hopes that it will not 
 outlast the winter." 
 
 The other smelled at his box of spices. "Do you 
 feel no fear, bending over their beds?" 
 
 Aderhold shook his head. " No. It is my calling." 
 
 The man on horseback kept ten feet between 
 them and smelled continually at his silver box, but 
 for the rest was willing to stay and talk. "That 
 seems to be it. The soldier will run from the pest, 
 but face a cannon mouth. The sailor rocks upon a 
 masthead or boards a Spanish galleon with a cutlass 
 between his teeth, but a churchyard ghost turns 
 him into a whimpering child! Your thinker will 
 scale Olympus and enquire of Jove direct, but the 
 sight of torn flesh turns him pale. To each his cour- 
 age and each his fear! Each a master and each a 
 slave." 
 
 "Aye," said Aderhold briefly, " I know that well." 
 He put his hand upon the door behind him. " I must 
 not stay." 
 
 The other gathered up the reins. " I am dwelling 
 at the castle. When the plague is spent; and the air 
 again is clean and sweet, and old clothing has been 
 burned and new put on, then, before you travel 
 farther, come to see me there. I have faced can- 
 non and fought a galleon. I would go far to have 
 speech with an authentic ghost. A brazen head 
 
 140 
 
THE PLAGUE 
 
 would like me well, and I am constantly consider- 
 ing new Daedalus' wings. But to enter that house 
 behind you, and stand over that swollen, ghastly, 
 loathsomely smelling and moaning thing no, no! 
 There I am your abject Eastern slave." 
 
 He backed his horse farther from the house. 
 
 "Ah," said Aderhold, " I, too, have a great region 
 where Fear is my master and sets his foot upon my 
 neck! I will enter this house, but I make no talk of 
 Daedalus' wings seeing that the neighbours like 
 it not, and that they have the whip-hand! When 
 all's well I'll come to the castle." 
 
 The one rode away, the other entered the plague- 
 touched house. The first, returning home, found 
 company, come from the southward, and so reaching 
 the castle without passing through the town. An 
 old nobleman, father of the countess, was here, come 
 unexpectedly from the Court, and having no knowl- 
 edge of the family flitting. Now he was in an ill- 
 humour, indeed, and yet not very fearful of the 
 plague, and set upon resting his old bones before he 
 pursued his further journey. Mistress Borrow, the 
 housekeeper, promised to make him comfortable 
 there were servants enough "And your Lordship 
 will be glad to know that Sir Richard is here." With 
 his lordship was a London physician of note, one that 
 had sometimes been called to the old Queen. For 
 years he had doctored his lordship; now, at special 
 invitation, he was making this journey with him. 
 
 That evening at supper the talk was almost solely 
 141 
 
THE WITCH 
 
 of the plague. The physician had had experience in 
 London; he had written learnedly upon the subject, 
 and was reckoned an authority. He talked of pre- 
 ventives and plague- waters, and hoped that while, 
 for his lordship's sake, he should not think of 
 closely exposing himself, he might yet, with proper 
 precautions, descend into the town and observe the 
 general appearance of matters. He would be glad to 
 give to the authorities or to the physicians in the 
 place any advice in his power, and then he fell to 
 the capon, the venison pasty, and the canary. The 
 old nobleman asked Sir Richard how he should get 
 word to William Carthew, living beyond Hawthorn 
 Village, of his presence at the castle. It seemed that 
 there was some tie of old service a generation agone, 
 Carthew's father had owed a captaincy and other 
 favours to the nobleman, and now that he was 
 dead the present squire and justice always came 
 dutifully to see the great man upon the occasions 
 when he was at the castle. "They tell me that he 
 hath turned Puritan or rather that his younger 
 brother hath turned Puritan and draggeth William 
 with him. A pack of crop-eared wretches ! I should 
 have thought better of John Carthew's son. I wish 
 to see him just to tell him so.' 
 
 "One of the grooms shall be sent to Hawthorn 
 to-morrow morning, sir. If your man be afraid of 
 infection he may ride around the town and come in 
 from this side." 
 
 But the Carthews for both brothers would ride 
 142 
 
THE PLAGUE 
 
 from Hawthorn to the castle were not afraid of 
 infection. The older was unimaginative. As long as 
 you did not touch nor go too near, you were safe 
 enough. The younger brooded on other things, and 
 was sincerely careless of any danger riding through 
 the town might present. Neither was averse to see- 
 ing how the stricken place might look. The younger, 
 who, truly, greatly influenced his brother, came with 
 him primarily that he might be at hand if the castle, 
 which was prelatical, opened upon religion. 
 
 It opened, but only in the person of the old noble- 
 man. Sir Richard sat a little to one side in the great 
 hall where the armour hung and listened as to three 
 actors in the same play. The physician standing by 
 the 'fire faintly shrugged his shoulders. The noble- 
 man ridiculed and vituperated, the younger Puritan 
 for the elder was ,no match for his lordship 
 came back with verse and Scripture. Finally the 
 first was reduced to " Insolent! " and a fine, foaming 
 rage. Squire Carthew plucked his brother's sleeve. 
 "No, no, Harry! Don't go so far " 
 
 The younger Carthew made a stiff bow to his 
 lordship and stood silent. He had answered, he 
 knew, boldly and well, and it was much to him now 
 to answer well and know it, to feel that he had been 
 God Almighty's able champion. In subtle ways it 
 tended to balance matters. It eased the sore and 
 fearful feeling within, the anguished sensation that 
 he was slipping, slipping, that the hand of Grace 
 was trembling beneath him. . . . 
 
 143 
 
THE WITCH 
 
 ^TJie quarrel was too deep for any reconciliation. 
 The old nobleman advanced no olive branches. 
 Instead, with a "Fare you well, gentlemen! If this 
 goes much further in England there'll be hangings 
 and beheadings ! " he rose from his cushioned chair 
 and stalked from the hall. Sir Richard offered food 
 and canary, but the two Carthews misliked his sua- 
 vity, and the younger, at least, meant to keep no 
 terms of any kind. They refused enter tainment. 
 They must needs at once return to Hawthorn. 
 
 "As you please, gentlemen! I am glad to know 
 that the sickness has not touched your neighbour- 
 hood." 
 
 The physician now came forward; they all stood 
 about the great table in the hall. "You are lucky if 
 it reaches you not," said the London doctor. "I 
 understand that you are not more than six miles 
 away. But in great cities I have seen it skip one 
 parish and slay its hundreds all around. For some 
 reason the folk just there were more resistive." 
 
 A servant entering with a message from the old 
 nobleman, he turned aside to receive it. 
 
 " Nay," said the younger Carthew with sternness, 
 "the plague falls where God would have it fall, and 
 falls not where he is willing to spare. He saith to his 
 Angel, * Smite here!' or He saith, 'Pass me by this 
 door!' and where is the resistance of man that 
 you prate of? As well might the worm resist the 
 master of the vineyard's treading foot!" 
 
 Sir Richard looked at him curiously. "Of course! 
 144 
 
THE PLAGUE 
 
 of course! Poor worm!" There fell a silence, theii 
 the last speaker, unthinkingly, merely to make talk 
 to the great door before which stood the visitors' 
 horses, brought forward Aderhold's presence in the 
 town. "Hawthorn hath played the Samaritan in 
 one person though, I believe, indeed, that he lives 
 beyond the village. You 've given a good leech. I 
 saw him yesterday morning in the town, going from 
 sick to sick." 
 
 The squire spoke. "You mean one Gilbert Ader- 
 hold? Yes, he is a leech. But Hawthorn sent him 
 not " 
 
 The London physician, returning at the moment, 
 caught the name, "Gilbert Aderhold! What! 
 I 've wondered more than once what became of the 
 man if, indeed, you speak of the same " 
 
 "A tall, quiet man," said Sit Richard. "A 
 thinker who has travelled " 
 
 " It has a sound of him," said the physician. He 
 somewhat despised the two country gentlemen, so he 
 addressed himself exclusively to Sir Richard. As to 
 what followed, it must be said that he spoke alike 
 without malice and without forethought. Indiffer- 
 entist himself, dulled by personal vanity and com- 
 placence of position, and with a knowledge at least of 
 the tolerant-mindedness of the person to whom he 
 spoke, he possibly took not into consciousness at all 
 the very different nature of the two who might be 
 listening, nor realized that the man of whom he spoke 
 dwelled in their bailiwick and not in the town. At 
 
 145 
 
THE WITCH 
 
 any rate, he spoke on with vivacity. "A man of 
 abilities who should have risen studied in Paris 
 
 was for a time in the Duke of 's household. 
 
 Then what must he do but grow atheist and begin 
 to write and teach! 'The God of Isaac and Jacob, 
 Isaac* and Jacob's idea of God. God the vast ab- 
 straction, like and differing with all times and peo- 
 ples. The Bible not writ by the finger of God, but 
 a book of Eastern wisdom with much that is gold, 
 and much that is not. No Fall of Man as therein 
 told. Salvation out of the depths of yourself and 
 not by gift of another. No soul can be bathed 
 clean by another's blood.' His book," said the 
 physician, "was burned in an open place in Paris by 
 the common hangman, and he himself lay a long 
 while in prison and was hardly dealt with, nay, just 
 escaped with life which he might not have done 
 
 but for the Duke of , who got him forth from 
 
 France with a letter to Sir Robert Cecil, and 
 seeing that I had brought his Grace up from an ill- 
 ness which he had when he was in England one 
 from his secretary to me. But naturally neither Sir 
 Robert nor I could do aught " 
 
 Sir Richard, his brow clouded, stopped him with a 
 gesture. " You caught my interest and held me fast 
 but I should have checked you at once ! Now " 
 He bit his lip, his brows drawn together with deep 
 vexation. 
 
 The two men from Hawthorn were standing stone 
 still. In the elder's face, at once stolid and peremp- 
 
 146 
 
THE PLAGUE 
 
 tory, was only single-minded amazement and wrath. 
 What was this that Justice Carthew and all Haw- 
 thorn had been harbouring? A Jesuit spy would 
 have been bad enough but atheist! But the 
 younger was more complex, and in him a number of 
 impulses were working. He left it to the elder to 
 speak, who did so, explosively. " Atheist! No one 
 hath thought well of the man of late but athe- 
 ist! I will promise you, doctor I will promise 
 you, 'Sir Richard " 
 
 "Nay," said Sir Richard, no longer with suavity, 
 "what I would have you promise, that I know you 
 will not!" He shook himself like a great dog. 
 "Unhappy!" 
 
 The two Carthews rode down the castle hill and 
 through the town where people went dully to and 
 fro with Fear in company. There rose the pungent 
 smell of burning wood, a church bell made a slow 
 and measured clangour. They passed between tall, 
 gloomy, jutting houses, passed the prison with the 
 stocks and pillory, and the great church with the 
 sculptured portal, wound down to the river, and 
 crossed the arched bridge. Before them rolled the 
 yet wintry country. Mounting a hill, they saw on 
 the horizon a purple-grey line that was Hawthorn 
 Forest. 
 
 The younger Carthew spoke. "It comes back to 
 me. . . . That night at the Rose Tavern when he so 
 suddenly appeared beside old Hard wick. ... Mas- 
 ter Anthony Mull, of Sack Hall, who was travelling 
 
 147 
 
THE WITCH 
 
 with us, appeared to recognize him and flew out 
 against him. . . . Wait a moment! his very words 
 will come back. He said - ' Black sorcerer and 
 devil's friend!'" 
 
 That afternoon a serving-man brought to a 
 house at the foot of the castle hill a letter to be 
 passed on by a safe hand to the physician from 
 Hawthorn. It came into Aderhold's hand as dusk 
 was falling. He broke the seal and read by the light 
 of one of the street fires. The letter no lengthy 
 one came from his friend of the hawk and the 
 silver box. It told him what the London physician 
 had betrayed, though without malice, and to whom. 
 It argued that it might be well to quit as quickly as 
 possible this part of the country, or even to go forth 
 for a time from England. It offered a purse and a 
 horse; also, if it were wished for, a letter of com- 
 mendation to the captain of a ship then lying at 
 anchor at the nearest port, which captain, his own 
 vessel being for longer voyages, would get him pas- 
 sage in some other ship touching at a Dutch port - 
 "Amsterdam being to-day as safe as any place for a 
 thinker where no place is safe." The letter ended 
 with "The younger Carthew will move, no fear! 
 Then, my friend, move first." An answer was to 
 be left at the house at the foot of the hill. 
 
 Aderhold mechanically folded the letter and 
 placed it in the breast of his doubtlet. The fire was 
 burning in an almost deserted street. Beside it was 
 a bench where an old tender of fires sat at times and 
 
 148 
 
THE PLAGUE 
 
 nodded in the warmth. He was not here now. Ader- 
 hold moved to the bench and sat down. He sat 
 leaning forward, his hands clasped and hanging, his 
 head bowed. After a time he sighed, straightened 
 himself, and turning upon the bench looked about 
 him. It was a gusty twilight with now and again a 
 dash of rain. He looked up and down the solemn 
 street. Some of the houses stood dark, those who 
 had lived in them dead or fled. Behind the windows 
 of others candles burned and shadows passed. This 
 house he knew was stricken, and this and that. 
 Here it was a child, here a young man or woman, 
 here older folk. In more than one house there were 
 many cases, a whole family stricken. ... As he sat 
 he heard the first cart of the night roll into the street, 
 and a distant, toneless cry, " Bring out your dead ! " 
 
 He rose and stood with a solemn and wide gesture 
 of his hands. He waited a moment longer by the 
 fire, then turned and went from this street into the 
 next, where there lived behind his shop an old sta- 
 tioner and seller of books with whom he had made 
 acquaintance. Here he begged pen and ink and 
 paper, and when he had them, wrote, at no great 
 length, an answer to the letter in his doublet. The 
 next morning he left it at the house indicated, 
 whence in due time it was taken by the serving-man 
 and carried to Sir Richard at the castle. The letter 
 spoke of strong gratitude, "but it befits not my 
 calling to leave the town now." 
 
 The days lagged by in the stricken place. Then, 
 149 
 
THE WITCH 
 
 suddenly, the black finger shot out again and 
 touched a house beyond the midway farm, so much 
 nearer than it to Hawthorn Village. ... A week of 
 held breath and the finger went forward again. This 
 time it touched a house in Hawthorn. 
 
CHAPTER XII 
 HERON'S COTTAGE 
 
 IT was early spring again, and on the fruit trees pale 
 emerald buds of yet unfolded leaves. The blackbirds 
 came in flocks to the ploughed fields. 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 and were coming halting, halting 
 back. 
 
 Joan sat in her kitchen, on a low stool by the 
 hearth. The room was clean, with shafts of sunlight 
 slanting in. But her wheel was pushed back into a 
 corner, and there lacked other signs of industry. 
 She sat still and listless, bent over, her cheek rest- 
 ing upon her knees, and with her forefinger she made 
 idle marks and letters in the ashes. The fire was 
 smouldering out, the place seemed deadly still. 
 
 There came a knock upon the door. She raised her 
 head, and sat with a frozen look, listening. After a 
 minute the knock was repeated. Rising, she moved 
 noiselessly across the floor to the window, and, stand- 
 ing so that she could not be seen, looked out. The 
 rigour passed from her face; she drew a breath of 
 relief and went and opened the door. 
 
 The sunshine flooded in and in the midst of it 
 stood Aderhold. He looked at her quietly and 
 
 151 
 
THE WITCH 
 
 kindly. "I came again but to see if you were well 
 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 not last; she was resolute enough. She 
 straightened herself. " I've done what you told me 
 to. Yesterday I washed and cleaned and let the sun 
 in everywhere, and burned in the room the powder 
 you gave me. Everything is clean and lonely. 
 No, I don't feel badly anywhere. I feel terribly 
 strong, as though I would live to be an old woman. 
 ... I miss father I miss father!" 
 
 "It looks so clean and bright," said Aderhold, 
 "and your cat purring there on the hearth. Your 
 father went very quickly, and without much suffer- 
 ing. His presence will come back to you, and you 
 will take comfort 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 on the doorstep, looking out 
 past the budding trees to the gate and the misty 
 green twisted path that led at last to the village 
 road. Overhead drove a fleecy drift of clouds with 
 islands of blue. "All last night the countryside 
 mourned low and wailed. It was the wind, but I 
 knew it was the other too! It is sad for miles and 
 miles to be so woeful." 
 
 152 
 
HERON'S COTTAGE 
 
 "The sickness is greatly lessening. By the time 
 the spring is strongly here it will be over and Haw- 
 thorn beginning to forget. You have been here 
 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 out friends again." 
 
 " It is not that way that I am lonely," said Joan. 
 "There are some that I care not if they never 
 
 come." 
 
 He had his round to go. The sickness in the town 
 dwindling, he had come back, when it broke over 
 Hawthorn, to the Oak Grange. Since then he had 
 gone far and near, wherever it struck down the 
 poorer sort. As he turned from the cottage door, 
 Joan stepped, too, upon the flagged path, and they 
 moved side by side toward the gate, between the 
 lines of green lance-heads the daffodils were thrust- 
 ing above the soil. They moved in silence, almost of 
 a height, two simply, almost poorly dressed figures, 
 each with its load of sorrow and care for the morrow. 
 And yet they were not old, and about them was the 
 low ecstatic murmur of winter swiftening into spring. 
 
 "Do you remember," asked Aderhold, "that day 
 when we chanced to meet in the forest and Master 
 Harry Carthew came upon us?" 
 
 "Aye," said Joan, "I remember." 
 
 "Since then we have neither met nor spoken to- 
 153 
 
THE WITCH 1 
 
 gether until last week when your father was stricken 
 and you watched for me coming from the village. 
 And now to-day I come only for this moment and 
 will come no more. Have you no close friends nor 
 kindred? " 
 
 "They are buried with father. ... I mean to stay 
 on here and spin flax and keep myself. And if 
 I mean to stay." Her hand went out to touch the 
 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 of the forest. He, too, loved 
 this country. He had thought much here once 
 or twice the light had shone through. But he was 
 ready now to go. Just as 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 country- 
 side. He and Joan came to the little gate, and he 
 went out of it, then turning for a moment looked 
 back at the thatched cottage, the pleasant beehives, 
 the fruit trees that ere long would put forth a mist of 
 bloom. Joan stood with a sorrowful face, but grey- 
 eyed, vital. Her hand rested upon 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, then turned and went back to her 
 kitchen. She must bake bread ; there was nothing for 
 her to eat in the cottage. She must get water from 
 the well. She took her well-bucket, went forth and 
 
 154 
 
HERON'S COTTAGE 
 
 brought it back brimming. From the faggot pile she 
 fed the fire, then brought to the table 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 her father was sitting there, in the settle 
 corner. She made the table clear again, then looked 
 at her wheel. But she did not feel like spinning ; her 
 heart was burdened again ; she sat down on the stool 
 by the fire and bowed her head in her arms. "Day 
 after day and day after day," 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 trouble me, and father not here. . . . Day 
 after day and day after day. . . . And I know not 
 why it is, but I have no friends. They've turned 
 against me, and I know not why. . . . Day after day 
 " She sat with buried head and rocked herself 
 slowly to and fro. Save for the youth in her form 
 and the thick, pale bronze of her braided hair, she 
 might have seemed Mother Spuraway, or Marget 
 Primrose, or any other old and desolate woman. 
 She rocked herself, and the faggot burned apart, and 
 the cat stretched itself in the warmth. 
 
 From outside the cottage came a thin calling. 
 4 1 Joan I Joan I Oh, Joan ! ' ' 
 
 Joan lifted her head, listened a moment, then rose 
 and opened the door. "Joan! Joan! Oh, Joan!" 
 She stepped without and saw who it was, Alison 
 Inch and Cecily Lukin calling to her from the green 
 path well beyond the gate. They would come at 
 
 155 
 
; THE WITCH 
 
 first no nearer. The plague had struck in the Lukin 
 cottage no less than in Heron's, and for weeks it had 
 closely neighboured Alison Inch and her mother. 
 But Joan must be made to feel comrades' terror of 
 her. "Joan! Joan! Have you got it yet? We 
 want but to see if you're living!" 
 
 With a gesture of anger Joan turned to reenter 
 the cottage. 
 
 But Alison did not wish that. "Joan! Joan! We 
 were laughing. We're not afraid 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 were women and 
 young, and the loneliness was terrible about her. 
 She went halfway up the path toward them. The 
 grey and white cat came from the cottage and fol- 
 lowed her. 
 
 Alison regarded her with a thin, flushed, shrewish 
 face and an expression lifted, enlarged, and dark- 
 ened beyond what might have seemed possible to 
 her nature. But Alison had drunk deep from an acrid 
 spring that drew in turn from a deep, perpetual 
 fount. She spoke in a thin and cutting voice. 
 "Watching and weeping haven't taken the rose 
 away. What are you going to do now, Joan? " 
 
 " I do not think," said Joan, "that it is necessary 
 totellthee." She looked past her to Cecily. "They 
 say your sister died. I am sorry." 
 
 156 
 
HERON'S COTTAGE 
 
 But Alison had put poison into Cecily's mind. 
 11 Yes, she died. They do say that you would not be 
 sorry if more of us died. Why people like you and 
 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 a teasing devil. "Oh, they say that 
 you and a black man understand each other! Some 
 boys told me " 
 
 "Nay, that's naught, Cis!" said Alison impa- 
 tiently. She came closer to the gate, and Joan, as 
 though drawn against her will, approached from her 
 side. "Joan nay, don't come any nearer, Joan " 
 
 "Yes?" 
 
 "There's one ill at the squire's house. Ah!" cried 
 Alison . "Do you look j oy f ul ? ' ' 
 
 "No no!" stammered Joan. 
 
 Taken by surprise, shaken;and unstable as she was 
 to-day, she gave back a step, lifted her hands to her 
 forehead. As for Alison Alison had not expected 
 Joan to look joyful. She had spoken, burning her 
 own heart, to make Joan feel the hot iron, knowing 
 that the pang she gave would not be lasting, for 
 truly it was but one of the maidservants at the great 
 house that was stricken and not that person of over* 
 shadowing importance. She had believed with all 
 her heart that it would smite Joan to the heart until 
 she told her true and now there had been in her 
 
 157 
 
1 THE WITCH 
 
 face an awful joy, though at once it had shrunk back 
 and something piteous had come instead. But it was 
 the first look with which Alison was concerned. 
 There went through her a keen hope like a knife- 
 blade. Perhaps he no longer liked Joan! perhaps 
 that made Joan angry, hurting her vanity so, 
 perhaps she would have liked to hear that he was 
 sick of the plague! Alison stood astare, revolving 
 Joan's look. 
 
 Cecily, who had never come before so close to 
 Heron's cottage, gazed about her. "And Katherine 
 Scott says there 's something * no canny ' about the 
 bees in your beehives. She says she had them while 
 you were away to the castle, and they did naught 
 for her and made, besides, her own bees idle and sick. 
 But she says they make honey for you, great combs 
 of it " 
 
 "There is none that is sick at the squire's house," 
 said Alison in a strange voice, "but Agnes, Madam 
 Carthew's woman. They've taken her from the 
 house and put her in a room by the stable, and the 
 family goes freely 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 no ill-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'll both come to see me " 
 
 Cecily gave a gibing, elfin laugh. "Are you going 
 to live here all alone like a witch?" 
 
 .158 
 
HERON'S COTTAGE 
 
 The grey and white cat had advanced beyond 
 Joan and now stood upon the sunny path between 
 the daffodil points. What happened none of the 
 three saw; perhaps a dog crossed the track behind 
 the two visitors, perhaps the creature recognized 
 human hostility be that as it may, the cat sud- 
 denly 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-shadow over Alison's face. "It doesn't like 
 what you said, Cis! It's her familiar. 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 ! ' ' Her 
 voice followed them up the green path. " Come not 
 here again " 
 
 The next day she went to get wood from the edge 
 of the forest. She had 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 hap- 
 pened that way. The two had known each other to 
 speak to in a friendly way for 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 cot- 
 tage for a crack with old Heron and maybe with 
 Joan herself. That time had come to an end with 
 Joan and her father's going to the castle; when they 
 came back he had been, as it were, afraid pf new 
 A 159 
 
THE WITCH 
 
 graces and manners. Moreover, old Master Hard- 
 wick had presently died, and so Will left the em- 
 ployment of the Grange and had little need any 
 more to come and go by Hawthorn Forest. It 
 might be that, save at church, they had not seen 
 each other for months. Moreover, he had been away 
 to the nearest port. 
 
 Now he greeted her with friendliness and an 
 honest-awkward speech of sorrow for old Heron's 
 death. "He was a good man and, fegs! so learned! 
 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," she said drearily; then, 
 with a backward fling of her shoulders and a lift of 
 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 time thou'dst be talked of an4 
 called ill names. Either thou must take service or 
 marry '" 
 
 Joan turned upon him heavy-lidded grey orbs. 
 "Why should I marry or be a serving- woman if I 
 wish neither, and can keep myself? Oh, I like not 
 the way we've made this world!" She turned the 
 nest again. "This thing of 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" 
 
 160 
 
HERON'S COTTAGE 
 
 He looked at her with rustic meditativeness. He 
 was slow and country-living; he had no great ac- 
 quaintance with Alison or Cecily, and it had never 
 occurred to him to mark Master Harry Carthew, 
 where the squire's brother rode or whom his looks 
 pursued. He had heard of the vintner in the town, 
 and had dimly supposed that Joan would marry 
 him, or maybe the new huntsman or some other 
 fine-feathered person at the castle. But now the 
 plague had swept the town, and the vintner might 
 be of those taken and here was old Heron gone. 
 He looked at her again, and the hand that held the 
 piece of thorn against his lips began to shake a little. 
 It occurred to him more strongly than it had done 
 before that she was a fair woman and then, 
 Heron's cottage. There was a tiny plot of ground, 
 the cow, some poultry. As things went, she had a 
 good dowry. Will the smith's son might go farther 
 and fare worse. It was not the right time, all Haw- 
 thorn being so gloomy and everybody afraid, and 
 his own heart knocking at times against his side with 
 fear. But it would n'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 from this base. She lifted sombre 
 eyes, still turning the little grey nest about in her 
 hands. "Why do you think we had the plague? 
 The minister preached that it was sent against the 
 town for its false doctrine, and we gave thanks that 
 we were not as the town. . . . And then in a little 
 
 161 
 
THE WITCH 
 
 while it was upon us, and my father, who was a good 
 man, took it and died. ..." 
 
 Gloom that had lifted this bright afternoon on the 
 forest edge settled again. 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 up 
 with strange lightnings and transform every hum- 
 drum corner of his mind. He liked to discuss these 
 matters and feel a wind of terror prick his temples 
 cold. He spoke oracularly, having, indeed, listened 
 to talk at the sexton's the night before. "There 's al- 
 ways an Evil Agent behind any pest, or a comet or 
 a storm that wrecks ships or blows down chimneys. 
 At times God uses the Evil Agent to punish the pre- 
 sumptuous with as He 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 at other times He gives the Evil Agent leave to 
 prick and try his chosen people that they may turn 
 like a wauling babe and cling the closer to Him. 
 And again there may be one patch of weed in the 
 good corn and Satan couching and holding his Sab- 
 bat there. In which case God will send plagues of 
 Egypt, one after the other, until every soul wearing 
 the Devil's livery is haled forth. Now," said Will, 
 and he laid it off with the sprig of thorn, " Hawthorn 
 is for the pure faith of the Holy Scriptures, so we 
 have n't the plague for the reason the town hath it. 
 - Again, put case that so we 're to love the Lord the 
 more. Now Hawthorn and all to the north of it is 
 
 162 
 
HERON'S COTTAGE 
 
 known for religion. I 've been a traveller," said Will 
 with unction, "and I know how we're looked on, 
 clear from here to the sea, and held up to the un- 
 godly ! Master Clement's go,t a name that sounds to 
 the wicked like the trump of doom and Master 
 Harry Carthew is n'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 prick up Hawthorn to fresh zeal, 
 and, indeed, the sexton holds that it is so that Mas- 
 ter Clement interprets the matter. But it seemed to 
 me and the tinker, who was there talking, too, that 
 the third case is the likelier and that there are some 
 ill folk among us!" Will dropped the bit of thorn. 
 " It 's the more likely because there 's another kind of 
 mischief going around and growing as the plague 
 dies off. I know myself of three plough-horses gone 
 lame in one night, and Hodgson's cow dying without 
 rhyme or reason, and a child at North-End Farm 
 falling into fits and talking of a dog that runs in and 
 out of the room, but no one else can see it. The 
 tinker" Will spoke with energy "the tinker 
 has come not long since over the border from Scot- 
 land. He says that if Hawthorn was Scotland we'd 
 have had old Mother Spuraway and maybe others 
 in the pennywinkis and the caschielawis before 
 this!" 
 
 Joan rose and lifted her bundle of faggots to her 
 shoulders. The grey bird-nest she set between two 
 
 163 
 
THE WITCH 
 
 boughs of the thorn tree. "What are the penny- 
 winkis and the caschielawis?" 
 
 "The one's your thumbscrew," said Will, "and 
 the other 's a hollow iron case where they set your 
 leg and build a fire beneath." 
 
 Joan turned her face toward the cottage. Her old 
 acquaintance walked beside her. It was afternoon 
 and there was over everything a tender, flickering, 
 charming light. It made the new grass emerald, of 
 the misting trees veil on veil of soft, smiling magic. 
 Primroses and violets bloomed as though dropped 
 from immortal hands. The blue vault of 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 and his talk. "What did you 
 say, Joan?" 
 
 "I said naught," said Joan. J 
 
CHAPTER XIII 
 
 HAWTHORN CHURCH 
 
 TOWN and village and all the country roundabout 
 were growing clean of the plague. Day by day the 
 evil lessened, the sickness stole away. It left its 
 graves, and among those whose loss was personal 
 its mood of grief. At large there was still a kind of 
 sullen fear, a tension of the nerves, a readiness to 
 attend to any cry of " Wolf ! " The wolf might come 
 no more in the guise of the plague, but there were 
 other damages and terrors. All Hawthorn region 
 was in a mood to discover them. 
 
 It came Sunday. The danger, at least, of con- 
 gregating together seemed to have rolled away. 
 Comfort remained, comfort of the crowd, of feel- 
 ing people warm about you, gloomy comfort of 
 "Eh, sirs!" and shakings of the head. Hawthorn, 
 village and neighbourhood, flocked to church. Go- 
 ing, the people drew into clusters. The North-End 
 Farm folk had a large cluster, and there the shak- 
 ing of the head was over the possessed boy. But 
 the widow whose cow was dead and the waggoner 
 whose horses were lamed had their groups, too, and 
 the largest group of all came compactly from the 
 lower end of the village, past the green and the 
 pond and the stocks and the Sabbath-closed ale- 
 
 165 
 
THE WITCH 
 
 house, with the tinker from Scotland talking in the 
 midst of it. 
 
 Dark stone, gaunt and ancient, rather small than 
 large, Hawthorn Church rose among yew trees. 
 Within was barer than without. What of antique 
 carving could be broken away was broken away, 
 what could be whitewashed was whitewashed, what 
 of austerity could be injected was injected. The 
 Act of Uniformity loomed over England like a 
 writing in the sky ; there must be and was use of the 
 book of Common Prayer. But parishes minded 
 like Hawthorn used it with all possible reserves. 
 Where matters could be pared they were pared to 
 the quick; all exfoliation was done away with. As 
 far as was possible in an England where Presbyter- 
 ianism yet sat in the shadow of the Star Chamber 
 and the Independents had not arisen, idolatrousness 
 was excluded. Only the sermon was not pared. 
 Sunday by Sunday minister and people indemnified 
 themselves with the sermon. You could not speak 
 against the King; except in metaphor you could not 
 speak against the Apostolic Succession ; there were a 
 number of things you could not speak against unless 
 you wished to face gaql or pillory or worse. Be- 
 cause of this the things that you could speak against 
 were handled with an added violence. The common 
 outer foe received the cudgellings you could not be- 
 stow within the house. The Devil was mightily dealt 
 with in pulpits such as this of Hawthorn, the Devil 
 and his ministers. The Devil was invisible ; even the 
 
 166 
 
HAWTHORN CHURCH 
 
 most materializing mind did not often get a glimpse 
 of him, though such a thing was possible and had of 
 course happened : witness Martin Luther and others. 
 But his ministers his ministers ! They were many 
 and palpable. . . , 
 
 Hawthorn Church was filled. They sat very still, 
 men and women and children. They were peasants 
 and yeomen, small tradespeople, a very few of the 
 clerkly caste, one or two families of gentry. The 
 only great enclosed pew was that belonging by pre- 
 scription to Carthew House. The squire, the squire's 
 wife, his young son, and the squire's brother sat 
 there, where the force of the sermon could reach 
 them first. Quite at the back of the church sat Gil- 
 bert Aderhold, a quiet, dark figure beside an old, 
 smocked farmer. Joan sat where she had been 
 wont to sit with her father, halfway down the 
 church, just in front of Alison Inch and her mother. 
 It was a dark day, the air hot, heavy, and oppres- 
 sive, drawing to a storm. 
 
 Master Thomas Clement came into the pulpit 
 wearing a black gown. He opened his Geneva Bible 
 and laid it straight before him. He turned the hour- 
 glass, then lifting his hands to the lowering sky he 
 smote them together, and in a loud, solemn and 
 echoing voice read from the book before him, "If 
 there arise among you a prophet or a dreamer of 
 dreams, and giveth thee a sign or a wonder. And the 
 sign or the wonder come to pass whereof he spake to 
 ihee, saying, Let us go after other gods, that thou hast 
 
 167 
 
THE WITCH 
 
 not known, and let us serve them. . . . That prophet or 
 that dreamer of dreams shall be put to death; because he 
 hath spoken to turn you away from the Lord your God. 
 . . . And all Israel shall hear and fear and shall do no 
 more any such wickedness as this is among you. . . ." 
 
 "... There shall not be found among you any one 
 that . . . useth divination, or an observer of times, or an 
 enchanter, or a witch, or a consulter with familiar 
 spirits, or a wizard, or a necromancer" 
 
 He ceased to read, and with another gesture of 
 his long, thin hands, began to preach. He had a 
 peculiar power and calibre had Master Thomas 
 Clement. He stood in his black gown, a small man 
 with a pale face; then his dire vision 'came upon him 
 and it was as though his form gained height and 
 dilated. He burned like a flame, a wind-tossed flame, 
 burning blue. When he spoke his words came with a 
 rushing weight. His figure bent toward the people, 
 his lean hands quivered above his head, gesturing 
 against the dark concave of the roof. The roof 
 might have been an open, stormy sky, the pulpit a 
 rock upon some plain of assemblage, the preacher a 
 gaunt, half-clad Israelite shrilling out to the Hebrew 
 multitude the rede of their lawgivers. Thou shalt not 
 suffer doubt to live I Thou shalt endure no speech of 
 more or other paths than this one. He that differeth, he 
 shall die ! 
 
 But it was not Sinai and some thousands of years 
 ago and an Asiatic tribe struggling back from Egypt 
 to some freehold of its own, or Asiatic lawgivers 
 
 168 
 
HAWTHORN CHURCH 
 
 building a careful theocracy. It was Europe, it 
 was England and the seventeenth century, and 
 still men like this stood in fiery sincerity and became 
 mouthpieces for that people and its history and its 
 laws. The order to Judah and Simeon and Levi 
 rolled through the ages like never-cooling lava, with- 
 ering and whelming vineyards of thought. Thou 
 shall not suffer doubt to live. He that differeth, he shall 
 die I And a thousand thousand pale shapes might 
 rise to the inner eye and speak to the inner ear. 
 " We died. tj 
 
 Aderhold sat still, far back in Hawthorn Church. 
 In his own mind he saw that he was on the edge 
 of the abyss. He doubted much if he would escape. 
 . . . The old farmer sitting, blue-smocked, beside 
 him, his watery eyes fixed upon the minister, broke 
 now and again into a mutter of repetition and com- 
 ment. "Aye, aye! The misbeliever to perish for 
 idolatry. ... Of course he blasphemes the mis- 
 believer blasphemes. . . . Aye, aye! 'Why,' and 
 ' Wherefore,' the Devil's own syllables. . . . Aye, 
 aye! Unbelief and sorcery go together. . . . Aye, 
 now we're at fire in this world and everlasting, last- 
 ing fire to come!" 
 
 The preacher had before him a people who had 
 come through a narrow strait and a valley of the 
 shadow, gathered together in a mood of strained 
 nerves, of twitches and starts aside, of a readiness to 
 take panic. The day was dark with heat and oppres- 
 sion, a sense of hush before tempest. It was a day on 
 
 169 
 
THE WITCH 
 
 which it was easy to awaken emotion. The faces of 
 the people showed pale in the dusk, breathing be- 
 came laboured. At last it grew that men and women 
 looked aside with something like a shudder and a 
 sigh in the dimness. It was as though they looked 
 to see a serpent's head, fanged and crowned, lifting 
 itself in the gloom from monstrous coils. Aderhold 
 saw the slow turning of eyes in his direction. 
 
 He thought swiftly. He had served many in this 
 congregation. Since, in the winter-time, his eyes had 
 been opened, he knew of the drifting talk of his 
 hoarding gold, of his practising alchemy there in the 
 dark Oak Grange, alchemy, and perhaps worse. 
 Even after his return from the plague-stricken town, 
 even in his going through Hawthorn countryside 
 from house to house where there were sick, helping, 
 serving, even then he had seen doubtful looks, had 
 known his aid taken hurriedly, as it were secretly 
 and grudgingly. But all had not done so. There had 
 been those too simple and too suffering and sorrow- 
 ful for that, and there had been those whose minds 
 seemed not to have taken the dye. There were some 
 in this church of whom, in the years he had dwelt in 
 this country, he had grown fond ; folk that of their 
 own bent felt for him liking and kindness. . . . But 
 he did not deceive himself. He knew of none that 
 would stand before this parching and withering 
 wind. Heretofore the talk might have been idle 
 talk, but now it was evident that Master Clement 
 had at his shaken finger-ends the history in France 
 170 
 
HAWTHORN CHURCH 
 
 of Gilbert Aderhold. Friends! By what multitude 
 of written words, of hearsay and legend by what 
 considerable amount of personal observation did 
 he know how friends fell away from the denounced 
 dreamer of dreams! . . . Poor friends! He felt no 
 rise of bitterness against them. They would not 
 have fallen away in physical battle; they would 
 have stood many a strain, perhaps all but this. 
 This was not to cow the blood ; it was to cow mind 
 and the immortal spirit. To face for a friend a wolf, 
 a lion, or an earthly angered King, that was well ! 
 but to face for a friend an angered God, to save 
 him not from hell-fire and to be yourself whelmed, 
 remediless, for eternity ! Few there were who could 
 inwardly frame the question, "Is He angered?" or 
 "What is He that can be so angered?" or "You 
 who would silence this man with the silence of death, 
 are you beyond doubt the spokesmen of God and 
 Eternity? Are you, after all, God's Executioners?" 
 But they said that they were, and the human mind 
 was clay to believe. . . . Aderhold looked over the 
 church and thought he saw none who would not be 
 terrified aside. 
 
 Well! he asked those questions and 'other ques- 
 tions. Mind and moral nature rose in him and stood. 
 But he knew that his body would betray him if it 
 could. Highly strung, very sensitive to pain, he pos- 
 sessed an imagination and memory vivid to paint or 
 to bring back all manner of pangs and shrinkings of 
 the earthly frame. No detail of any Calvary but in 
 
 17.1 
 
THE WITCH 
 
 some wise he knew and feared it. He felt the cold 
 sweat dew his temples and break out upon the backs 
 of his hands. He felt the nausea that numbed and 
 withered the brain and brought the longing for 
 death. . . . 
 
 Not in the beginning, the middle, or the ending of 
 his white-heated discourse did the minister call the 
 name of Gilbert Aderhold or say the Oak Grange. 
 The invective, the "Lo, this is he that troubleth 
 Israel!" only 'drew in circles, closer, closer, until 
 there was no one there who did not know who was 
 meant. The tremendous accusation was of Athe- 
 ism, but in and out there tolled like a lesser bell, 
 Sorcery! Sorcery! The withdrawing light, the hot, 
 small, vagrant breaths of air, announcers of the 
 onward rolling storm, the darkened hollow of the 
 building with the whitewashed walls glimmering 
 pale, the faces lifted from the benches, the square 
 Hall pew, the high pulpit and the black sounding- 
 board and the black figure with the lifted arms and 
 the death-like shaken hands, and in the back of the 
 church, all knew, even if they could not see him, the 
 man who had made pact with the Devil. ... A 
 woman fainted; a child began a frightened, whim- 
 pering crying. The sands had quite run out from the 
 upper half of the hourglass. . . . 
 
 Aderhold, close to the door, was the first of the 
 congregation to step from the church into the open 
 air. It would seem that those near him held back, 
 so as to let the fearful thing forth and out. The 
 
 172 
 
HAWTHORN CHURCH 
 
 churchyard path stretched bare before him, be- 
 tween the yews to the mossed gate, and so forth 
 from the immediate pale. There came as yet no 
 challenge or molestation. He had looked for this; 
 when all had risen and he with them, it had been 
 with an inward bracing to meet at the door a writ of 
 arrest. He looked to see the Hawthorn constable. 
 But he was not at the door, or out^upon the path, 
 or at the gate. . . . The storm was at hand, with 
 clouds heavy and dark as the yew trees and with a 
 mutter of thunder. As he reached the village street, 
 raindrops touched his face. Behind him the church- 
 yard was astir with people, murmuring and dark. 
 He wrapped his cloak about him, pulled his hat 
 down against the rain, and faced homeward. Al- 
 most immediately, the church being at the village 
 end, the cloud-shadowed country was about him. 
 
 He walked rapidly for half a mile, then halted and 
 stood in the wind and rain, trying to think it out. It 
 occurred to him that he might turn back through the 
 fields and passing the village come out on the high- 
 way and strike southward to the town and the castle. 
 He knew not if his friend of the hawk were yet at the 
 castle. And if he were not? and if he were? . . , 
 
 There was that at the Oak Grange which must be 
 considered. His book there in the quiet room 
 behind the cupboard's oaken door, all his writing 
 lying there that which he was trying to put down. 
 It turned him decisively from the town and the bare 
 chance of reaching help. His book was his lover and 
 
 173 
 
THE WITCH 
 
 playmate and child. He put himself into motion 
 again and went on toward the Grange, beneath the 
 tempestuous sky, through the wind and the rain. 
 . . . When he came within Hawthorn Forest there 
 arrived a sudden lull. The oaks stood still around 
 him, the raindrops fringing branch and twig and 
 unfolding tufts of velvet leaves. Overhead the 
 clouds drove apart, there came a gleam of intensest 
 blue. As he moved through the forest it took on an 
 ineffable beauty. When he came to the edge and to 
 the stream murmuring over its pebbly strand there 
 was a great rainbow. He crossed the footbridge and 
 went on by the fairy oak. 
 
 Within the still old house was none but himself. 
 Dorothy and the boy, her nephew, had been there 
 in Hawthorn Church. They would come on but 
 slowly; indeed, they might have stopped at a cou- 
 sin's on the way; indeed, he knew not if, terrified 
 and at a loss, they would come back to the Grange 
 at all. They might, perhaps, have waited to beseech 
 the minister's and the squire's protection and ad- 
 vice. There was a fire in the kitchen. Aderhold, 
 spreading his cloak to dry, knelt upon the hearth, 
 crouched together, bathed by the good warmth. 
 But even while the light and comfort played about 
 him there came into his mind, suddenly, with sick- 
 ening strength, a thing that he had witnessed in his 
 childhood, here in England. Again he saw a woman 
 burning at a stake. . . . He shuddered violently, rose 
 and left the room. 
 
 174 
 
HAWTHORN CHURCH 
 
 Upstairs he unlocked the cupboard and took from 
 it a heap of closely covered manuscript. It rested 
 upon the table before him . . . He stood for some 
 moments with a bowed head; presently his hand 
 stole to the leaves and caressed them. He knew what 
 he should do ; he should take the whole down to the 
 kitchen and lay it in the fire. Since the warning of 
 the man with the hawk he had known that that 
 was what should be done. The knowledge had lain 
 upon his heart at night. "I will do it to-morrow," 
 and again, " I will do it to-morrow." The only other 
 thing was to hide it in some deep and careful place, 
 whence, if ever there came escape and security, he 
 might recover it, or where, long years after he was 
 dead, men might find it and read it. He had thought 
 of digging beneath the fairy oak but the fire, he 
 knew, was the safest. . . . He gathered all together 
 and with it in his hands went downstairs. He 
 thought that he had decided upon the fire, but 
 going, he had a vision of a mattock and spade 
 resting behind an outhouse door. Now would be 
 the time to dig, now at once ! As his foot touched 
 the oak flooring of the hall there sounded a heavy 
 knock upon the door. It was not locked or barred; 
 even as he stood the one uncertain instant, it swung 
 inward to admit the men who had followed him 
 from Hawthorn. 
 
CHAPTER XIV 
 
 NIGHT 
 
 THE storm that had broken in the early afternoon 
 regathered. The clouds hung low and black, the 
 wind whistled, the rain came in gusts, now and again 
 there was lightning and thunder. It was so dark in 
 Heron's cottage, behind the deep, dripping eaves, 
 that Joan moving to and fro seemed a shadow 
 among shadows. The hearth glowed, but she held 
 her hand from making a bright light with fresh fag- 
 gots. Her mood was not for the dancing flame. 
 
 What it was for she knew not. She only knew 
 that she was suited by the rain that dashed, by the 
 bending fruit trees, striking the thatch with mossed 
 boughs, the solemn roll of the thunder, the darkness 
 and solitude. She paced the room, her arms lifted 
 and crossed behind her head. At last a bit of un- 
 burned wood caught and sent up forked flames. 
 Light and shadow danced about the walls. The 
 grey and white cat came and walked with Joan, 
 rubbing against her skirt. 
 
 The thunder rolled. Outside, the murk of the day 
 thickened toward evening. A hand fell across the 
 door, then pressed the latch. The door swung inward ; 
 there was a vision of a muffled figure, behind it wind- 
 tossed trees and up- towering clouds lit by lightning. 
 
 176 
 
NIGHT 
 
 "Who is it?" Joan cried sharply; then, as the 
 man let drop the cloak he had been holding across 
 his face, " Master Carthew! . . ." 
 
 The firelight, sinking, left only the smouldering 
 coals and the room almost dark. Joan, moving 
 swiftly^across the room, seized fresh brands and 
 threw them upon the old. A flame leaped up" the 
 place was fairly light again. She turned upon him. 
 " To come here to come here " 
 
 "Aye," he answered, "to come here." He un- 
 clasped his great cloak and let it drop on the set- 
 tle, took off his steeple-crowned hat and set it on 
 the cloak. He stood out, dark-clothed, plain as Mas- 
 ter Clement himself in what he wore, with short- 
 cut hair, with handsome features, haggard, flushed, 
 and working. " Do you know whence I have come? 
 I have come from leading men to the Oak Grange 
 where they took and bound that atheist there and 
 carried him away to gaol. You'll walk no more 
 with him in Hawthorn Forest." 
 
 Joan drew a heavy, painful breath. "I walked 
 little with him in Hawthorn Forest. But when my 
 father took the plague he came to him. He is a good 
 man! Aye, I was in church and heard Master 
 Clement" 
 
 "Nay, I think that you walked much. But now 
 you will walk no more." He came nearer to her. 
 "Joan, put that Satan's servant from out your 
 mind ! Turn instead to one who sinneth truly and 
 puts oftentimes in peril his immortal soul, but is 
 
 177 
 
THE WITCH 
 
 at least no misbeliever and denier of God's Word. 
 Joan Joan!" 
 
 He tried to take her in his arms. She was strong 
 and broke from him. Behind her was a shelf with 
 some pewter jugs and dishes and small articles of 
 use. She put up her arm and snatched from it a 
 good and keen hunting-knife; then stood, breathing 
 quickly, the firelight reddening the blade in her 
 hand. 
 
 He gave a harsh and forced laugh. " Put it down, 
 Joan! I did not mean to fright thee. I came to 
 persuade " 
 
 'Nay, I'll keep it by me," said Joan. "Persuade 
 me to what? To feel love for you? That, Master 
 Carthew, you cannot do! But you could make me 
 feel gratitude " 
 
 " If I took hat and cloak and went from out your 
 door?" 
 
 "Aye, just." 
 
 "I cannot. . . . No man ever loved as I love you. 
 . . . Here, this dusk, this Sabbath. Think if I 
 am in earnest. . . . Joan, Joan! If I lose for thee 
 my immortal soul " 
 
 She made a sound of anger and contempt. "Oh, 
 thy little immortal soul ! Be but mortal and 
 just!" The tears rose in her grey eyes. "See what 
 you will do to me! Say that you were seen coming 
 here say that any of the times you have waited for 
 me, waylaid me, met me against my will, you were 
 watched we were seen together. . . . You are a 
 
 178 
 
NIGHT 
 
 man and a gentleifian and a great man in this 
 country. It will not harm you. But Joan Heron 
 but Joan Heron it will harm her! It will provide 
 her misery for all her days! " 
 
 Carthew struck his hand against the settle. "Is 
 not all my name and future risked? I am not of the 
 old England, nor of to-day's careless and idolatrous 
 England. My world is the world of the new Eng- 
 land, of the forces of the Lord mustering upon the 
 straight and narrow path where there is no room for 
 Satan's toys! And if I turn aside to Babylon and the 
 flesh and its madness, and if my turning becomes 
 known Joan, Joan, you know not how great is my 
 risk even my worldly risk! As for the other as 
 for my risk of God's hatred and damnation but I 
 will not speak of that. . . . Enough that I am here, 
 and that to hold you consenting in my arms would 
 even all out and make my lead gold and my torment 
 bliss! Joan if you would but love me and feel how 
 the risk is outweighed ! As for security, we can man- 
 age that. Many another pair has managed that. 
 To-day here with the wind and rain keeping 
 all within doors. ... I rode with the men some way 
 toward the town, and then I left them, saying there 
 were matters at home that needed. When they were 
 out of sight, j I turned through the fields and went up 
 the stream that was all solitary, until I was over 
 against the Oak Grange and the forest all around 
 me. Then I turned and rode here through the forest, 
 and fastened my horse in a hollow out there where 
 
THE WITCH 
 
 none may see him. . . . Joan, it is like a desert all 
 about us or like Paradise garden. Joan, Joan, I 
 love you! Joan, have pity!" 
 
 There came an access of lightning with thunder 
 and a prolonged whistling of the wind. In the war- 
 ring light and darkness of the room, Carthew, as 
 though the final spring of restraint had snapped, 
 came close to her, put his arms about her. The 
 lightning blazed again, and by it both saw with dis- 
 tinctness a man and woman standing without, their 
 faces close to the window. In the darkness after the 
 flash, they left it and came on to the cottage door, 
 but as yet did not knock. Within the room, Car- 
 thew, sobered, the colour ebbing from his face, only 
 one consideration pouring in upon his mind, re- 
 leased Joan and caught from the settle hat and 
 cloak. There was a second outward-opening door, 
 giving upon the bit of garden behind the cottage, 
 leading in its turn to the forest. He looked toward 
 it. She nodded, "Yes, yes, go!" He came close to 
 her, moving noiselessly and speaking low, " Do you 
 think they saw saw at all?" 
 
 She shook her head. " I do not know." 
 
 "It was too dusk within. I do not think they 
 saw. Keep counsel, Joan, for thy own sake if not 
 for mine." 
 
 The two without knocked. Carthew crossed the 
 floor without sound, opened the forest-facing door, 
 and with a gesture of farewell vanished. There was 
 a continuous noise of wind and rain ; what daylight 
 
 x 180 
 
NIGHT 
 
 was left and the lightning were all without; it might 
 truly be doubted if one glancing through the win- 
 dow could either see or hear, the interior was so 
 dusky, the voice of wind and wet so continuing. 
 Joan, with a long, shuddering sigh, put down the 
 hunting-knife, and going to the door opened it. 
 The two who stood there were Will the smith's son 
 and his mother. They had, it seemed, the weather 
 clearing, walked to see the forester's people; then, 
 the clouds returning, they had taken their leave to 
 hurry home. But the storm had overtaken them 
 and they had thought to take refuge until the rain 
 lessened in Heron's cottage. But they did not 
 know they thought they had better go on. 
 
 "Come in and warm and dry yourselves," said 
 Joan. 
 
 They came in hesitatingly. They looked around 
 them, confused and doubtful. They sat on the settle 
 by the fire and stared at the grey and white cat. 
 Will was trembling, and it could not be from the wet 
 and chill, for he was used to that. 
 
 His mother was of stouter mental make. "Were 
 you alone, Joan? It seemed to us there was some- 
 body else " 
 
 "Why, who else," asked Joan, "could there have 
 been?" She looked around her. "The shadows 
 moving along the walls do look like people." 
 
 "It looked," said Will, in a strange voice, "as 
 though you and a shadow were locked and moving 
 together. It looked like a tall black man." He 
 
 181 
 
THE WITCH 
 
 stared at the fire and at the grey and white cat. A 
 fine, bead-like moisture that was not rain clung to 
 his brow, beneath his yellow elf locks. 
 
 "No, no black man," said Joan. " I myself fancy 
 all kinds of things in a storm." 
 
 Her woman guest was silent. She sat with bead- 
 like blue eyes now on Joan, now upon the kitchen 
 from wall to wall. But Will's perturbation re- 
 mained. The events of the day, North-End Farm 
 talk and the tinker's talk, the atmosphere of heat 
 and storm, church and the denunciation of his old 
 master's kinsman, the physician with whom at the 
 Oak Grange he had himself been in daily contact, 
 the talk at the forester's which had been of the mar- 
 vellous, indeed, and the evident power of Satan; 
 afterwards the dark wood, the lightning, rain, and 
 thunder, and then the momentary spectral vision 
 through the window, which now, it seemed, was 
 naught all wrought powerfully upon his unstable 
 imagination. There flowed into his mind his long- 
 ago adventure with the wolf that ran across the 
 snow-field, and was trapped that night but never 
 found . . . but old Marget Primrose was found with 
 her ankle cut. The remembrance dragged with it 
 another he was again with that same physician 
 sitting his horse before the portal of the great church 
 in the town the carvings in the stone struck with 
 almost material force back into his mind that was 
 edged already with panic. Witches and devils. . . . 
 And the tinker's talk of how Scotland was beset, 
 
 182 
 
NIGHT 
 
 and Satan buying women, old and young. . . . He 
 had always thought of witches being old like Marget 
 Primrose or like Mother Spuraway but, of course, 
 they could be young. . . . The forester's wife, that 
 afternoon, had said something it hummed back 
 through his head. Her beehives were bewitched by 
 Joan Heron's beehives. . . . 
 
 His mind was tinder to every superstitious spark. 
 With a whistling breath and a shuffling of the feet, 
 he rose from the settle. "We're dry and warm now, 
 mother. Let's be getting home." 
 
 His mother, it seemed, was ready. Her parting 
 with Joan was somewhat tight-lipped and stony. 
 "Seeing that you are alone now in the world 't is a 
 pity you ever had to leave living by the town and 
 the castle ! There were fine strange doings there that 
 you miss, no doubt " 
 
 The two went out into the declining day. The 
 rain had ceased, but the wind blew hard, driving 
 vast iron-grey clouds across the sky. However, 
 since the thunder had rolled away, one could talk. 
 As soon as the two were out of the cottage gate and 
 upon the serpentine green path, wet beneath the wet 
 trees, they began to talk. 
 
 "It was something," said Will; "and then when 
 we got within, it was nothing .... Mother!" 
 
 "Aye, aye," said his mother. "It was n't to be 
 seen plain. But she was not by herself." 
 
 "Mother . . . the tinker saith that the Scotch 
 witches all have familiars. A man or a woman or 
 
 183 
 
THE WITCH 
 
 sometimes children see such and such an one walking 
 or talking with a tall black man, but when they get 
 close there is only, maybe, a dog, or a cat, or some- 
 times a frog or a mouse. . . . But the witch-prickers 
 always find the witch's mark where the Devil that is 
 her familiar sucks. . . . And then the witch con- 
 fesses and tells how the Devil is now tall and black 
 like himself and now shrinks into the small beast, 
 and how by his power she can herself change her 
 shape." Will shivered and his eyes glanced fear- 
 fully about. "Mother, do you think that there was 
 something evil there?" 
 
 His mother looked steadily before her with beady 
 blue eyes. "I don't know what I think. I think 
 there was somebody or something there that she 
 did n't want seen or known about but where it 
 went, or he went. . . . Don't you think any more 
 that you might marry her." 
 
 Back in Heron's cottage Joan sat crouched before 
 the fire. She fed it now constantly with wood so as 
 to make the whole room light. A determination was 
 taking form in her mind. To-morrow she would 
 walk to the town, and climb the castle hill, and ask 
 for Mistress Borrow at the castle. The old house- 
 keeper had called her a pagan, but natheless she had 
 been fond of Joan and Joan of her. . . . Now to go to 
 the castle, and find her in the cheerful housekeeper's 
 room and to sit on the floor beside her with head, 
 maybe, in her lap, and free a burdened heart and 
 mind and ask counsel. . . . She would do it. She 
 
 184 
 
NIGHT 
 
 would start early at sunrise.. The vigour of her 
 purpose lightened her heart; she rose to her feet, and 
 going to the window, looked out. It was quite dark. 
 The storm had died away, but the sky was filled 
 with torn and hurrying clouds. Now hidden, now 
 silvering cloud and earth, a half-moon hurried too. 
 Joan stood gazing, her face lifted. She thought of 
 her father. At last she raised her arm, closed the 
 casement, and drew across it its linen curtain. From 
 the cupboard she took a candlestick and candle and 
 lighted the latter with a splinter from the hearth. 
 She set it upon the table, and going to the main door 
 turned the large key in the lock. This done, she 
 moved across the kitchen floor to the small door 
 giving upon the back. The key was lost of this, but 
 there was a heavy bar. She had lifted this to slip it 
 into place when the door, pushing against her, 
 opened from without. @arthew reentered the room. 
 
 Joan uttered a cry less of fright than of sudden 
 and great anger. "Beware," she cried, "that I do 
 not kill you yet! Begone from this place!" 
 
 He shook his head. "No. I have watched all 
 away. Who comes, after curfew, of a wet and wild 
 night, to your cottage? No good folk of this region^ 
 I am sure. So we're alone now, Joan, at last!" 
 
 He made a movement past her. She saw what he 
 was after, and, lithe and quick herself, she was there 
 first. She had the knife again. . . . They stood fac< 
 ing each other in the lit room, and Joan spoke. 
 
 "Thou hypocrite!" she said; "thou pillar o 
 
THE WITCH 
 
 Hawthorn Church and dependence of God on high 
 and Master Clement! Thou hope of England! 
 Thou searcher-out of iniquity and punisher of 
 wrong-doing ! Thou perceiver of high things and the 
 meaning of the world! Thou judge and master in 
 thy own conceit ! Thou plain and beast-like man, 
 who wantest but one thing and knows not love, but 
 lust " 
 
 He caught her in his arms. He was strong, but 
 so was she. They struggled, swaying, their shad- 
 ows, in firelight and candlelight, towering above 
 them. They breathed hard they uttered broken 
 words, ejaculations. He was in the grasp of the 
 brute past ; she struggled with the energy of despair 
 and hatred. She felt that he gained. Need taught 
 her cunning. She seemed to give in his clasp, then, 
 in the moment when he was deceived, she gathered 
 all her strength, tore her arm free, and struck with 
 the hunting-knife. 
 
 The blade entered his side. She drew it out, en- 
 crimsoned. They fell apart, Carthew reeling against 
 the wall. The colour ebbed from his face. He felt 
 the bleeding, and thrusting a scarf within his doub- 
 let, strove to stanch it. As he leaned there, he kept 
 his eyes upon her. But with the suddenness of the 
 lightning their expression had changed. Wrath and 
 defeat and shame were written in them ; desire still, 
 but mixed now with something baleful, with some- 
 thing not unlike hate. The bleeding continued. He 
 felt a singing in his ears and a mist before his eyes. 
 
 186 
 
NIGHT 
 
 With the ice of the new mood came a sense of the 
 peril of his position. Did he swoon here from loss of 
 blood grow so weak that he could not get away 
 be found here when day came The scandal 
 flared out in letters of fire before him. He saw the 
 face of Master Clement, and the faces of other and 
 more powerful men of the faction, religious and po- 
 litical, with which he was becoming strongly identi- 
 fied. . . . He must get away get home framing 
 some story as he went. His horse was near the 
 streaming blood seemed less. 
 
 Joan stood like a dart, in her face blended relief 
 and horror. They stared each at the other. 
 
 "Do you remember,*' said Carthew in a hollow 
 voice, "in the forest there, I said that love might 
 turn to hate? Beware lest it has turned!" 
 
 "You may hate me," said Joan. "You never 
 loved me." 
 
 He took his eyes from her and moving haltingly to 
 the door opened it. His horse was close outside, 
 fastened within the small enclosure. Through the 
 dark oblong, by the light of the half-moon, she saw 
 him mount. He gathered up the reins, he held also 
 by the horse's mane. His face looked back at her for 
 a moment, a ghastly, an enemy's face. Then there 
 was only the mournful night and Heron's cottage, 
 thatch-roofed, sunk among blossoming fruit trees 
 from which the raindrops dripped, dripped. 
 
CHAPTER XV 
 
 NEXT DAY 
 
 AT sunrise she shut the cottage door behind her, 
 locked it, and put the key in a hiding-place under 
 the eaves, then went down the path between the 
 daffodils and out of the little gate. She had a basket 
 upon her arm and within it in a blue jar a honey- 
 comb for a gift to Mistress Borrow. It was a morn- 
 ing fresh and fragrant, the grass diamonded with 
 last night's rain, the tree-tops veiled with mist, 
 distant cocks crowing. When she came upon the 
 road the sun was drinking up the mist ; it was going 
 to be a beautiful day. 
 
 She walked for some distance toward the village, 
 but at a point where she saw Carthew House among 
 the trees and the church yews were growing large 
 before her, she turned into a path that would take 
 her through the fields and bring her out upon the 
 highway with the village left behind. She did not 
 wish to go through the village, she did not wish to 
 pass Alison Inch's door, she did not wish to come 
 near to Carthew House. 
 
 She walked between the springing grain, and 
 through a copse where a thrush was singing, and by 
 a stream that was the same that murmured past the 
 Oak Grange, and so at last came back to the high- 
 
 188 
 
NEXT DAY 
 
 way. She looked back. The village roofs, the church 
 tower, rested dark against the blue sky; light curls 
 of smoke were rising and a great bird sailed over- 
 head. 
 
 Before her, over hill and dale, ran the road to the 
 town. She shifted her basket to the other arm and 
 walked on in the golden morning. Now she was by 
 nature courageous, and by nature also a lover of 
 light and air, of form and colour, of diverse motion 
 and the throb of life. In her soul the whole round 
 earth mirrored itself as alive, and, despite black 
 moods and fits of madness, as dominantly good and 
 fair. What of sorrow, gloom, and care had of late 
 clung about her, what of terror and horror the hap- 
 pening of the evening before had left with her, 
 slowly lessened, grew diaphanous in the sunlight 
 and open country. The road began to entertain 
 her, and there came sweet wafted memories of the 
 castle wood, of how fondly she and her father and 
 uncle had lived together and understood one an- 
 other and liked life, and of all the pleasant doings 
 when the great family were at the castle. Music 
 hummed in her ears again, the figures of the masque 
 filed across the green sward. 
 
 In the fresh morning there was more or less meet- 
 ing and passing on the road. A shepherd with a 
 flock of sheep overtook her, and she stood under an 
 elm to let them by. The shepherd whistled clearly, 
 the sheep kept up their plaintive crying, pushing 
 and jostling with their woolly bodies, their feet mak- 
 
 189 
 
THE WITCH 
 
 ing a small pattering sound. " To market! To mar- 
 ket!" said the shepherd. "Are you for the market, 
 too, pretty maid?" Farther on she overtook in her 
 turn two or three children going on some errand and 
 walked with them awhile. They wanted to know 
 what was in her basket and she opened the jar and 
 showed them the bright honeycomb, then, breaking 
 clean skewers from a wayside hazel, dipped them in 
 the liquid gold and gave each child a taste. They 
 left her at a lane mouth, and she walked for a little 
 way with two women who were carrying between 
 them an old tavern sign painted with a sheaf of 
 wheat and a giant bunch of grapes. When she had 
 left these two behind and had gone some distance 
 upon a bare, sunny road, she saw before her like a 
 picture the river and the bridge, the climbing town 
 and the castle. She could make out the Black Tower 
 among the trees. 
 
 The town was quit of the plague. To the knowing 
 there would be still visible a gloom about the place, 
 a trailing shadow of remembered fear and loss. 
 People would be missed from the streets, vacant 
 houses and shops remarked. Street cries and 
 sounds would come more sombrely and the sunshine 
 fall less warmly. But to the stranger it would seem 
 a town as usual. For Joan, it was not so gay and 
 rich as once it had been, because she that looked on 
 it was not so care- free as once she had been. But 
 still it was to her the great town, so different from 
 Hawthorn, so jewelled with pleasant memories. . . . 
 
 190 
 
NEXT DAY 
 
 She passed the vintner's house and was glad to see 
 that it was open and cheerful, and that therefore he 
 had not died of the plague. At length she came to 
 climb the castle hill, and with her heart beating 
 fast to cross the pleasaunce and go around to a 
 certain small door of the offices through which she 
 would soonest gain admittance to Mistress Borrow. 
 The sky was so blue, the grass, the flowers, the bud- 
 ding trees were so fair, mavis and lark and robin 
 sang so shrill and sweet, that earth and heaven 
 once more assumed for Joan a mother aspect. 
 Warm, not unhappy, tears came to her eyes. She 
 shook them back and went on over daisies and vio- 
 lets. She had not slept last night and the miles 
 were long between her and Heron's cottage. She 
 felt light-headed with the assurance of comfort and 
 counsel, the sense that the black cloud that had 
 gathered about her so strangely, so almost she knew 
 not how, would now begin to melt away. 
 
 Mistress Borrow was not at the castle. Her sister, 
 thirty miles away, was dying of a dropsy, and the 
 housekeeper had been given leave to go to her. She 
 had gone last week she might be away a month. 
 . . . The family were not there they had gone at 
 the first alarm of the plague. Sir Richard had 
 stayed through it and my lord the countess's father, 
 had stopped for a week, but they, too, were now 
 away. ... It was a civil-spoken girl who told her all 
 this, a new maidservant who had no knowledge of 
 Joan. There were men and women servitors whom 
 
 191 
 
THE WITCH 
 
 she remembered and who would remember her, but 
 when the girl asked if, Mistress Borrow being away, 
 she could do her errand to any one else, she shook 
 her head. "You look dazed," said the maid. 
 " Better come in and sit awhile." But no, said Joan, 
 she must be getting home. So she thanked the girl, 
 and they said good-morning to each other, and she 
 left the little door and the flagged courtyard, and 
 coming out under an archway found herself again 
 upon the flower-starred grass, with the shadows of 
 the trees showing two hours from noon. To the 
 right stretched the castle wood, and she would go 
 through it and see again the huntsman's house. 
 
 It rose among the trees before her, a comfortable, 
 friendly, low, deep- windowed place. She would not 
 go very near; she did not know the people who had 
 it now, and truly she felt dazed and beaten and did 
 not wish questioning or talk. She found an old, 
 familiar oak with huge and knotted roots rising 
 amid bracken, and here she sank down and lay with 
 her head upon her arm and her eyes upon the place 
 where in all her life she had been happiest. An old 
 hound came and snuffed about her, a redbreast 
 watched her from a bough. She lay for some time, 
 resting, not thinking but dreaming back. At last she 
 rose, settled the basket upon her arm, looked long 
 at the huntsman's house, then turned away, and 
 leaving the wood began to descend the castle hill. 
 
 When she passed through the high street of the 
 town the church bells were ringing. She turned out 
 
 192 
 
NEXT DAY 
 
 of the brighter street into one that sloped to the 
 river, and here she came upon an open place and the 
 prison tall and dark. She stopped short, standing in 
 the shadow of a bit of wall. It was easy for one's 
 own cares to make one forget, and she had forgotten 
 Aderhold. But he would be here there was no real 
 gaol in Hawthorn itself, though offenders might be 
 locked for a time in a dungeon-like room beneath the 
 sexton's house. But a learned man and a property- 
 owner and a man accused of the greatest crime of 
 all, which was to deny the real existence and power 
 of the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, such 
 an one would be brought here. They would have 
 haled Master Aderhold here last night. . . . She 
 stood and gazed at the frowning mass. The win- 
 dows were few and far apart and small and closely 
 barred. To-day that was so sunshiny bright would 
 be stifling and black enough in there. She wished 
 that she could send in the light and air. 
 
 A man, coming, too, from the high street with his 
 course shaped for Hawthorn Village, joined her 
 where she stood. He was a wiry, crooked-shoul- 
 dered, grizzle-headed, poorly clad person with a face 
 of some knavery, cunning, and wildness. Over his 
 shoulder, strung together with leather thongs, hung 
 some small pots and pans, and in a leather pouch he 
 seemed to carry tools and bits of metal. Joan recog- 
 nized him for the tinker, who, after wandering far 
 and wide, came back, at long intervals, to a hut just 
 this side of Hawthorn. It appeared that on his part 
 
 193 
 
THE WITCH 
 
 he remembered her face. "From Heron's cottage, 
 mistress? near the Oak Grange." He seemed to 
 cast a glance upon the prison, but then he looked at 
 her grey eyes and her face, paler to-day than was its 
 wont, and asked if she had walked from home. She 
 said yes, she had been to see the housekeeper at the 
 castle but she was not there. " Was she walking 
 back to Hawthorn?" Yes, she said, and began to 
 move across the prison square. He moved with her. 
 "I walked from Hawthorn myself this morning. 
 Matters to buy for my trade ! Shall stop here at the 
 Boar's Head before I take the road back." To her 
 content he left her, and she went on by the great 
 church and down the hill to the arched bridge. But 
 when she had crossed it, and when the river behind 
 her lay thin like a silver crescent, she found him 
 again at her side. 
 
 It was hot midday and the road bare of folk. She 
 did not wish a travelling companion and would have 
 liked to tell him so, but she was somehow cowed this 
 noon, weary and listless where on the sunrise road 
 she had been hopeful. She let him walk beside her, 
 a freakish figure, vowed to mischief. Immediately 
 he began to talk about the plague. Her father had 
 died? "Yes." He had been told so. Many 
 people had died many people in the town, and 
 not so many, but enough in Hawthorn and round- 
 about. Once he saw the plague. He was lying in 
 the heather on a hillside near a town that had it. 
 Dark was coming. Then a great figure of a woman, 
 
 194 
 
NEXT DAY 
 
 black and purple, with a veil all over, rose straight 
 up above the roofs and chimneys. She lifted her 
 arms and took the veil from her head, and it was 
 crowned with shiny gold and she was the Plague 
 and she floated in the sky and took her veil and drew 
 it behind her, and every roof it touched they were 
 going to die in that house. Yes, tinkers saw 
 strange things, wandering over the country. There 
 were a many strange things, were n't there? The 
 plague left the country very fearful and there 
 was another strange thing, Fear! It took a man and 
 knocked the heart out of him but then to make 
 up, it gave him more eyes and ears than he 'd ever 
 had before ! 
 
 He looked at her aslant. "Did you ever see the 
 Devil? " 
 b "No."/ 
 
 "Then you aren't fearful," said the tinker. 
 "Fearful folk can see him plain." 
 
 He kept silence for a little, his eyes upon a cloud 
 of butterflies fluttering before them over a muddy 
 place in the road, then again turned upon Joan his 
 curious, half-squinting look. "Of course there 've 
 been men who were n't afraid and yet have seen 
 him. Men who were great enemies to him, and push- 
 ing him hard, and he so angry and despairing that he 
 shows himself, tail, claws, and all! Tall Bible men 
 and great men like Doctor Martin Luther who 
 threw his ink-well at him. And a lot of other men 
 -^mass-priests, and bishops, and ^marprelates, all 
 
 195 
 
THE WITCH 
 
 the same. It 's to their honour to have seen him, for 
 so the people see how the Devil must hate them to 
 come himself to beard them, and what a strong 
 enemy they are to him, which means, of course, that 
 the King of Heaven must hold them in high re- 
 gard. Even poor wights may sometimes give a 
 good blow just as a camp-follower might save an 
 army or a scullion a palace! I'm not saying that 
 I did n't get a glint of his horns myself once on 
 Little Heath, between two furze bushes!" 
 
 Joan was not talkative. She walked steadily on, but 
 she was tired, and her mind now seemed to drowse, 
 and now, rousing itself, strayed far from the other's 
 talk. 
 
 The tinker was piqued by her inattention. "And 
 then witches and warlocks see him. Women see 
 him," he said with spite. " And not because they're 
 his enemies neither! Ten women know him, hair 
 and hoof, to one man. . . . For why? They knew 
 him first, as the good Book tells us, and became his 
 gossips in Eden Garden. So 'tis that still when 
 things go wrong 't is woman that gives them the 
 shog. The Devil gives her the apple still, and she 
 takes it and shakes out harm on mankind which 
 is why we've got a leave to keep her somewhat 
 down! That's woman in ordinary and then you 
 come to witches " 
 
 Joan's eyelids twitched. 
 
 He saw that she attended. "Witches! First they 
 begin by having commerce with elves and fays, 
 
 196 
 
NEXT DAY 
 
 green men, and such. They get Into fairy hills L <jnd 
 eat and drink there, and they dance in the moon- 
 light around trees in the wood. But the elves are 
 the Devil's cousins, and he's always on hand, and 
 some night he comes smirking up, dressed now this 
 way and now that. So the woman drops a curtsy, 
 and he puts out his hand and gives her something, 
 just as he did in Eden Garden. She takes it, and 
 that seals her both sides of the Judgement Day! 
 Pay for pay! Blood gives him strength, and so he 
 sucks from a little place he makes upon her body 
 that's the witch mark that can't be made to feel 
 pain, and that 's why we strip and prick witches to 
 find their mark, which is better proof even than 
 their confessing! Now she's the Devil's servant and 
 leman forever, and begins to work evil and practise 
 the Black Art. He shows her how to fly through the 
 air and change herself into all manner of shapes. 
 Then she goes to his Sabbat and learns to know other 
 witches and maybe a wizard or two, though there* 
 aren't so many wizards. They're mostly witches 
 and demons. If you look overhead at night you can 
 sometimes see a scud of them flying between you and 
 the moon. Then begin the tempests of hail and 
 thunder and lightning, and the ships that are sunk 
 at sea, and the murrain in the cattle, and the corn 
 blighted and ricks burned and beasts lamed and 
 children possessed and gear taken and sickness 
 
 come " 
 
 He stopped to cough and also to observe if she 
 197 
 
THE WITCH 
 
 were listening. She was listening. He was saying 
 nothing that she had not heard before. They were 
 commonplaces alike of pulpit and doorstep. But it 
 had all been like figures seen afar off and upon 
 another road. Now she had come to a place in life 
 where, bewildered, she found them about her. Joan 
 was conscious that life was becoming like an evil 
 dream. Just as in a dream a hundred inconsequences 
 might form the strongest net, entangling you, with- 
 holding you from some longed-for escape, so now, 
 awake, a hundred things so little in themselves 
 She never said to herself that there was a net 
 weaving about her; the mind, struck and bewild- 
 ered, could not yet give things a name, perhaps 
 would not if it could. She only saw the gold and 
 warmth going for her steadily out of the sunshine 
 and knew not how it came that they were going 
 nor how to stop that departure. Now she said dully, 
 " I do not believe all that," and then saw immediately 
 that it was a mistake for any one to say that. 
 
 The tinker again looked aslant. "Most of your 
 witches are old women. At their Sabbats you '11 see 
 a hundred withered gammers, dancing and leaping 
 around a fire with the Devil sitting in the midst, and 
 all sing-songing a charm and brewing in a kettle 
 a drink with which to freeze men's blood ! But each 
 crew hath always one young witch that they call the 
 maiden. A young and well-looking wench with red 
 lips and she calls the dance. They were burning 
 such an one where I was a while ago in Scotland. 
 
 198 
 
NEXT DAY 
 
 She cried out, ' I be no witch ! I be no witch ! ' to the 
 end. But they sang and prayed her down and she 
 burned on." 
 
 Joan moistened her lips. "Why did they think 
 she was " 
 
 "Ah," said the tinker, "there was a young laird 
 she had bewitched ! He peaked and pined and syne 
 he cried out that a dirk was always turning in his 
 side. So they found, beneath the hearth in her cot, 
 a figure of wax with a rusted nail set in its side, and 
 as the wax melted away, so was he to pine. And there 
 were other tokens and matters proved on her. Be- 
 side, when they tried her in the loch she never sank 
 at all. Convicta et combusta which is what they 
 write in witch cases upon the court book." 
 
 By now they were much advanced upon the Haw- 
 thorn road. The day was warm, the air moist and 
 languid. Joan felt deadly tired. There swam in her 
 mind a desire to be away, away to find a door 
 from this earth that was growing drear and ugly. 
 She moved in silence, her grey eyes wide and fixed. 
 The tinker, his throat dry with talking, drew in 
 front of him one of the pans which he carried and 
 in lieu of further speech drummed upon it as he 
 walked. Presently a cart came up behind them, 
 empty but for a few trusses of hay, and the carter 
 known to them both, being Cecily Lukin's brother. 
 
 "Hey!" said the tinker. "Give me a lift!" 
 
 The cart stopped. "Get in!" said Lukin. He 
 stared at Joan. 
 
 199 
 
THE WITCH 
 
 The tinker, swinging himself up, spoke with a 
 grin. " There 's room for you too " 
 
 Joan shook her head. She made no halting, but 
 went on by in her greyish gown and wide hat with 
 her basket on her arm. 
 
 The carter flicked his horse, the cart passed her, 
 left her behind, in a few minutes disappeared around 
 a bend of the road. To the last the two men stared 
 back at her; she seemed to hear Lukin's slow, 
 clownish voice repeating Cecily's tattle Cecily's 
 and Alison's. 
 
 Hawthorn Village grew plain before her: thatched 
 cottages, the trees upon the green, the church yews 
 and the church tower there flashed upon her 
 again yesterday at church, and Master Aderhold 
 in prison. He was a good man; despite what the 
 minister had said, she believed that with passion 
 he was a good man. It had not kept them from 
 haling him to prison. What would they do to him, 
 what? . . . She came to the path that would spare 
 her going through the village and turned into it 
 from the highway. It led her by the stream and 
 through the fields and out upon Hawthorn Forest 
 road. Heron's cottage was in sight when she met 
 Goodman Cole, walking to the village. 
 
 He looked at her oddly. "Good-day, Joan." 
 
 "Good-day, goodman." 
 
 "Where have you been?" 
 
 " I walked to the castle to see Mistress Borrow. 
 But she was not there." 
 
 200 
 
NEXT DAY 
 
 Goodman Cole propped himself upon his stick, 
 full in her way in the sunny road. "We are seeing 
 strange doings in Hawthorn Parish! Aye, strange 
 doings we are seeing! Have you heard about Master 
 Harry Carthew?" 
 
 "No. Heard what?" 
 
 "Then I'll tell you," said the old man. "Yester- 
 day afternoon Master Carthew rode a part of the 
 way with the men who were taking the leech to the 
 town. And there," said Goodman Cole, "is an- 
 other strange thing! That we could like an atheist 
 well enough, and think him skilled and kindly, and 
 all the time he was mankind's deadliest foe! 'T was 
 the Devil sure that blinded us! Well, as I was 
 telling you, Master Carthew rode a part of the way. 
 Then, having seen them well started, he turns his 
 horse, meaning to go first to Master Clement's to 
 consult about having a commission named, before 
 the next assize, to look into a many things that have 
 happened about Hawthorn, some in connection with 
 the leech and some by themselves and then to 
 ride from the minister's home to Carthew House. 
 It was stormy as we know, the kind of hot and dark 
 storm they say witches brew. He was riding, looking 
 straight before him, and thinking what a darkness 
 like the darkness of the sky was over England, when 
 what does his horse do but start aside and begin to 
 rear and plunge and yet there was nothing there ! 
 It lightened, and the road on all sides lay bare. And 
 yet, in an instant, just like that! Master Carthew 
 
 201 
 
THE WITCH 
 
 was struck in the side and wounded as by a sword 
 or dagger. It lightened again and he had time to see 
 a tall black man dressed, bit for bit, like the leech, 
 and it lightened the third time and the road was 
 bare as a blade, only he saw on the top of a bank a 
 figure like a woman making signs to the sky. Then 
 it fell dark, and there burst a great roar of thunder 
 and wind and the horse began to run. He checked 
 it just outside Hawthorn and rode around by Old 
 Path and the fields, for he felt himself bleeding and 
 did not wish to frighten people. So, going slowly, 
 he got home at last, and they laid him in bed and 
 found a great wound in his side. . . . Joan!" 
 
 " Will he die? " said Joan. 
 
 "And will you be glad if he does? . . . Wench, 
 wench, why do you look like that?" 
 
 The old man and she faced each other, between 
 them but a narrow space of the forest road. Her 
 face was mobile, transparent, a clear window 
 through which much of her nature might be read. 
 She had never thought to try to veil it never 
 until of late. It was, on the whole, a strong and 
 beautiful nature, and none had quarrelled with the 
 face that was its window. But of late there had 
 come into her life to work her injury something 
 bitter, poisonous, and dark. Fear and hatred had 
 come, and a burning wrath against the net that was 
 weaving, she knew not how a wrath and helpless- 
 ness and a wrath against her helplessness. All her 
 nature flamed against a lie and an injustice. And 
 
 202 
 
NEXT DAY 
 
 because she had known so little fear, and when it 
 came it found it hard to make an entry, so it worked 
 like poison when it was within the citadel. It was 
 the foe she liked least ; all her being rose and wrought 
 to cast it out. But it was giving her a fight it 
 was giving her a fight. . . . And nowadays she had 
 to try not to show what she thought or felt. Some- 
 times, by force of wit and will, she succeeded, keep- 
 ing her soul back from the window of her face. She 
 was not succeeding now, she felt. She bit her lips, 
 she struggled, she turned her face from Goodman 
 Cole, and stood, her hands closing and unclosing, 
 then, the victory won, but too late to save her with 
 him, she turned upon him a quiet face. 
 
 It was too late. A good old man, but simple and 
 superstitious, he was staring at her with a misliking 
 and terror of his own. 
 
 " I 'd heard tales, but I would n't believe any real 
 harm of Heron's daughter, but God knows what 
 to think when a woman looks like that!" He edged 
 from her, his hand trembled upon his staff; he 
 would evidently put distance between them, be gone 
 on his way. "The minister saith that from the 
 Witch of Endor on they have baleful eyes " 
 
 He suddenly put himself in motion. " Good-day 
 to you!" he said in a quavering voice, and went on 
 down the road with a more rapid step than was his 
 wont. 
 
CHAPTER XVI 
 
 MASTER THOMAS CLEMENT 
 
 Two magistrates and certain of the clergy of the 
 town, Justice Carthew and Master Thomas Clement 
 from Hawthorn, sat in consultation in a room open- 
 ing from the hall of assizes. Court was not sitting 
 it lacked a month and more of the time when 
 judges on circuit would appear and make a gaol de- 
 livery. In the mean time a precognition was to be 
 prepared. The case was diabolical and aggravated, 
 involving as it did apostasy, idolatry, blasphemy, 
 and sorcery of a dye most villanous. Evidence 
 should not lack, witnesses must abound. On the 
 main counts of apostasy and blasphemy the prisoner 
 was himself convict by himself. He had been 
 brought from the prison hard by to this room for 
 examination, and the clergy had questioned him. 
 But no pressure or cunning questions would make 
 him confess idolatry or sorcery or the procuring of 
 Master Harry Carthew's wound. 
 
 The clerk wrote down what they had Master 
 Clement's evidence and Squire Carthew's, together 
 with the evidence they had gathered from others 
 at Hawthorn, the clergy's questions and the prison- 
 er's answers. He copied also Master Harry Car- 
 thew's written testimony, Master Carthew himself 
 
 204 
 
r MASTER THOMAS CLEMENT 
 
 being still in bed, fevered of his wound. There was 
 enough and many times enough for the physician 's 
 commitment and most close confinement until 
 assize day enough to warrant what Carthew and 
 the clergy urged, a petition to the Privy Council 
 that there be especially sent a certain judge known 
 and belauded for his strict handling of such offences, 
 and that, pending assizes, a commission be named to 
 take depositions and make sweeping examination 
 throughout the Hawthorn end of the county 
 seeing that Satan had rarely just one in his court. 
 Indeed, there were signs in many directions of a 
 hellish activity, whether in pact with the leech or 
 independent of him remained to be discovered. 
 Hawthorn mentioned the afflicted child at North- 
 End Farm, the great number of lamed animals, a 
 barn consumed to ashes, and the hailstorm that had 
 cut the young wheat. 
 
 "A woman was seen by Master Harry Carthew? " 
 The squire nodded. "Aye. Moreover, this long 
 time Mother Spuraway has been suspect/' 
 
 The minister of Hawthorn sat, a small, rigid, 
 black figure, his hands clasped upon the board be- 
 fore him, his light-hued, intense eyes seeing always 
 one fixed vision. His voice was unexpectedly power- 
 ful, though of a rigid quality and inclined to sing- 
 song. " My mind is not made up as to what brought 
 the plague to Hawthorn and the region north. But 
 I hold it full likely that Satan was concerned to 
 harass a godly and innocent people, godly beyond 
 
 205 
 
THE WITCH 
 
 many in England, if I say it that perhaps should 
 not ! It is well known and abundantly proved that 
 his imps and ministers, his infidels, Sadducees, and 
 witches go about to construct a pestilence no less 
 readily than they do a hailstorm or a tempest that 
 miserably sinks a ship at sea. I would have the com- 
 mission take evidence upon that point also 
 
 The clerk, a thin, stooping, humble man, slightly 
 coughed, then spoke deprecatingly. " If I may make 
 so bold, your worships the prisoner hath a man- 
 ner of good reputation among some in this town. 
 He came during the plague and healed many." 
 
 "Aye, so?" answered Justice Carthew. "About 
 Hawthorn also may be found a few silly folk who 
 would praise him, though none I think will praise 
 him who were at church last Sunday! But this cargo 
 of damnable stuff we Ve found will beat down their 
 good opinion." 
 
 "The unsafest thing," said a fellow justice, and 
 nodded portentously, "the unsafest thing a plain 
 man can do is to think and speak well of a heretic." 
 
 And with that serving-men from the Boar's Head 
 near by entered, bearing a collation for the magis- 
 trates and clergy assembled. . . . 
 
 Late in the afternoon the men from Hawthorn 
 returned home. Squire Carthew rode with pursed 
 lips, ponderously on to Carthew House. But the 
 minister refused an invitation to accompany him. 
 He wished to consider these matters in his closet, 
 alone with the Scriptures and in prayer. He put up 
 
 206 
 
MASTER THOMAS CLEMENT \ 
 
 his horse and went into his small, chill house. There 
 lived with him an aunt and one maidservant, and, 
 it being late, they had his supper spread and waiting. 
 But he would not touch the food; he had ordained 
 for himself a fast. 
 
 With a candle in his hand he went into his small 
 bare room and closed the door. Cloak and hat laid 
 aside, he appeared slight and spare and sad-coloured, 
 a man as intensely in earnest as might well be; a 
 man, as far as his conscious knowledge of himself 
 could light the vaults and caverns, sincere and of an 
 undivided will to the service and glory of his God. 
 On the table lay his Bible, open; from wall to wall 
 stretched a space of bare floor good for slow-pacing 
 to and fro, good for kneeling, for wrestling in prayer. 
 The room was haunted to him ; it had seen so many 
 of what he and all his day, and days before and days 
 after, called "spiritual struggles." But there was 
 pleasure no less than gloom and exaltation in the 
 haunting; there were emanations from the walls of 
 triumph, for though his soul agonized he was bold 
 to believe that also it conquered. He believed that 
 he was foe of Satan and henchman of the Lord. 
 
 Terror at times overwhelmed the henchman 
 panic thoughts that Satan had him ; cold and awful 
 doubts of his acceptability to his overlord. But 
 they were not lasting ; they went away like the chill 
 mists from the face of the hills. It was incredible, it 
 was impossible that the Lord would not see his own 
 banner, would not recognize and succour his own 
 
 207 
 
THE WITCH 
 
 liegeman ! The liegeman might err and come under 
 displeasure; good! the punishment came in agony 
 and remorse for lukewarm zeal, in a shown sight of 
 the evil lord to whose suzerainty he might be trans- 
 ferred and of that lord's dismal and horrible de- 
 mesne! Nay, more solemnly and threateningly, in 
 an allowed vision of what a disobedient liegeman 
 would forfeit the heavens opening and showing 
 the rainbow-circled throne, the seven lamps, the sea 
 of glass, the winged beasts saying, "Holy, Holy, 
 Holy!" and giving glory and honour and thanks; 
 the four-and- twenty elders crowned with gold, fall- 
 ing down and worshipping Him who sat on the 
 Throne; the streets of gold, and the twelve gates, 
 and the temple open in heaven, and in the temple 
 the ark of the testament. "O God," prayed the 
 minister, "take not my name from the book of life! 
 Take not my name from the book of life, and I will 
 serve thee forever and ever!" 
 
 Master Clement very truly worshipped the God 
 whom he had seated on the throne, and was jealous 
 for his honour and glory and solicitous for his praise 
 among men, and would give life itself to bring all 
 mankind under his Lord's supremacy. As little as 
 any man-at-war of an earthly feudal suzerain would 
 he have hesitated to compel them to come in. Was 
 it not to their endless, boundless good, and without 
 was there any other thing than hell eternal and ever- 
 lasting and the evil lord? If, contumaciously, they 
 would not come in, or if being in they rebelled and 
 
 208 
 
MASTER THOMAS CLEMENT 
 
 broke from their allegiance, what else was to be 
 done but to carry fire and sword that is, to put 
 into operation the laws of the land against his 
 Lord's enemies? Had any one called his attention 
 to the fact of how largely liegemen like himself had 
 brought these laws into being, he would have an- 
 swered, Yes; under the direction of their Suzerain's 
 own Word, writ down for their perpetual guidance, 
 shortly after the making of the world ! 
 
 It was not alone eager jealousy for his Lord s 
 glory and honour, nor anxious care that he himself 
 prove in no wise an idle and unprofitable servant, 
 that was felt by Master Clement. To his intense 
 zeal and his own cries for life eternal was added a 
 thwart love of mankind that portion of it en- 
 closed in the great sheepfold, and that portion who, 
 wandering outside, lost upon the mountain-sides 
 in the cold and darkness, yet had in them no stub- 
 bornness, but would hasten to the fold so soon as 
 they heard the shepherd's voice through the mist. 
 He was eager for them, his brothers and children in 
 the fold; eager, too, for the poor lost souls upon the 
 mountains, lost, yet not wilfully, stubbornly, and 
 abandonedly lost, but capable of being found and re- 
 gained, so many as were elected. 
 
 But the others, ah, the others! they who set up 
 their own wills and professed other knowledge, or, 
 if not knowledge, then doubt and scepticism of the 
 liegeman's knowledge, writing a question mark be- 
 side that which was not to be questioned they who 
 
 209 
 
THE WITCH 
 
 moved away from the fold in its completeness! 
 Master Clement's zeal flared downward no less than 
 upward, to the left no less than to the right. He 
 hated with intensity with the greater intensity 
 that he was so sure his hatred was disinterested. 
 "Have I not hated Thy enemies?" But if those 
 without were manifestly rather than invisibly of the 
 Kingdom of Satan, if their ill-doing was so great 
 that it became as it were corporeal, if the people 
 saw them open atheists, wizards, and witches, 
 if their foot had slipped or their master had been 
 negligent to cover them with his mantle of darkness, 
 the soul of Master Clement experienced a grim 
 and deadly exaltation. He tightened his belt, he 
 saw that his axe was sharp, he went forth to hew 
 the dead and poisoned wood out of the forest of the 
 Lord. 
 
 In his small room he sat and read by his one 
 candle read those portions of the Old Testament 
 and the New which he wished to read. Had a spirit 
 queried his choice he would have answered, "Is it 
 not all his Word? And are not these the indicated 
 circumstances and this very passage the Answer 
 and Direction ?" When he had finished reading he 
 knelt and prayed long and fervently. His prayer 
 told his God who He was, his attributes, and what 
 was his usual and expected conduct; it told Him 
 who were his enemies and rehearsed the nature 
 of the ill they would do Him; then changed to 
 a vehement petition that if it was his will He 
 
 210 
 
MASTER THOMAS CLEMENT 
 
 would discover his enemies and bring them to con- 
 fusion and if by means of the worm Thomas 
 Clement 
 
 He prayed in terrible earnest, his hands locking and 
 unlocking, beads of sweat upon his brow, prayed 
 for the better part of an hour. Finally he rose from 
 his knees, and standing by the table read yet another 
 passage, then paced the floor, then sat down, and, 
 drawing forth the tablets upon which he had made 
 his own notes of the examination that day, fell to 
 studying them, the open book yet beside him. 
 
 He read over a list of questions with the answers 
 Aderhold had given. He had not been quick to give 
 the answers he had fenced he had striven to shift 
 the ground but at last, with a desperate quietness, 
 he had given them. 
 
 Qu. Do you believe in God? 
 
 Ans. In my sense, yes. In your sense, no. 
 
 Qu. In God as Father, Son, and Holy Ghost? 
 
 Ans. No. 
 
 Qu. Then you do not believe in the Trinity? 
 
 Ans. No. 
 
 There were other questions a number of them 
 and the answers. But the very beginning was 
 enough enough. Master Clement, sitting rigidly, 
 stared at the opposite wall. A sentence formed itself 
 clearly before his eyes, the letters well made, of a 
 red colour. Only the last of the three words wav- 
 ered a little. CONVICTED AND HANGED. Or 
 it might be CONVICTED AND BURNED. The 
 
 eii 
 
THE WITCH 
 
 first two words stood steady, and above them the 
 name, GILBERT ADERHOLD. 
 
 The concern was now to prove the sorcery and 
 to take all confederates in the net to lop Satan 
 in all his members. 
 
 The minister stared at the wall. Another name 
 formed itself as though it were stained there 
 MOTHER SPURAWAY 
 
 Master Clement sat rigid, trying to place other 
 names beside this one. It was his sincere belief that 
 there were others. The probable diabolical activities 
 at the Oak Grange the coming to Hawthorn, after 
 so long and godly an immunity, of the late sickness 
 the varied and mysterious happenings, losses, and 
 attacks with which village and countryside were 
 beginning to buzz this final heinous Satan-revenge 
 and attempt upon the godliest and most greatly 
 promising young man of whom he had any knowl- 
 edge back again, and above all, to the blasphemer, 
 the atheist, the idolater, and denier now fast in 
 gaol! Master Clement was firm in his belief that 
 so frightful and important a round of occurrences 
 pointed to many and prime agents of evil, though 
 always that unbeliever yonder would prove the ring- 
 leader, the very lieutenant of Satan himself! Haw- 
 thorn made a narrow stage for such a determined 
 and concentrated presence and effort on the part of 
 the Prince of the Power of the Air. But Master 
 Clement's was a narrow experience and a mind of 
 one province. To him, truly, the stage seemed of 
 
 212 
 
MASTER THOMAS CLEMENT 
 
 the widest, and the quarry worthy Apollyon's pres- 
 ence in person. 
 
 The atheist and sorcerer himself Mother Spur- 
 away who else? The minister thought of old 
 Dorothy at the Grange. There existed a presup- 
 position of contamination. On the other hand, so 
 far as he knew, there had never gone out a word 
 against her; she had seemed a pious, harmless soul, 
 trudging to church in all weathers. That in itself, 
 though, the Devil was wont to use as a mask. 
 Witness the atheist and sorcerer at church! Nay, 
 was it not known that sometimes Satan came him- 
 self to listen and to confound, if he might, the 
 preacher, making him tame and cold in his dis- 
 course; or razing from his memory that which he 
 had carefully prepared; or putting into his mind, 
 even while he preached, worldly and wicked and 
 satiric thoughts; or during a sermon of so great 
 power that all who heard should be lifted tQ the 
 courts of heaven, stuffing the mind of the congrega- 
 tion with a like gallimaufrey? 
 
 The minister sat stiffly, staring at the wall. Doro- 
 thy's name did not form itself there before him, but 
 neither did he wholly dismiss it from mind. He put 
 it, as it were, on the wall at right angles, marked, 
 ' ' To be further thought on. " Then what other name 
 or names for the main wall? . . . Old Marget Prim- 
 rose was dead. He thought of two or three old 
 and solitary women, and of the son of one of the 
 Grange tenants a silent and company-shunning 
 
 213 
 
THE WITCH 
 
 youth who had gotten his letters somehow, and went 
 dreaming through the woods with a book. Once 
 Master Clement, meeting him by the stream-side, 
 had taken his book from him and looking at it found 
 it naught but idle verse ; moreover, it seemed that 
 it was Master Gilbert Aderhold's book, and that 
 the youth went at times to the Grange for instruc- 
 tion. ... All these, the boy with the itch for learn- 
 ing, and the two or three women he relegated to the 
 wall with old Dorothy. 
 
 There was one other there was Grace May- 
 bank. She was not old, but Satan, though for occult 
 reasons he oftenest signed them old, signed them 
 young as well, and though he gave preferment to 
 the ugly and the bent, would take good looks when 
 they were at hand. Satan had already signed Grace 
 in another department of the Kingdom of Evil-doing. 
 The minister rose, and going to a press that stood 
 in the room, took from it a book in which was en- 
 tered, among other things, cases of church discipline. 
 He found the page, the date several years back. 
 Grace Maybank, Fornicatress. Stood before the con- 
 gregation, two Sundays in each month for three months 
 in succession. Texts preached from on these Sundays, 
 for the warning of sinners. . . . And again, Grace 
 Maybank, her infant being born, stood with it in her 
 arms before the congregation, Sunday, June the . 
 
 Grace came into the probable class. Moreover - 
 "Ha!" said the minister, recollection rising to the 
 surface. He took from a second shelf a book of 
 
 214 
 
MASTER THOMAS CLEMENT 
 
 record, made not by himself, but by his predecessor, 
 the godly Master Thomson. It ran back twenty 
 years and more. He found near the beginning of 
 the book what he was looking for. Ellice Maybank. 
 Suspect of being a witch, and dragged through Haw- 
 thorn Pond. The said Ellice swam. Died of a fever 
 before she could be brought to trial. 
 
 "Ha!" said Master Clement; "it descends! it de- 
 scends!" But he was a careful and scrupulous man, 
 and so he put Grace's name only up on the proba- 
 ble wall. 
 
 It was growing late. A wind had arisen and 
 moaned around the house. He went to the window 
 and looked out at the church and the church yews. 
 A waning moon hung in the east. The yews were 
 black, the church was palely silvered; Master 
 Clement regarded the church with eyes that soft- 
 ened, grew almost mild. The plain interior, the 
 plain exterior, the hard stones, the tower lifting 
 squarely and uncompromisingly toward the span 
 of sky that was called the zenith whatever of 
 romance was in Master Clement's nature clung and 
 centred itself here! Hawthorn Church was his be- 
 loved, it was his bride. 
 
 He stood by the window for some minutes, then 
 turning began again to pace the room, and then once 
 more to read in the Bible. It chanced now his 
 main readings that night having been concluded 
 that he had eyes for passages of a different timbre. 
 He read words of old, firm wisdom, Oriental tender- 
 
THE WITCH 
 
 ness, mystic rapture, strainings toward unity 
 golden words that time would not willingly let slip. 
 Many a soul, many a tradition, many a mind had 
 left their mark in that book, and some were very 
 beautiful, and the voices of some were music and 
 long-lasting truth and carried like trumpets. 
 
 Master Clement read, and his soul mounted: only 
 it mounted not to where it could overlook the earlier 
 reading in the same Bible. It never came to a point 
 where it could hold the two side by side and say, 
 11 Judge you which concept and which mind you will 
 accept as brother to your own! For many minds 
 have made this book." Master Clement read, and 
 his soul lightened and lifted, but not so far as to 
 change settled perspectives. Had he not read these 
 passages a thousand times before? The names re- 
 mained upon the wall, and when after a time he 
 undressed and laid himself in bed, they stayed be- 
 fore him without a shadow of wavering until he 
 slept. Indeed, he drowsed away upon the word 
 CONVICTED 
 
 Morning came. He rose at an ascetic's hour, 
 dressed in a half-light, and ate his frugal breakfast 
 while the day was yet at the dawn. The two women 
 waited upon him ; breakfast over, he read the Scrip- 
 tures to them, and standing, prayed above their 
 bowed heads. Later he went out into the hedged 
 path between his house and the church and began 
 his customary slow walking to and fro for morning 
 exercise. The sun was coming up, a multitude of 
 
 216 
 
[ MASTER THOMAS CLEMENT 
 
 birds sang in the ancient trees. Master Clement 
 walked, small, arid, meagre, and upright, his hands 
 at his sides, and presently, in his walking, caught 
 sight of something white at the edge of the path. It 
 proved to be a hand's-breadth of paper, kept in 
 place by a pebble. He stooped and picked it up. On 
 it was marked in rude letters, JOAN HERON. He 
 turned it over nothing on the other side, blank 
 paper save for the name. He walked on with it in 
 his hand. Twenty paces farther there was another 
 piece of paper, held by another pebble, and a fair du- 
 plicate of the first JOAN HERON. Well within 
 the churchyard he found the third piece JOAN 
 HERON. ASK JOAN HERON WHO GAVE 
 HER THE RUE THAT'S PLANTED IN HER 
 GARDEN. 
 
CHAPTER XVII 
 
 MOTHER SPURAWAY 
 
 MASTER CLEMENT, the papers in his hand, retraced 
 his steps until he came to a bench set in the shadow 
 of a yew that knotted the minister's house and gar- 
 den to the churchyard. He sat down and spread the 
 three out upon the wood beside him. It was the last- 
 found scrap upon which, naturally, he concentrated 
 attention. ASK JOAN HERON WHO GAVE HER 
 THE RUE THAT'S PLANTED IN HER GAR- 
 DEN. He sat with knitted brow and pursed lips, 
 searching for a meaning. One was not there at first 
 sight. He weighed the words. JOAN HERON 
 The daughter of old Heron that had died of the 
 plague. He brought her before his mind's eye a 
 tall, grey-eyed girl sitting quietly in church. Save 
 for that image she did not come into his mind with 
 any force; he had, after all, no great knowledge of 
 her. They were outlying people, the Herons, and 
 then they had been away from Hawthorn. He was a 
 man of the study and the pulpit and of crisises in 
 the parish, rather than of any minute, loving, daily 
 intercourse and knowledge; theologian rather than 
 pastor. JOAN HERON. He would, however, 
 presently think together any impressions or mem- 
 ories. Now little occurred further than that she 
 
 *i8 
 
MOTHER SPURAWAY 
 
 had been away with her father for years, living 
 under the walls of the castle that was prelatical. 
 In addition, he remembered that neither old Roger 
 Heron nor this girl had ever brought to him spiritual 
 problems to be solved. Many did bring them cold, 
 creeping doubts as to whether God really meant to 
 save them or not. But the Herons had never done 
 so. The fact, called to mind, just faintly darkened 
 for him the name beneath his hand. He would 
 make enquiries. WHO GAVE HER THE RUE 
 THAT'S PLANTED IN HER GARDEN. 
 
 Master Clement frowned. He had little taste for 
 riddles and uncertainties and haunting suspensions 
 of thought. Make a line distinct; colour matters 
 plainly ; if a thing were black, paint it in black ! The 
 words on the paper carried no meaning, or a foolish 
 one. RUE. . . . Not long before he had been reading 
 an account, set forth in a book, of a number of 
 Satan's machinations, and of the devices, likings, 
 and small personal habits of his sworn servants. A 
 bit of this text suddenly sprang out before him, sit- 
 ting there beneath the yew tree. "For plants 
 hemlock, Poppy, and mandrake, and, especially, the 
 witches love, handle, and give to such as show inclina- 
 tion to become of their company, rue " 
 
 Master Clement slowly folded the three pieces of 
 paper together, took out his pocketbook, and laid 
 them in it. Grace Maybank was yet strongly in his 
 mind, but now on the wall beside her name he put 
 another name. 
 
 219 
 
THE WITCH 
 
 A little later, hatted and cloaked, he stepped into 
 Hawthorn street. As he did so he looked north- 
 ward and, seeing Squire Carthew riding in from 
 Carthew House, stood and waited. The squire ap- 
 proached, gave good-morning, and dismounted. He 
 nodded his head; ponderously energetic he had put 
 already his engines into motion. The constable with 
 helpers was gone at sunrise to take into custody 
 Mother Spuraway, have her into the village, and 
 thrust her into the room beneath the sexton's house 
 that did for village gaol. To-morrow, after examina- 
 tion, and if proof of her evil-doing were forthcoming, 
 she should be sent to town and quartered in the 
 prison with the leech. Orders likewise had been given 
 to the North-End Farm folk to bring into Hawthorn 
 the afflicted boy. To confront the injurer with the 
 injured, that was the best and approved way 
 
 4 'How is Harry Carthew this morning?" 
 
 "Very fevered still. He talks strangely and pa- 
 ganly about gods and goddesses and Love and 
 the Furies and I know not what trash." 
 
 "Ah!" said Master Clement. "Were it devil or 
 Gilbert Aderhold who struck him that night, be sure* 
 from the dagger would have run Satan's own venom, 
 empoisoning the mind, bringing growth of nettles 
 and darnel into the soul ! The godly young man ! I 
 will pray I will wrestle with God in prayer for 
 Harry Carthew " 
 
 From beyond the church there burst a small riot of 
 sound. "They've got Mother Spuraway " 
 
 220 
 
MOTHER SPURAWAY 
 
 The constable had his hand upon the old woman's 
 arm and dragged her along, she being lame and 
 stumbling. Behind them marched the constable's 
 helpers, a self-constituted posse. Here was the 
 father of the afflicted boy, and Lukin the carter, and 
 a ditcher whose arm was palsied, and one or two 
 others. A dozen boys brought up the rear. One had 
 run ahead to cry to the village what was happening. 
 Everybody was coming to door and window, out of 
 doors, into the street. Voices buzzed and clacked. 
 The witch fever was mounting, mounting, hardening 
 the heart, confusing the head! 
 
 When Mother Spuraway saw the minister and the 
 squire, for all she was as old and spare and feeble as a 
 dried reed, she broke from the constable, and, run- 
 ning to them, fell upon her knees and raising her 
 clasped hands began at once to protest her inno- 
 cence and to beg for mercy. 
 
 The squire spoke to the North End farmer. 
 "They're bringing your son in?" 
 
 "Aye, sir. His mother and sister and my son 
 that 's married and his wife and my niece and Hum- 
 phrey Tanner. He 's twisting fearful, and he sees the 
 dog come day and come night!" 
 
 "Your worship, your worship!" cried the old wo- 
 man on her knees. " I never could abide dogs Is it 
 likely I 'd trouble a child ? Oh, Master Clement ' ' 
 
 The squire was speaking with the constable and 
 the farmer, the whole company of witch-takers 
 hearkening to him rather than to Mother Spuraway. 
 
 221 
 
THE WITCH 
 
 Had she not kept up a like babble clean from her 
 own hut to Hawthorn? But the witch and straight- 
 ening out the two walls were Master Clement's con- 
 cern. Not always subtle, he was subtle when it came 
 to playing the inquisitor. When the r61e fell to him, it 
 was as though he had suddenly endued himself with 
 a mantle that fitted. Had he lived in a Catholic 
 country, had he been born and baptized there into an 
 unquerying group, it is not unlikely that sooner or 
 later he would have found employment in the Holy 
 Office, unlikelier yet that he would not have served 
 with zeal and a consciousness of high devoir done 
 that King in heaven. In a vast range of relations 
 starkly literal, he was capable when it came to theo- 
 logical detection, of keen and imaginative work. 
 The churchyard yews somewhat cut off the village 
 street; the small present crowd were attending to 
 the squire. Master Clement put some questions. 
 Mother Spuraway, who was now moaning and rock- 
 ing herself, roused as best she could to answer. 
 Associates? She had no associates. What, in God's 
 name, should she have associates for? The leech? 
 Well, the leech had taken her trade, that was all the 
 association there 
 
 "Ha!" said Master Clement. "The same trade! 
 She hath said that far!" 
 
 Mother Spuraway looked at him and shrank af- 
 frighted. "My trade was to gather good herbs and 
 make sick folk well. I meant that I was a leech as 
 well as he." 
 
 222 
 
MOTHER SPURAWAY 
 
 "Leechcraft is not for women," answered Master 
 Clement. "But leechcraft was not his main trade. 
 His trade is in souls to Satan, his own soul and 
 others. I fear me that thou art indentured to that 
 same master and may well speak of this atheist and 
 sorcerer as thy fellow trafficker ! Tell me what others 
 thou art concerned with " 
 
 Mother Spuraway had an inward sturdiness, 
 though age and weakness, fear and pain might yet 
 betray it. ''Concerned neither with him nor with 
 others. Oh me! oh me! I've always stood on my 
 own feet and harmed no one " 
 
 "They that stand on their own feet and by their 
 own strength," said the minister, "are naught. So 
 they lean not upon Scripture and know that they 
 are naught in themselves, but only by grace of an- 
 other, they are already lost and have reached their 
 hand to Satan. Tell me if Grace Maybank be of 
 thy company?" 
 
 "Grace Maybank!" Mother Spuraway 's voice 
 quavered and her frame seemed to shake. Perhaps 
 there rose a memory of a love philtre or charm, or of 
 Grace in trouble, coming secretly for counsel. But 
 Mother Spuraway never took life. The child was 
 born, was it not? as merry and pretty a child as if 
 it were not set apart and branded for life. Grace? 
 It had been little that she had done for Grace! The 
 charm had not worked; the man would not offer 
 marriage, and so save Grace from what came upon 
 her. Grace herself had come to the hut and bitterly 
 
THE WITCH 
 
 reviled her for a useless wise woman. Grace May- 
 bank! She began to stammer and protest that she 
 and Grace were strangers. But Master Clement 
 thought the most and the worst and the impossible. 
 "Ha!" he said. "That window hath a light in it!" 
 In his mind Grace's name left the one wall and came 
 over to the other. 
 
 The squire made a movement from the constable, 
 the constable a movement toward his prisoner. 
 "Tell me/' said Master Clement in a tense and low 
 voice, "tell me why you gave a bush of rue to 
 Joan Heron?" 
 
 He had not known that she had done it. It had 
 flashed upon him to make that move. Made, he saw 
 that it was correct. 
 
 Mother Spuraway, dazed and shaken, put up her 
 two hands as though to ward off blows that she 
 knew not why were coming. "What harm," queried 
 her thin old frightened voice, "in giving a body a 
 sprig of rue? She had none in her garden." 
 
 "How did the rue come to you?" 
 
 "It was growing about the burned cot." For all 
 her terror and misery Mother Spuraway felt a gust 
 of anger. "O Jesus! What questions Master Clem- 
 ent asks!" 
 
 The constable came and took her by the arms. 
 "On with you! Don't say that you can't walk, when 
 we know that you can dance and fly!" 
 
 She broke again into a pitiful clamour. "I am no 
 witch ! Satan 's no friend nor master nor king 
 
 224 
 
MOTHER SPURAWAY 
 
 of mine I know naught of the leech I Ve put 
 no spell on any one Oh, gentlemen, gentlemen, 
 think on the mother that bore you " The con- 
 stable and his helpers dragged her away. Her voice 
 came back "Think think! How could I " 
 
 In a little while the North- End Farm folk came 
 into Hawthorn Hawthorn quivering now with ex- 
 citement. Every loss of a twelvemonth, every un- 
 deserved grief, every untoward happening, every 
 petty mystery was awake and growing monstrous. 
 The air was changing, the yew trees, the look of the 
 houses, the loom to the west of Hawthorn Forest. 
 . . . Today, to an observer, the church might look 
 not greatly different from a palm-thatched or cedar 
 roof over some sacred stone or carven god. Out of 
 the deep veins, out of the elder world, old and gross 
 superstition had been whistled up. It had not far 
 to come; the elder world was close of kin. On the 
 climbing road of the human mind the scenery of the 
 lower slopes began to glow. 
 
 The sexton's house giving upon the green, Haw- 
 thorn could find pretext enough for gathering there 
 in humming clusters. The sexton had a clean, bare 
 room where at times charges were heard and pris- 
 oners brought up for examination from a cellar-like 
 apartment below. On the whole, Justice Carthew 
 preferred it to having poachers and vagrants, quar- 
 rellers, swearers and breakers of various command- 
 ments, petty officers, complainants, and witnesses 
 trampling into Carthew House. Now as the warm 
 
THE WITCH 
 
 midday drew on, he entered, marshalled by the con- 
 stable ; with him, besides a young man half his son's 
 tutor, half his own clerk, Master Clement, and a 
 neighbour or two of fair consequence in the village 
 and in Hawthorn Church. In the room already 
 were the North-End Farm folk. The crowd pressed 
 in behind, or, when no more were admitted, stood 
 as close as might be without the door, left open for 
 the air. Outside the one crazy window boys stood 
 on heaped stones, their eyes a-row above the sill. 
 The air seemed to beat and sound and pulse. No 
 other kind of lawbreaking could so raise, so univer- 
 salize, emotion. Other kinds were particular, affect- 
 ing a few. But where sorcery and witchcraft, blas- 
 phemy and heresy, were arraigned, even though it 
 were in a poor room and village like to this, there 
 the universal enemy, there the personal foe of God 
 Almighty, came into court! The personal foe of 
 God was naturally the would-be murderer of every 
 baptized soul alive the unbaptized were his al- 
 ready. Nor did he stop at attempts against their 
 souls; he did not hesitate to direct his engines 
 against their bodies and their goods, to burn their 
 ricks and barns, blast their fields, palsy their arms, 
 lame their beasts, make their children peak and 
 pine, wither the strength of men within them If 
 he had not yet harmed them to-day, he but waited 
 fur the chance to do so to-morrow! No man, woman, 
 or child was safe, and the thing to be done was to de- 
 stroy his instruments as fast as they were found. 
 
 26 
 
MOTHER SPURAWAY 
 
 The North- End Farm boy an observer from the 
 platform of a further age might have conjectured 
 that it was partly a nervous disorder marked by 
 hysteria, partly an impish satisfaction in the commo- 
 tion produced and the attention received, partly 
 an actual rejoicing in the workings of his own imag- 
 ination together with a far past, early-man unaware- 
 ness of any reason for forbearance the North- 
 End Farm boy cried out and writhed tormentedly. 
 
 They brought Mother Spuraway up the steep 
 stair from the cellar and into the room, and making 
 a clear space stood her before the boy for what 
 should be judgement and doom. "The dog! the 
 dog! " he cried, and writhed in the arms of the men 
 behind him "The dog!" 
 
 The room quivered and sucked in its breath. 
 Now the magistrate, and now, at the magistrate's 
 nod, the minister, questioned him. "You see the 
 dog? Where do you see it? There? But some- 
 thing else is standing there ! A woman is standing 
 there. . . . Ha! Only the dog there, showing his 
 teeth at you? Do you see no woman? ... He sees 
 no woman. He sees only the dog. M 
 
 "The dog! the dog!" cried the boy. "The con- 
 stable brought the dog in with him. . . . Oh, it 
 wants to get at me! It's trying to shake the con- 
 stable off! Oh, oh, don't let it!" And he writhed 
 and twisted, half terrified and persuaded by the 
 vividness of his own creation, deep down enjoying 
 himself. 
 
 227 
 
THE WITCH 
 
 Commotion and hard breathing held in the room 
 and outside about the door and window. "He sees 
 her as she is when she's running with Satan! . . . 
 Witch!. . .Witch!. . ." 
 
 Mother Spuraway fell again upon her knees, beat 
 her hands together with passion. " It 's not true - 
 he's lying! Oh, sirs, are you going to hang me 
 for what a sick child says?" 
 
 North-End Farm raised an answering clamour. 
 "Thou witch! T is thou that liest! Take thy spells 
 off him!" The greater part of the room became 
 vocal. "'T is not only that boy! A many and a 
 many things happening! My arm, thou witch! I 
 dug all day, and passed thee in the twilight, and 
 next day 'twas like this! The corn so thin and 
 burned ! The old witch ! She made a sign above 
 my wife's drink and she died and the babe died ! 
 The witch! the witch! But she's not alone. . . . 
 She and the leech. . . . Yes, but others than the 
 leech. . . . There are folk here who can tell. . . . 
 The plague she brought the plague she and 
 the Devil and her fellows. . . . The pond! Tie her 
 thumb and toe and try her in the water 
 
 There came a surge forward. Mother Spuraway 
 cowered and screamed. The squire might not object 
 to the water trial in itself, but he objected and that 
 strongly to any unruliness before Justice Carthew. 
 The people were used to being cowed; his voice, 
 bursting out against them, drove them back to a 
 silence broken only by murmurs and intakes of the 
 
 228 
 
MOTHER SPURAWAY 
 
 breath. The North- End Farm boy continuing 
 noisy, and crying out, his father and mother had 
 leave to take him from the sexton's room and across 
 to the ale-house. There was curiosity to see if the 
 dog that was visible to him alone could follow. But 
 no! At the door he cried out that it tried to spring 
 after him, but could not pass the minister's chair. 
 From the ale-house itself presently came back word 
 that he was much comforted and quiet and said that 
 Master Clement was keeping the dog from him. 
 
 Mother Spuraway sat on a bench, somewhat cut 
 off from the rest of the room by the heavy chairs of 
 the Law and the Church. She sat crouched to- 
 gether, for the most part silent, her white hair strag- 
 gling from beneath her cap, her lip fallen, her meagre, 
 bloodless hands with high-raised veins plucking at 
 the stuff of her old worn kirtle. The day was warm. 
 The squire, heated and thirsty, sent across for a 
 tankard of ale. When it was brought, he drank, set 
 the vessel down, and wiped his mouth. "And now," 
 he said, " 't is to find if, in getting two, we get all the 
 vipers in the nest " 
 
 He did not think so himself; nor did Master 
 Clement, nor did the throng of Hawthorn in the 
 sexton's room and without, pressing about door and 
 window. The whispers had been continuous. It was 
 much to have put an arresting hand upon one witch, 
 and beyond doubt she was a witch and a vera causa! 
 But for more years than a few Hawthorn had looked 
 somewhat askance at Mother Spuraway. She had 
 
 229 
 
THE WITCH 
 
 been among them for a long time, and these blackest 
 happenings had not happened. Not in all these 
 years the plague never before at Hawthorn such a 
 thing as the bold wounding of the squire's brother 
 never before so many accidents of one kind and an- 
 other! For new activities new beings. . . . The leech, 
 of course, proved beyond all seeming to be so fell 
 and wicked a man! But not the leech alone. . . . 
 The feeling, whatever it was, was increasing. There 
 seemed something pent and thunderous, lying in 
 wait for its chance. . . . There were those now in the 
 crowd who had not been here earlier, who, having 
 heard what was toward, had made their way in 
 after the first. Some came from without the village. 
 The tinker was plain to the front. Midway of the 
 room might be seen Will the smith's son and his 
 mother, and beside them Katherine Scott, the for- 
 ester's wife. At the back, in company with the 
 Lukins, stood Alison Inch. 
 
 The squire looked down at a piece of paper which 
 he held in his hand. "Now what is this about a 
 grey and white cat, and the burned cot in Haw- 
 thorn Wood?" 
 
 There rose a murmur, like wind over sedge. It 
 grew in volume, and out of it came clear a woman's 
 voice. "It's her familiar. He gave it to her. The 
 boys saw him give it to her at the burned cot." 
 
 The squire lifted himself a little looked over 
 the crowd. "Who spoke there? Come forward here, 
 you who spoke!" 
 
 030 
 
MOTHER SPURAWAY 
 
 A confusion ; then Cecily Lukin was pushed to the 
 front. She came protesting, her face flushed. "Oh, 
 Your Honour, I did n't know I was speaking so 
 loud! I never meant to say anything " 
 
 "Nay, you must say," answered the squire. "He 
 or she who keeps witness back will find trouble for 
 their own part!" 
 
 "I said naught," said Cecily, "but that she had 
 a grey and white cat which lay on the hearth or in 
 the sun, and that once I did see it anger itself and 
 grow larger than natural, and its eyes glowed like Ian- 
 thorns and it went backward, rubbing itself against 
 her skirt " 
 
 "Mother Spuraway's skirt?" 
 
 "Oh, no, sir!" said Cecily. "They say Mother 
 Spuraway's imp is a green frog that lives in a stream 
 by her door " 
 
 A boy beside the tinker, nudged by the latter, 
 opened his mouth. " Tom and Dick and Jarvis and I 
 were playing in Hawthorn Forest by the burned cot. 
 And a grey and white cat came out of the stones and 
 climbed up in the plum tree and sat and looked at 
 us, and we tried to drive it away, but we could n't. 
 Then Master Aderhold came out of the woods and 
 grew as tall as the plum tree and put up his arm, and 
 the cat came and lay upon it. And there was Joan 
 Heron standing in her grey dress, and she was as tall 
 as he was, and he gave her the cat and she laid it 
 along her shoulder, and they went away through the 
 woods without their feet touching the ground " 
 
 231 
 
THE WITCH 
 
 The forester's wife was an impatient dame. By 
 this she had worked her way into the row nearest the 
 justice and the minister, and now she raised her 
 voice. " Your Honour and Maister Clement, I keep 
 bees, and, Your Honour, they 've not done well for 
 a lang, lang time! They've not done well since, out 
 of kindness, I took three hives frae folk that were 
 gaeing visiting and put them with my ain. Those 
 bees I took, I swear were not just bees! Times I 
 thought as much while they harboured with my 
 bees, and would do naught nor let my ain do aught 
 but I kenned it well when they were gone back 
 to where they came frae! Your Honour and Mais- 
 ter Clement, I ha' gone by where those hives stand 
 now and seen those bees come flying in with wings a 
 span long and shining, and bodies daubed with gold 
 and making a humming sound like a fiddle-string! 
 And those visiting folk were not auld Mither Spura- 
 way, though I doubt not she be a witch, too ! Those 
 beehives are standing under the thatch of Heron's 
 cottage!" 
 
 At sunset that evening Joan sat on her doorstep, 
 her elbows upon her knees and her brow in her 
 hands. The apple trees were in bloom, the hearts- 
 ease was in bloom beside the well, red and gold cow- 
 slips brushed her shoe. The day had been warm, but 
 the evening fell cool and rich. All day she had not 
 gone from the cottage. She had seen none pass 
 either; the road, the fields, the wood were as quiet 
 
 232 
 
MOTHER SPURAWAY 
 
 as though human life had fled from the earth. She 
 sat with a heart oppressed, the world grown vague 
 and monstrous. . . . The cottage, the garden, the 
 fruit trees were wrapped in the afterglow. The birds 
 were still ; the last bee had come in from the flowers ; 
 somewhere in a marshy meadow, the frogs were be- 
 ginning. 
 
 The grey and white cat came and rubbed itself 
 against her. She lifted her head, and saw three or 
 four men on the winding path between the forest 
 road and Heron's cottage. As they came nearer she 
 recognized first the tinker, but in a moment saw 
 that the one at the head was the Hawthorn consta- 
 ble. Her heart stopped, then began to beat very 
 heavily. As they came through the gate and up 
 the little path she rose from the door-step. 
 
 "Good-day," said one of them. 
 
 "Good-day, neighbours." 
 
 The constable cleared his throat. He was a stolid, 
 elderly man with many daughters and sons, and he 
 opposed to the world a wooden, depthless face. 
 "Probably you know," he said, "what weVe come 
 for?" 
 
 "No," said Joan: "what have you come for?" 
 
 The constable put out the staff that he carried and 
 touched her on the shoulder. " In the King's name! 
 You 're to come with me for being a witch and work- 
 ing great harm to the King's good subjects for 
 laming and casting spells for worshipping Satan 
 at his sabbats at the burned cot and the fairy oak 
 
 233 
 
THE WITCH 
 
 for plotting mischief with an infidel, blasphemer, and 
 sorcerer " 
 
 Joan stood motionless, her grey eyes clear, the 
 blood not driven from her heart. She had seen the 
 harm brewing, she had had her torture in watching 
 the deep storm gather; now that it was rolling over 
 her she grew suddenly steady. Though she knew it 
 not she had always had strength and courage, but 
 now she touched and drew from some great reservoir 
 indeed. A wholesome anger helped her to it, an inner 
 total rebellion and scorn, an amazed recognition of 
 universal, incredible mistake and folly! Truly if men 
 based life so crumblingly, on such a lie as this ! . . . 
 Sabbats at the burned cot and the fairy oak. . . . 
 Plotting with Something swept over her face, her 
 frame seemed to grow taller in the flower-starred 
 dusk by Heron's cottage. 
 
 The tinker was next to the constable. Now he 
 spoke with an elfish grin and his foot trampling 
 down the cowslip by the door. "Mistress Young 
 Witch never thought, did she, that when Tom Tin- 
 ker came up behind her, standing before the prison 
 yonder, he saw well enough that she was making 
 witch signs to one within? Now the witch to the 
 warlock lemans must lodge under the same roof!" 
 
CHAPTER XVIII 
 
 THE GAOL 
 
 ADERHOLD looked forth from a narrow grating, so 
 high-placed that he must stand a-tiptoe like a child 
 to see at all. Summer without, summer, summer, 
 and the winds of heaven ! Within the gaol was sum- 
 mer close and stagnant. It was difficult for light and 
 air to make their way into the space where he was 
 kept. What could come came, but much was pre- 
 vented by the walls and the intention with which 
 they had been built. In that day, in a prison such as 
 this, a noisy medley of people without freedom 
 might be found in the dark and damp central pas- 
 sage and larger rooms or in the high-walled and dis- 
 mal bit of court. All manner of crime and no-crime, 
 soil, mistake, and innocence huddled there together, 
 poisoning and being poisoned. Time and space 
 received of their poison, carried it without these 
 walls with at least as much ease as air and light came 
 in, and distributed it with a blind face and an im- 
 partial hand. 
 
 But certain prisoners, those that people without 
 the prison thought too poisonous or were willing 
 vengefully to make suffer, were not allowed the hall- 
 way or the court or speech with fellow misery. These 
 were put into small, twilight chambers or dungeons. 
 
 235 
 
THE WITCH 
 
 Aderhold paced twelve feet by six twelve feet 
 by six. He was shackled, a chain from ankle to 
 ankle, another from wrist to wrist. But they were 
 not heavy, and there was slack enough, so that one 
 might walk and to some extent use the hands. 
 Twelve feet by six twelve feet by six. What 
 light fell through the loophole window fell in one 
 thin shaft of gold-dust. The walls were damp to the 
 touch, and scratched over with names, ribaldry, and 
 prayers. He himself, with a bit of pointed stone 
 that he had found, was graving in Latin upon an 
 unmarked breadth. Twelve by six twelve by six 
 where the straw pallet was flung, not more than 
 three feet clear. 
 
 He knew well how to avail himself of the escape 
 of the mind and thereby to defeat the hours. He 
 had no books, but memory and imagination were 
 to him landscape and library, while the searching 
 thought worked here as elsewhere. Memory and 
 imagination could become his foes; Aderhold had 
 known that from of old. Oftenest friends and great 
 genii, but sometimes foes with mowing faces and 
 stabbing, icy fingers. But strangely to him, in 
 these days, no hostile side appeared ; or if it came, 
 it came in lessened strength ; or if its strength was 
 the same, then the opposing forces within him had 
 themselves gathered power to overcome. It seemed 
 to him that of late he had come to a turning ; fear, 
 shrinking, and dismay, that had often met him full 
 course in life, often lurked for him at corners he 
 
 236 
 
THE GAOL 
 
 must pass, seemed now themselves somewhat 
 shrunken and sinewless. He had known that there 
 was further growth within him oh, further, 
 further! and that some day he would turn and 
 look them in the face and see them for the pygmies 
 that they were. It seemed that the dawn of that 
 day had been nearer than he knew. . . . Twelve 
 feet by six twelve feet by six with as even and 
 steady a pace as the irons would allow, and all the 
 time to fancy that he walked free in Hawthorn 
 Wood. Then, for a change, to draw himself up and 
 see what might be seen through the slit of window. 
 What might be seen was the topmost branch of a 
 tree and a gargoyled angle of the great church 
 tower, and above all a scimitar breadth of blue sky. 
 From that to turn and grave at a letter upon the 
 wall; then to walk again; then to rest upon the 
 straw while the subtile body went free, passed like 
 an emanation through the prison walls and wan- 
 dered in foreign lands, and where there was neither 
 land nor water underfoot. At times he took under 
 consideration his own present predicament and 
 earthly future. But the sting and terror were gone. 
 That they were so he thanked his higher self, his 
 widening, deepening, marching consciousness. 
 
 His present case. . . . There had been the exami- 
 nation immediately after his arrest and commit- 
 ment to this gaol, the examination when he had 
 admitted the apostasy and denied the sorcery. But 
 that had been weeks ago, and since then naught. 
 
THE WITCH 
 
 Day after day in this dusk place, and only the 
 turnkey had entered. 
 
 This gaoler was a battered, sometime soldier, red- 
 faced and wry- mouthed. What romance had been 
 in his life appeared to have come to him with the 
 dykes and green levels and waters of the Low Coun- 
 tries. Chance leading him one day to the discovery 
 that his prisoner knew Zutphen, Utrecht, and Am- 
 sterdam, he had henceforth, at each visit, plunged 
 back for one short moment into the good old wars 
 and renewed a lurid happiness. The reflex, striking 
 upon Aderhold, lightened his lot as prisoner. The 
 gaoler, after the first few days, exhibited toward him 
 no personal brutality. Once he made, unexpectedly, 
 the remark that he had seen good fighting done by 
 all manner of people, and that the Devil must have 
 some virtue in order to make so good a stand. But 
 the gaoler's visits were of the briefest, and he was 
 close-mouthed as to all things save the wars. If he 
 knew when assizes would be, he chose not to impart 
 it. One day only he had been communicative enough 
 to speak of the commission named by the Privy 
 Council. Who were the commissioners? He named 
 the members from this side of the county two or 
 three of the clergy, several considerable country 
 gentlemen. From the Hawthorn end Squire Car- 
 thew and his brother and Master Clement the min- 
 ister. It had been at work, the commission, meeting 
 and meeting and taking people up. The matter was 
 become a big master, making a noise through the 
 
 238 
 
THE GAOL 
 
 country. They, said the King himself was inter- 
 ested. A bishop was coming and the Witch Judge. 
 
 " The Witch Judge?" 
 
 "Aye, the Witch Judge." 
 
 But the gaoler would say no more Aderhold 
 was not sure that he knew much more. He left the 
 cell, and at no other visit would he speak of any- 
 thing but the Dutch and the good wars. . . . What 
 he had said had left a sharp thorn of anxiety, 
 not for the prisoner's self. Aderhold knew perfectly 
 well how palely hope gleamed upon Gilbert Ader- 
 hold. He would be done to death. But he knew also, 
 from much observation, how they dragged the net 
 so as to take in unallied forms. He tried to think of 
 any at Hawthorn or thereabouts who might be en- 
 dangered. He had been intimate with no one; none 
 there had been confidant or disciple. How many 
 that could save he had had occasion to note in 
 France and Italy. Speech with such an one, acts of 
 mere neighbourliness, the sheerest accidental cross- 
 ing of paths anything served for prosecution 
 and ruin ... In the lack of all knowledge he was 
 chiefly anxious about old Dorothy and the boy her 
 nephew, and the youth to whom he had given 
 books. He never thought of Joan as being in peril. 
 
 Counting the days, he gathered that assizes could 
 now be no great way off. Then would he hear and 
 know, be judged and suffer. After that continu- 
 ance, persistence, being, yet and for ever, though he 
 knew not the mode nor the manner of experience. 
 
 239 
 
THE WITCH 
 
 . . . The gold light lay across the cell like a fairy road. 
 He turned upon his side, eased wrist and ankle as 
 best he might, and with the chain across his breast 
 fell half asleep. Ocean waves seemed to bear him up, 
 a strong warm wind to blow upon him, birds to 
 be flying toward him from some beautiful, friendly 
 strand. . . . 
 
 The grating of the key roused him. It was not 
 the gaoler's time of day, but he was here, red-faced 
 and wry-mouthed. 
 
 Aderhold rose to his feet. "Are the Judges 
 come?" 
 
 The gaoler shook his head. "No, no! They're 
 trying highway thieves next county. You 're to be 
 lodged t' other side of gaol." 
 
 They went down a winding stair and through a 
 dark and foul passageway, then from one general 
 room to another. The place was here dusk and 
 gloom, here patched with sunny light. It was well 
 peopled with shapes despairing and complaining, 
 or still and listless, or careless and noisy. The 
 gaoler and Aderhold crossed a bit of court and came 
 by a small door into a long and narrow room where 
 again there were prisoners, men and women. 
 
 "Stand here," said the gaoler, "while I get an 
 order." He moved away to a door in the wall. 
 
 The place was warm and dusk, save where from 
 high windows there fell a broken and wavering light. 
 There was a dull murmur as of droning bees. Sound, 
 too, from the town square without floated in, 
 
 240 
 
THE GAOL 
 
 summer sounds. A fugitive memory came to Ader- 
 hold. It was years ago, and a spring morning, and 
 he was riding across the square with Will the serv- 
 ing-man, Master Hardwick behind in the litter, 
 ahead on his great roan Harry Carthew. Upon the 
 heels of that retracing came another. It was last 
 winter again, and he stood on a doorstep not far 
 from here, and ten feet away Sir Richard from the 
 castle sat his horse and smelled at his silver box of 
 spices. . . . He came back to the present hour. This 
 place was long, like a corridor ; it was curiously gold- 
 brown and red-brown, like a rich painting for light 
 and shadow. He looked across and, standing alone 
 against the wall, he saw Joan Heron. ... All noise 
 stilled itself, all other shapes passed. It was as 
 though there were spread around them the lone- 
 liest desert or sea-strand in all the world. 
 
 Joan stood straight against the wall. Her grey 
 dress was torn, her grey eyes had shadows beneath 
 them, she had no colour in cheek or lip, and she 
 stood indomitable. 
 
 Aderhold put his hand before his eyes. " Mistress 
 Friendly Soul," he said, "why are you here?" 
 
 "For somewhat the same reason," she answered, 
 "that you are here. Because it is a crazed world." 
 
 "How long?" 
 
 "A long time. . . . Nearly four weeks." 
 
 "Is it my misery to have brought you here?" 
 
 "No," said Joan, "cruelty and wrong brought me 
 here." 
 
 (241 
 
THE WITCH 
 
 "You are charged with " 
 
 "Yes. With witchcraft." 
 
 The gaoler, returning, began furiously to grumble 
 that he would have no speaking together, and urged 
 Aderhold away. There was naught to do but to 
 obey; he went, but at the door looked back. She 
 was standing with her grey eyes and her sorrowful 
 face set in scorn of this place and of the world. The 
 door closed between them. 
 
 "No!" said the gaoler. "No questions, for I'll 
 not answer them. Say naught and pay naught ! 
 Down this stair. You won't be so well lodged." 
 
 It mattered not greatly to Gilbert Aderhold how 
 he was lodged. When the gaoler was gone and the 
 grating key removed, and solitude with him in this 
 dim place, he lay down upon the stone that made its 
 flooring and hid his face. After a time, rising, he 
 walked the dungeon where he was immured. He 
 struck his shackled hands against the wall, pressed 
 his forehead against the stone. . . . 
 \ The hours passed, the day passed, another night 
 passed; another dawn came, strengthening outside 
 into burning day. The gaoler appeared for a moment 
 morning and evening, then darkness and silence. 
 . . . He thought that he must be yet nearer the great 
 church than he had been in his first cell. He could 
 hear the bells, and they clanged more loudly here. 
 
 Aderhold, pacing the space not much longer or 
 wider than a grave, heard in their ringing church 
 bells far and near and deep in time. He heard them 
 
 243 
 
THE GAOL 
 
 ringing over Europe and from century to century. 
 He heard the bells of a countryside that had rung 
 when he was a child and had loved them well. He 
 thought of the hosts who had loved the church bells, 
 who loved them yet; of the sweetness and peace 
 and musical memory they were to many to very 
 many; of the thousand associations, hovering like 
 overtones, thoughts of old faces, old scenes, old 
 gladnesses. He saw old, peaceful faces of men and 
 women who had made their religion a religion of 
 love and had loved the church bells. Waves of fra- 
 grant memories came to Aderhold himself days 
 of a serious, quiet childhood when he had pondered 
 over Bible stories ; when in some leafy garden cor- 
 ner, or on his bed at night, he had gone in imag- 
 ination step by step through that drama of Judea, 
 figuring himself as a boy who followed, as, maybe, a 
 younger brother of the beloved John. It came back 
 to him as, indeed, it had never left him the 
 soft and bright and good, the pristine part, the 
 Jesus part, the natural part. Do unto others as thou 
 wouldst have others do unto you Love thy neighbour 
 as thyself / say unto you until seventy times seven 
 times 
 
 The church bells! The church bells! But they 
 had swung him here into this narrow place and dark, 
 and they would swing him into a darker and a nar- 
 rower. They had swung Joan Heron there where 
 she stood against the wall. . . . The many and the 
 many and the many they had rung and swung to 
 
 243 
 
THE WITCH 
 
 torture, infamy, and death ! The church bells ! They 
 rang in the name of a gentle heart, but they rang 
 also for the savage and poor guesses, the ferocities, 
 the nomad imagination of an ancient, early people. 
 They rang for Oriental ideas of despot and slave, 
 thrones and princes, glittering reward of eternal, 
 happy indolence, fearful punishment of eternal phys- 
 ical torment and ignominy ! They rang head beneath 
 the foot, and he that raiseth voice against this Order, 
 not his body only, but his soul and his memory 
 shall be flayed ! . . . Palestine or England, what did 
 it matter? Caiaphas or the Christian Church? . . . 
 The searching, questing spirit that, age by age, lifted 
 from the lower past toward the light of further 
 knowledge, larger scope and the past that, age 
 by age, hurled its bolts and let its arrows fly and 
 rang its iron bells against that spirit. . . . The bells 
 rang and rang. He heard them sweet and softened 
 across the years and knew that many loved them 
 and held them holy ; he heard them ring, jubilantly, 
 above many a martyr's stake, massacre, war, and 
 torture chamber, ring the knell of just questioning, 
 ring the burial, for yet longer and yet longer, of the 
 truth of things ; and knew that many, and those not 
 the least worthy, must abhor them. He had loved 
 them, too, but to-day he loved them not. They 
 clanged with a hoarse old sound of savage gong and 
 drum and tube calling to the sacrifice. . . . 
 
 Between morning and midday the door opened 
 and his red-faced, wry-mouthed friend of the Dutch 
 
 244 
 
THE GAOL 
 
 wars appeared. "Two of the commissioners would 
 talk with you." They climbed the stairs leading 
 from the darkness, and passed again through that 
 long and narrow room. But though there were pris- 
 oners here, Joan Heron was not among them. The 
 gaoler turned to the left and, opening a door, signed 
 to him to enter a fair-sized, well-lighted room where 
 were chairs and a table. The light dazzled him, 
 coming from the almost night underfoot. When his 
 vision cleared he saw that the two who awaited him 
 were the minister of Hawthorn and Master Harry 
 Carthew. 
 
CHAPTER XIX 
 
 ADERHOLD AND CARTHEW 
 
 MASTER CLEMENT sat, tense and straight, spirit- 
 ually girded to meet Satan and his legionaries. 
 Harry Carthew was standing when Aderhold en- 
 tered the room, but immediately he came and sat 
 beside the minister, his eyes, deep-set in a pale, fever- 
 wasted countenance, regarding, not unsteadily, the 
 prisoner. He had risen from his bed but a week ago ; 
 this was the first time he had ridden to the town. 
 There was something strange in his countenance, 
 a look now vacillating, now fixed and hardened. He 
 held his gloves in one hand and drew them through 
 the other with a repeated motion. 
 
 "Give you good-day, Master Aderhold," he said 
 in a controlled, toneless voice. 
 
 "Give you good-day, Master Carthew." 
 The minister's strong sing-song pierced the air. 
 "Thou guilty and wretched man! We have left 
 thee so long to hug thy own mind because there 
 was much work elsewhere to do ! To-day we would 
 have thee bethink thyself. Thy sorcery at the Oak 
 Grange and in Hawthorn Forest and elsewhere is 
 wholly discovered! Thy fellows in iniquity are all 
 taken, and sufficient have confessed to set thee at 
 the stake! Why continue to deny adding so to the 
 
 246 
 
ADERHOLD AND CARTHEW 
 
 heat of that hell which awaits thee thy doings 
 in this nature? What use to say that thou didst not, 
 leaving thy double in the constable's hands, return 
 in the storm upon the Hawthorn road, and by the 
 power of Satan affront and stay and with thy devil- 
 furnished dagger wound Master Harry Carthew?" 
 
 "What use, indeed!" said Aderhold. "And yet 
 I say it." 
 
 "Then," said Master Clement, and the veins 
 upon his forehead began to swell, "thou art a foolish 
 poor atheist! What! when thou art compact of 
 denial, and will be lost from earth and heaven be- 
 cause of that, dost think that one denial more will 
 serve thee? Come! Thou struckest the blow, we 
 know. What witch had come at thy call and was 
 with thee, standing on the hill brow, weaving and 
 beckoning the storm?" 
 
 "What witch?" echoed Aderhold, startled. "Nor 
 I was there nor any other!" 
 
 Harry Carthew had not ceased to draw the gloves 
 held in one hand through the other. He sat with 
 downcast eyes, wasted and sombre, more wasted, 
 more haggard, and overlaid with the dull tint of 
 tragedy than Aderhold himself. He spoke now with 
 a flushed cheek. "Let that go by! It matters not 
 what hand struck me in the side that night " He 
 turned on Aderhold. "That which I must know, and 
 will know, I tell you " Shaken by passion he 
 pushed back his chair, and rising moved with a dis- 
 ordered step the length of the room. 
 
 247 
 
THE WITCH 
 
 Master Clement could not let pass the first part of 
 his speech. "Not so, Harry Carthew! What! Mat- 
 ters not that you should be brought to death's door 
 by the stroke of a wizard misbeliever " 
 
 Carthew again approached the table. " It matters 
 not, I say. Unless " He stood looking fixedly at 
 Aderhold, the breath coming quickly from between 
 his lips. "It has been confessed that you met these 
 witches and wantoned with them at the sabbats in 
 Hawthorn Wood. . . . Now, I have been sick and 
 my senses wandering, and I have come but lately 
 back into this enquiry. Much has happened 
 much has been done much has been laid bare that 
 I knew naught of. In particular " He broke 
 away, walked again the length of the room; then 
 returning, stood above Master Clement in his great 
 chair and urged some course in an undertone. 
 
 Master Clement first demurred, then, though 
 without alacrity, acquiesced. " Is it well for you to 
 be alone with him? I tell you the Devil hath such 
 wiles But since you wish it, I will go I will go 
 for a short while." He heaved his slight, black 
 figure from the chair, and, moving stiffly, quitted 
 the room. The gaoler stood yet at the door, but, at 
 a sign from Carthew, without, not within, the room. 
 
 The squire's brother had his own strength. It 
 exhibited itself now. He stilled his hurried breath- 
 ing, ceased the nervous motion of his hands, inde- 
 finably broadened and heightened his frame, and 
 became the strong, Puritan country gentleman, the 
 
 248 
 
ADERHOLD AND CARTHEW 
 
 future officer of Ironsides. Whatever there was in 
 him of stanch and firm and good so struggled with 
 what was darkly passionate that, for these minutes 
 at least, there rose on the horizon something that 
 was not the tempest-tossed ship of many months. 
 The masts seemed to cease to bend, the anchor to 
 hold again. 
 
 He stood within five feet of Aderhold. He had 
 moved so that the table was no longer between them. 
 In doing so, the attitude of advantage and master- 
 ship had been lost. The two stood on a level floor, 
 with no conventional judgement bar between them. 
 If in Carthew, beneath murk and tempest, there 
 appeared for the moment something basic, justi- 
 fied, and ultimate, in Aderhold no less character 
 unveiled its mass. He stood in chains, but they 
 seemed ribbons of mist. It was he that was metal 
 and real, and with a sudden loom and resistive force 
 sent back, broken, doubts and fantastic violences of 
 thought and ascription. Though for a short time 
 only, yet for that time, the tattered farrago of super- 
 stitions, hanging in Carthew's mind like mouldering 
 banners of wars whose very reason was forgot, 
 shrunk and shrivelled until they seemed but feature- 
 less dust. For a time he ceased, standing here, to be- 
 lieve in Aderhold 's attendance at sabbats, brewings 
 of poison from baleful herbs, toads, spiders, and 
 newts, and midnight conspirings in the interests of 
 the Kingdom of Satan. Even the acknowledged, 
 monstrous sin, the extravagant, the unpardonable, 
 
 249 
 
THE WITCH 
 
 the monarch and includer of all even the enor- 
 mity of Unbelief wavered in his mind, grew un- 
 substantial. There was a fact of great force before 
 him, a mass, a reality . . . But if, for one larger, 
 saner moment, he rejected belief in a supernatural 
 bond of evil linking together Aderhold and Joan 
 Heron, he by no means did this with the possibility 
 of other bonds evil also if they existed between 
 these two evil to him as wormwood, darkness, 
 and madness! 
 
 11 In particular, "he said, in a voice that thickened 
 as he went on, " I am told that they have taken Joan 
 Heron. I had never thought of that of her coming 
 under suspicion ... I had never thought of that. 
 I do not yet believe her to be a witch though in- 
 deed they bring all manner of accusation and proof 
 against her but I will not yet believe it ... But 
 I will have from thee what has been thy power over 
 her! Tell me that, thou atheist 1 " 
 
 "My power over her has been naught and is 
 naught. I have spoken with her seldomer than I 
 have spoken with you. I have had no association 
 with her. Why she should be in this gaol I know 
 not." 
 
 "It is proved that the morning after you were 
 lodged here she came into this square, and stood 
 before this prison, making signs." 
 
 " I know naught of that. What does she say her- 
 self?" 
 
 "She says that she had walked to the castle to see 
 250 
 
ADERHOLD AND CARTHEW 
 
 one there, and coming back, paused but a moment in 
 the square. She says she made no signs." 
 
 "And is it so hard to believe what she says?" 
 Carthew drew a heavy and struggling breath. 
 " There is a passion, I think, that teacheth all hu- 
 man beings to lie. ... It is said, and loudly, that 
 you came to Heron's cottage by night, and that 
 she went to the Oak Grange by night, and that you 
 were paramours." 
 
 " It is false. I neither went so to Heron's cottage 
 nor did she come so to the Grange, nor were we para- 
 
 mours." 
 
 "That day I found you together in Hawthorn 
 Wood" 
 
 " Do you remember what I said to you? That was 
 the truth." 
 
 "Not one hour afterward I was told that often 
 oh, often and often! you walked together in 
 the forest." 
 
 "Then you were falsely told. It was not so." 
 
 "Was the truth and 'is' the truth. You 
 are earnest to clear her from every shadow of asso- 
 ciation with you. Why?" 
 
 "Why?" Aderhold's eyelids flickered. "Why? 
 It seems to me easy to know why. I was not born 
 of so low condition that I would see the innocent 
 dragged to a place like this." 
 
 A moment's dead silence; then Carthew spoke 
 with a regathered and dangerous passion. "Others 
 are here dragged here for their own sinful activi- 
 
THE WITCH 
 
 ties, and accused likewise of being your hail fellows 
 and boon companions. There are here a youth to 
 whom it is said you taught atheism, and Mother 
 Spuraway and Grace Maybank and your house- 
 keeper at the Grange and others. Do you grieve for 
 them that they are here?" 
 
 "Aye," said Aderhold; "I grieve for them. 
 Piteous, wronged souls! I tell you, I have had 
 naught to do with them, nor they with me!" 
 
 Carthew's voice quivered, and he struck one hand 
 into the other. "Words are locked doors, but not the 
 voice with which the words are uttered! 'Piteous 
 wronged souls' that my gentleman born of no low 
 condition feels grief for and would deliver if he 
 might from gaol and judgement and Joan Heron 
 whom his voice only trembles not before, only 
 caresses not because he would guard her from the 
 ruin of his favour ! What good to loom there against 
 me and thrust that, too, from you? You love her! 
 You love her ! And now I will know if she loves you ! 
 And when I know that I will know what I shall do ! " 
 
 "You are mad! Her life and mine touch not, 
 save as this Hawthorn music jangles our names to- 
 gether! I shall presently be dead. I know it, and 
 you know it. Leave her living, her and these others ! 
 You have the power. Leave them living!" 
 
 "Power!" the other burst forth. "I have no 
 power to save her. She is bound with a hundred 
 cords! Had I not fallen ill I might have or I 
 might have not But now it is too late. I can- 
 
 252 
 
ADERHOLD AND CARTHEW 
 
 not ! " His helplessness was real enough, and it made 
 
 if he would not feel it too crushingly a dark 
 bubbling-up of heat, violence, murky and passionate 
 substance a necessity to him. He gave it way. 
 
 Aderhold saw the change, the resurgence. He 
 made with his chained hands a stately and mournful 
 gesture. ' 'As it will be!" he said. 
 
 The other burst forth. "Aye, I believe I be- 
 lieve that you have poisoned and corrupted her, and 
 that there is truth in every word they say ! Now as I 
 am a baptised man there is truth ! For you are an 
 unbeliever and God's enemy! And is not God's 
 enemy of necessity black and corrupt and a liar to 
 the last particle of his being, to the last hair of his 
 head, to the paring of his nails! More you have 
 stood there weaving a spell to make me listen and 
 well-nigh believe! Well, your spell will not hold me! 
 
 As God liveth I hold it to be true that you met by 
 night in Hawthorn Forest " 
 
 ' ' Look at me ! " said Aderhold . " That is as true as 
 that it was I who struck a dagger into you on a 
 Sunday night! Now you know how true it is!" 
 
 Carthew gave back a step and went deadly white. 
 There was within him that root of grace that he had 
 risen from his sick bed with his first madness les- 
 sened and his mind set on managing a correction in 
 the minds alike of Hawthorn and the commission. 
 In the first wild turmoil and anger, pushing home 
 under the half-moon from Heron's cottage, blood 
 staining his doublet and his head beginning to swim, 
 
 253 
 
THE WITCH 
 
 he had seized it coming to him upon some blast of 
 the wind that he must find and presently give a rea- 
 son for his condition he had seized the first dark 
 inspiration. It had answered he had found on 
 stepping from weeks of stupor and delirium that it 
 had answered so well and thoroughly that now 
 always below the Unbelief and Blasphemy it was 
 one of the main counts against the physician. He 
 had thought to be able to cast hesitancy and doubt 
 on his original assertion. It was dark the figure 
 was cloaked it might not have been the leech. . . . 
 He found that he could corrupt no one's belief that it 
 was the leech Hawthorn, his brother, Master 
 Clement, the commission, all were unshakable. He 
 knew not himself how to shatter their conviction. He 
 could not so injure his own name and fame, the 
 strict religion, the coming England, the great serv- 
 ices which he meant yet to perform, as to stand and 
 say, " I lied." He could see that even if he said it, he 
 would not be believed. They would say, "Your 
 fever still confuses your head." Or they might say, 
 "They are casting their spells still." Or they might 
 ask, "Who, then, struck you?" ... It was impos- 
 sible. . . . Even did they believe it, what would it 
 alter? Nothing! The apostate and sorcerer was 
 in any event doomed. A straw more or less would 
 make no difference. Surely one out of the circle of 
 God's mercy need not be too closely considered. . . . 
 But he paled with the issue thrown so by the man 
 himself between them. 
 
 254 
 
ADERHOLD AND CARTHEW 
 
 He paled; then desperately opened the gates to 
 anger the restorative, and jealousy that shredded 
 shame to the winds. Moreover, there flashed into 
 his soul in storm a suspicion. "Who struck me? 
 Knowest thou that? If thou knowest that, then, 
 indeed" 
 
 But Aderhold knew not that. He stood with 
 folded arms and a steady face. It was now to sum- 
 mon the ancient virtue, to play truly the Repub- 
 lican, the free man, now to summon courage for 
 others. Life! Life! And what men and women had 
 suffered would be suffered again. And still the ether 
 sprang clear and time stretched endlessly, and what 
 was lost here might be found there. He looked at 
 Harry Carthew with a steadfast face, and reckoned 
 that the younger man was unhappier than he. 
 
 The door opened with a heavy sound and Master 
 Clement reappeared. Carthew flung himself toward 
 him, his face distorted. "Naught naught! And 
 now I think the worst I tell you I think the 
 worst " 
 
 "I have always thought the worst, " said Master 
 Clement. "Send him hence now, and let us see these 
 others." 
 
 . . , Aderhold moved before the red-faced, wry- 
 mouthed gaoler through the dark passageway and 
 down the stair, back to the chill and darkness of his 
 dungeon. Within it, the gaoler made a moment's 
 pause before he should turn and, departing, shut 
 the thick door with the sound of a falling slab of a 
 
 255 
 
THE WITCH 
 
 sepulchre. He stood, to the eye a rude and porten- 
 tous figure, but to the inward vision giving off at 
 times relieving glints. 
 
 "Everything goes," he said in a deep and rusty 
 voice, "by looking at more than just itself. In an- 
 other day in England or in another country to-day, 
 you 'd have been racked or put to the scarpines till, 
 when they wanted you, we 'd have.had to carry you ! " 
 
 "That's true enough," said Aderhold. "One 
 should have a grateful heart! . . . True enough - 
 as I know as I know!" 
 
 "It's ten days to assizes," said the gaoler. "It 
 is n't lawful to put folk to the question in England 
 though if you stand mute, there 's peine forte et 
 dure and of course nobody 's going to do anything 
 that is n't lawful! But you know yourself there are 
 ways " 
 
 k "Yes," said Aderhold. "Do you mean that they 
 will be used?" 
 
 But the gaoler grew surly again. "I don't know 
 anything except that they want your confession. 
 They've got a story that's going to be sold in chap- 
 books all over England and ballads made and 
 of course they want all the strange things in. It 's like 
 the pictures of George and the Dragon the more 
 dreadful the dragon, the taller man is the George! 
 The town 's all abuzz with the King writing a 
 learned letter, and the bishop coming and the Witch 
 Judge. They want a dreadful dragon and the tall- 
 est kind of George!" 
 
ADERHOLD AND CARTHEW 
 
 "I see," said Aderhold. "Even the dragon, the 
 spear at his throat, expected to flatter! O Dio- 
 genes! let us laugh, if we die for it!" 
 
 "Anan?" said the gaoler. "Well, it stands that 
 way." 
 
 The door shut behind him, grating and heavy. 
 That it stood that way Aderhold found in the days 
 that followed. . . . 
 
 It drew toward assizes. Five days before the time 
 he found himself one late afternoon, after a weary, 
 weary hour of facing the commission, again in the 
 long, dusky prison room where he had seen Joan. 
 He knew now that it was a kind of antechamber, a 
 place where prisoners were drawn together to wait 
 occasions. More than once during these last days 
 he had been kept here for minutes at a time, and 
 sometimes others had been here and sometimes 
 not. But Joan Heron never. One day he had seen 
 Dorothy, and in passing had managed a moment's 
 word. "Dorothy, Dorothy! I am sorry " Doro- 
 thy had gasped and shrunk aside. "Oh, wicked 
 man! Oh, Master Aderhold " He had seen also 
 the youth with a clear passion for knowledge to 
 whom he had lent books and talked of Copernicus 
 and Galileo. This one had not been fearful of him. 
 
 To-day he saw neither this youth nor Dorothy. 
 But suddenly, as he stood waiting his gaoler's lei- 
 sure, he was aware of Joan Heron. . . . From some- 
 where came a red sunset light, and it followed and 
 enwrapped her as she moved. She was moving with 
 
 257 
 
THE WITCH 
 
 her arm in the grasp of a man of a curious and sinis- 
 ter look moving by the wall at the end of the 
 room moving across, then back again, across 
 again and back, across and back. . . . Aderhold drew 
 near, and it was as though an iron hand closed hard 
 upon and wrung his heart. 
 
 Joan went very slowly, dragging her limbs, more 
 haled by the man than moving of volition. Her 
 form swayed, seemed as if all and only its desire was 
 to sink together, fall upon the earth and lie there 
 with time and motion ended in one stroke. Her 
 head was sunken forward, her eyes closed. 
 
 The man shook her savagely. "No sleeping! 
 When you are willing to tell your witch deeds, then 
 you shall sleep!" 
 
 "Joan! Joan!" cried Aderhold. He moved beside 
 the two. The man looked at him but, stupid or curi- 
 ous, neither thrust him off nor dragged his charge 
 away. It was but for a moment. 
 
 Joan opened her eyes. "You?" she said. "All I 
 want is to sleep, sleep " 
 
 Her face was ghastly, exhausted. Aderhold 
 uttered a groan. " Do they not let you sleep either? " 
 she said. "Five days, five nights and I am 
 thirsty, too." 
 
 He managed to touch her hand. "Joan, Joan 
 
 She looked at him with lustreless eyes. "The 
 others have all made up something to confess. But 
 though I die, I will not. They may twist a cord 
 around my head and I will not." A spasm crossed 
 
 258 
 
ADERHOLD AND GARTHEW 
 
 her face. " Of their vileness they may set the witch- 
 pricker on me and I will not." Her voice, mono- 
 tonous and low, died away. The man haled her by 
 the arm, forcing her to walk. She reeled against 
 him. "Sleep . . . sleep. Oh, let me sleep!" A door 
 opened. The man with her looked up, nodded, 
 put his hands on both her shoulders and pushed 
 her toward it. Her eyes closed again, her head sank 
 forward. Together the two vanished, leaving to 
 Aderhold a sense of midnight and the abyss. 
 
CHAPTER XX 
 
 THE WITCH JUDGE 
 
 THE WITCH JUDGE sat high; beside him his circuit 
 fellow who was a nonentity; a step or two lower 
 a row of local magistrates. The hall was large and 
 high, time-darkened, powdered with amber sun- 
 shine entering through narrow windows. The com- 
 mission that had so zealously discharged its duties 
 had a place of honour. The bishop was seated as 
 high as the judge, around him those of the clergy 
 who did not sit with the commission. The earl was 
 away from the castle, but at an early moment in the 
 proceedings there came in his kinsman, Sir Richard. 
 One of the justices whispered to the nonentity- 
 judge, who whispered to the Witch Judge. The 
 Witch Judge stopped short in a foaming and thun- 
 derous speech and waited until the earl's kinsman 
 should be seated. His air recognized the importance 
 of the entrance; he slightly inclined his enormous, 
 grizzled head, then returned to his hurtling thun- 
 ders. 
 
 The jury sat in its place. Farmers and tradesmen, 
 it sat a stolid twelve, and believed implicitly that one 
 who said that there was truth in the Bible, and also 
 that which was not truth must be hanged or burned. 
 What else was there to do with him? It had as firm 
 
 260 
 
THE WITCH JUDGE 
 
 an assurance that your misbeliever was always ypur 
 necromancer. Indeed, you exhibited and proved the 
 wickedness of his unbelieving by the nauseous ill of 
 his conduct. That was why examiners and commis- 
 sions sought always until they found the thread that 
 led to Satan's visible ownership. As for the Haw- 
 thorn witches the jury saw them hanging in a row, 
 and purposed buying the ballads that would certain- 
 ly be made. 
 
 The hall was crowded. It was the most exciting 
 kind of trial that could happen barring only, 
 perhaps, an occasional case of Ibse majeste. But this 
 was also Use majesti. They all saw God as a King 
 with a gold crown and throne and court ; and Satan 
 as a derision-covered rebel, and his imps and serv- 
 ants very ugly when they were not at times very 
 beautiful and doom like a Traitor's Gate, and 
 hell a Tower from which there was never any coming 
 forth. . . . And it was good to feel such loyal sub- 
 jects, and to marvel and cry out, "Eh, sirs! To 
 think of any thinking that!" . . . The hall was 
 crowded, hot, and jostling. Young and old were here, 
 full means and narrow means, lettered and unlet- 
 tered, town and country, for many walked each day 
 from Hawthorn, birth and the commonalty, they 
 who held with the Episcopacy, and they who were 
 turning Puritan, zealots and future sectaries, shep- 
 herds and sheep! And the neighbours of the accused 
 as many as could get here and those who had 
 sat with them in Hawthorn Church and the wit- 
 
 261 
 
THE WITCH 
 
 nesses and sufferers, fresh numbers of these being 
 continually discovered. Now the hall held its breath 
 while a witness was being questioned, or the counsel 
 for the Crown spoke, or the Witch Judge thundered, 
 and now it buzzed and hummed like the bees that 
 they said were bewitched. Heat, many bodies in con- 
 tact and a mist of breaths, an old, old contagion of 
 opinion old as savagery . . . 
 
 The Witch Judge was to most a fearful delight. 
 No silent, listening, seldom-speaking judge was he! 
 He? had a voice like rolling thunder and an animus 
 against just those wrongs judgement upon which 
 had swelled his reputation. He overbore; he thun- 
 dered in where Jove would have left matters to lesser 
 divinities; he questioned, answered, tried, and 
 judged. He loved to hear his own voice and took 
 and made occasions* Nor would he hasten to the 
 end, but preferred to draw matters out in long re- 
 verberations. He was prepared to give a week, if 
 need be, to this trial which was concluded ere he 
 took his seat. In all, in the Hawthorn matter, there 
 were eight folk to be tried. Destroy one, destroy all, 
 principal and accessories, the whole hung together! 
 But he was prepared with devices and flourishes, and 
 for each soul on trial specific attention and cat- and- 
 mouse play, for the Witch Judge loved to show his 
 variousness. . . . The practice of the age was every- 
 where elastic enough, but in no trials so licensed as in 
 such as this. What need for scruples when you dealt 
 with Satan? . . . No counsel Was allowed the pris- 
 
 262 
 
THE WITCH JUDGE 
 
 oners. If ever there was floating in the air a notion 
 that the judge should be counsel for prisoners, 
 guarding them from injustice and oppression, it had 
 made no lodgement in this judge's ear. 
 
 The writ de hceretico comburendo! The Witch Judge 
 thundered forth the text of it, then preached his 
 sermon. This wretched man, this wicked leech, this 
 miscreant, blasphemer, and infidel had made con- 
 fession of his crime of apostasy the most enor- 
 mous under heaven confessing it without tears, 
 shame, or penitence! Confessing! nay, avowing, 
 upholding The Witch Judge glowed fuliginous; 
 his voice of horror seemed to come from the caverns 
 of the earth. "He denieth the actuality of the Holy 
 Trinity he saith that the world was not made in 
 six days and is not composed and constructed as set 
 forth in the Holy Scriptures he refuseth to believe 
 in the remission of sins by the shedding of blood 
 No language nor tongues," cried the Witch Judge, 
 "can set forth the enormity of his error, sin, and 
 crime! Let him burn, as God saith he will burn, 
 through eternity and back again !" The phrase 
 caught the fancy of the throng. It came back in a 
 deep and satisfied murmur. Through eternity and 
 back again. 
 
 On crackled and roared the Witch Judge's thun- 
 der. Convict by manifold testimony and impeccable 
 witnesses, and wholly and terminably convict by his 
 own confession without violence, it remained the 
 authority of Holy Religion and the Ecclesiastical 
 
 , 263 
 
THE WITCH 
 
 Court being present in the person of my Lord Bishop 
 it remained but to give judgement and pass sen- 
 tence upon the apostate ! In regard to his apostasy. 
 But this wicked leech rested also under a charge of 
 sorcery sorcery of the blackest sorcery which he 
 obdurately denied ! Let him, then, before judgement 
 given, be tried for his sorcery he with these 
 wretched others, for Satan hunteth not with one 
 beagle, but with many ! 
 
 The Witch Judge half rose, puffed himself forth, 
 became more than ever a bolt-darting Jupiter. 
 Trials for heresy, apostasy, blasphemy were not in 
 themselves wholly his element. But let them darken 
 and lower as indeed, they almost always did darken 
 and lower into questions of actual physical contact 
 and trade dealings with the Hereditary Foe, then he 
 was in his element! . . . Wizards and witches! The 
 Witch Judge shook his hand above the prisoners. 
 "And let not any think Witchcraft to be other or less 
 than Apostasy, Idolatry, and Blasphemy! If Apos- 
 tasy is the Devil's right hand, Witchcraft makes his 
 left his left? Nay, his right and most powerful, 
 for here is your apostate in action here is your un- 
 believer upon his Lord Satan's business!" Witch- 
 craft! Witchcraft! The^Witch Judge paced around, 
 threw lurid lights upon the crime he battened on. 
 His tribute of huge words rolled beneath the groined 
 roof and shook the hearts of the fearful. There came 
 back from the crowd a sighing and muttering, half- 
 ecstatic, half- terrified, low sound. The word of God 
 
 264 
 
THE WITCH JUDGE 
 
 the command of the Most High, taken from his 
 own lips the plainest order of the King of Kings. 
 
 Thou shall not suffer a witch to live. . . . Statute of 
 the first year of our present Gracious Sovereign, our 
 lord, King James All persons invoking any evil 
 spirit, or consulting, covenanting with, entertaining, 
 employing, jeeding, or rewarding any evil spirit, or tak- 
 ing up dead bodies from their graves to be used in any 
 witchcraft, sorcery, charm, or enchantment, or killing or 
 otherwise hurting any person by such infernal arts, are 
 declared guilty of felony without benefit of clergy and 
 shall suffer death. He had a way of uttering "death " 
 that made the word a distillation of all the suffering 
 man could make for man. 
 
 Preliminary thunders from the Witch Judge 
 ceased. Counsel for the Crown came afterwards like 
 a whistling wind. The long Hawthorn Witch Trial 
 began, and stretched from midsummer day to day. 
 To many it afforded an exciting, day-by-day renewed 
 entertainment; to some it was a fearful dream; 
 to a very few, perhaps, it seemed along, dull, painful 
 watch by mortality's fever bed. Once Aderhold 
 caught the gaze of the earl's kinsman upon him. 
 The eyes of the two met and agreed as to what was 
 passing, then Aderhold looked away. 
 
 The prisoners had their appointed space. At 
 times they were all brought together here; at times 
 the greater number were withdrawn, leaving one or 
 two to be examined separately or together. The heat 
 and the light struck against them, and the waves of 
 
 . 265 
 
THE .WITCH 
 
 sound; from one side came the booming of the 
 judge's voice or the dry shrilling of the king's lawyer; 
 from the other the whisper of the crowd that meant 
 to have witch blood. There were Aderhold, the 
 youth to whom he had given books, the boy of six- 
 teen, old Dorothy's nephew, Dorothy herself, a half- 
 witted woman from a hut between the Grange and 
 the North-End Farm, Grace Maybank, Mother 
 Spuraway, and Joan Heron eight in all. 
 
 Mother Spuraway Now torture was not al- 
 lowed in England, though on the Continent and in 
 Scotland it flared in witch trials to its fullest height. 
 Mother Spuraway, therefore, had not been tortured 
 no more than Aderhold, no more than Joan, no 
 more than others. But it was allowable, where con- 
 fession did not come easily, to hasten it with fasting 
 from bread, water, and sleep all these being with- 
 holdings, not inflictings. There might be, too, insist- 
 ent, long-continued questionings and threats and a 
 multitude of small gins and snares. Mother Spur- 
 away had been long weeks in gaol, and she was old 
 and her faculties, once good, were perhaps not now 
 hard to break down. At any rate, she had a ghastly 
 look and a broken. Since she trembled so that she 
 could not stand, they put her into a chair. 
 
 "Now answer strictly the questions asked you, 
 if you have any hope of mercy!" 
 
 Mother Spuraway put her two trembling hands to 
 her head. " Mercy? Yes, sirs, that is what I want. 
 Mercy." 
 
 66 
 
THE WITCH JUDGE 
 
 "Very well, then! Look on this man and tell us 
 what you know of him." 
 
 The clerks' pens began to scratch. 
 
 Mother Spuraway's gaze was so wandering that 
 while it came across Aderhold, it went on at once to 
 a cobweb above the judge's chair. "He is the 
 Devil," she said* 
 
 "You mean the Devil's servant." 
 
 "Yes oh, yes! Devil's servant. I mean just 
 what Your Honours want." 
 
 The Witch Judge thundered at her. "Woman! it 
 is not what we want. You are to speak the truth. 
 Truth-speaking is what we want." 
 
 Mother Spuraway's head nodded, her eyes fallen 
 now from the cobweb to the judge's robe. " Yes, sirs 
 yes, sirs. You chall have what you want. Oh, yes, 
 sirs!" 
 
 "She asserts," said the counsel for the Crown, 
 "that she tells the truth. You were used to going 
 to sabbats with this man?" 
 
 "Yes, sirs, sabbats, sabbats, sabbats, sab- 
 bats" 
 
 "Give her wine," said the Witch Judge. "She is 
 old. Let her rally herself. Give her wine." 
 
 A gaoler set a cup to her lips and she drank. 
 " Now," said the Crown, "tell us of these sabbats 
 circumstantially." 
 
 Mother Spuraway, revived by the wine, looked 
 from floor to roof and roof to floor and at the com- 
 mission and the Witch Judge and the bishop, and at 
 
 267 
 
THE WITCH 
 
 t&e motes In a broken shaft of light. "We danced 
 about the burned cot all taking hands so ! 
 Sometimes of dark nights we went widdershins 
 around Hawthorn Church sometimes it was 
 around the fairy oak at the Oak Grange. Some- 
 times we danced and sometimes we flew. We rode in 
 the air. I had an oaken horse and Grace had an 
 elmen horse and Dorothy had a willow horse, and 
 Elspeth No- Wit had a beechen horse, and Marget 
 Primrose had a horse of yew " 
 
 There was a movement among the commission. 
 "Marget Primrose," exclaimed Squire Carthew, 
 "died years ago!" 
 
 "She came back. Marget had a yew horse and 
 I had an oaken horse and there were other horses, 
 but I never learned their names. And there were 
 green men " 
 
 "Was this man in green?" 
 
 "No, no! He had on a doctor's cloak. Sometimes 
 he fiddled for us when Satan grew tired." 
 
 "Then he was a chief among you?" 
 
 "Yes, yes, a chief among us. Sometimes we 
 changed to bats and mice and harmless green frogs 
 and hares and owls and other creatures " 
 
 "You did that when you were about to go to 
 folk's houses or fields to injure them?" 
 
 "Yes, sirs, yes, yes about to injure them. 
 Then I was a dog, and Grace a little brown hare, and 
 Dorothy a great frog, and Elspeth No- Wit a bat, 
 and Marget Primrose And we brewed poisons and 
 
 268 
 
THE WITCH JUDGE 
 
 cjiarms in a great cauldron inside the burned CQ|> 
 but at the fairy oak we made little figures out of 
 river clay and stuck them full of pins. And there we 
 had a feast " 
 
 " And this man?" 
 
 "He sat on the green hillock beside Satan, and 
 Satan had a black book. He gave it to him to read 
 in while we were dancing and eating and daffing 
 with the green men and then the cock crew and 
 we all flew home." 
 
 "There were many sabbats?" 
 
 "Oh, yes, many!" 
 
 "And this man was always among you?" 
 
 " Yes, always among us." 
 
 "You say he read in a black book. But he likewise 
 danced and wantoned as did the green men?" 
 
 "Yes, yes! The pretty green men." 
 
 "Be careful now. With whom especially did he 
 work this iniquity. Whom did he single out at each 
 sabbat?" 
 
 "Whom? I do not know whom. . . . Sabbats? 
 There are no such things. Who would leave home at 
 night to wander round oak trees and burned cots? 
 Oh, home, home! Oh, my hut! I want to see my 
 hut!" cried Mother Spuraway. "Oh, good gentle- 
 men! Oh, Your Worships! Oh, Squire Carthew 
 Master Clement! Won't you let me go home? A 
 poor old woman that never harmed a soul " 
 
 The Witch Judge's voice came thundering down. 
 "Her mind is wandering! Thou wretched woman! 
 
 269 
 
THE WITCH 
 
 Dost wish to be taken back to thy prison, and 
 urged anew to confess?" 
 
 But apparently Mother Spuraway did not wish 
 that. She put up her two hands and said, " No, no ! " 
 then, shrunken and shuddering, begged for more 
 wine. They gave it to her. . . . "Now, whom did 
 this sorcerer take in his arms? Was it the maiden of 
 your company ?" 
 
 "Yes, oh, yes! The maiden." 
 
 " The maiden of your company was Joan Heron? " 
 
 "Yes, Joan Heron/' 
 
 The shafts of light were shortening, the earth wheel- 
 ing toward sunset. Without clanged the bells of the 
 great church it was late afternoon. The people 
 who had far to walk, though loath for the entertain- 
 ment to cease, yet approved when the court rose for 
 that day. Morning would not be long, and they pur- 
 posed returning most early in order that good pla- 
 ces might be got. The hall and the square without 
 seethed and sounded with the dispersing crowd. 
 
 Near at hand was the prison, its black mass facing 
 the great square, the pillory in its shadow; beyond, 
 slanting down to the river, the field where they 
 raised the gallows. The prisoners when they were 
 removed were taken, guarded, along by the wall, 
 into the dark, gaping prison mouth. 
 
 Joan walked beside Mother Spuraway. In the 
 last three or four days the hand of withholding had 
 been lifted from the prisoners so that they might get 
 
 370 
 
THE WITCH JUDGE 
 
 their strength. . . . Joan walked with a colourless, 
 thin cheek and shadowed eyes, but walked steadily. 
 But Mother Spuraway could not drag her limbs 
 across the stones ; a gaoler held her roughly up with 
 a force that drew a moan. Presently, his grasp 
 relaxing, she stumbled again and fell. Joan stooped 
 and raised her, then with her arm about her bore 
 her on. "Thank'ee, my pretty maid," said Mother 
 Spuraway. "I'll do as much for you when you are 
 old!' 1 
 
CHAPTER XXI 
 
 THE WITCH 
 
 THE morrow came and went in heat and tenseness 
 and excitement. The third day arrived and passed 
 with no lessening. The fourth day came and the 
 fever ran more high than before. The Crown, the 
 jury, and the Witch Judge, the throng nodding 
 approval, had now checked off Mother Spuraway, 
 Grace Maybank, Dorothy and her nephew, Elspeth 
 No- Wit, and the youth. It remained on this day to 
 concentrate upon and finally dash to earth the main 
 sorcerer and that one who patently had been his 
 paramour and adjutant the "maiden" of the 
 wicked crew. There were many witnesses and much 
 wild testimony. Small facts were puffed out to 
 become monstrous symbols. Where facts failed, the 
 inflamed and morbid imagination invented. It was 
 strange hearing to the two who had dwelled at the 
 Oak Grange and Heron's cottage. . . . 
 
 They questioned Elspeth No-Wit. "You had a 
 meeting the night before the leech was taken?" 
 
 Elspeth laughed and nodded. 
 
 "What did you do there?" 
 
 "We had a big kettle and a great fire. Everybody 
 dropped what she loved best in the kettle. We 
 played and clapped hands and jumped as high as 
 
 272 
 
THE WITCH 
 
 the tree-tops. When we clapped our hands, it 
 thundered, and when we ran around the kettle the 
 wind blew our clothes away." 
 
 "You were brewing the storm that broke next 
 day?" 
 
 "Oh, aye!" 
 
 "The leech and Joan Heron were with you?" 
 
 Elspeth twisted her body and peered around. "Is 
 that Joan Heron and is that the leech? They ran 
 round thrice to our once, and they kissed the closest, 
 and at last they wandered away." 
 
 Will the smith's son was called. "You stopped at 
 Heron's cottage that Sunday evening?" 
 
 Will stammered, looking wild, hollow-eyed, and 
 awed. "Aye, I did, please Your Honour! But I 
 never would have stopped but that it was storming 
 so. My mother was with me, please you, sir." 
 
 " No one means you any ill. It was dark under 
 the clouds without, but there was a light inside the 
 cottage a red light?" 
 
 "Yes, sir; bright like firelight." 
 
 "Hardly, I think, true firelight: a red and strange 
 light. It was well after the hour when the leech 
 had been taken from this Oak Grange?" 
 
 "Aye, Your Honour. 'T was close to dark." 
 
 "With the constable and his men, and Master 
 Carthew riding a part of the way, he must then have 
 been upon the Hawthorn road, his face set to this 
 gaol?" 
 
 "He must have been so, sir, but " 
 
THE WITCH 
 
 " We are coming to that. It is a fact, is it not, that 
 witches and warlocks are able to transport them- 
 selves, with their master Satan's aid, through the 
 air and that so swiftly that you cannot see their 
 flight?" 
 
 "Oh, yes, Your Honour," said Will. "They fly in 
 sieves, and sometimes they steal bats' wings." 
 
 "Very well. Now you and your mother opened 
 this cottage gate and went up the path to the door, 
 and to reach that you had to pass the window. As 
 you did that, passing close, you naturally put fore- 
 head to the frame, and looked within, and the place 
 being filled with that red light " 
 
 " It was n't very bright," said Will. " It was like a 
 faggot had parted on the hearth, and there was 
 now a dancing light, and now it was dark. There 
 was nothing clear, and we heard naught because it 
 was lightning and thundering " 
 
 "And you saw " 
 
 Will moistened his lips. "Yes, sir. She and a 
 black man were together yes, please Your Hon- 
 our, standing locked together " 
 
 "The black man was the leech?" 
 
 "We did n't know it, then, sir How could we," 
 said Will, "when he was three miles the other side of 
 Hawthorn with a guard? But I know it now. It was 
 the leech. And mother and I went on and knocked 
 at the door, and she opened it and there was 
 nobody there but Joan Joan and the grey and 
 white cat. 1 " 
 
 2 74 
 
THE WITCH 
 
 "You stayed no time in that cottage?' 
 
 "No, sir, please Your Honour. There was that 
 that frightened us." 
 
 Will the smith's son was motioned down. They 
 set Mother Spuraway again in the eye of the court 
 Mother Spuraway, wrecked until she was nigh of the 
 fellowship of Elspeth No-Wit. "You have told us 
 that on this Sunday evening you were running in the 
 shape of a hare through field and copse by the Haw- 
 thorn road. We have obtained from you that you 
 saw the leech part from his natural body, having 
 by black magic so blinded the guard that they went 
 on bearing with them but a shadow, a double, and 
 yet unsuspecting that cheat. Now tell us what the 
 sorcerer did." 
 
 Mother Spuraway plucked at the stuff of her 
 kirtle. "He mounted in the air. Storm storm 
 break storm!" 
 
 "He went toward Hawthorn Wood?" 
 
 "Yes, oh, yes! Hawthorn Wood. . . . Rue around 
 the burned cot." 
 
 "That is, toward Heron's cottage. A time 
 passed, and you, crouching then in the hazels by the 
 road, saw him returning. Now, mark! Was there 
 a horseman upon this same Hawthorn road?" 
 
 Mother Spuraway tried to mark, but her mind 
 was wandering again. She preferred, it seemed, to 
 talk of when she was a young woman and Spuraway 
 and she had wandered, hand in hand, in Hawthorn 
 Wood. But one wrenched her arm, and said some- 
 
 275 
 
THE WITCH 
 
 tjjlng in her ear and brought her back with a shiver. 
 "' Horseman'? Oh, aye, Your Worships ! A great, 
 noble horseman." 
 
 "You saw the leech coming across the fields from 
 the direction of Heron's cottage, and you saw this 
 horseman riding through the storm toward Haw- 
 thorn Village. What then?" 
 
 "I ran under the earth," said Mother Spuraway. 
 "For I was now a pretty black mole, dressed all in 
 velvet and blind blind blind blind " 
 
 It was with a different oh, a different, differ- 
 ent tone that they questioned Master Harry Car- 
 thew and harkened solicitously to what he had to 
 tell. All the crowded place leaned forward and lis- 
 tened, in the hot, slanted gold of the fourth after- 
 noon. . . . Joan saw them all, and saw into their 
 minds prone before the foreknown truth of whatever 
 Master Carthew was about to recount. She sat like 
 carven marble and viewed and knew the world she 
 viewed. She saw Alison and Cecily, Will and his 
 mother, Goodman Cole, the forester's wife, Lukin 
 the carter, the tinker, many others. She saw Master 
 Clement and all the clergy and gentry of the com- 
 mission, the court, the spectators. She saw the 
 Witch Judge who was going to hang her. And 
 townspeople with whom she had had acquaintance. 
 . . . The vintner who had wished to marry her was 
 here, pale and of a tremendous inward thankfulness. 
 And servants from the castle, and the new hunts- 
 man. . . . All here to see her hunted her and the 
 
 276 
 
THE WITCH 
 
 others. She felt their tongues go over their lips, aryi 
 the warm indrawing of their shoulders and nursing 
 of their elbows felt and cared not. 
 
 Carthew was speaking in a hollow) short, deter- 
 mined voice. If a black lava torrent of passion and 
 madness was devastating his soul, few enough knew 
 it of all in that thronged place. ... At no previous 
 time had there been such soundlessness in the hall, 
 such keyed and strained attention. Hawthorn, at 
 least, believed that Master Harry Carthew was to 
 be a great man in England, was to climb high,with 
 the Bible in his hand. For the town, that was of 
 another cast of opinion, if it conceived of him 
 hardly so highly, if it shrugged its shoulders and 
 waxed bitter over these mounting Puritans, yet it 
 felt in its heart that they were mounting and gave 
 to their personal qualities an uneasy recognition. 
 It, too, marked Harry Carthew for a coming man 
 though it might not hold with Hawthorn that the 
 fact of Satan's striking through the sorcerer's hand 
 at this life marked a recognition on Satan's part of 
 qualities the most dangerous to his sovereignty. 
 And Carthew was young, and, though yet gaunt and 
 pale and hardly recovered from that felon blow, of 
 a manly form and a well-looking face. All through 
 the long trial he had sat there so evidently poisoned 
 and suffering urged now by his brother and now 
 by others to leave and take his rest, yet never go- 
 ing sitting there with his eyes upon this murder- 
 ing wizard. . . . The throng was ready to make him 
 
 277 
 
THE WITCH 
 
 into the hero, the visible St. George standing 
 there now with his spear lifted to give the one last, 
 needed blow. . . . There was the dragon, there! the 
 pale leech and all the wretches with him, and dim 
 and horrible behind him all his train of evil works, 
 and Satan horned and hoofed, spreading enormous 
 bat wings, making the very hall brown and dusky! 
 Full beside the leech, in all minds now, stood that 
 most vile witch Joan Heron. 
 
 Carthew's words were few but explicit. "The sky 
 was very dark there seemed more thunder and 
 lightning than there had been. I was several miles 
 this side of Hawthorn. I was riding without regard- 
 ing the road, my mind being on other things. My 
 horse stopped short, then reared. I felt the blow. It 
 was given by a cloaked figure that immediately 
 vanished. . . . Yes, it bore resemblance to the leech, 
 Gilbert Aderhold." 
 
 The words fell, aimed and deliberate, like the exe- 
 cutioner's flaming tow upon the straw between the 
 piled logs. A stillness followed as though the throng 
 were waiting with parted lips for the long upward 
 run of the flame. Then out of it came Joan's voice, 
 quiet, distinct, clear, pitched loudly enough to reach 
 from wall to wall. "Thou liar! Know all here that 
 that man whom Will the smith's son has called 
 the black man and saw through my window 
 that man" she stood, her arm outstretched and 
 her finger pointing "that man was this man who 
 speaks to you ! Know all here that for weary months 
 
 278 
 
THE WITCH 
 
 Master Harry Carthew had pursued and entreated 
 me who speak to you now that when he turned 
 that afternoon upon the Hawthorn road it was 
 to ride to Heron's cottage and break in upon me 
 there! Know that Will the smith's son, looking 
 through the window, saw him. But he, hearing 
 those two knock, and fearing discovery that would 
 spot his fame, snatched up his cloak and made off 
 through another door. But he hid not far away, and 
 when they were gone and darkness had fallen, back 
 he came, stealing in at night upon a woman alone. 
 Know all of you here that I wanted not his love. 
 Know all that we struggled together, and that I 
 struck him in the side with a hunting-knife. Know 
 all that he rode from Heron's cottage to Carthew 
 House, and to save himself lied as you have heard!" 
 
 She stood an instant longer with her arm out- 
 stretched and her eyes upon Carthew, then slowly 
 turned, moved past Aderhold, and, taking her place 
 between Mother Spuraway and Grace Maybank, 
 leaned her elbow on her knee and her chin on 
 her hand. 
 
 The Witch Judge's instantaneous thunder, the 
 clamour of voices, the hubbub in the hall appeared 
 to give her no especial concern. When silence was 
 obtained, and Carthew, white as death, gave a cate- 
 gorical denial, she only slightly moved her shoul- 
 ders, and continued her contemplative gaze upon 
 this scene and much besides. That if the crowd 
 could have gotten at her she would most likely have 
 
 279 
 
THE WITCH 
 
 paid with death at once for her brazen mendacity, 
 "her measureless vile attempt to blacken one whom 
 the Enemy most evidently feared and hated, ap- 
 peared to trouble her neither. She sat as still as 
 though consciousness were elsewhere. . . . 
 
 The next day it ended the Hawthorn apostasy- 
 sorcery-witchcraft trial. Judgement was given, 
 sentence passed. The court, the crowd, the bishop, 
 Hawthorn, the town, all seemed well of a mind. 
 Death for six of the eight. For the youth who read 
 too much and for the boy, old Dorothy's nephew, 
 pillory and imprisonment; but for the six, death. 
 Burning for the apostate and sorcerer, the leech 
 Aderhold, though, so squeamish grew the times, he 
 might be strangled first. For the five witches the 
 gallows though it was said that the old woman 
 Dorothy had sickened with gaol-fever and would 
 not live to be hanged. The sheriff would see to it 
 that the execution took place within the month. In 
 the mean time close prison for the evil-doers, and 
 some thought, maybe, on how the Church and the 
 Law for ever overmatched the Devil. 
 
CHAPTER- XXII 
 
 ESCAPE 
 
 JOAN sat on the edge of her straw bed, with her arms 
 around her knees and her eyes upon the blank wall. 
 For something to do she had been plaiting straws, 
 making braids of many strands and laying them 
 beside her in squares and triangles and crosses, 
 That had palled, and now she was determinedly 
 using the inner vision. The one thing she was bent 
 upon was neither to think nor to feel these past days, 
 weeks, and months, not to think or to feel at all 
 closer than a year ago. She could bring back, she 
 could recompose, she could live again, though with 
 much subtle difference, where she had lived before. 
 She could image forth, too ; she could guide a waking 
 dream. Now, with all the might that was in her, she 
 made her prison cell to grow what once as a child she 
 had seen, the sandy shore of the boundless sea. That 
 was freedom, that was light and wind and space! 
 Then she had raced along the 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 sat motionless. . . . One by one she 
 added the other prisoners, until they all ran away by 
 the sea beach, all hastening with the cool wind at 
 their back and the free blue sky before. She drew 
 
 281 
 
THE WITCH 
 
 ahead. They were free and running to some happy 
 land, but their presence made it harder not to think 
 or feel, and so she ran ahead. Sea and sky, and harm 
 forgot. . . . One was running beside her, leaving, too, 
 the others. She would not image this one plainly, 
 but they ran and ran, the sand beneath their feet. 
 ... It never occurred to her that this was magic, 
 nor, if it had occurred, 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, the man who had 
 watched her that she should not sleep ! She did not 
 turn her head or speak; perhaps to-day he would 
 put down the jug of water and the crust of bread and 
 go without attempt at parley. 
 
 But he was standing waiting, his hand upon the 
 door which he had drawn to behind him. "Hist ! " he 
 said; "Joan Heron!" 
 
 The voice was different. When she had turned 
 swiftly she saw that it was another man, a lean, 
 nervous, quaint-faced man in a stained leather jer- 
 kin. Across the years since the huntsman's house 
 and the castle wood and the castle and its servants 
 there shot a memory. "Gervaise!" she said: "Ger- 
 vaise, Sir Richard's man!" 
 
 "Ah," said Gervaise with a jerk of his head; 
 "you've got a good memory! I hope that others' 
 are n't as good! I Ve been out of these parts for the 
 length of two Indies voyages." 
 
 282 
 
ESCAPE 
 
 He opened the door, put out his head and glanced 
 up and down the passageway, then, with a satisfied 
 nod, drew back, shut the door, and came close to 
 Joan. " But I 'm Sir Richard's man still, though not, 
 I would have you note, to the world no, not to the 
 world ! The man who up till now locked and 
 unlocked this door had a dream of a purse of gold, 
 and so yesterday he quit the gaol's service with a 
 speech to all men that he was sick halfway to death 
 with a shaking cold palsy! But by good fortune he 
 had a cousin to slip in his place. I am the cousin 
 for the nonce, for the nonce ! Hist, Joan ; I remember 
 thee well at thy uncle's there in the wood ! I '11 tell 
 thee what I once said to him. I said, said I, 'That 
 niece of thine 's got courage and wit ! ' Joan, see 
 this bundle!" He placed it beside her upon the 
 straw. 
 
 "Aye," said Joan. "What's in it?" 
 
 "Good, plain apprentice doublet, hose, cap, and 
 shoon! Scissors likewise to cut long hair." 
 
 Joan's hand closed upon it, but she said nothing. 
 She looked at him with parted lips and a light in her 
 eyes. 
 
 "Just so ! " said Gervaise. " It 's now close to sun- 
 set. At nine of the clock I'll be here again. Put 
 everything you have on put your long cut hair 
 into the smallest bundle you may. So, if I win you 
 forth as a youth, my helper God blinding them to 
 the fact that I never brought you in! they'll find 
 no stitch of you to-morrow. ' The witch the 
 
 283 
 
THE WITCH 
 
 witch hath vanished into thin air! No other one 
 than Master Satan did ever help her forth!" 
 
 "And when I'm forth?" said Joan. 
 
 "One thing at a time ! " answered the new gaoler. 
 "A before B; bud before flower! 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 the others! How do you think it 
 possible that I should make a complete gaol deliv- 
 ery? It is not possible not in the least possible." 
 
 "Why do you choose out me? And I thank you, 
 Gervaise, but I think that I 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, and while 
 you listen, just bear in mind that this is a dangerous 
 business ! Figure some authority out there storming, 
 'Where, in Cerberus's name, is the new gaoler?' 
 Keep that in mind, I say, and that time's gold- 
 gold? nay, rubies and diamonds! Now, look you! 
 'T is no easy jaunt, forth from this prison and town, 
 to some land of safety for witches and warlocks! 
 Naught but courage and wit and strength and good 
 luck by the armful will make it and a crowd 
 would never make it ! There are two who are not to 
 suffer death but if they tried to flee and were 
 taken, as, of course, they most likely would be, they 
 would suffer it! Common sense saith, 'Those two 
 
 284 
 
ESCAPE 
 
 are better where they are/ The old woman named 
 Dorothy died to-day. She 's gone anyhow made 
 her escape clean, with Death and the scythe and 
 hourglass. Do you think that Mother Spuraway 
 could be dragged free do you think that she could 
 run and lie hidden and disguise herself, and starve if 
 need be? For Grace Maybank she hath pleaded 
 that she is with child, and is not to be hanged until 
 the elfling is born. Naught can be done there. And 
 Elspeth No-Wit sits and laughs, and the sweetest 
 words would not persuade her forth. " He ceased 
 speaking and stood with his light blue eyes upon her. 
 
 1 ' There is," said Joan," one other." 
 
 "Aye, aye," said Gervaise. "Well, you see mine 
 is the kindly feeling to youward, and Sir Richard's 
 is the kindly feeling to him ward. Not that Sir 
 Richard hath not a kindly feeling to youward like- 
 wise! But, I know not 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 import- 
 ance to yourself, this is a rescue planned in the first 
 place for the sorcerer and not for the witch! But 
 when I am brought in having, see you, watched 
 you from a nook in the crowd through the trial I 
 say to Sir Richard. . . . More than my saying, the 
 sorcerer makes some such catechism as you Ve been 
 making, and will only have freedom on terms. So 
 Sir Richard nods and agrees. Double peril! But if 
 
 285 
 
THE WITCH 
 
 he will not come forth else? Then I may say that 
 Sir Richard, too, marked you, if for a witch, then 
 a brave witch, and that he hath a taste for the 
 quality." 
 
 " Do you mean that Master Aderhold escapes this 
 night?" 
 
 "'Escapes*! 'escapes'! I know not who es- 
 capes. It's full of peril. But Humphrey Lantern, 
 who takes him bread and water, served under Sir 
 Richard in the wars. He's weary of turning keys, 
 and hath an itch to see far countries. I know not; 
 Fate's got it all hidden. But if the stars are 
 propitious, you might touch another prisoner's hand 
 on the dark, windy road." 
 
 He stopped speaking. Joan took up the braided 
 straws and laid them again in patterns, then 
 brushed them aside. She sat with one hand in the 
 other, her eyes upon the wall. Then she stood up, 
 tall in her ragged gown. "Thank you, Gervaise! If 
 it goes wrong, save yourself, for no worse harm can 
 come to me. I'll make ready." 
 
 The sunset light dyed the town, the looping river, 
 the castle on the hill, the great church, and the pri- 
 son 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 between a wavering dusk. The new 
 gaoler and a youth, whom he mentioned to one they 
 met as his nephew and helper, pursued these pas- 
 sages with a slow step and a halt here and a halt 
 
 286 
 
ESCAPE 
 
 there, as the gaoler's duties presented themselves. 
 . . . But at last they turned a corner and saw before 
 them a low portal. "Win through that and we're 
 outside ! " muttered Gervaise. " I Ve the key and 
 it would make a story, my getting it! Oiled, too." 
 
 Right and left and behind them they saw no one. 
 He stopped. The key went in noiselessly, turned 
 noiselessly, the door opened outward, they felt, 
 instead of the heavy breath of the gaol, the air of the 
 wide night. 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 stand- 
 ing yonder by the wall." 
 
 Gervaise nodded. " There T s hope they 're Lantern 
 and the other. We agreed " 
 
 They crept toward the two. Hope changed to 
 certainty. There were some whispered 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 they left it for the wide 
 darkness of the square they heard voices, and staves 
 striking against the stones, and saw the lanterns of 
 the watch. The pillory was at hand; they drew into 
 its shadow, pressing close beneath the platform. 
 
 Swinging lanterns, forms ebon and tawny, foot- 
 steps, voices, approached, seemed to envelop them, 
 
 287 
 
THE WITCH 
 
 passed, lessened in" bulk toward the High Street. 
 The orange spheres of light dwindled to points, the 
 voices from frightfully hoarse and loud thinned to a 
 murmur afar. The four, Gervaise leading, moved 
 from the pillory, friendly for once, and struck across 
 the considerable open place. The hour was late and 
 the townspeople housed. They saw no one in all the 
 square. But as they came into the shadow of the 
 great church tower they again heard voices nearing 
 them roistering voices of young men, petty gal- 
 lants and citizens' sons, homeward bound from 
 some place of drinking and outcasts' favours. "The 
 church porch," motioned Gervaise. Like swallows 
 they sped across and lodged themselves in the 
 shadow-filled, cavernous place. 
 
 The roisterers came close, elected, indeed, just 
 here to arrest their steps 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! That vile 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 
 288 
 
ESCAPE 
 
 a vile witch and devil'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, struck between. "Will you have the watch 
 upon us and be clapped up for whether a vile witch's 
 eyes are grey or green? Grey or green or blue or 
 black or brown, ere the month be gone the crows 
 will pick them out ! Put up your blades ! I told 
 you so ! The watch ' ' 
 
 True it was that the watch was coming back. The 
 roisterers fell suddenly into hushed and amicable 
 converse, began to move, too, from before the 
 church. But the watch were coming hastily, were 
 already within eyeshot of the porch. It was not so 
 dark now, either. 
 
 "The moon is up," muttered Gervaise. "We 
 should have been clear of the town " 
 
 It was rising, indeed, above the housetops. The 
 watch and the young men were in parley, fifty yards 
 away. The four from the prison pressed more closely 
 into the shadow of the pillars. They stood in black- 
 ness and watched the full round moon silver the 
 houses and the uneven floor of the square. The 
 moonbeams touched the portal, picked out the car- 
 ven figures that adorned it. Watch and the explan- 
 atory 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 
 
 289 
 
THE WITCH 
 
 needed to wait until all was again peace and sleeping 
 time. 
 
 Aderhold spoke for the first time since the four 
 had left the prison alley. The apprentice youth 
 stood near him. They leaned against the one pillar, 
 and though they thought not of it, they had among 
 other seemings, in the lapping light and darkness, 
 the seeming of two bound to one stake. He spoke in 
 a whisper. "You are not afraid?' 1 
 
 "No." 
 
 " I knew that you would not be. Little worse can 
 come, and something that is better may." 
 
 "Yes. ... I had rather sink trying." 
 
 The moon whitened the carvings of the porch. 
 Grotesque after grotesque came into the light: the 
 man with the head of a wolf, the woman with a bat 
 spreading its wings across her eyes, the demons, the 
 damned, the beatified exulting over the damned, fox 
 and goat and ape crossed with man and woman. 
 The silver, calm light turned all from black to grey. 
 The wind whispered, the nearer stars shone, the 
 moon travelled her ancient road and threw trans- 
 formed sunlight upon the earth. The minutes passed, 
 the town lay fast asleep. 
 
 Gervaise moved from the porch, the others fol- 
 lowed. They would not pass through the town; they 
 took a steep street which led them first down to the 
 river, and then, as steeply mounting, up to the castle 
 wood. They went in silence, with a rapid step, and 
 came without mishap under the shadow of the sum- 
 
 290 
 
ESCAPE 
 
 mer trees. Here was a wall which they climbed, 
 dropping from its top into fern and brush. Joan 
 knew the path that they took, a skirting path, 
 walled with bracken, arched over by oak boughs. 
 They heard wild things moving, but no human 
 tongue questioned them. It was cool and dim, and 
 because the moon was riding high and they must 
 make all haste, they ran along this path which 
 stretched a mile and more. 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 walked to his patients, and 
 where there was need walked fast; Joan, a woman of 
 Arcady, with a step as light as a panther's. These 
 two had behind them prison inaction and weaken- 
 ing, prison fare, anxiety, despair, strain, and tor- 
 ment. They were not in health and strength as they 
 had been. But instinct furnished a mighty spur; if 
 they must run to live, they would run ! They ran in 
 the scented darkness, the bracken brushing their 
 arms, the moon sending against them, between the 
 oak boughs, a silver flight of hurtless arrows. The 
 mile was overpast, the path widened into a moon- 
 lit vale, the vale swept downward to a fringing cliff, 
 by day not formidable, but difficult in this gliding, 
 watery light. The four, with some risk of broken 
 limbs, swung themselves down by jutting root and 
 stone, dropped at last a sheer twelve feet, and found 
 themselves clear of the wood and the castle heights, 
 
 291 
 
THE WITCH 
 
 clear of the town, out upon the 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 as to 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 and gleam- 
 ing it might be a friend, it might be an enemy! 
 Over them soared the night, far off they saw sleeping 
 houses. The air was astir, the shadows of the trees 
 dancing on the road. 
 
 They measured a mile, two miles. The road 
 climbed somewhat; before them, in the flooding 
 moonlight, they saw a gibbet with its arm and down- 
 hanging chains. 
 
 "I know this place," said Aderhold. 
 
 The wry-mouthed man wagged his head. " Creak, 
 creak ! Once I saw fifty such in a lane, and the air was 
 black with birds ! This one 's stood clean for a year." 
 
 It was like a letter against the sky. Joan stared at 
 it. Her lips parted. "I would cut it down and set 
 fire to it, and warm some beggar and her child." 
 
 Gervaise was looking about him. "The cross- 
 roads are not far from here. He said " 
 
 "Stand still. There's a horseman there." 
 
 Gervaise nodded his head and continued to move 
 forward. The horseman moved from the lane mouth 
 into the road. Even before Gervaise turned and 
 
 292 
 
ESCAPE 
 
 bgckoned, Aderhold^aw who it wast "The man 
 with the hawk," he said, and smiled. 
 
 The man of the hawk and of the silver box dis- 
 mounted, threw the reins over his horse's neck, and 
 stepped forward to meet them. Road and lane and 
 fields, the heap of rock amid foxgloves where Ader- 
 hold had sat one summer afternoon, the knoll 
 crowned by the gibbet all lay bare of human life, 
 whitened by the moon. 
 
 "Ha, philosopher!" said Sir Richard. " Places 
 called of ill omen are often 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!' And yet 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 through all time a friend to folk and 
 find them friends to you!" 
 
 She stood tall and straight in man's dress. She 
 had cut away the lengths of hair. A man's cap 
 rested upon the short, thick locks. At first she made 
 no motion to remove this cap; instead, as she faced 
 Sir Richard, she made, involuntarily, the bend of 
 knee that formed a curtsy; then, as instantly, she 
 caught herself, recovered her height, and lifting her 
 hand doffed the cap, and stood with it held against 
 her breast. 
 
 293 
 
THE WITCH 
 
 The man from the castle gave a genial laugh. 
 There was admiration in the sound. " Quick to 
 learn ! A flexible free mind and courage ! Good 
 youth, I seem to remember you at the old hunts- 
 man's house/' 
 
 "At times my father wrote for you, please you, 
 Sir Richard. And twice or thrice you came and sat 
 in the porch and talked with him and my uncle. 
 And once it was cherry time, and I brought you a 
 dish of cherries." 
 
 "I remember! And then you both went away." 
 His kindly look dwelled upon her. " I watched you 
 through that five-days' comedy in the Judgement 
 Hall yonder. I found it worth my mind's while to 
 watch you ; no less worth it than to watch this other 
 that they called servant of Evil! As for thanks, 
 it is yet to be seen if there is much reason." He 
 spoke to them both. "I am putting you on the 
 road to the nearest port, and when you reach it 
 I can bring you to a ship there. But before you 
 reach it, you may be taken, and if you reach it and 
 enter the ship, I cannot answer for what will come to 
 you afterwards in life. I may be no friend at all." 
 
 "Friend, whatever conies," said Aderhold. "If 
 we die to-morrow, friend on the other side of that." 
 
 "We'll touch hands on that," answered Sir 
 Richard. "And now, seeing that you must go on to 
 the cross-roads, I will speak while we walk." 
 
 They put themselves into motion, five human 
 figures now upon the road, and the horse following 
 
 294 
 
ESCAPE 
 
 his master. The two escaped prisoners and their 
 helper moved ahead; behind them came Gervaise 
 and the gaoler, discoursing in whispers. The moon 
 shone down, the wind took a harp-like tone. 
 
 "At the cross-roads you four Humphrey Lan- 
 tern, that was a good man-at-arms in the Low 
 Countries, and Gervaise, a born wanderer and a man 
 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 you reach it or reach it 
 not, one wiser than I may tell! Gervaise knows a 
 place where you may lie hidden to-morrow, going on 
 at nightfall. You may or may not save yourselves. 
 On the way thither I can give you but my wishes. 
 But when you come to the port, if you come to 
 the port, go at once to the harbour and find out 
 the Silver Queen." He gave a packet wrapped 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 of adventurers and in- 
 dentured men. In Virginia are forests and savage 
 men and wild beasts, but less preoccupation, maybe, 
 with Exclusive Salvation and the Guilt of Doubt 
 though even in Virginia a still tongue were certainly 
 best!- To Virginia is the only help that I can give." 
 
 "I am content," said Aderhold. 
 295 
 
THE WITCH 
 
 *5The man of the hawk looked at Joan; 
 
 " I am content," she said. 
 
 1 * Good ! ' ' said Sir Richard. ' ' Humphrey Lantern 
 is all for adventure and a new world. But Gervaise, 
 when he has seen you safely shipped, will manage to 
 cross to Ireland and take service for a time with my 
 brother there. Next year I 'm for France, and I look 
 to find Gervaise dropped like 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 had n't thought, Your Honour. . . . George 
 is a good name George Dragon, Sir Richard." 
 
 The little company fell silent, walking in the 
 mooonlight upon a road bare 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, 
 things done and suffered, old life. Before them 
 stretched something new, strange life, bare as yet 
 of feature as the road before them. Their imagina- 
 tions were not busy with it; they left it veiled, but 
 yet they felt its presence. . . . Undoubtedly, even at 
 this moment, even earlier than this moment, their 
 escape might be discovered. Already the hue and 
 cry might be raised. Even now the finders might be 
 on their track. They might be seized long ere they 
 could reach the port, or, having reached it, before 
 
 296 
 
ESCAPE 
 
 could reach the Silver Queen. The Silver 
 Queen might be searched before it sailed. They 
 might be dragged back. The gallows and the stake 
 might be cheated no moment of their prey. They 
 might again see Hawthorn faces. They knew all 
 this, but their thought did not dwell upon it. Their 
 minds saw dimly something new, bare yet of feature. 
 The man of the hawk walked musing beside Ader- 
 hold. At last he spoke. "We are not far from the 
 cross-roads. When we are there you will go your 
 ways and I shall turn and go back to the castle. . . . 
 If we grow by means of all circumstance as it flows 
 by and through us, how are you changed by what 
 has lately passed?" 
 
 "This summer," said Aderhold, " I grew somewhat 
 past bodily fear. I should like you to know that." 
 "I saw no great cowardice before. . . . How now 
 do you feel toward your fellow 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 until they saw before them the 
 crossroads. Aderhold remembered the ragged trees, 
 the dyke-like bank, the stake through the heart of 
 the suicide. The night was wearing late. The moon 
 shone small and high. Charles's Wain was under the 
 North Star. The five came to a stand, and here the 
 four said good-bye to the one. 
 
CHAPTER XXIII 
 
 THE ROAD TO THE PORT 
 
 THEIR side of the earth turned, turned with cease- 
 less motion toward the central orb. There grew a 
 sense of the threshold of dawn, of the chill and sunk- 
 en furthest hour, when the need was great for the 
 door of light to open. The road they were upon was 
 narrower, rougher, than the highway ,with more hills 
 to climb. The four travelled as rapidly as was pos- 
 sible, there being a goal to be reached before sun- 
 light and the world abroad. Gervaise and Lantern 
 swung on without overmuch effort, but the faces of 
 Joan and Aderhold were drawn and the beads stood 
 on their foreheads. Behind them were long prison, 
 scanty fare, bodily hurt, broken strength. Their 
 lips parted, their breath came gaspingly. They went 
 on from moment to moment, each step now a weari- 
 ness, all thought suspended, the whole being bent 
 only on endurance, on measuring the road that must 
 be measured. They did not speak, though now and 
 then one turned eyes to the other. 
 
 Far off a cock crew and was answered by an- 
 other. Vaguely the air changed, the world paled, a 
 steely light came into the east. Gervaise looked at 
 the two. "We'll rest here until there's colour in 
 the sky. We've come pretty fast.' 1 There was a 
 
 298 
 
THE ROAD TO THE PORT 
 
 great stone by the road. Aderhold and Joan sank 
 upon it, lay outstretched, still as in the last sleep. 
 He had a wide cloak, she had none. He raised 
 himself upon his hand and spread over her the half 
 of this. They lay with closed eyes, drinking rest. 
 
 Far off and not so far, more cocks were crowing. 
 In the eastern sky the bars of grey turned purple, 
 then into them came a faint red. The birds were 
 cheeping in the tree-tops. The mist veil over field 
 and meadow grew visible. Gervaise and Lantern, 
 who had been seated with their knees drawn up, 
 arms upon knees and head upon arms, raised their 
 eyes, marked the red in the sky, and got to their feet. 
 Gervaise went and touched the two. "Time to go 
 on ! We Ve got to get hidden before Curiosity 's had 
 breakfast." 
 
 They went on, the light strengthening, the air 
 warming, a myriad small sounds beginning. In less 
 than a mile they came to a branching road, rough 
 and narrow. Gervaise leading, they entered this, 
 followed it for some distance, and left it for a half- 
 obliterated cart track running through woods. 
 In turn they quitted the woods for a stubblefield, 
 plunged from this into a sunken lane, and so in the 
 early sunlight came before a small farmhouse, re- 
 mote and lonely, couched and hidden between 
 wooded hills. "My granther's brother's house/' 
 said Gervaise. "Stay you all here while I go spy out 
 the land." They waited in the sunken lane, the blue 
 sky overhead. The wry-mouthed man busied him- 
 
 299 
 
THE WITCH 
 
 self with a torn shoe. Joan and Aderhold knelt in a 
 warm hollow of the bank, leaned against the good 
 earth. 
 
 "Giles and John Allen" he said. " Do not forget 
 the names." 
 
 "No. . . . When I speak to you, am I to say, 
 1 Giles '?" 
 
 " Aye, aye, John." 
 
 "Do you think they will not know that I am a 
 woman?" 
 
 He looked at her critically for the first time. " You 
 have height and a right frame. Your voice is deeper 
 than most women's. Now that your hair is cut, I 
 have seen youths with locks so worn and of that 
 colour and thickness. You are pale from prison and 
 unhappiness, but the sun will tan your cheeks. You 
 have mind and will, and all that you do you do with 
 a just art. Discovery may come, but it need not 
 come ' 
 
 Gervaise reappeared. "It's all right! The old 
 people will not blab, and their two daughters and 
 the ploughman have propitiously gone to a fair! 
 Now, Master Allen, and your brother, and good 
 George Dragon " They moved toward the house. 
 Gervaise jerked his thumb toward a barn that 
 showed beyond. "Good straw good, warm, dusk 
 corner to lie perdu in, back of the eaves ! I '11 bring 
 food, bread and milk. So you'll have your rest to- 
 day, and to-night we '11 cover as many miles as may 
 be. This way ! We '11 not go through the house. 
 
 300 
 
THE ROAD TO THE PORT 
 
 Say we 're taken, I 'd rather not drag the good folk 
 in more than ankle-deep." 
 
 The barn was dim and wholesome-smelling. The 
 piled straw in the loft felt good beneath aching 
 frames. They made with bundles of it a chance- 
 seeming barrier, behind which in a fragrant hollow 
 they prepared to rest. Close overhead was the 
 brown roof that, beyond their niche, sloped steeply 
 upward a great distance. A square had been cut for 
 light and air; through it poured vagrant, scented 
 breezes, and in and out flew the swallows. The light 
 was thick and brown; it would take keen eyes to see 
 aught but straw, rudely heaped. Gervaise brought a 
 basket filled with homely, country fare, and then a 
 great jug of spring water. They ate and drank, and 
 then set watches one to watch while the others 
 slept. Humphrey Lantern took the first. 
 
 Rest was sweet, sleep was sweet. . . . Joan woke 
 sometime in the early afternoon. There in a hollow of 
 his own sat Gervaise, succeeded to Lantern's watch. 
 He sat, blue-eyed and meditative, chewing a straw. 
 Lantern sprawled at a little distance, in sleep back, 
 perhaps, in the old wars. Nearer lay Aderhold, his 
 arm thrown across his eyes, profoundly sleeping. At 
 first Joan was bewildered and did not know where 
 she was; then the whole surged back. She lay quite 
 still, and memory painted for her picture after 
 picture. 
 
 Presently Gervaise, glancing her way, saw that her 
 eyes were open. He nodded to her and crept over 
 
 301 
 
THE WITCH 
 
 the straw until they were close neighbours, when he 
 seated himself Turk fashion and asked if she had 
 slept. 
 
 She laughed. "Unless I was dead, I was asleep." 
 
 "He has not moved. Prison life's a hard life, and 
 then I understand that before that he was up day 
 and night with the plague. . . . Well, and what do 
 you think of the wide world before you?" 
 
 "Is it so wide?" 
 
 "That's as you take it. It's as wide as your vi- 
 sion, your taste, and your hearing." 
 
 " I do not wish to be hanged. ... It used to come 
 and gather round me when I slept, there in the dun- 
 geon, in the prison. First the place grew large, and 
 then it filled with people, I could feel them in the 
 dark, and then I knew where the gallows was, 
 and hands that burned me and bruised me put a 
 rope around my neck, and in the dark the people 
 began to laugh and curse. And then I woke up, and 
 my hands and arms were cold and wet, and I said, 
 'So it will be, and so the rope will feel, and so they 
 will laugh!' . . . Over and over. . . . But it did not 
 come to me here, though I was asleep. I do not be- 
 lieve that they will take us now." 
 
 "Do you believe in witches and black men and 
 Satan and his country?" 
 
 "I used to. Is n't every little child taught it? It's 
 hard to rub out what they taught you when you 
 were a child. But do I believe it now?" She 
 laughed with a bitter mirth. "My oath, on anything 
 
 302 
 
THE ROAD TO THE PORT 
 
 you please, that I do not believe it now! I believe 
 that some folk have more good than bad in them, 
 and a few have far more good than bad. And that 
 some folk have more bad than good in them, and a 
 few have far more bad than good. And that most 
 folk are pretty evenly mixed, and that now one hav- 
 ing walks forth and now another. But that we are 
 all folk." 
 
 "That presents well enough," said Gervaise, "my 
 manner of thinking. But then I have lived long 
 with Sir Richard." 
 
 They fell silent. A bird flew in at the window. 
 The pleasant, drowsy scent of the hay was about 
 them, the sun-shot dusk, the murmur of the wind 
 across the opening. "Is your watch nearly over," 
 asked Joan, "and were you going to wake him next? 
 I am awake already, so give it to me." 
 
 " Nay, nay," said Gervaise ; "neither to you nor to 
 him ! I '11 sit here for another two hours and think of 
 the flowers I might have grown. Then Lantern will 
 take it again. You two are to get your rest. I like 
 well enough to converse with you, but my advice is 
 to shut your eyes and go back to sleep." 
 
 Joan smiled at him and obeyed. She shut her grey 
 eyes, and in two minutes was back at the fountain 
 of rest for overwrought folk. She slept, slept, and 
 Aderhold slept. When they waked the sun was 
 hanging low in the west. They waked at a touch 
 from Gervaise. "Best all of us open our eyes and 
 pull our senses together! I hear tie two daughters 
 
 303 
 
THE WITCH 
 
 and the ploughman, and maybe company with 
 them, coming back from the fair." 
 
 There were heard, indeed, from the lane, not far 
 away, voices talking freely and all together. Lan- 
 tern crept to the window and with care looked forth. 
 He came back. "Country folk five or six, and 
 merry from the fair.*' The voices reached the farm- 
 house, entered it, and became muffled. The sun 
 dropped behind the hills. 
 
 Twilight was not far advanced when there 
 sounded a footstep in the barn below the hayloft. 
 The four, still before, now lay hardly breathing. 
 
 The footstep approached the loft, halted beside 
 the ladder that led up. "Gervaise" said a quaver- 
 ing, anxious voice. "Granther's brother," mur* 
 mured Gervaise, and crept cautiously to the edge of 
 the loft. Presently he disappeared down the ladder, 
 and the three, crouched where the roof was lowest, 
 heard a muted colloquy below. The farmer's voice 
 sounded alarmed and querulous, Gervaise 's soothing. 
 At last they ceased to talk, and the old man's slow 
 and discontented step was heard to leave the barn. 
 Gervaise came up the ladder and crawled over the 
 straw to the escaped prisoners and runaway gaoler. 
 The loft was now in darkness, only the square win- 
 dow glimmered yet, framing a sky from which the 
 gold had not quite faded. 
 
 "It's boot and saddle, sound horn and away!" he 
 said in a sober whisper. "We had not been gone two 
 hours when some officious fool must seek the heart's 
 
 304 
 
THE ROAD TO THE PORT 
 
 ease of Lantern's company ! No Lantern to be found 
 - all dark ! No new turnkey to be found either. 
 Whereupon they waken an authority, and he's 
 inspired to open dungeon doors and look within! 
 Hue and cry ! Town first, but with the morning light 
 men a-horseback on all roads. They had it all at 
 the fair brought it all home. County 's afire to 
 bring the wild beasts back. Country for as many 
 miles as necessary will be scoured clean as a prize 
 pannikin. Reward for capture, living or dead ; 
 bands out to earn it. All manner penalties for any 
 who harbour. The goodman here put two and two 
 together, matched four with four, and at the 
 first chance, while they 're all at supper, comes shiv- 
 ering out to warn us off. Granther's brother '11 not 
 tell, but travel it is! Humphrey Lantern, you take 
 the basket with what food 's left. We '11 need it. 
 Toss the straw together so 't will not show the lair. 
 We'll just wait till that last light goes." 
 
 They waited, felt their way to the ladder and 
 down it, then out of the barn. Voices were noisy in 
 the house a stone's throw away. A woman came to 
 the open door and stood looking out. When she had 
 turned away, they entered the lane and followed it 
 until it set them in the wood track they had left in 
 the morning. Here they paused to consider their 
 course. In that direction so many miles, as the crow 
 flew, lay the port. Return to the road they had 
 left at dawn, strive to keep upon it at least through 
 the night, and so make certainly the greatest speed 
 
 305 
 
THE WITCH 
 
 toward their goal? Night-time, and ordinarily there 
 would be none or little travel through the night, and 
 that little easily hidden from. But to-night the road 
 might be most perilous; harrow and rake might be 
 dragging along it. Nevertheless they decided for the 
 road. 
 
 It was now utterly dark. They saw nothing, 
 heard nothing, but the small continuous voice of the 
 hot, dry night. They were rested ; to Joan and Ader- 
 hold especially there seemed to have come anew 
 youth and strength. They walked steadily, with a 
 swinging step, and the country fell behind them and 
 the sea grew nearer. They spoke only at long inter- 
 vals and then in whispers. 
 
 "Luck's with us," offered Gervaise. "I'd almost 
 rather see it more chequered ! Very Smooth always 
 has a mocking look in her eyes." 
 
 Lantern growled in his throat. "I haven't had 
 much smooth in my life. It owes me a little smooth." 
 
 The moon rose. It showed them on either hand a 
 rolling country, and before them a village. The road 
 ran through this ; therefore, for the time being, they 
 would leave the road. They crept through a hedge 
 and found themselves in a rough and broken field. 
 Crossing this they pierced a small wood and dipped 
 down to a stream murmuring past a mill. The great 
 wheel rose before them, the moon making pearls of 
 the dripping water. The stream had a footbridge. 
 They hesitated, but all was dark and silent. They 
 crossed, and as they stepped upon the beaten earth 
 
 306 
 
THE ROAD TO THE PORT 
 
 on the farther side, two dogs sprang upon them from 
 the shadow of the mill. They came barking furiously 
 the refugees snatched what stick or stone they 
 could reach and beat them back. One was cowardly 
 and stood off and barked, but the other, a great 
 black beast, sprang upon the first in his path. It 
 chanced to be Joan. She caught him by his own 
 throat before he could reach hers, but he was fierce 
 and strong and tore from her grasp. His teeth met 
 in the cloth of her jerkin, he dragged her to the 
 ground. Aderhold's hands were at his throat, chok- 
 ing his jaws open, pushing him backward. Over the 
 physician's bent shoulder Lantern's arm rose and 
 fell, the moon making the dagger gleam. The dog 
 loosened his grip, howled, and gave back with a 
 slashed and bleeding muzzle. 
 
 Out of a hut, built beside the mill, came a man's 
 voice, roughly threatening. "Who's there? Who's 
 there? Ill-meaning folk take warning!" 
 
 As they did not answer, the owner of the voice 
 burst from the hut and came toward them, shouting 
 to the dogs to hold fast and swinging a great thorn 
 stick. The moon showed a half-dressed, stout rus- 
 tic, bold enough but dull of wit, and still heavy, 
 besides, with sleep. Behind him came a half-grown 
 boy. 
 
 "Call off your dogs!" cried Gervaise. "We are 
 seamen ashore, making from the port to the town of 
 
 . They told us there was a village hereabouts, 
 
 and we kept on walking after night, thinking to come 
 
 307 
 
THE WITCH 
 
 to it. But we think it 's bewitched and walks as we 
 walk. Call your dogs off! We're harmless men, used 
 to the sea and crossing a strange country. Put us 
 right, friend, and thank you kindly!" 
 
 " What have you done to Holdfast? He 's frighted 
 and bleeding." 
 
 "He pulled one of us down and nothing else 
 served to make him loosen grip. 'T will heal and no 
 harm done!" 
 
 But a controversy gathered in the eyes of the mil- 
 ler's man. "That dog's worth all the 'gyptians and 
 vagrants and seamen between here and London 
 town ! If you think you 're going round murdering 
 dogs" 
 
 11 1 think," said Gervaise, "that I Ve in my pouch 
 a crown piece which I got of a gentleman for a par- 
 rokeet and an Indian pipe. Let 's see if 't wont salve 
 that muzzle." He drew it forth and turned it to and 
 fro in the moonlight. "Ask the dog. Hark 'ee! He 
 says, 'Take it, and let harmless sailor folk pass!" 
 He slid it into the peasant's hand, who stood looking 
 down upon it with a dawning grin. "Cross this 
 bridge," asked Gervaise, "and we'll be in the path 
 to the village?" 
 
 "Aye, aye," answered the fellow. "If you be 
 harmful folk, let them find it out there! Be you 
 sure this piece is good? You be n't comers or 
 passers?" 
 
 1 ' We be n ' t, " said Gervaise. ' ' The piece is as good 
 as the new breeches it will buy." 
 
 308 ., 
 
THE ROAD TO THE PORT 
 
 They recrossed the bridge, stepping from it into 
 the wood already traversed. The boy's shrill voice 
 came to them from across the stream. ''Father, 
 father ! They 're four, and 't was four the man told 
 us broke gaol! They be n't sailors they be the 
 witches ! " His voice took a bewildered tone. " Only 
 one of them was a woman and they 're going to- 
 ward the town " 
 
 11 What I be going to do," answered the man, "is to 
 go up t' the house and waken miller " 
 
 The dogs were still barking. The boy's voice 
 rose shriller and shriller. " I know they 're witches! 
 They had glowing eyes and they were taller than 
 people " 
 
 The four plunged more deeply into the wood. The 
 confused sound died behind them . . They went up 
 the stream a mile, came upon a track that ran down 
 to stepping-stones, crossed the water for the second 
 time, and once more faced seaward; then after a 
 time turned at right angles and so struck the road 
 again, the village well passed. But the dtour had 
 cost them heavily in time. Moreover, even in the 
 night-time, there grew a feeling of folk aware, of 
 movement, a fear of eyes, of a sudden shout of arrest. 
 . . . They heard behind them a trampling of horses' 
 hoofs, together with voices. There was just time to 
 break into a friendly thicket by the roadside, and 
 crouch there among the hazel stems, out of the 
 moonlight. There came by a party of men, some 
 a-horseback, some on foot. 
 
 309 
 
THE WITCH 
 
 "Four," said one distinctly. 
 ''Shall we beat that thicket? " 
 "They could n't have gotten this far." 
 " I'll ride through it to make sure " 
 Man and horse came into the thicket. They 
 passed within ten feet of the four lying flat, but 
 touched them not and saw them not. . . . When all 
 were gone the sorcerer and the witch and their com- 
 panions came forth and again pressed seaward. The 
 dawn appeared, the sky unearthly cold and remote 
 behind the clean black line of the earth. It showed 
 a homeless country for thern. With the first grey 
 gleam there began a traffic upon the road. They 
 were passed in the dimness by a pedlar with his 
 pack, a drover with sheep. They saw coming a 
 string of carts, and they left the road again, this 
 time for good. They lay now amid heather upon a 
 moor, and in the pale, uncertain light considered 
 their course. The miles were not many now before 
 them, but they were dangerous miles. They decided 
 at last to break company and, two and two, to strive 
 for the port. Say that, so they arrived there, then 
 would they come as well to an inner ring of dangers. 
 . . . But they all strove for cheer, or grim or bright, 
 and Gervaise appointed for rendezvous an obscure 
 small inn called The Moon, down by the harbour's 
 edge. It was kept by a man known to Sir Richard. 
 Get to The Moon, whisper a word or two which 
 Gervaise now furnished, and the rest would probably 
 go well. The problem was to get there. 
 
 310 
 
THE ROAD TO THE PORT 
 
 It was also to decide, if they divided, who would 
 go with whom. Gervaise looked at Aderhold. " Will 
 you, sir, take Humphrey Lantern, and Joan go with 
 me?' 1 There was a silence, then Aderhold spoke, 
 "You have proved yourself the best of guides and 
 guards. But life has taught me, too, to watch for 
 dangers and in some measure has given me skill. 
 And sjie and I are the heinous ones and the desper- 
 ate." He turned his eyes to Joan. " Shall we not 
 keep together?" 
 
 She nodded. " Very good. . . . The sky is growing 
 red." 
 
CHAPTER XXIV 
 
 THE FARTHER ROAD 
 
 WHAT were Gervaise's and Lantern's adventures 
 they would hear when they reached The Moon. 
 Their own, throughout this day, led them to no 
 harm. They had been for long in the hand of 111 
 Fortune ; it seemed now that she slept and her grasp 
 relaxed. The first outward happening came quickly, 
 ere the sun was an hour high. They were crossing 
 a heath-like, shelterless expanse, when a sudden 
 Hilloa! halted them. Two men were rapidly ap- 
 proaching over the heath. 
 
 "If we can, we will evade them," said Aderhold. 
 11 If we cannot and they would keep us by force ?" 
 
 "They are not wrestlers nor giants," answered 
 Joan. "If they have no weapon, mayhap we can 
 give them as good as they send " 
 
 The two ran up, looked at them suspiciously. 
 "What do you here? Who are you?" 
 
 "Nay, who are you?" said Aderhold. "We are 
 lookers for a reward." 
 
 The opposing pairs stood and eyed each other. 
 The newcomers were two lank and unhealthy-look- 
 ing, plainly dressed, town -appearing young men. 
 
 1 ' Fie ! ' ' said one. ' l We also search, but not for love 
 312 
 
THE FARTHER ROAD 
 
 of lucre and silver pounds 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 Prince of the Power of the Air 
 hath held them invisible to the eyes of the Elect, 
 they are not in that direction nor in that! My 
 companion, Only Truth Turner, and I were about 
 to seek in the quarter to which I see you are ad- 
 dressed. 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 is my brother, Be-ye-kind- to- 
 one- Another. Four together, is it not so? Three 
 fierce, foreign-looking men, and a short, dark wo- 
 
 man." 
 
 "We did n't," said Only Truth, "hear them de- 
 scribed. But there will assuredly be some devil's 
 mark whereby to know them." 
 
 They were now moving together over the heath. 
 Each of the four had a stout stick, broken at some 
 time in their several journeyings. With theirs the 
 two townsmen now and again beat some clump of 
 furze or thorn. Once a hare rushed forth and away, 
 and once a lark spread its wings and soaring van- 
 ished into the blue. "Do you think," said the 
 speaker, whose name was Wrath Diverted, "do you 
 think that that hare and bird might have been ? 
 I understand that in the trial the Hawthorn witches 
 all avowed that they became bird or beast at will." 
 
THE WITCH 
 
 Aderhold followed the lark with his eyes. " I have 
 seen human beings who reminded me of bird or 
 beast, and I have seen bird and beast who reminded 
 me of human beings. If that one up yonder is a 
 witch, she hath strength of wing!" 
 
 The lark disappeared; the hare came not back. 
 "Even so," said Only Truth, " there would be two 
 left. But I hold that those were natural crea- 
 tures." 
 
 They walked through the bright morning, over 
 the high bare world. "We came out," said Wrath 
 Diverted, "to see my brother Another- Pays-my- 
 Debt who dwells at Win-Grace Farm. Yesterday 
 came news of the loosing of Beelzebub. Whereupon 
 many made themselves into bands and went forth 
 even as hunters, and at dawn this morning Only 
 Truth and I also." 
 
 "Let us keep our faces seaward," said Aderhold. 
 "You have looked that way and we have looked 
 this." 
 
 "Good," answered Wrath Diverted; "but we 
 should examine that dip in the earth 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 
 lands with roads and dwellings, byways and hedges. 
 Then there will be places to search, but here there is 
 naught Were you at the trial of the troublers of 
 Israel?" 
 
THE FARTHER ROAD 
 
 He spoke to Joan. "No," she answered. <4 We 
 heard of it. Everybody heard of it." 
 
 "For my part/' said Only Truth, " I cannot con- 
 ceive how a man when he hath choice of masters 
 should choose so scurvy an one! Here is a King 
 whom you may serve who, if in this world He 
 seemeth at times neglectful of his servants and nig- 
 gardly in comforts and rewards, yet, when you have 
 come to the next world which is his true city and 
 court, you have his sign manual for it that you will 
 have honours and titles and riches without end! 
 Moreover, your body will be happy and comforted, 
 and you will not again be sorrowful or tried, nor ever 
 have to work, but only stand and praise. Not so 
 with that other man, who will not kneel here nor 
 wear this Master's livery! Comes King Satan and 
 claps him, 'You are mine!' Then mayhap he is led 
 to a dance of unlawful and honey-sweet pleasures, or 
 is given a heap of gold, or is dressed in a purple 
 mantle and 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 incontinent he 
 dieth. Nay, oftenest there is not in his hire the 
 honey-sweet nor the 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, 
 torn asunder, broken on the wheel, or burned. Then 
 goeth the wicked wretch to 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 
 
THE WITCH 
 
 marl and findeth no cool floor to set them on. He 
 swalloweth smoke and flames and findeth no water 
 in all hell. His flesh blackeneth to a crisp, but is 
 never burned senseless. A million years pass, and 
 not one second but he hath felt first pain and terror. 
 Eternity, eternity! and never will his anguish lessen. 
 He looketh about him and seeth those for whom he 
 had affection for like liketh like burning with 
 him, and about their feet, creeping and wailing, the 
 unbaptized babes. He looketh up, and he seeth 
 across the gulf the other King's court, and the 
 Happy Servant. And the Happy Servant looketh 
 down and seeth him, and his own bliss waxeth great. 
 Wherefore" 
 
 Wrath Diverted took the word. "Nay! You err, 
 Brother Only Truth, in using the word 'choice.' 
 There is no choice, none ! that is, none on our 
 part. Attribute no merit to us who attain Salva- 
 tion! Attain it, do I say? Nay, we attain it not, 
 we are lifted into it. Another pays my debt!" 
 
 "Nay, I meant it in that wise," said Only Truth. 
 "A babe in the faith knoweth that all are rightly 
 lost and damned. Lost, lost! all are lost. Five thou- 
 sand 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, and all put on Satan's 
 livery. In hell are folk who have burned and howled 
 five thousand years ! Lost, lost, all are lost ! But the 
 King, because of the Prince's intercession, holds out 
 his sceptre to those among us whom he chooses out. 
 
 316 
 
THE FARTHER ROAD 
 
 But we have no goodness or merit of our own ! Mis- 
 erable sinners 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 ignorant or 
 babes, have no reason to complain. But while all 
 are guilty there be some who have added rebellion to 
 rebellion, and sewed the web of disobedience with 
 the needle of blasphemy ! They be those who refuse 
 to worship ! 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, and sorcerers! 
 Damned and lost! They howl in the hottest caul- 
 dron and burn in a furnace seven times heated!" 
 
 So discoursing they came insensibly into a strip of 
 country, green and pleasant with late summer. Be- 
 fore them was a hillside with a parcel of children 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 of exciting adventure. One bolder 
 than his fellows called down. " Be you the witches? " 
 
 "Witches! witches !" 
 
 11 They be all men " 
 
 "Ho! Satan could make them all seem men! 
 They pray to Satan and he lets them turn what they 
 
THE WITCH 
 
 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 fol- 
 lowed, and struck Only Truth, who grew red and 
 angry and brandished his stick. The assailants 
 shouted, half in fear, half in glee, and gave somewhat 
 back; then seeing that they were safe, well above the 
 assailed and with the open hill behind them, stopped 
 and threw more stones. Only Truth would have 
 made after them, up the hillside, but Aderhold 
 checked him. "Do not fight bees and children " 
 
 They were presently out of stoneshot. But the 
 children might carry news and set others on their 
 path. "Those escaped are four," said Aderhold to 
 Wrath Diverted, "and we are four. It will not be 
 convenient to be stopped and questione4 on that 
 ground." 
 
 "I believe that you are right," answered Wrath 
 Diverted. "Moreover, you and your brother are 
 evidently country-bred, and walk more swiftly than 
 is comfortable for us who dwell in towns. Let us 
 part, therefore in amity. I see yonder a road which 
 should furnish easier walking than this growth and 
 unevenness beneath our feet." 
 
 "Then," said Aderhold, "we, being as you say, 
 country-bred, will keep on seaward over these fields 
 and downs." 
 
 An hour later the two lay in a pit dug long since 
 
THE FARTHER ROAD 
 
 for some purpose and now half filled with old dead 
 brush, while a formidable chase went by. These 
 were mounted men, officers of the law, armed 
 with an accurate description, among them, indeed, a 
 sheriff's man who knew the escaped by sight. They 
 came trampling by ; they looked down into the pit as 
 they passed, and thought they saw true bottom and 
 naught there but a litter of dead leaves and twigs; 
 they checked their horses not many yards from the 
 opening and stood conferring. Their voices came 
 down in an indistinguishable hoarse murmur like the 
 sea against the strand. They shook their bridles and 
 rode away. . . . The two, who had lain half-stifled, 
 covered by Jhe bed of brush, stirred, heaved the 
 stuff away, rose gasping to their knees. Silence and 
 the blue sky. They crouched, eye above the rim of 
 the pit, until sight gave reassurance, then climbed 
 forth and brushed from each other dead leaf and 
 ancient dust. 
 
 "That was like a grave," said Joan. 
 
 Aderhold stood gazing, his hand above his eyes. 
 "Far off yonder that is ocean." 
 
 "Where?" 
 
 They stood in silence. About them was sunny 
 stillness ; far off lay the sapphire streak. Tension 
 action the mind held to an arduous matter in 
 hand in the moments between, exhaustion, con- 
 cern only with rest so had passed the time since 
 they had crept from the gaol into the black gaol 
 alley. Now suddenly there came a sense of relaxa- 
 
THE WITCH 
 
 tion, then of poise, then of time before them. Years 
 there might be years. . . . Even that set amount 
 and partition dissolved like a mist. They were 
 going to be together, and their minds placed no 
 term. 
 
 They were, the two of them, sincere and powerful 
 natures. Now they ceased to look at the ocean which 
 their bodies would sail, and turned and met each 
 other's eyes. . . ^Another division melted from be- 
 tween them. He had been to her a learned man, of 
 a station higher than her own. She had said "Sir," 
 and "Master Aderhold." He was still, through cir- 
 cumstance, more learned than she, with a wider 
 range of knowledge and suffering, with a subtler 
 command of peace and mind's joy. But she had 
 power to learn and to suffer and to weave joy ; there 
 was no natural inequality. The other inequality, the 
 unevenness in station, now melted into air. Given 
 substance only by long convention, it now faded 
 like a dream and left a man and woman moulded of 
 one stuff, peers, unity in twain. 
 
 "The ocean !" said Joan: "to sail upon the ocean! 
 What things happen that once you thought were 
 dreams!" 
 
 "Aye," said Aderhold. "Long to the height 
 imagine to the height build in the ether ..." 
 
 They moved toward the sea. The country was not 
 populous. Avoiding as they did all beaten ways, 
 taking cover where they might of wood or hillside, 
 they seemed to have come into a realm of security. 
 
 320 
 
THE FARTHER ROAD 
 
 They were faint with hunger. Before them rose a 
 solitary cottage bowered in trees. After weighing it 
 this way and that, they went forward soft-footed, 
 and peered from behind a stout hedge of thorn. A 
 blue feather curled from the chimney, the door 
 stood open, and on a sunny 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, will you 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 cottage door. An elderly woman, tall and 
 comely, appeared, hearkened to her daughter, then 
 stepped across the bit of green to the gate. "Be you 
 vagrants and masterless men?" 
 
 "No," answered Aderhold. "We are honest folk 
 seeking work, which we look 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 the woman. "You can see the roofs 
 and towers and, if you listen, hear the church 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 eat it 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 of 
 
 321 
 
THE WITCH 
 
 the three standing amid the bleaching linen. " Alice! 
 get the new-baked loaf " 
 
 Alice turned toward the cottage. The two others 
 came nearer to the gate. The church bells were still 
 ringing, fine and far and faint. They seemed to bring 
 something to the woman's mind. * ' They say they ' ve 
 taken the Hawthorn folk who ran from prison." 
 
 " Where " 
 
 "Two men came by and told us. A miller and his 
 men and dogs took them last night. They fought 
 with fire and Satan was seen above the mill-wheel. 
 But they took them all, the two men said, and gave 
 them to the nearest constable, and so now the coun- 
 tryside can rest." She stood with her capable air of 
 strength and good nature, looking over the green 
 earth to the distant town. "There must be witches 
 because God wrote the Bible and it cannot be mis- 
 taken. Otherwise, of course, there are a lot of things 
 ... I used to know Hawthorn when I was a girl. 
 And Roger Heron. More years than one I danced 
 with him about the maypole 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's Joan Heron, the main 
 witch. Life's a strange thing." 
 
 Her daughter brought the loaf of bread and also a 
 pitcher of milk and two earthenware cups. The 
 other girls left the white, strewn linen and drew near. 
 The cottage was a lonely one, and few passed, and 
 
 322 
 
THE FARTHER ROAD 
 
 by nature all were kind-hearted and social. Alice 
 gave a cup to each of the wanderers, and then, tilting 
 the pitcher, filled the cups with milk. Giles and John 
 Allen thanked her and, hungry and thirsty to ex- 
 haustion, drank and were refreshed. 
 
 But Joan, when she had put down the cup, moved 
 nearer to the mother of the three. "Did you ever 
 see -the witch?" 
 
 The woman, who had been listening to the church 
 bells, turned her strong and kindly face. "Roger 
 Heron brought her here once when she was a child. 
 There was no ill in her then or I saw it not. Roger 
 Heron should not have had an evil child. There was 
 little evil in him." 
 
 The middle daughter was more prim of counte- 
 nance than the others. She now put on a shocked 
 look. "But, mother! That is to deny Original Sin 
 and Universal Guilt!" 
 
 The elder woman made a gesture with her hand. 
 It had in it a slight impatience. "I do not mean," 
 she said, "that we have n't all of everything in us. 
 But Roger Heron was a good man." 
 
 "Ah ! " said the youngest daughter, "how any one 
 can be a witch and hurt and harm, and be lost for 
 aye, and leave a vile name ' ' 
 
 "Aye," said the second; "to know that your 
 name was Joan Heron, and that it would be a by- 
 word for a hundred years!" 
 
 " I am glad that Roger Heron died of the plague 
 and waited not for a broken heart," said the mother, 
 
 323 
 
THE WITCH 
 
 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 that they must go on if they would reach 
 the port before night, and that they gave warm 
 thanks for kindness. . . . They left the friendly cot- 
 tage with the sunny spread of grass and the bleach- 
 ing linen and the kindly women. A dip of the land, 
 a turn of the path, and all vanished as if they had 
 sunk into earth. Before them, fraying the horizon, 
 they saw the distant town. 
 
 Aderhold spoke. " You were there when you were 
 a child. Do you remember it?" 
 
 She answered. "I remembered at last not at 
 first: not plainly. I remember 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's cottage, and she had wept for her 
 father's death. There had been no weeping in prison, 
 nor in that Judgement Hall, nor since. He knew with- 
 out telling that though she felt grief, she controlled 
 grief. But now, startled by a tide she had not looked 
 for, control was beaten down. All about them was a 
 solitariness, a green and silent, sunny world. 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," said Aderhold in a shaken 
 voice; "it will do you good." 
 
 He stood near her, but did not watch her or touch 
 324 
 
THE FARTHER ROAD 
 
 her. Instead he broke the loaf of bread into 
 tions and kept a lookout north and south and east 
 and west. No human being came into range of vis- 
 ion. The slow minutes went by, then came Joan's 
 voice, broken yet, but steadying with 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 can eat it as we go." 
 
 They walked on. 
 
 "It was Gervaise and Lantern," said Aderhold, 
 "who told her that tale of a capture at the mill. 
 They are ahead. ... I have seen brave men and 
 women, but I have seen none braver than you, 
 Joan. . . . Life is very great. There are in it threads 
 of all colours and every tone that is, and if happi- 
 ness is not stable, neither is misery. You are brave 
 be brave enough to be happy!" 
 
 The sun declined, the town ahead grew larger 
 against a soft and vivid sky. Now they could see the 
 harbour and that there were ships at anchor. They 
 now met, overtook, or were passed by people. Some 
 spoke, some went on preoccupied, but none stopped 
 and questioned them. They entered the town by a 
 travelled way, slipping in with a crowd of carts and 
 hucksters. Within, and standing for a moment look- 
 ing back, they saw coming with dust and jingling the 
 party that had passed them lying in the pit. 
 
 They turned, struck into a narrow way that led 
 downward to the sea, and came upon the waterside 
 in the red sunset light. A fishwife crossed their 
 
 325 
 
THE WITCH 
 
 path. "The Moon Tavern? Yonder, beyond the 
 nets." They came to it in the dusk, its sign a great, 
 full moon with a man, a dog, and a thornbush on 
 the golden ground. As it loomed before them, Ger- 
 vaise stepped from the shadow of a heap of timber. 
 "Greeting, Giles and John! George Dragon and I 
 have been here this hour. And yonder lies the 
 Silver Queen. 1 ' 
 
CHAPTER XXV 
 
 THE SILVER QUEEN 
 
 THE SILVER QUEEN, a ship neither great nor small, 
 high-pooped, white-sailed, her figurehead a crowned 
 woman, her name good for seaworthiness, ploughed 
 the green water. Her sailors and the adventurers for 
 new lands whom she carried watched their own is- 
 land sink from view, watched the European coast, ; 
 saw it also fade, saw only the boundless, restless 
 main. The ship drove south, for the Indies' pass- 
 age. 
 
 Mariners and all, she carried a hundred and 
 sixty souls. Captain Hugh Bard was the captain 
 a doughty son of the sea. Her sailors were fair 
 average, tough of body, in mind some brutal, some 
 weak, some good and true men. She was carrying 
 colonists and adventurers to the New World, acces- 
 sions to the lately established settlement at James- 
 town. Among these men were sober-minded Eng- 
 lishmen, reputable and not ill-to-do, men who had 
 warred or traded with credit in various parts of the 
 world, who had perhaps joined in earlier ventures to 
 American shores. These carried with them labour- 
 ers, indentured servants, perhaps a penniless kins- 
 man or two, discontented at home. The mass of 
 those upon the Silver Queen were followers and in- 
 
 327 
 
THE WITCH 
 
 dentured men. But there were likewise adventurers 
 going singly, free lances, with enough or just enough 
 to pay passage, men all for change and roving, or 
 dare-devil men, or men with wild fancies, hopes, 
 ambitions, intents, or men merely leaving worst 
 things for a conjectural better. Also there were a 
 few who thought to practise their professions in the 
 new settlement, a barber and perfumer, a musician, 
 a teacher, a lawyer, and a divine. It was an average 
 swarm from old England, in the early years of colo- 
 nization. 
 
 Aboard was but one woman, and she was not 
 known as a woman. She was called John Allen, and 
 went as the still-mouthed and loneliness-loving 
 brother of the chirurgeon Giles Allen. In the first 
 days the latter had stated to a group, from which 
 John Allen had risen and gone away, that his brother 
 was but now recovering from a melancholy brought 
 about by the death of one whom he had loved. Now 
 those aboard were not beasts, but men with, in the 
 main, answering hearts to lovers' joys and woes. 
 For the most part not over-observant or critical, and 
 with their own matters much in mind, they took the 
 statement as it was given them and allowed to John 
 Allen silence and solitude such silence and solitude 
 as were obtainable. Silence and solitude were all 
 around upon the great sea, but the ship was a hive 
 adrift. 
 
 Captain Hugh Bard was under obligations to Sir 
 Richard. Clients of Sir Richard nothing known 
 
 328 
 
THE SILVER QUEEN 
 
 but that they were folk whom that knight was will* 
 ing to help from England were sure of his blunt 
 good offices. Moreover, the ship's doctor fell ill, 
 whereupon Giles Allen offered his services, there 
 being much sickness among the colonists. The cap- 
 tain nodded, found that he had aboard a skilled 
 physician, and took a liking to the man himself. 
 Aderhold asked no favours for himself, and none 
 that might arouse suspicion for her who passed as 
 his brother. But yet, with a refinement of skill, he 
 managed to obtain for her what she wanted in that 
 throng of men a little space, a little distance. 
 
 She never added difficulty to their situation. She 
 was no fine lady. She was yeoman born and bred, 
 courageous and sane. It was yet the evening glow of 
 the strong Elizabethan age. Men and women were 
 more frank and free in one another's company than 
 grew to be the case in a later period. The wife or 
 mistress, sometimes the sister, in the dress of page or 
 squire, fellow traveller, attendant at court, some- 
 times fellow soldier, made a commonplace of the 
 age's stage-play or romantic tale. If the masquerade 
 occurred oftener in poem or play than in fact, yet 
 in the last-named, too, it occurred. 
 
 Joan had native wit. Her being, simple-seeming, 
 pushed forward complexes enough when it came to 
 the touch. Aderhold marvelled to see her so skilful 
 and wary, and still so quiet with it all that she 
 seemed to act without motion, or with motion too 
 swift for perception. She went unsuspected of all 
 
 329 
 
THE WITCH 
 
 a tall, fair youth with grey eyes and a manner of 
 reserve, brooding aside over some loss of his own. 
 
 Giles Allen, John Allen, George Dragon it was 
 George Dragon, Aderhold came to see, who fur- 
 nished the danger point. Humphrey Lantern was 
 no artist to put forward a self complete, yet not 
 your home and most familiar self. He had no con- 
 siderable r61e to play ; he was merely George Dragon, 
 an old soldier of the Dutch Wars, who since had 
 knocked about as best he might, and now would try 
 his fortune in Virginia. He was at liberty to talk of 
 the good wars and the Low Countries all he wished. 
 He sought the forecastle and the company of the 
 ruder sort and he talked of these. But he was forget- 
 ful, and at times the near past would trip up the far 
 past. Never the very near past, but Aderhold had 
 heard him let slip that for part time since the good 
 wars, he had served as a gaoler "head man in a 
 good prison," he put it with a grim touch of pride. 
 Aderhold thought that some one had given him 
 usquebaugh to drink. When he cautioned him, as he 
 earnestly did at the first chance, Lantern could not 
 remember that he had said any such thing, but, 
 being sober, he agreed that the least thing might be 
 spark to gunpowder, and that their lives depended 
 upon discretion. He promised and for some time 
 Aderhold observed him exercising due caution. But 
 the fear remained, and the knowledge that Lantern 
 would drink if tempted, and drunken knew not what 
 he said. 
 
 330. 
 
THE SILVER QUEEN 
 
 At first they had a favouring wind and seas not 
 rough or over-smooth. The ship bore strongly on, 
 and the spirits of most aboard were good. Now and 
 then broke out revelry and boisterousness, but the 
 men of weight kept rule among their followers, and 
 Captain Hugh Bard would have order where he 
 commanded. The wilder sort, of whom there were 
 enough aboard, must content themselves with sup- 
 pressed quarrels, secret gaming, a murmur of fever- 
 ish and unstable talk and conjecture. There were 
 those who, wherever they were, must have excite- 
 ment to feed upon. Their daily life must be pep- 
 pered with a liberal hand, heightened to a fevered 
 and whirling motion with no line of advance. These 
 were restless, and spread their restlessness upon the 
 Silver Queen. But there was much stolidity aboard, 
 and at first and for many days it counteracted. 
 
 The wind blew, the sails filled, they drove cheerily 
 on. They came to the Canaries, on the old passage, 
 then drove westward. Days passed, many days. 
 They came to where they might begin to look for 
 islands. And here a storm took them and carried 
 them out of their reckoning, and here their luck fell 
 away from them. The storm was outlasted, but 
 after it there befell a calm. The wind failed, sank 
 away until there was not a breath. Sullen and stub- 
 born, the calm lasted, weary day after weary day. 
 The sails hung lank, the water made not even a small 
 lipping sound, the crowned woman at the prow stood 
 full length and steady, staring at a glassy floor. 
 
THE WITCH ! 
 
 The sea was oil, the sky brazen, and the spirits 
 flagged like the flagging sails. Day after day, day 
 after day. . . 
 
 At dawn one morning Aderhold and Joan leaned 
 against the rail and looked at the purple sea. It lay 
 like a vast gem, moveless and hard. The folk upon 
 the ship were still sleeping. The seamen aloft in the 
 rigging or moving upon the decks troubled them not, 
 hardly looked their way. 
 
 " If you held a feather before you," said Joan, "it 
 would not move a hair's breadth ! They are to pray 
 for a wind to-day. Master Evans will pray all 
 aboard will pray. Is it chained somewhere, or idle 
 or asleep, or locked in a chest, and will we turn the 
 key that way?" 
 
 " Did you see or speak to George Dragon yester- 
 day?" 
 
 "No. Why?" 
 
 "Some of these men brought aqua vita or usque- 
 baugh aboard with them. He games for it and wins. 
 And then his tongue wags more than it should." 
 
 "I did not know. . . . Danger, again?" 
 
 "Yes. He thinks he has done no harm, then is 
 alarmed, penitent, protests that he will not and 
 then it's all done again. . . . Poor human weakness !" 
 
 "And if?" 
 
 "We will not look at that now," said Aderhold. 
 " It would unroll itself soon enough. Joan, Joan! 
 I would that you were safe!" 
 
 " I am safe. I would that you " 
 332 
 
THE SILVER QUEEN 
 
 " I will match your ' I am safe.' I, too, am saf. 
 Nothing here can quench the eternal, flowing life! 
 But until we have lifted this level and built more 
 highly we shall feel its pains . . . and feel them for 
 one another. And now I ache for your danger. " 
 
 The east was carmine, the sea from purple turned 
 carmine carmine eastward from the Silver Queen 
 to the horizon ; elsewhere a burnished play of greens 
 and blues, a vast plain, still, still! It flowed around 
 and away to the burning horizon, and not a sail and 
 not a breath, and no sound in the cordage overhead. 
 The deepening light flowed between Joan and Ader- 
 hold, and in it, suddenly, the body of each was 
 beautiful in the other's eyes. . . . The sun came up, a 
 red-gold ball. Neither man nor woman had spoken, 
 and now, suddenly, too, with the full daysprmg, the 
 ship was astir, men were upon the decks. Gilbert 
 Aderhold, Joan Heron stepped back into the violet 
 shadow; here were Giles and John Allen. 
 
 Up to these now came Master Evans, the minister 
 bound for Jamestown, a stout, gentle-faced man in 
 a sad-coloured suit. "Fast as though the ship were 
 in the stocks! " he said. "But if the Lord is gracious, 
 we will pray her free ! Breakfast done, we will gather 
 together and make hearty supplication." He looked 
 across to the sun, mailed now in diamond, mounting 
 blinding and fierce. The sweet coolness of the earlier 
 hour was gone ; wave on wave came heat, heat, heat ! 
 Master Evans clasped more closely the Bible in his 
 hand. "Thou sun whom for Israel's sake the Lord 
 
 333 
 
THE WITCH 
 
 halted in thy course and held thee nailed fast above 
 Gibeon! Dost thou think if He chooses now to veil 
 thy face with cloud and to blow thy rays aside, thou 
 canst prevent? And thou hot and moveless air, if 
 He choose to drive thee against the stern of this ship 
 and into the hollow of these sails, wilt thou make 
 objection? Nay, verily! And why should He not 
 choose? Here upon this ship are not infidels and 
 heathen, but his own servants and sheep ! Wherefore 
 we will kneel and beseech Him, and perchance a 
 miracle may fall like manna." 
 
 He looked smilingly about him, then, pressing his 
 Bible closely, went on to other emigrants. . . . Later 
 in the morning all upon the Silver Queen were 
 drawn together to make petition for a prospering 
 wind. All save the sick were there. Giles and John 
 Allen stood with the others, knelt with the others. 
 44 Have we not a chronicle of Thy deeds," prayed 
 Master Evans. "Didst Thou not make a dry road 
 through an ocean for a chosen people? Didst Thou 
 not, at the Tower of Babel, in one hour shake one 
 language into all the tongues that are heard upon the 
 earth? Didst Thou not enable Noah to bring into 
 the Ark in pairs all the beasts of this whole earth? 
 Didst Thou not turn a woman into a pillar of salt, 
 and give powers of speech to an ass, and preserve 
 three men unsinged in a fiery furnace? Didst Thou 
 not direct the dew on the one night to moisten only 
 the fleece of Gideon and not any of the earth besides, 
 and on the next night to glisten over the face of the 
 
 334 
 
THE SILVER QUEEN 
 
 but to leave the fleece unmoistened? And aje 
 not we thy servants even as were Gideon and Lot 
 and Noah? . . ." 
 
 The calm held. A sky of brass, an oily sea, heat 
 and heat, and now more sickness, and now an un- 
 easy whisper as to the store of water! The whisper 
 grew, for the ship lay still, day after day, as though 
 she had never moved nor ever would do so. Panic 
 terror came and hovered near the Silver Queen. 
 Captain Bard fell ill, lay in fever and delirium. . . . 
 The mate took command no second Captain 
 Bard, but a frightened man himself. There was 
 aboard a half-crazed fellow who began to talk of 
 Ill-Luck. " The ship hath Ill-Luck. Who brought it 
 aboard? Seek it out and tie it to the mast and shoot 
 it with your arquebuse! Then, mayhap, the wind 
 will blow." He laughed and mouthed of Ill-Luck, 
 until crew and passengers all but saw a shadowy 
 figure. Time crawled by, and the calm held and the 
 panic grew. 
 
 There came an hour when the bolt fell, foreseen by 
 Aderhold. Before it ran a whisper; then there fell a 
 pause and an ominous quiet; then burst the voices, 
 fast and thick. It was afternoon, the sun not far 
 from the horizon, the sea red glass. Aderhold came 
 up on deck from the captain's cabin. He looked 
 about him and saw a crowd drawn together. Out of 
 it issued a loud voice. "Ill-Luck? What marvel 
 there is ill-luck?" Noise mounted. The half-crazed 
 fellow suddenly began to shrill out, "Ill-Luck! Ili- 
 
 335 
 
THE WITCH 
 
 Luck! There she sits!" He burst from the throng 
 and pointed with his finger. Away from the stir, on 
 a great coil of rope near a slung boat, there sat, 
 looking out to sea, John Allen. 
 
 The mate, with him several of the more authorita- 
 tive adventurers and also Master Evans, came out 
 of the state cabin. "What's all this? What has 
 happened?" 
 
 A man of the wilder sort aboard, a ruffler and 
 gamester, was pushed forward by the swarm. "My 
 masters, there's one aboard named George Dragon 
 who, being somewhat drunk, hath let drop news 
 that we hold hath a bearing upon this ship's poor 
 fortune ! He saith that we carry escaped prisoners - 
 runaways from the King's justice rebels, too, to 
 religion " 
 
 "111 Luck! Ill Luck! There sits 111 Luck!" cried 
 the half-crazed one, and pointed again. 
 
 The swarm began to speak with a general voice. 
 "And we say that we won't get a wind, but will lie 
 here until water is gone and we die of thirst and rot 
 and sink. ... If we've got men aboard who are 
 bringing misfortune on us. . . . Twelve days lying 
 here and not a breath! The captain ill and twenty 
 men besides, and the water low. . . . There 's Scrip- 
 ture for it. ... What's the good of praying for a 
 wind, if all the time we're harbouring his foes? . . . 
 Held here, as though we were nailed to the sea floor, 
 and the water low! The ship's cursed. . . . We want 
 George Dragon made to tell their names " 
 
 336 
 
THE SILVER QUEEN 
 
 Suddenly George Dragon himself was among them 
 red-faced and wry-mouthed, but to-day thick- 
 tongued also and stumbling. He looked about him 
 wildly. "What's all this chattering? Talking like 
 monkeys! Waked me up but I won and he 
 paid good stuff " He saw Aderhold and 
 lurched toward him. When he was near he spoke 
 and imagined that none else could hear him. " Don't 
 look so grimly upon me, Master Aderhold ! " he said. 
 " I 've dropped not a word, as I told you I would n't* 
 'Zooks! I 'm not one to peach " 
 
 Aderhold! With one sharp sound the name ran 
 through the swarm. "Not Allen! Aderhold. . . ." 
 There were those here from that port town and the 
 surrounding country, those who had heard that 
 name before. A man cried out, "Aderhold! That 
 was the sorcerer who was to be burned!" Another: 
 "They escaped The sorcerer and apostate and 
 the witch Joan Heron " 
 
 " 111 Luck! Ill Luck!" cried the Bedlamite. "There 
 she stands!" 
 
 John Allen had risen from the coil of rope and 
 stood against the slung boat. The throng swung its 
 body that way, hung suspended one long moment, 
 open-mouthed, wide-eyed, then with a roaring cry 
 flung itself across the space between. Aderhold 
 reached her side, but the throng came, too, hurled 
 him down and laid hands upon her. One clutched 
 her shirt and jerkin and tore them across. She stood 
 a woman revealed. 
 
 337 
 
THE WITCH 
 
 "The witch! The witch!" they roared and struck 
 her to the deck. 
 
 The mate was not the man that was the captain, 
 but he knew what the captain would do, and where 
 he was able he copied. The few superior colonists 
 were not superior to witch-fear, but they had a pref- 
 erence for orderly judgement and execution. Master 
 Evans was of a timid and gentle nature and ab- 
 horred with his bodily eyes to see violence done. He 
 believed devoutly that in the interests of holiness 
 witches, infidels, and sorcerers must be put to death, 
 but he would not willingly himself behold the act 
 which his religion approved. There were others 
 aboard amenable to discipline, and bold enough to 
 escape panic over mere delay. The sorcerer and the 
 witch were drawn from the hands of the more en- 
 raged. Their arms were bound across; they were 
 thrust into the ship's dungeon. With them went 
 Humphrey Lantern, sober enough now poor wry- 
 mouthed man ! ... In the state cabin there was held 
 a council. "Keep the wretches close under hatches 
 until Virginia is reached," said the cooler sense. 
 "Then let the officers of the settlement hang them, 
 on dry land and after solemn judgement. Or let 
 them be prisoned in Jamestown until a ship is sailing 
 home, taken back to England, and hanged there. If, 
 as may well be the case, the Silver Queen hath been 
 cursed for their sakes, surely now that they are 
 ironed there below, and their doom certain in the 
 end, the Almighty will lift the curse f At least, wait 
 
 338 
 
THE SILVER QUEEN 
 
 and see if the calm be not broken." Within the 
 cabin and without were malcontents, but the soberer 
 counsel prevailed. The mate agreed to keep the 
 crew from mutiny, the moderate-minded adventur- 
 ers to tame the wilder, more frightened and impa- 
 tient spirits. . . . That very night the calm vanished. 
 
 The calm vanished in a wild uprush of clouds and 
 stir of the elements. The heat and savour of brass, 
 the stillness of death, the amazing blue of the sky, 
 the splashed red of sunrise and sunset went away. 
 In their place came darkness and a roaring wind. 
 At first they went under much canvas; it was a 
 drunken delight to feel the spray, to see the crowned 
 woman drink the foam, to hear the whistling and the 
 creaking, to know motion again. But presently they 
 took in canvas. . , . Twenty-four hours after the first 
 hot puff of air, they were being pushed, bare- 
 masted, as by a giant's hand over a sea that ran in 
 mountains. The sky was black-purple, torn by 
 lightnings, the rain fell with a hissing fury, the wind 
 howled now, howled too loudly! 
 
 As the calm would not break, so now the storm 
 would not break. It roared and howled and the 
 water curved and broke over the decks of the Silver 
 Queen. A mast went, the ship listed, there arose a 
 cry. The rain and lightning and thunder ceased, but 
 never the wind and the furious sea and the darkened 
 sky. The Silver Queen was beaten from wave to 
 wave, now smothered in the hollow, now rising diz- 
 zily to the moving summit. The waves combed over 
 
 339 
 
THE WITCH 
 
 her, they struck her as with hammers, her seamen 
 cried out that there was sprung a leak, it came to be 
 seen that she might not live. The panic of the calm 
 gave way to that of the storm. 
 
 And now they cried out wildly that the voyage 
 was cursed, and that God Almighty who had 
 plagued Israel for Achan's sin was plaguing them 
 for that they kept aboard most vile offenders and 
 rebels such as these! Those that were still for delay 
 kept quarter yet a little longer, but while the wind 
 somewhat lessened, the leak gained, and panic at- 
 tacked them too. The captain lay ill and out of his 
 head, the mate was no stronger than they who 
 wished clearance made. In a black and wild morn- 
 ing, the livid sky dragging toward them, the sea run- 
 ning high, they lowered a boat and placed in it 
 Aderhold and Joan and Humphrey Lantern. They 
 might, perhaps, have held the last with them, car- 
 rying him in irons to Virginia, but when he found 
 what was toward he cursed them so horribly that no 
 wizard could have thought of worse imprecations. 
 They shivered and thrust him into the boat, where 
 he knelt and continued his raving. "Hush!" said 
 Aderhold. "Let us die quietly." 
 
 The sailors loosed the small boat and pushed it 
 outward from the Silver Queen. It fell astern, the 
 black water widened between. The ship, mad to get 
 on, to put distance between her and the curse, flung 
 out what sail the tempest would let her carry. It 
 made but a slight pinion, but yet wing enough to 
 
 ,340 
 
THE SILVER QUEEN 
 
 take her from that speck upon the ocean, the boat 
 she had set adrift. . . . Not she had set adrift, but 
 Ignorance, Fear and Superstition, their compound, 
 Cruelty, and their blind Praetorian, Brute Use of 
 Brute Force. There had been one pale ray of some- 
 thing else. Master Evans had insisted that there be 
 put in the boat a small cask of water and a portion 
 of ship's bread. 
 
 The Silver Queen hurried, hurried over the wild 
 and heaving sea, beneath a low sky as grey as iron. 
 The many gazing still lost at last all sight of the open 
 boat. It faded into the moving air, or it was drawn 
 into the sea, they knew not which. But it was gone, 
 and they made bold to hope that now God would 
 cease to plague them. 
 
CHAPTER XXVI 
 
 THE OPEN BOAT 
 
 THAT day and night they in the open boat merely 
 lived to die. With each wave of a sea yet in storm 
 Death overhung them, the foam atop gleaming 
 down like a white skull. The boat rode that wave, 
 and then Death rose on another. There seemed 
 naught to do in life but to meet Death a little 
 candle left to go forth by. Death preoccupied them 
 it was so wide and massive, it came against them 
 in such tourney shocks. "Now . . . No! Then 
 now ..." But still the boat lived and the candle 
 burned. When the dawn broke the waves were seen 
 to be lessening in might. 
 
 That day the sea went down and the sky cleared. 
 Sea and sky turned a marvel of blue, Indian, won- 
 drous. There was a wind, steadily and quietly blow- 
 ing, but it served them not who had no sail. All 
 around all around the intense sea spread to the 
 horizon, and no sail showed and no land. The sun 
 mounted and for all the moving air they felt its 
 heat which increased. Heat and light light 
 light 
 
 The cask of water. . . . They found beside it a 
 small drinking-cup of horn, and they agreed that each 
 should drink this once filled each day. It was little, 
 
 342 
 
THE OPEN BOAT 
 
 but so they might keep Death at bay so many days. 
 They also portioned out the ship's bread. Likewise 
 they watched for a sail. They were now in seas 
 where ships might be looked for; west and south 
 must lie the islands held by Spain. Once two sea- 
 birds flew past them, and that would mean that land 
 was not inconceivably far away. But they saw no 
 land, and no sail was etched against the sapphire 
 sky. Loneliness profound, and heat and light. . . . 
 All was done that could be done to preserve life. 
 It remained to live it. ... But poor Humphrey Lan- 
 tern, whom the other two tried to comfort, would 
 not be comforted. He sat and bit 'his nails, full of 
 remorse and horror, then passed through stages of 
 anger to a melancholy, and thence to a dull indiffer- 
 ence, silence, and abstraction. They could not rouse 
 him. Aderhold spoke in vain of the Low Countries 
 and the wars, and of all the good that they owed him, 
 and of how they might yet live to remember these 
 days not unkindly. Lantern, huddled in the bottom 
 of the boat, looked at them blankly. His abused 
 body sank more quickly than did theirs. . . . He had 
 a knife, and at last one night, when they had been 
 drifting long days and nights, he struck it into his 
 heart. The body, swaying against Aderhold, roused 
 him from uneasy sleep. His exclamation waked 
 Joan; she put out her hand and raised it wet with 
 blood. A moon so great and shining lit the night 
 that they could see well enough what had been done. 
 Lantern was dead. They laid him straight in the 
 
 343 
 
THE WITCH 
 
 bottom of the boat. Aderhold drew out and washed 
 the knife, and then they sat beside the dead man 
 until the moon paled in the vast rose-flush of dawn. 
 Then, while sea and sky were so beauteous, they 
 lifted the body; then, while they looked to the 
 brightening east, let it leave their hands for the 
 great deep. Wind and current bore the boat slowly 
 onward and away. The two were now so weak that 
 they lay still as after great and prolonged exertion. 
 
 The day burned to its height, flamed to its close. 
 There came a sunset of supernal beauty, and then 
 the pitying, brief twilight and the glory of the 
 southern night. The coolness gave a little strength. 
 Aderhold set the cup to the mouth of the cask and 
 poured for each a shallow draught of water. They 
 should not have drunk till morning, for their store 
 was nearly gone. But with one mind they took this, 
 to give them voice, to free them for a little from gross 
 pain. When it was done they turned each to the 
 other, came each to the other's arms. 
 
 Another dawn the furnace of the day sunset 
 the night. The wheel went round and they, 
 bound to it, came again to dawn and then to strong 
 light and heat. When they had drunk this morning, 
 there remained of the water but one cupful more. 
 They lay, hand clasping hand, in the bottom of the 
 boat that now drifted on a waveless sea. Sometimes 
 they murmured to each other, but for the most part 
 they lay silent. There was now no outward beauty 
 in the two. They lay withered, scorched, fleshless, 
 
 344 
 
THE OPEN BOAT 
 
 half-naked, human life at last gasp between the 
 ocean and the sky. Within, all strength and beauty 
 could summon only negatives. They did not com- 
 plain, they did not curse, they did not despair, they 
 did not hate. Within was a stillness as of a desert, 
 with a low wind of life moving over it. The physical 
 could not lift far into emotion, but what there was 
 was love and pity. Emotion could hardly attain to 
 thought, nor thought to intuition, but what there 
 was knew still the splendour and terror and all 
 things that we are. Day eve the night the 
 dawn day. They measured out the last water in 
 the cask and shared it justly between them. They 
 lay side by side, his hand upon her breast, her hand 
 upon his. The fierce heat, the fierce sunlight rose 
 and reigned. . . . 
 
 A crazy, undecked sailboat came out of the haze. 
 It was returning from a great island south to a group 
 of small islands lying northerly in these seas, and it 
 held five or six Indians not the fiercer, southern 
 Caribs, but mild Lucayans. One spied a dot upon 
 the waters and pointed it out. They drew slowly 
 nearer in a light wind, and when they saw that it was 
 a boat adrift, tacked and came up with it. A man 
 leaned overboard, seized and drew it in, and with a 
 rope fastened it to the stern of the larger craft. 
 Uttering exclamations, they examined their prize. 
 In the bottom of the boat lay a man and a woman in 
 man's dress. They lay unconscious, wreathed in 
 each other's arms, two parched and gaunt creatures 
 
 345 
 
THE WITCH 
 
 who had suffered the extremity of exposure, hunger, 
 and thirst. The Indians thought that they were 
 dead, and, indeed, they looked like death and terri- 
 ble death. But when they were lifted and dragged 
 into the larger boat, and when water was put be- 
 tween their blackened and shrivelled lips, there 
 came a faint stir and a moaning breath. . . . The 
 Indians had good store of water in cask and cala- 
 bash; they gave it again from time to time, and 
 they crumbled cassava bread and fed that too. . . . 
 Joan and Aderhold turned back to the land of the 
 living. 
 
 At first the Indians thought that they were Span- 
 ish, for they had no association with other white 
 men. Association with the Spaniard had been cruel 
 enough for them ; they belonged to the disappearing 
 remnant of a people swept by the thousands from 
 their islands to the larger islands, enslaved, op- 
 pressed, extirpated. These in the boat were run- 
 aways from a hard master, who had stolen this boat 
 and put out, crazy as it was, on what might seem a 
 hopeless voyage. Did they pass through days and 
 nights, and leagues and leagues of sea and go uncap- 
 tured by some Spanish craft, did they come at last 
 to their own island, what would they find there? A 
 desert, with, perhaps, a tiny cluster of palm-thatched 
 huts, still clinging, looking for some landing party, 
 looking to be swept away as had been their kith and 
 kin a perishing group, dejection, languor of life. 
 . . . But homesickness drove them on; better a 
 
 346 
 
THE OPEN BOAT 
 
 death-bed with freedom than the peopled great 
 island where they were slaves! They had felt the 
 Spanish lash and the Spanish irons; they looked 
 doubtfully enough upon the white man and woman, 
 and it was perhaps a question whether now they 
 would not pay back. . . . But when at last Aderhold 
 spoke, it was in English. They did not know that 
 tongue and they answered in altered and distorted 
 Spanish. He had a little Spanish, and he made them 
 understand briefly that the two had been in an Eng- 
 lish ship and that there had been a storm and that 
 they were castaways. They were not Spanish, and 
 they did not know the great island or any of the 
 masters. They were English, whom the Spanish 
 hated. That fact being weighed, the Indians turned 
 friendly, laughed and stroked their hands in token 
 of amity, then set apart for the two a great calabash 
 of water, and gave them more cassava bread. 
 
 Joan and Aderhold ate and drank. The will to 
 live was strong, for life had turned a rainbow, and a 
 wild and beautiful forest, and a song of the high and 
 the deep, and an intense pulsation. The two came 
 swiftly up from Death's threshold. Before the boat 
 came into sight of land the light was back in their 
 sunken eyes and some strength in their frame, . . . 
 The land seemed a low, island shore. The excited 
 Indians gesticulated, spoke in their own tongue. 
 Aderhold, questioning them, learned that it was the 
 outermost of their island group, but not their own 
 Island to which they were bound. They saw pale 
 
 347 
 
THE WITCH 
 
 sand and verdure green as emerald ; then the night 
 came and covered all from sight. No light of torch 
 or of cooking-fire pierced the darkness. The blank 
 shores slipped past, the boat left them astern, and 
 now again all around was the sea. . . . But though it 
 was night there was no sleeping. The returning 
 exiles were excited, restless, garrulous. The two 
 learned that there were many islands and now 
 almost no people. The people the Indians beat 
 their breasts were gone now, almost all gone. For 
 the masters sent men from the great islands to burn 
 the villages and take the men and women and chil- 
 dren and drive them aboard ships and carry them 
 off to make poor slaves of them. They had done so 
 when the oldest men were children, and when the 
 oldest men's fathers were children. But now the 
 masters did not come, for the men and women and 
 children were all gone all gone but a few, a few. 
 The returned from long slavery did not know if 
 these few were yet there, yet clinging to their island. 
 Night passed, dawn came, the wind blew them on. 
 Now they saw islets and islands, but no craft upon 
 the water, or sign of life. Then, in the afternoon, the 
 Indians' lode-star lifted upon the horizon. They put 
 their helm for it, a freshening wind filled their sail. 
 Presently they saw it clear, a low island, here ivory 
 white and here green as emerald. The Indians 
 shouted and wept. They caressed one another in 
 their own tongue, they gesticulated, they held out 
 their arms to the nearing shore. 
 
 348 
 
THE OPEN BOAT 
 
 The shore dilated. Reefs appeared to be warily 
 avoided, and the water grew unearthly blue and 
 clear. Green plumes of palm seemed to wave and 
 beckon. Back from the narrow ivory beach, inland 
 out of a break in the belt of green, rose a feather of 
 smoke. The Indians when they saw it were as mad 
 people. They leaped to their feet, they embraced 
 one another, they laughed, they strained their 
 bodies toward the land, and broke into a savage 
 chant of home-coming. . . . Now they were in a tor- 
 tuous channel between cays and the island. The 
 island beach widened, and now human forms ap- 
 peared not many, and at first with a hesitant and 
 fearful air; then, as they became assured that here 
 was only one small sailboat, with a bolder advance, 
 until at last they came down to the edge of the small 
 bight to which the boat was heading. They were 
 Indians like those in the boat, a mild and placable 
 strain, dulled and weakened by the century-old huge 
 wrong done them. They were but a handful. In the 
 whole island there was now but one small village. 
 
 The boat glided past a fanged reef and came into a 
 tiny crystal anchorage where the bright fish played 
 below like coloured birds in the air. They lowered 
 sail ; they came as close as might be to the shelving 
 land; the Indians leaped into the water and made 
 ashore with loud cries and incoherent words. The 
 islanders swept about them, surrounded them; there 
 rose a wild,, emotional questioning and greeting, 
 laughing and crying. 
 
 349 
 
THE WITCH 
 
 The infection spread to Joan and Aderhold. Be- 
 hind them lay pain and horror, and pain and horror 
 might again claim them. But now Time had spread 
 for them a mighty reaction. It was so blessed to be 
 alive ! they were so prepared to embrace and love 
 life every material thing seemed so transfused 
 and brightly lit from within they laughed them- 
 selves and felt in their eyes the happy dew. . . . 
 They, too, must take to the water to come ashore. 
 It was naught to them, the shallow bright flood. 
 They crossed it as had done the Indians, and stepped 
 upon the land. 
 
CHAPTER XXVII 
 
 THE ISLAND 
 
 A FEW miles in length, fewer in breadth, the island 
 lay in a sub-tropic clime. During its winter all the 
 air was neither cold nor hot, but of a happy in- 
 between and suave perfection. Its summer brought 
 strong heat and at times wild tempests of rain and 
 wind, thunder and lightning. For the most part the 
 land rose but a little way above the sea, a shallow 
 soil with a coral base. Out of this mould sprang a 
 forest of eternal greenness. Once there had been 
 a number of villages, each in its small clearing, but 
 one by one they had been destroyed and the clear- 
 ings had gone back to the forest. 
 
 /This one larger village had outlasted. Dwindling 
 year by year, before it, at no great term, death and 
 absorption, when all the island would be desert, it 
 yet showed a number of irregularly placed, circular 
 huts woven of branch and reed and thatched with 
 palm. To this village Joan and Aderhold were 
 swept together with the escaped slaves, the returned 
 exiles. Besides the tenanted huts there were others 
 from which the last of the occupants had died, but 
 which were not yet fallen to the earth and become a 
 part of the forest floor. Joan and Aderhold were 
 given one of these abodes standing under tamarind 
 
THE WITCH 
 
 and palm, and here food was brought them. All the 
 village was in commotion, restless and excited, for 
 seldom and most seldom in all the years did any one 
 come back. . . . When night fell there ensued feast- 
 ing and revelry, a strange picture-dance, performed 
 by men and women, long recitatives wherein some 
 sonorous voice told of this people's woes, of their 
 palmy days, and how the white men came in the 
 time of their fathers, and they took them for gods 
 and they proved themselves not so not gods but 
 devils! The torrent expression of wrongs flowed on. 
 Sharp cries and wailings came from the dusky 
 figures seated in an ellipse about the narrator. Eyes 
 looked angrily across to where the white man and 
 woman sat and watched. 
 
 Among the Indians of the sailboat had been an old 
 man with a finer, more intelligent face than was to 
 be found among his fellows. It was he, principally, 
 who had talked with the castaways. Now, on land, he 
 constituted himself their advocate and protector. 
 He had been, it seemed, the chief man of a vanished 
 village, and this present village, being without a 
 strong man, looked to him with deference. Now he 
 rose and spoke and the threatening looks faded. 
 These Indians were not of a fierce and cruel temper 
 and the two strangers were not Spanish, but came 
 from a tribe whom the Spanish fought. . . . Danger 
 to the two from their hosts or captors passed away. 
 
 The night went by in noise and feasting. With the 
 dawn the village sank into sleep. The home-coming 
 
 352 
 
THE ISLAND 
 
 ones needed, after long adventure and strain, rest 
 and repose, while the friends and kindred at home 
 were used to swift and calm descendings to immobil- 
 ity and profound sleep. Within and without the 
 tent-like huts lay the dusky, well-shaped forms, 
 almost bare, still as death, lying as though they had 
 been shot down by invisible arrows. The projecting 
 palm thatch, the overhanging, thick foliage, kept out 
 the fierce sun, made a green and brown gloom. 
 
 Joan and Aderhold slept, too. For them the imme- 
 diate need was health again, strength again, energy 
 in which to base the wonderful flower of life. They 
 lay like children near each other, and slept the live- 
 long day. When, in the last bright light, they 
 waked, there was cassava bread, and tropic fruit and 
 water from a neighbouring spring. They ate and 
 drank and talked a little, about indifferent things 
 only nothing now was indifferent, but rich and signi- 
 ficant. But it was as though they would hold away 
 from them for a little while their deeper bliss; would 
 not speak of that until they could speak in health, 
 with glow and vigour and beauty and power! 
 About them the village half waked, half slept. They 
 heard women's and children's voices, but dreamily. 
 The woods, that had been very still during the 
 heat of the day, were now as murmurous as rapids of 
 a stream. All manner of winged life made a continu- 
 ous sound. Joan and Aderhold rested their heads 
 again upon the woven palm mat and slept the deep 
 night through. 
 
 353 
 
THE WITCH 
 
 With the second morning the Indian village re- 
 sumed its normal process of existing. The women 
 practised a kind of embryonic agriculture. The men 
 hunted not at all, though they trapped birds; but 
 they fished, pushing out into the turquoise sea in ca- 
 noes hollowed from tree-trunks. The women plaited 
 baskets, and cut and dried gourds large and small. 
 They had cotton, and they knew how to weave it 
 into the scant clothing needed in such a clime. 
 They scraped the cassava root into meal and made 
 bread, and gathered and brought in the staple fruits. 
 In the village were to be found in some slight num- 
 ber and variety matters not of savage make. Dur- 
 ing the more than a hundred years since the great 
 Genoese and his Spanish sailors had come upon this 
 group, such things had drifted here, as it were, upon 
 the tide and the winds. Thus there were to be seen 
 several cutlasses and daggers, together with a rusted 
 Andrea Ferrara, a great iron pot, and smaller uten- 
 sils, a sea-chest, a broken compass, a Spanish short 
 mantle and hat and feather, some piece of furnishing 
 from a church, a drinking-cup, a length of iron 
 chain. But nothing had been left, or had been 
 traded for with Indians of other villages, for a long, 
 long time. The islands were desert and forgotten 
 . . . except that now of late sea-robbers and pirates 
 were, for that very reason, taking as anchorage, 
 refuges, and bases of operation, the intricate chan- 
 nels and well-concealed harbours. But no pirate 
 ship had found as yet this inward-lying island. It 
 
 354 
 
THE ISLAND 
 
 rested upon the sea as If forgotten or lost or inacces- 
 sible, and its fading people knew at least a still and 
 not ungentle autumn. 
 
 The old Indian came this morning to visit Ader- 
 hold and Joan. Others had been before him ; they had 
 held, perforce, a kind of levee. The children were not 
 more curious, nor simpler in their expression of curi- 
 osity, than were the men and women. They had no 
 language in common with the castaways but that of 
 gesture, but they made this answer. The torn, sun- 
 faded clothing of the two, the fineness and tint of 
 their hair, the colour of their skin, Joan's grey eyes, 
 the absurd sound of their speech at which the Indi- 
 ans laughed heartily every physical trait was of 
 interest. But as with children attention went little 
 further than that and was quick to flag. The levee 
 dispersed. 
 
 But the old man's interest went beyond eyes and 
 hair and a fair skin. He could speak in Spanish, too, 
 and Aderhold could answer. He was as curious as 
 the others, but his curiosity had a wider mental range. 
 The strangers' country and its nature their rank 
 there why they left it had their ship utterly 
 perished in the hurricane these and other ques- 
 tions he asked, with his fine, old, chieftain, shrewd, 
 not unhumorous face. Aderhold answered with as 
 much frankness as was possible. The old chief lis- 
 tened, nodded, said briefly that he had heard men in 
 the great island speak of those other white men, the 
 English/and how they fought like devils. "But 
 
 355 
 
THE WITCH 
 
 devils' devil not what I call devil/' said the chief. 
 "Devils' god what I call devil." 
 
 He wished to know if the English were not coming 
 to fight the Spanish, and his eyes lit up. "Then come 
 rest here. Englishmen would n't stamp foot upon us 
 eh?" He observed that the hut was old and fall- 
 ing down. "Not good place. Too much tree too 
 much other houses all around. I like place see the 
 water night and morning. Sit and think, think 
 where it ends." He offered to have them a house 
 built. " Do it in one day. When you like it you look, 
 say where." 
 
 Presently he gazed at them thoughtfully, and held 
 up two fingers. "Sister and brother?" 
 
 "No, not sister and brother. We are lovers." 
 
 "Ah, ah!" said the old chief . "I thought that, 
 yonder in the boat. What is her name and your 
 name?" 
 
 "Joan and Gilbert." 
 
 The old man said them over, twice and thrice, 
 pleased at mastering the strange sounds. "Joan 
 Gilbert. Joan Gilbert." At last he went away, 
 but that was the beginning of a long and staunch 
 friendship. 
 
 The day passed, the night. Another day dawned 
 and ran onward to an afternoon marvellously fair. 
 The season of hurricanes and great heat was passing; 
 the air was growing temperate, life-giving. This day 
 had been jewel-clear, with a tonic, blowing wind, 
 strong and warm. The narrow shore-line of wave- 
 
 356 
 
THE ISLAND 
 
 Worn rock and coralline sand lay only a little way 
 from the village. In the latter occurred a continual, 
 sleepy oscillation of its particles, talk and encounter, 
 and privacy had not been invented. Joan and Ader- 
 hold, fairly as strong now as on that night when with 
 Gervaise and Lantern they broke prison, went this 
 afternoon down to the sea. 
 
 It stretched before them, the great matrix from 
 which the life of the land had broken, the ancient 
 habitat. They left the village behind; a point of 
 woodland came between them and it. Now there 
 was only the ocean, the narrow shore, the lift of 
 palms and many another tropic tree, and the arch of 
 the deep blue sky. The tide was coming in. They 
 sat upon a ledge of coral rock and watched it. The 
 water, beyond the foam of the breaking rollers, 
 seemed of an intenser hue than the sky itself and 
 calm, calm with never a sail, never a sail. 
 
 "We may live here and die here an old man 
 and woman," said Joan: "die together." 
 
 " I am thirty-four years old," said Aderhold. "I 
 will have to die before you." 
 
 "No. I will die a little sooner than I might." 
 
 1 ' No ! I will grow younger " 
 
 "We talk nonsense," said Joan. "We sit here, as 
 young and as old each as the other! And we shall 
 die together." 
 
 A wave broke at their feet with a hollow sound. It 
 fell on her last word, and it seemed to repeat it with a 
 sullen depth, Together. It came to both that they 
 
 357 
 
THE WITCH 
 
 we/e to have died together, there in England, and 
 that if ever they were retaken, as the great strange- 
 ness of life might permit, then certainly in all proba- 
 bility they would die together. That was one way in 
 which the granting of their wish might be taken as 
 assured. . . . But they saw no sail, and they saw that 
 now the village never looked for a sail. . . . Safety 
 might, indeed, have come to dwell with them. The 
 thought of omen faded out. 
 
 The wind blew around them warm and strong. It 
 was full tide, and about them foam and pearl, and 
 the voice of mother sea. They sat with clasped 
 hands on their coral ledge. It was coming back to 
 them it had come back to them health and 
 glow and colour and spring. Joan was fairer than 
 she had been in Heron 's cottage. First youth, youth 
 of the senses, youth controlled and well-guided, but 
 youth, revived like the phoenix in Aderhold the 
 scholar. He had seemed graver and older than he 
 truly was. In him strength, activity, adventure, 
 interest, will, and daring had early risen into the 
 realm of the mind. There they had bourgeoned, 
 pressed on, been light of step and high of heart. But 
 the outward man had not been able to keep pace. 
 Now a deep passion changed that. He looked as 
 young as Joan; both looked immortal youth. Each 
 put hands upon the other's shoulders, they drew 
 together, they kissed. The voice of the ocean, and of 
 the wind and of the forest spoke for them, and their 
 owii hearts spoke. 
 
 ,358 
 
THE ISLAND 
 
 The next day, when the old chief visited them, 
 they went back to his proposal of a new house. Trie 
 idea found him ready as a child. It was among his 
 traits to be easily fired with the joy of building. He 
 would speak to the chief men and the young men, 
 and they would tell the women to do it at once. 
 Where would Joan and Gilbert he produced the 
 names with pride have it built? 
 
 They took him with them and showed him. Just 
 without the village, so near that they could hear its 
 murmur, yet so far that there was not oppression, in 
 a rich grove, opening to a bit of sandy shore and a 
 wide view of the azure sea. . . . The old chief gazed 
 with appreciation, nodded, "Good! Go talk to chief 
 men now." So much a man of his word was he that 
 the next day saw the women bringing bundles of 
 reeds and palm leaves for the thatching. Also young 
 trees were cut for the posts. Aderhold and Joan 
 studied the method, saw how they might extend, add 
 a shed-like room or two, make a gallery for working 
 under shade. The old chief and the others, too, from 
 the great island, had ideas. The village was in a gay, 
 a stimulated mood. It was a gala month not 
 every other day, nor any other day, did captive 
 tribesmen come back, or castaways appear that were 
 not Spanish, human driftwood making human inter- 
 est! They built for the two from far away so large 
 and good a house that they themselves marvelled at 
 it. "Houses like that " a woman said to Joan 
 4 'in houses like that our fathers live, eating bread 
 
 359, 
 
THE WITCH 
 
 with the Great Spirit! "> When the house was done, 
 the village feasted, and an Indian, rising, addressed 
 the castaways and said that now they were members 
 and an adopted man and woman of the tribe, and 
 that the village expected much good from them. 
 "We show you how we do you show us how your 
 people do show us how to kill Spaniards when 
 they come!" 
 
 The next day Joan and Aderhold took possession 
 of their house. When the crowd who had accom- 
 panied them to it was gone, and when the old chief 
 was gone, and when there came the evening stir 
 and murmur from the village, the two built their 
 fire, and Joan made cakes of cassava bread and 
 Aderhold brought water from a little spring that was 
 their own. They had gold and russet fruit, and they 
 sat and ate before their own door and were content. 
 It was a bright and lovely evening, with a light upon 
 the sea and the palm fronds slowly swinging. The 
 voice of the village came not harshly, but with a cer- 
 tain mellow humming, and the voice of the sea upon 
 the reef came not harshly either. When the meal was 
 finished, they covered the embers of their fire so that 
 it should not go out, then rose from their knees and 
 hand in hand went the round of their domain. Here 
 they would make a garden, here they would bring the 
 water to a trough nearer the hut. Back at the door- 
 way they looked within and saw their house fair and 
 clean, yet fragrant of the green wood, with store of 
 primitive household matters, with the sleeping-mats 
 
 360 
 
THE ISLAND 
 
 spread. They turned and saw the great sea 2nd the 
 sky wide and deep. The evening wind, too, had 
 arisen and caressed them, blowing richly and 
 strongly. A tall palm tree rose from clean white 
 sand. They sat beneath this while the stars came 
 shining forth, and that of which they spoke was 
 Love. 
 
CHAPTER XXVIII 
 
 FOUR YEARS 
 
 No Spaniards came to be driven back, had Aderhold 
 been that magician who could do it. It was like a 
 lost island, or the first peopled island, or the last. Day 
 after day they watched a tranquil sea and saw no 
 point of any sail. Time passed. The Indians from 
 the great island ceased to dream of recapture. Joan 
 and Aderhold ceased to dream of being taken, 
 wrenched apart; ceased to dream of the open boat 
 and of the Silver Queen and of the prison and the 
 gallows field. They did not cease to dream of Haw- 
 thorn, of Heron's Cottage and the Oak Grange, of 
 Hawthorn Forest, and all the life that lay on yonder 
 side the prison gates. Joan dreamed of her father 
 and of her uncle the huntsman, of the castle and 
 Mistress Borrow and others there, the town as once 
 it had been to her, and of Hawthorn as once it had 
 been. She dreamed of Heron's cottage of every 
 item there the well under the fruit trees, the bees 
 under the thatch, the daffodils and every later 
 flower, of her kitchen and the hearth and the old set- 
 tle, and her spinning-wheel. She dreamed of gath- 
 ering faggots in Hawthorn Forest. She dreamed of 
 Alison and of Will the smith's son and of Good- 
 man Cole and of many another the vintner in the 
 
 362 
 
FOUR YEARS 
 
 town, Cecily Lukin and the forester's wife, old 
 Master Hard wick many another. But all were 
 blended together in a dream world, in a gay and 
 bright picture-book, where if there were witches they 
 were harmless good souls who rather helped people 
 than otherwise, and where no one was persecuted for 
 thinking things out for one's self. In the picture 
 book it seemed almost a laudable thing to do. Ader- 
 hold dreamed and his dream world was wider by 
 his greater range of this life's experience. He 
 dreamed of Hawthorn and Hawthorn Forest and all 
 the roads thereabouts, of the Oak Grange and of 
 Heron's cottage; but he dreamed likewise of a world 
 beyond Hawthorn. He dreamed of his own child- 
 hood and boyhood, and they, too, had a picture-book 
 setting, where the rough became only rich and varied, 
 and what had seemed sorrow and harm turned an 
 unhurt side. He dreamed of his first manhood, and 
 of his search for knowledge, the sacred hunger and 
 thirst and the lamp of aspiration in his hand. He 
 dreamed of old woes and scars, happenings many 
 an one, persons many an one. . . . But neither he nor 
 Joan dreamed any more, with a frightful sense of 
 nearness, with a cold start of waking, of sudden, 
 clutching hands, of separation, of dark and deep 
 gaols where neither could hear the other's voice, or if 
 the other's voice was heard, indeed, then heard in a 
 long cry of anguish. Fear spread its dark wings and 
 left them, and took with it intensity of watchfulness 
 and all the floating motes that made its court. 
 
 363 
 
THE WITCH 
 
 They had now great strength and health, Joan's 
 renewed, Aderhold's such as it had never been. 
 They stood erect and bright-eyed, their movements 
 had rhythm, the hand went with precision to its 
 task, the glance fell unerringly, the foot bore them 
 lightly. They bent to life with a smile, frequently 
 with laughter. If life was always a mighty riddle, if 
 at times it seemed a vivid disaster, yet indubitably 
 there were stretches, as now, when it became a 
 splendid possession! 
 
 " ' I have heard talk of bold Robin Hood, 
 
 And of brave Little John, 
 Of Friar Tuck and Will Scarlett, 
 Locksley and Maid Marian ' " 
 
 sang Joan. She wove as she sang, for there was 
 cotton for weaving, and she had learned of the In- 
 dian women and greatly bettered their instruction. 
 She saw garments for them both, hanging from 
 the pegs, lying upon the shelves Aderhold had made. 
 She had traded her skill at many things for needles 
 of bone, for the vegetable dyes that the women used, 
 for various matters that she wanted. She was of all 
 women most fit for such a return to a younger world. 
 Sane and strong and skilled, with the artist arisen 
 from the mere workwoman, she turned back some 
 thousand years, and handled savage life with a cre- 
 ative hand. On all sides latent power came forth. A 
 wise trader, she gathered what she needed; a good 
 teacher, she imparted knowledge as she went, with- 
 out ostentation, insensibly, with a fine unconscious- 
 
 364 
 
FOUR YEARS 
 
 ness; a worker of the best, she did that which her 
 hand found to do with elan and precision and an 
 assured result upon which to base further results. 
 She lacked not for leisure either, nor for a whim- 
 sical, sceptical glance upon her own labours, nor for 
 an ability to let it all slip aside while she sat and 
 brooded upon the open sea. 
 
 As for Aderhold, he was and was not the man of 
 the Oak Grange. He was that man freed where he 
 had been bound, fed where he had been starved. 
 
 Their domain grew in fitness and beauty. By the 
 time the perfect winter had passed into the languors 
 of spring, and spring into the heats and rains of sum- 
 mer, and summer again into cooler, fairer days, they 
 had achieved about them an Arcadian right sim- 
 plicity, as far from meagreness as from excess. The 
 large hut, palm-thatched, stood in a well-stocked 
 garden. Great trees gave them shade; a spring of 
 clear water for ever a cooling, trickling sound. 
 Around all they planted a flowering hedge. Within 
 this round sounded the hum of their industries and 
 their own clear voices. Without was the eternal 
 voice of the sea, and in and out and around, the 
 voice of the moving air. 
 
 The murmur of the Indian village was likewise 
 there, but it did not come athwart; it travelled 
 equably with the other sounds. They had come to 
 have a fondness for the dwindling village, an affec- 
 tion for this remnant of a remnant of a people. 
 They were poor savages, they had flaws and vices, 
 
 365 
 
THE WITCH 
 
 but save that they were less complex, less inter- 
 twined with later offshoots, more plain stalk and 
 plain word, their flaws and vices differed in no great 
 wise from those that might be viewed in France or 
 England. At times the village seemed like a village 
 of children, and then again it might seem very old 
 and somewhat wise. Once or twice they had seen it 
 waver toward a village of beasts, heavily swaying to- 
 ward the animal only. But Aderhold had seen that 
 happen in France and Italy they might both think 
 that they had seen it happen in England. On the 
 very morrow it was something more than animal. 
 At times it was something much more something 
 much higher. And they knew that flaws and vices 
 lurked in themselves also unplucked-out weeds 
 yet living a slow dark life in the backward-reaching 
 abyss. They understood the village, and they tried 
 to help. They did help, and by slow degrees the vil- 
 lage came to change affection with them. As for the 
 old chief, every other day he came to see them. 
 
 He was of an enquiring and speculative turn of 
 mind, and it was his wont to bring unsolved ques- 
 tions to the vine-shaded strip of bare earth before 
 the hut, and there, seated on a mat with a few fol- 
 lowers squatted around, propound them to the two. 
 To most of the islanders all things, outside the nar- 
 rowest range, were supernatural. The old man's 
 scope was wider, and the daring of his scepticism, 
 proportioned to his environment, would have quali- 
 fied him for a dungeon in most countries that Ader- 
 
 366 
 
FOUR YEARS 
 
 hold knew. . . . Here upon this island all was as a 
 sketch, a faint model and portent only of what, in 
 seventeenth-century Europe, had become enlarged, 
 filled in and solid. Generically it was the same; it 
 was but a question of degree of intensity and of 
 accretions. These Indians also held for an external 
 deity, so extruded, so external that steps that 
 intermediaries must be extruded to cover the 
 extruded space between, to reach the extruded Ear 
 and Mind. Moreover, they did not maintain this a 
 flowing process, but continually let the extrusions of 
 remote ancestors dam the stream. They had idols 
 whom certainly not even the old chief might with 
 impunity criticize. They had "Thou shalts" and 
 "Thou shalt nots" which were wise and might long 
 remain so, and those which had been wise and were 
 now meaningless, colourless, making neither for much 
 good nor much harm, and those which might once 
 have been wise but were now hurtful, and those 
 which never had been wise and grew in folly. They 
 had notions, dim, not as yet fearfully positive, of a 
 future life of reward or punishment, where they would 
 do without limit or term throughout eternity, 
 indeed that which, Indians upon this island, they 
 most liked to do in this present moment, or would 
 suffer, alike for ever, just those pains which at pres- 
 ent they acutely disliked. They placed great merit 
 in belief without question, obedience without dis- 
 crimination, and a prostrate attitude. They had ex- 
 truded Authority. Nothing had a proper motion of 
 
 367 
 
THE WITCH 
 
 its own, but everything was moved by something 
 else. The disclaimer of responsibility, of generic lot 
 and part, was general. The disinclination to ex- 
 amine premises was supreme. They had found their 
 despot in Inertia. 
 
 But the old chief was exceptional. He was wary 
 and paid respect to taboos. That done, he loved to 
 talk. He brought to Aderhold questions such as, at 
 the dawn of philosophy, an intelligent barbarian 
 might have put to Thales or Anaximander. Ader- 
 hold answered as simply and well as he might ; where 
 he could not answer, said so. Now and then the 
 more active-minded of the old man's escort brought 
 queries. Joan also listened and questioned. Ader- 
 hold, answering, taught in terms of natural science 
 and a general ethic very simply, for that, here, 
 was the only way. . . . 
 
 But when the old chief and his followers had 
 gone away from the vine-clad porch, and the mur- 
 mur of the village came faintly across the evening, 
 when, their day's labour done, they went down to 
 the sea, to the coral ledge or crescent of pale sand, 
 and lay there by the blue, unending water ; or when, 
 night having fallen, they rested in the moonlight on 
 the black-and-white chequered ground beneath the 
 palms, they spoke more fully, shared more com- 
 pletely the inner worlds. Love could not rest with 
 them in the physical. Freedom, dilation, redoub- 
 ling, rapid and powerful vibration, energy, colour, 
 music, all mounted from the denser to the rarer uni- 
 
 368 
 
FOUR YEARS 
 
 verse. Their minds interfused, there came moments 
 when their spirits might seem one iridescent orb. 
 They were one, . . . only the next instant to be ex- 
 quisitely different . . . then to approach and blend 
 again. At such times they spoke in low tones, with 
 slow, rounded words, of the deepest waters where 
 their souls drank of which they had knowledge, 
 or they spoke not at all, having no need to. ... 
 At other times they talked of the past and the fu- 
 ture and the whole round world. Steadily they 
 learned of each other: Joan much from Aderhold, 
 Aderhold much from Joan. 
 
 They had lived here a year they had lived here 
 more than a year. When they had lived here two 
 years, when they, no more than the Indians about 
 them, watched the horizon for any ship, when they 
 had ceased to dream of separation, change, and dis- 
 aster, when it was fully home, with the sweetness 
 and fragrance of home then was born their child. 
 
 Joan lay upon the clean, woven mats in the bright 
 moonlight. Aderhold put the babe in her arms, then 
 stretched himself beside them. Her grey eyes opened 
 upon him. " Gilbert Gilbert I love you so " 
 
 "I love you so " 
 
 She took his hand and guided it with hers until it 
 rested upon the child, wrapped in cloth which she 
 had woven. "Life from life and added unto life," 
 she said. "Love from love and added unto love." 
 
 The child was a woman child, and they named her 
 Hope. She grew and thrived and they had great joy 
 
 369 
 
THE WITCH 
 
 in her. When the old chief came to see her, he held 
 her in his hands and gave her a musical name of his 
 own. They translated it, Bird- with- Wide- Wings. 
 Henceforward now they called her by this Indian 
 name and now they called her Hope. The old chief 
 grew fond of her, came oftener than ever, would sit 
 in sun or shade quite still and content beside the 
 cotton hammock in which she swung. The days 
 went by, the weeks, the months, and she continued 
 to thrive. She had Joan's grey eyes, but save for this 
 she was liker Aderhold. She lay regarding them, or 
 laughed when they came toward her, or put out a 
 small hand to touch them; she was happy and well, 
 and they were glad, glad that she was on earth. 
 
 The hot season came and the rains, and in August 
 heavy storms. Trees were levelled and the frail huts 
 of the village suffered. The sea came high upon the 
 land and the rain fell in sheets. In the dim hut with 
 the door fast closed, Aderhold and Joan and the 
 babe rested in security. The babe slept ; the two lay 
 and listened to the fury without. 
 
 "There comes into my mind," said Joan, "the 
 black sky and the dead air and the lightning and 
 thunder that Sunday in Hawthorn Church." 
 
 "It came to me then, too," answered Aderhold. 
 "Some finger in this storm strikes the key." 
 
 There was a silence. Both saw Hawthorn Church 
 again and the congregation, and Master Clement in 
 the pulpit. Both felt again the darkness of that 
 storm, the oppression and the sense of catastrophe. 
 
 370 
 
FOUR YEARS 
 
 In mind again each, the remembered bolt having 
 fallen, left the church and took the homeward road. 
 Joan hurried once more over the sighing grass, past 
 the swaying trees, saw Heron 's cottage and the 
 breaking storm. Aderhold passed again through 
 Hawthorn Forest and crossed the stream before the 
 Oak Grange, reached again the fairy oak and the 
 Grange. He was again in Dorothy's kitchen, stoop- 
 ing over the fire in his old room with his unfinished 
 book beneath his hand upon the stairs the 
 door was opening the men to take him. . . . The 
 blast without the hut changed key. The babe woke, 
 and Joan, lifting her, moved to and fro. When she 
 was hushed and sleeping, the strong echo, the re- 
 turned emotion had disappeared. They kept silence 
 for a little, and then they talked, not of old things 
 but of the island, of their trees and garden and harm 
 from the hurricane that must be repaired, and then 
 of the village and the children of the village. They 
 were beginning now to teach these. 
 
 The storm passed and other storms. There came 
 around again the days of balm, the perfect weather. 
 The child Hope was a year old. Their joy in her was 
 great, indeed. For themselves, they were husband 
 and wife, lovers, friends, fellow scholars, fellow work- 
 ers, playmates. Their friendship with the Indians was 
 stronger by a year, their service stronger. The old 
 chief came often and often, and the child crowed and 
 laughed and clapped her hands to see him. 
 
 The balmy days, the perfect weather passed, and 
 
THE WITCH 
 
 the spring passed. Summer again with its heats and 
 rains was here. With the first great storm, in the hut 
 with the door fast closed, shutting out the swaying 
 and the wind and the hot, rain-filled air, Joan, play- 
 ing with the little Hope, keeping her from being ter- 
 rified by the darkness and the rush of sound, sud- 
 denly fell quite still where she knelt. She turned her 
 head; her attitude became that of one who was 
 tensely and painfully listening. 
 
 When she spoke it was with a strange voice. 
 "Does it come again to you as it did last year?" 
 
 11 Yes/' said Aderhold; "it comes by force of asso- 
 ciation. Dismiss it from your mind." 
 
 "It comes as close as though it were going to be 
 real again." 
 
 "It is the darkness and oppression and the feel- 
 ing of being pent. It will pass. Look at the Bird- 
 with- Wide- Wings ! She is laughing at us." 
 
 The hurricane raved itself to a close; the light 
 came and the blue sky, the sun shone out. There fol- 
 lowed a week of this ; then, one morning at sunrise, 
 Joan, coming out of the hut into the space beneath 
 the trees, looked seaward and uttered a cry. "Gil- 
 bertGilbert!" 
 
 Aderhold came to her side. "What is it?" 
 
 Her arm was raised and extended, the hand point- 
 ing. A ship stood off the island. 
 
 All that day it was there; it hovered, as it were, 
 it reconnoitred. It sent out no boats, but there was 
 something that said that it had seen the village. 
 
 372 
 
FOUR YEARS 
 
 It came near enough, and the clearing would be 
 visible from the rigging. The Indians' canoes, more- 
 over, were there upon the beach. ... It was a ship 
 with dingy sails, with a bravo air, yet furtive, too. 
 Once it clapped on sail and dwindled to a flake, and 
 those who watched from out a screening belt of wood 
 thought that it was gone. But it seemed that it 
 meant only to sail around the island, for presently 
 the outlook in the tallest tree saw its shape, having 
 doubled a long point, enlarge again across this green 
 and silver spit. When the second morning dawned, 
 there it was again, dusky, ill-omened, riding the deep 
 water beyond the reef that somewhat guarded the 
 shore. . . . Then the air thickened, and there threat- 
 ened a hurricane. The ship turned and scudded 
 away. While the sky darkened, she vanished, sink 
 ing beneath the horizon to the south. 
 
 The storm broke, reigned and passed. When it 
 was over, when, save for the myriad small wreckage 
 and the whitened and high-running sea, there was 
 calm again, then fell talk and discussion enough as 
 to that ship, foreboding enough, excitement enough 
 in the village. The Indians made new spears or tried 
 trusted old ones, sharpening afresh every point. 
 They had bows and arrows, though they put more 
 dependence in their spears, and in short hatchets, 
 headed with bits of sharpened rock. Whatever 
 weapons there were were got in order. That done, all 
 that they could do was done. Their not unhealthful 
 clime, their search for food, their fishing, swimming, 
 
 \373 
 
THE WITCH 
 
 their games and ceremonial dances kept their bodies, 
 slight and not greatly muscular though they were, 
 yet in a condition of some strength and readiness. 
 Now they had only to wait. . . . They waited, but no 
 ship came back, nor other ships appeared. 
 
 The bad season passed, the good days came 
 around again, and still no fleck of a sail showed on 
 all the round of the blue ocean. The Indians ceased 
 to glance up continually from whatever employment 
 they were about. Now they looked not once a day, 
 now they ceased all active expectation, now the 
 matter grew dim, remote, now it faded almost from 
 mind. The old chief, perhaps, still looked seaward, 
 but the village at large had short memories when 
 immediate anxieties were lifted. Life took up again 
 the old, smooth measure. 
 
 But Aderhold and Joan could not forget. Subtly 
 they felt that the current was wearing another chan- 
 nel. There were cloud shapes below the horizon. 
 They were happy. Their joy in each other and in the 
 child was, if that could be, deeper the very shape 
 of fear gave an intensity, a lambent rose and purple, 
 a richer music made it deeper. Their service to 
 the folk among whom they had fallen was no less. 
 . . . But they felt a threat and a haunting and a 
 movement of life from one house to another. 
 
 At last, on a calm and glorious morning, they saw 
 the ship again that ship and another. The two 
 lowered sail, down rattled the anchors; they swung 
 at ease in the still water beyond the fringing reef. 
 
 374 
 
FOUR YEARS 
 
 Jheir flags were Spanish; they sent a shot from a 
 culverin shrieking across to the land. It sheared the 
 top of a palm tree ; the green panache came tumbling 
 to the ground. Birds rose with clamour and fled 
 away; the shot echoed from a low hill back in the 
 island. Forth from the ships' sides put boats boat 
 after boat until there were a number and all filled 
 with armed men. 
 
CHAPTER XXIX 
 
 THE SPANIARDS 
 
 THE slave-seekers, one hundred and fifty armed 
 men, struck a flag into the earth before the village 
 and demanded a parley. Their leader or captain was 
 a tall, black-bearded person, fierce and fell of voice 
 and aspect. He came to the front and shouted to the 
 Indians in a mixture of Spanish and Indian words. 
 Also he made friendly-seeming gestures. " No harm 
 meant no harm meant! Friends friends! Your 
 kindred send you messages from a happy country 
 much happier than here where you live! Let us 
 come into your village and talk. We have beads 
 and scarlet cloth " 
 
 But the village kept silence. At Aderhold's insti- 
 gation, immediately after the ship's first visit, it had 
 digged around itself a shallow ditch and planted in 
 part a stockade of sharpened stakes, in part a tall 
 and thorny hedge. Within this manner of wall were 
 gathered some four hundred souls, counting men, 
 women, and children. Besides the infants and the 
 small boys and girls there were the old and infirm 
 and the sick. All were naked of other defence than 
 this one barrier and the frail, booth-like walls of 
 their huts. They were armed only with primitive 
 
 376 
 
THE SPANIARDS 
 
 weapons. The word " Spaniard " meant to them 
 ogre and giant. 
 
 If they were not truly ogres and giants, the slave- 
 seekers were yet active, hardened, picked men, 
 trained in cruelty, practised in wiles, fired with lust 
 of the golden price. When the village held silent, 
 the leader tried again with blandishments; when 
 there came no answer but the hot sunshine and the 
 murmur of wood and sea, the company lifted its 
 flag and advanced with deliberation. From behind 
 the wall came a flight of spears and arrows. A Span- 
 iard staggered and fell. Some savage arm, more sin- 
 ewy than most, had sent a spear full through his 
 neck. There arose a roar of anger. The men from 
 the ships, the black-bearded one at their head, 
 rushed forward, came tilt against the stockade and 
 the thorn hedge. . . . They had not believed in the 
 stoutness of any defence, nor of these Indians' hearts. 
 But driven back, they must believe. Carrying with 
 them their wounded, they withdrew halfway to the 
 sea and held council. 
 
 In the village they mended the gaps in the wall of 
 stakes and thorny growth, and that done, watched 
 and waited. The sun rode high, the children went 
 to sleep. . . . The old chief the fighting men, the 
 women gathered around him talked with high, 
 ironic passion of days gone by in this island, in this 
 island group. "They came, and our fathers' fathers 
 thought they were gods or men like gods! They 
 had their wooden cross, and they planted it in the 
 
 377 
 
THE WITCH 
 
 sand, side by side with their flag that says 'Slay!' 
 They said that both were pleasing to the Great 
 Spirit, and that they were his favoured children. 
 They went away and our fathers' fathers thought 
 of them as gods and their country as the house of 
 the Great Spirit. . . . They who had been children 
 when they came grew to be men. There were men 
 and men, then, in this land, men and men! Then 
 the Spaniards came again. They told our fathers 
 that they came from heavenly shores. They said 
 that there, would our fathers only go with them in 
 their many ships, they would find their dead again ! 
 Find them living and bright and always young. 
 Find them they loved. Find their forefathers whom 
 the Great Spirit loved and kept always about him. 
 Find all they dreamed about. Find happiness. . . . 
 They were weak of mind and they believed! They 
 went into the Spaniards' ships hundreds and 
 hundreds and hundreds. Next year the Spaniards 
 came again and they brought what they said were 
 messages from the red men who had gone last year 
 to the heavenly shores. It was truly where the Great 
 Spirit dwelt and where the dead lived again and all 
 the red men who could should come. . . . And they 
 whose islands these were were weak in judgment and 
 listened and believed and went. The Spaniards car- 
 ried them away in their ships men and men and 
 men and women and children. They loaded their 
 ships with them as though they were nuts or fruit 
 or fish they had caught, or the gold that they are 
 
 378 
 
THE SPANIARDS 
 
 always seeking. They carried them away, and next 
 year they came for more. They took these too. And 
 now this country was growing as it is to-day trees 
 where once there were people. But at last one es- 
 caped from the 'heavenly shores,' and after long 
 toil and suffering reached these islands and told 
 the truth. So at last when the Spaniards came the 
 people fought them. But they were strong and the 
 people were weak. And more and more trees grew 
 where once there had been men! Now" said the 
 old chief "I will tell you about those heavenly 
 shores, for I, too, have been there. I will tell you of 
 what we from this country do there, and what is 
 done to us." He told, circumstantially, a tale of 
 fearful suffering. 
 
 Many of the Indians, men and women alike, de- 
 termined to die rather than be taken. But many, 
 and perhaps the most, were neither strong nor stoic, 
 and there was a doubt, Aderhold and Joan felt, and 
 the old chief felt. . . . Neither that day nor that 
 night did there befall another attack. The Span- 
 iards camped upon the shore, but the watching vil- 
 lage saw boats go to and fro between the land and 
 the ships. The night was dark and they saw mov- 
 ing lanterns. With the dawn one of the ships slowly 
 felt her way farther into the crooked channel ; when 
 she anchored again she lay much nearer than before, 
 and her row of culverins grinned against the village. 
 Moreover, three lesser pieces had been dismounted 
 and brought ashore. In the nighttime they had 
 
 379 
 
THE WITCH 
 
 made a platform and mounted these falcons or 
 sakers. 
 
 As the sun rushed up, they sent a broadside 
 against the wall and the huts beyond. The flame 
 and thunder terrified, the iron shot wrought havoc. 
 They sent another round, tore a great gap in the 
 hedge, then with a shout charged, the whole com- 
 pany, across the open strip. . . . The bravest of the 
 village fought desperately, but the breach was made. 
 Many of the assailants were partly mailed. The In- 
 dians' weapons turned against steel headpieces and 
 backs and breasts. The Spaniards' pikes and cut- 
 lasses had advantage; their strength and ruthless 
 practice had advantage; their name, their face, their 
 voice carried terror to these forest people. Yet they 
 fought, the braver sort striking twice for them- 
 selves and for those whose joints were as water. The 
 old chief grew young again. His eyes breathed fire; 
 he fought and he cried his people on with a great, 
 chanting voice. ... A turn in the confused struggle 
 brought the black-bearded Spaniard facing Ader- 
 hold and Joan. "Mother of God! What's here? 
 White skins leading these devils and fighting against 
 us? Flay you alive " 
 
 Men drove between. There was a great noise, a 
 panting heat, a rocking and swimming of all things 
 before the eyes. A crying arose. Unlocked for, 
 suddenly, there had been sent ashore from the 
 ships the final numbers of their crew and company. 
 Thirty fresh assailants poured with shouts and lifted 
 
 380 
 
THE SPANIARDS 
 
 weapons through the broken defences. . . . The 
 fearful among the Indians, and those who thought 
 slavery better than death, threw down whatever 
 weapons they bore and made gestures of submission 
 and entreaty. Others were overpowered. There 
 were many who could not fight the sick, the in- 
 firm, and aged, many children. The terror of these 
 and their waitings weakened the hearts of those who 
 did fight. Moreover, the Spaniards knew what to do. 
 They took a child and threw it from pike point to 
 pike point, and found Indian words in which to 
 threaten a like fate to every babe. The Indian 
 mothers cried out to fight no more. 
 
 The slave-seekers came in mass against those who 
 yet struggled. They cut down the old chief, fighting 
 grimly ; they ran him through the body with a pike 
 and slew him. Aderhold and Joan with others, men 
 and women, fought before a hut in which had been 
 placed a number of children. A Spaniard came 
 behind Aderhold and struck him down with a blow 
 upon the head. He lay for a minute stunned ; when 
 his senses cleared all was over. All were beaten 
 down, cowed, disarmed. Hands would have seized 
 Joan. She fought them off, sprang into the hut 
 and caught up her child, then, with her in her arms, 
 came back to Aderhold's side. . < . 
 
 The victors were accustomed to victory. The 
 fighting over, the business conducted itself according 
 to custom. This affair differed only from many 
 others in that there had been a resistance of unex- 
 
THE WITCH 
 
 pected firmness. Victory had not been without hurt, 
 without, even, the loss of Spanish lives. Business, 
 reacting, conducted itself therefore with something 
 less of contemptuous and careless disregard of pain 
 inflicted and something more of vindictive willing- 
 ness to inflict it. The conquered were driven together 
 and stripped of every belonging which, by any 
 ingenuity, might be converted into a weapon either 
 against their masters or their own now wretched 
 lives. The black-bearded captain told off guards, 
 and beside pike and cutlass the lash appeared. . . . 
 The ships were to be furnished fruit and cassava 
 cakes and the casks filled with water. The already 
 slaves were set to the task. Graves must be dug for 
 the Spanish dead, and these the slaves dug. Their 
 own dead went unburied. The black-bearded man 
 walked in front of the rows of captives and with a 
 jerk of his thumb indicated the too badly wounded, 
 the sick who would not survive the voyage, the too 
 old. These they put away with sword or dagger or 
 pike thrust. The children were to go healthy chil- 
 dren had value. At last he came to Aderhold and 
 Joan. He stood still before them, looked them up 
 and down, his beard bristling. "Spanish?" he said. 
 "No, no! I think not! English, then? English- 
 English English! How did you come here?" 
 
 "Through shipwreck." 
 
 "You taught them to fight us. English English 
 - English ! Well, we shall see, English ! Are you 
 heretics?" 
 
 382 
 
THE SPANIARDS 
 
 "If you mean are we of the English Church, we 
 are not of the English Church.'* 
 
 "English have no church. There is only one 
 church and religion. Are you of the Holy Catholic 
 Church and Religion?" 
 
 "No." 
 
 "Then," said the black-bearded man and spat 
 toward them, " I will take you as a present to those 
 who are." 
 
 He stood off and regarded them. Joan with the 
 child sat on the earth, in the hot sunlight. The 
 child's terrified crying had hushed; in her mother's 
 arms she had sobbed herself to sleep. She lay half 
 covered by Joan's skirt, shadowed by her mother's 
 bending breast and face. The Spaniard's counte- 
 nance twisted until it was like a gargoyle's for cru- 
 elty and ungenial mirth. Without a word he stooped 
 and with one great slashing stroke of his dagger slew 
 the child. . . . 
 
 They bound Joan, and she lay at last, prostrate 
 upon the earth, her forehead touching the child's 
 still feet. Aderhold sat beside the dead and the 
 living love. . . . Around was heat and glare, huge 
 suffering, brute indifference, brute triumph, life 
 brought low, life iron-shod trampling life, a battle- 
 field of instincts, a welter of emotions, tendencies in 
 impact, old and deep ideas opposed to ideas . . . 
 and all with which he and Joan were ranged in time 
 and space, their stream and current here and 
 now, as often before and often to come, the loser, 
 
 383 
 
THE WITCH 
 
 the loser drowning in defeat. . . . He felt the wide 
 cold, the check, the bitter diminishing, felt it imper- 
 sonally for the enormous current, the stream where 
 there were so many drops ; then, because he was man, 
 felt it for this childish people, felt it, a bitter and 
 overwhelming tide, for himself and Joan. Woe 
 woe there was so much woe in living. . . . 
 
 All the rest of that day the enslaved brought food 
 and rolled casks of water for the ships. When night 
 came they were let to sleep, lying on the ground, 
 In a herd. Now and again through the darkness rose 
 a sharp cry of grief, or ran ^ from one to another a 
 sobbing and groaning. But the most slept heavily, 
 without movement. Dawn came, and the slaves 
 were roused. They were permitted to eat a little 
 food and then they were driven to the shore and 
 into the boats. . . . Their dead, their village, their 
 island were severed from them. They were left 
 naked to the beating of new tides. . . . 
 
 Joan and Aderhold were put upon the ship with 
 the darker sails the ship that had come first to 
 the island. The hold of this ship was inexpressibly, 
 fearfully crowded with the enslaved. When the 
 hatches were closed, it was a black pit, a place of 
 gasping, fighting for breath. When morning came 
 the Spaniards, seeing that otherwise much of their 
 property would die and become no man's property, 
 drew out several score and penned them in a narrow 
 space upon the deck. Aderhold and Joan were 
 brought forth 'with the others, driven here with 
 
 384 
 
THE SPANIARDS 
 
 them, pressed by the mass close against the ship's 
 side. 
 
 Day crept away, sunset came. The island where 
 they had dwelled was long fallen from sight. Out of 
 the sea before them, though as yet at some distance, 
 rose the shape of an outermost islet of this group. 
 When that should be passed, there would lie an 
 expanse of ocean, and, at last, driving south, would 
 rise the great island to which they were bound. The 
 sun dipped below the horizon, but over against it 
 rose the round and silver moon. By its light could 
 be seen the strengthening outline of the last island, 
 at length the very curve of surf, the beach and 
 sombre palms. 
 
 Aderhold moved, touched Joan who sat as if in a 
 trance. About them many of the Indians had fallen 
 asleep or lay, beaten down to a half-consciousness. 
 At no great distance were the guards. But these 
 had no fear now of that cowed shipload, and so paid 
 little attention. Amidships and forward were Span- 
 iards enough, but these talked and swore or gamed 
 among themselves or gazed at the island without 
 lights by which they were slipping. Aderhold bent 
 and whispered in Joan's ear. For a moment she 
 sat motionless; then slowly the mind returned and 
 became active, though through dark veils of woe. 
 
 She nodded. "Yes, yes! Let us go! If we die we 
 may find her." 
 
 "Wait until that cloud is between us and the 
 
 moon." 
 
 385 
 
THE WITCH 
 
 It came between and the ship and the decks dark- 
 ened. The two rose with caution to their feet. About 
 them were darkness, shadowy forms, blended sounds, 
 but no eye seemed to see what they were about, no 
 voice cried out an alarm. They were close to the 
 ship's side one other moment and they had 
 swung themselves up, leaped overboard. . . . They 
 touched the dark water, went under, rose, struck 
 out. In their ears rang no shout or sound of dis- 
 covery. The sucking and turmoil of the water about 
 them lessened. A fresh wind was blowing and the 
 ship sailed swiftly. She was no longer huge above 
 them, they came out of her shadow; she was seen at 
 a slight distance, then at a greater and a greater. 
 . . . They were free of her, free also of her consort, 
 the other ship. The wide ocean swept around. 
 
 It swept around save where the island rose. It 
 rose not at all far away, a quiet and lonely strand. 
 A light surf broke upon its shore. Sometimes float- 
 ing, sometimes swimming, the two who would yet 
 have life gained toward it. They gained toward it 
 until at last they reached it, came out of the beating 
 surf, and lay with closed eyes and fluttering breath 
 upon the moonlight-coloured sand. 
 
CHAPTER XXX 
 
 THE ISLET 
 
 THIS was a small island or cay. They found water 
 and they found fruit and cassava, and with these 
 and a shelter of boughs and leaves of the little palm 
 they raised again the flag of life. . . . 
 
 The death of the child. For a time that made of 
 existence a cruel buffet, a sore bruise. The par- 
 ents grieved. But time dealt with that grief time 
 and inner strength. At length it diffused itself, add- 
 ing its own hue to many-tinted consciousness, its 
 own strain to life's vast orchestration, but no longer 
 darkening and making to throb all moments of the 
 waking day. They had within them a co6rdinat- 
 ing, harmonizing power, and sorrow brought its 
 own wealth and added to the whole. 
 
 The outward activities of life narrowed, indeed, 
 upon this islet. But here also they took circum- 
 stance and enlarged its bounds and deepened its 
 meaning. They brought will and intellect to bear 
 upon environment, moulded it as far as might be 
 and increased their havings. Here nor nowhere in 
 this universe could they be less than interested. 
 Flotsam upon this islet, yet here as elsewhere the 
 mind found food and field of action and through 
 small doorways passed into wide countries. 
 
 337 
 
THE WITCH 
 
 Love burned clear, love of man and woman. It 
 kept its heyday. But beside it rose, higher and more 
 massive than in the peopled, busy island, other 
 ranges of the mind. The child's death and the 
 loss of the Indian village and of the old chief and the 
 recurring vision of that oppression and the inhuman- 
 ity of their kind and the deep loneliness of this 
 place all wrought upon them. Moreover, the 
 spring of inward growth was strong and constant. 
 Year by year, with Joan as with Aderhold, the spirit 
 travelled further in all its dimensions. 
 
 The mind. . . . Here upon this span of earth the old 
 ache for knowledge, the old brooding and longing of 
 the mind came back to Aderhold, came more im- 
 periously, larger, wider-robed. This ball of earth and 
 the criss-cross of movement upon it. This sun and 
 the chain that held to it the ball of earth. What 
 was the chain? These stars and clouds of stars 
 this sea of ether light in waves. . . . Again, the 
 growth of plants motion fluent as a stream. And 
 the life that dwelt in shells that made its armour 
 and outgrew it. ... Ceaseless change, transition, 
 kinds linked by likeness to other kinds, kinds 
 growing out of other kinds, the trunk branching. 
 He thought that all kinds might have branched from 
 one or few, and the selfsame sap in all. He did not 
 believe in a myriad unconnected, arbitrary crea- 
 tions. . . . But if the least leaf and tendril knew 
 motion, alteration, growth, then the sap, too, knew 
 it the sap that was supposed to be so moveless, so 
 
 388 
 
THE ISLET 
 
 perfected. . . ;4Cin and kin again one and one 
 again. 
 
 As for Joan her mind trod differing roads, 
 though with many a point of contact, many an inn 
 where she met him who travelled too. As of Heron's 
 cottage her hands and head had wrought a bright 
 pastoral, an unfrayed and well-woven garment of 
 life as in the peopled island she had with a larger 
 and a freer play, with a more creative and a nobler 
 touch, made life not an idyll only, but an idyll and 
 something more, so here she lived a nobler poem. 
 Her child's death brought into it deeper tones, as of 
 an organ, as of violins. And as she had lit torches 
 for Aderhold, so had he lit torches for her. She 
 thought and imaged with a wider sweep than had 
 once been possible. She thought and imaged now 
 for the whole world ; she dreamed light for all. 
 
 To both the time upon this isle was a time of deep- 
 ening vision, of a crescent sense of inward freedom 
 and power. To a stranger's chance-lighting eye they 
 would have seemed but two castaways, narrowly 
 environed, scantly living, lonely and lost, of neces- 
 sity wretched. They were not wretched, or lonely, 
 or lost. 
 
 Months passed the year a great part of an- 
 other year. Then one day again they saw a sail. . . . 
 It was the beginning of the stormy season, and there 
 had been rough weather. To-day the sky was blue, 
 the air but gently moving, but there had been a gale 
 to drive ships and make wrecks. This ship had not 
 
 389 
 
THE WITCH 
 
 been greatly hurt, but the winds had driven her out 
 of her course. Moreover, there had been leakage 
 among her water-casks. It was with joy that she 
 saw this islet lift upon the horizon. She made it, 
 found a large-enough harbour between two horns of 
 coral rock and sand, and presently sent her longboat, 
 filled with seamen, to the shore. They rowed in cau- 
 tiously, keeping a good lookout, for, while it was but 
 an islet and looked desert, there might be Indians or 
 pirates or Spaniards. No harm showing, they made 
 a landing and came upon the shore. It was now to 
 search for water. 
 
 In the search they found a palm-thatched hut, 
 and, standing expectant before it, a white man and 
 woman. "Who be you?" demanded the boat- 
 swain in good Devon. 
 
 The ship was the Eagle, sailing home from Vir- 
 ginia, having brought out colonists and supplies. 
 Now it was taking home samples of native products, 
 two or three Indians for show, and not a few dis- 
 satisfied adventurers, with others of a stouter make 
 who were bound with representations to the Com- 
 pany or upon various upgathering missions. . . . Who 
 were the white man and woman? They were Giles 
 and Ellice Herne, shipwrecked here several years 
 ago. The captain, who presently came ashore, was 
 questioning them. From London? Aye, then land 
 their ship? The Needs Must, sailing from port of 
 London. The captain rubbed his brows. He did not 
 remember the ship or the loss of her, but then more 
 
 390 
 
THE ISLET 
 
 and more ships were going out, and he could not re^ 
 member all names or accidents. All lost? Giles and 
 Ellice Herne could not tell. They had escaped in a 
 small boat. Those with them had died. Would 
 they be taken back to England? The captain was a 
 bluff old sea-dog, literal-minded and not inquisitive. 
 He assumed that their tale was true in the main, 
 and he assumed that, of course, they wished to be 
 taken back to England. Otherwise, there would be 
 something wrong with them. He hardly waited for 
 an answer, but turned eyes and mind toward the 
 water-casks. He was in haste; he wished to up sail 
 and away while the sky was still without clouds. 
 
 The two, left alone at last after all exclamation 
 and question, faced a decision how momentous 
 an one made itself felt between them. They stood 
 in the brown light of their hut, the doorway fram- 
 ing blue sea and sky and the Eagle, quivering to be 
 gone. 
 
 Aderhold spoke. " If we refused to go, it is most 
 likely it is certain, I think that they would 
 force us with them. We should be thought mad 
 or if not that, they would hold that we were not 
 simply castaways. They would take us still, and 
 from the first we should rest under suspicion." 
 
 "At any time the Spaniards may come again," 
 said Joan; "then again horror . . . death. Or some 
 other harm may come to one of us here and the 
 other left alone. That is often in my mind, and I 
 know that it is often in yours." 
 
THE WITCH 
 
 "If we reached England unsuspected if \we 
 could lose ourselves in London " 
 
 " Never could we go back to Hawthorn nor to 
 the town!" 
 
 "No." 
 
 "Six years. . . . Gilbert, would we not be safe 
 anywhere else?" 
 
 "Ours are matters in which no one is safe who 
 thinks not as his neighbours. And say we slipped 
 silent and down-bent through life, giving no present 
 authority offence yet at some corner comes one 
 who recognizes face or voice and recalls the past 
 'Ha, you hide!' And it is all to do again. ... I do 
 not think we have any choice. I do not think this 
 captain will leave us here. . . . There have been 
 men who, under feigned names and away from the 
 place of blackest threatening, have lived long and 
 peacefully. ... At first, until we were free of en- 
 quiries and had found work by which we might live, 
 there would be thick danger. . . . We might escape." 
 
 " It is best to be with your kind." 
 
 "Yes, it is best. The world grows so." 
 
 " Oh, to see green grass and English flowers! ... 
 But the child the child! We would go farther 
 and farther from where the child lies. ... I know 
 that we must go." 
 
 "Yes. She does not lie there. She does not stay 
 there." 
 
 "No she is here she is everywhere. . . . 
 Well, let us go bravely." 
 
 392 
 
THE ISLET 
 
 "Giles and Ellice Herne went aboard the Eagle, 
 Before sunset she had clapped on all sail and was 
 moving swiftly from that island. It faded, faded. 
 They lost the clump of palm trees marking the place 
 of their hut, lost the outline of the tiny harbour, 
 lost in the dusk the gleam of the beach and the white 
 crests of the incoming tide. The Eagle was a good 
 ship and a swift sailer. Back she came into her 
 course. The bird that was her figurehead looked 
 east, looked north, between it and its homing the 
 grey and rolling Atlantic. Now she had bad weather 
 and now she had good, but the good predomi- 
 nated. 
 
 The ship was not crowded, as had been, six years 
 before, the Silver Queen. Moreover, those aboard 
 were preoccupied, the dissatisfied with their dis- 
 satisfaction, the hardier, more patient or farseeing 
 sort, returning to England only to return thence to 
 their new world, with their papers of representation, 
 their arguments, and busy schemes. At first there 
 was curiosity as to the castaways and how they 
 had preserved life, alone, on that morsel of land. 
 That satisfied, attention turned in each on board 
 to his own matters, or to matters that seemed 
 cognate. The rescued were quiet folk who kept to 
 themselves ; doubtless they were dazed by long pri- 
 vation and loneliness, and by this unexpected sal- 
 vation. . . . 
 
 Aboard were several women, the captain's wife, 
 and one or two others of the bolder sort who would 
 
 393 
 
THE WITCH 
 
 go with their husbands to whatever new worlds 
 might be discovered. These helped Joan to fitter 
 clothing than any she possessed. She came back to 
 Aderhold in a linsey kirtle and bodice, a small white 
 cap, and with a kerchief folded across her bosom. 
 " Hawthorn again," she said with a sob in her 
 throat. He, too, had been given clothing. He was 
 dressed plainly, like a clerk. No one was by, the 
 soft dusk closing in. They stood for a moment and 
 within them rose the vivid shape of the past. They 
 smelled again the fern and mould of Hawthorn 
 Forest; they heard again the drone of the bees, the 
 singing of the stream past the fairy oak; they heard 
 again the distant church bells. Rose the great 
 image, grave and golden, of the six years past, rose 
 the vision of the child, rose old memories, tender- 
 nesses, fears, rose forebodings, prophecies, realiza- 
 tions. It was dusk, the wind making a low, sustained 
 music. They came to each other's arms, they em- 
 braced closely, straining each to each with pas- 
 sion. They kissed, the tears stood in the eyes, fell 
 upon the cheeks of each. It was like a farewell, 
 and it was like a meeting. . . . 
 
 Upon the ship was a man neither young nor old, 
 who had come out to Virginia the year before, sent 
 by the Company upon some investigation. Now, 
 the work done, he was returning. He had a strong, 
 determined face, steady eyes and a close-shutting 
 mouth. On the day of their coming aboard, he with 
 others had approached Giles and Ellice Herne and 
 
 394 
 
THE ISLET 
 
 asked them questions. They had been true ques- 
 tions; he was interested in knowing how they got 
 upon that island, but preferred the detail of how 
 they had managed to live while there. After that, 
 with some frequency he sought them out and fell 
 into talk. The rest upon the ship were preoccupied 
 with the struggles and miseries and triumphs of the 
 Colony. To them it was growing to be home. But 
 the Company's agent, his errand done, was return- 
 ing to England like Antaeus to Mother Earth. He 
 must talk, and guided by some subtle principle of 
 choice, he talked to these people who also must be 
 homesick for England. 
 
 The two strove to be guarded, spoke little them- 
 selves, passed well enough for a quiet clerk or 
 scrivener or teacher and his wife whom the whim- 
 sical fortunes of the time had made colonists, and 
 wind and wave and ill chance castaways on that 
 islet. Wisdom made them not too silent, not to 
 seem morosely so nor too guarded, not to make it 
 evident that they were watching from behind barri- 
 cades. It was chiefly to Aderhold that he talked, 
 Joan sitting by, her hands clasped in her lap, her 
 eyes upon the sea, narrowing between them and 
 England. He talked, it seemed to Aderhold, with 
 boldness, but then the castaway gathered that upon 
 the issues that interested this man, men in England, 
 in six years' time, had grown bolder. 
 
 News from England! News of England when the 
 agent left England last year was the already two- 
 
 395 
 
THE WITCH 
 
 years-old news that the king meant to rule without 
 Parliaments. Perhaps when they landed in London 
 they might find newer news perhaps the king, 
 wanting money very badly, had wanted it enough 
 at last to summon a Parliament. If that were so, the 
 agent of the Company hoped that certain men had 
 seats. He mentioned among others John Pym. 
 News! There was the news that the Bishops were 
 in the saddle. Episcopacy had been established in 
 Scotland. Timid and recreant ministers had gone 
 over, the patriotic were in hiding, proscribed. 
 The people were at the mercy of the wolves the 
 Crown's wolves. In England just as bad though 
 with a difference. The Established Church rode 
 high and kissed the hand of the king. "Passive 
 obedience!" It had got its shibboleth. "No power 
 in the people and disordered multitude." God's 
 own hand having touched the forehead of kings! 
 "Did I not tell ye?" says the king; and with one 
 hand puts down the civil courts and with the other 
 lifts the ecclesiastical. 
 
 News! The news from England was Despotism 
 that barked like Cerberus out of three mouths - 
 King, Bishops, and Favourites! The agent's face 
 turned red and the veins in his forehead stood out, 
 so in earnest and angry was he. "News of Eng- 
 land!" he said, "is that slaves will be slaves and 
 free men will be free men! News of England is 
 that if things better not there will be battles ! " He 
 swung round upon Aderhold. " I speak more plainly 
 
 396 
 
THE ISLET 
 
 than I should! But if I can read men, your passion, 
 too, is for freedom!" 
 
 "Aye," said Aderhold, "I would be free." 
 Another time, when for some minutes they had 
 been watching the sea in silence, the determined- 
 faced man spoke with sudden energy. " Do you not 
 hold that the Presbyterian or Calvinist form of 
 religion and the rule of the people such as are 
 landowners and tend neither to Popery on the one 
 hand nor to any manner of disbelief on the other 
 through Parliaments duly chosen is the way of 
 God upon earth?" 
 
 Aderhold kept silence, his eyes upon the moving 
 sea. When he spoke at last it was almost dreamily. 
 "The only way? . . . Do you?" 
 
 Something in the fast-flowing field, the field that 
 was but the surface of depth, or in the mist- veiled 
 sky, or in the tone of the castaway, checked the 
 other's reply. At last he said slowly, "It is right to 
 resist a king who would rule us beyond what the 
 sense of man allows." 
 
 "Yes," said Aderhold, "that is right." 
 "That is what I care for," said the agent; "that 
 is the way of God to me. The bishops go with the 
 king and preach tyranny, so the bishops are to be 
 fought too. He who wishes to be free surely will not 
 chain his will to the Pope's throne. So what is there 
 left but Calvin if you exclude these mad Inde- 
 pendents who spring up like mushrooms! At any 
 rate, in England to-day the men who oppose the 
 
 397 
 
THE WITCH 
 
 king's tyranny are like to smack of Edinburgh or 
 Geneva!" 
 
 "In a manner I believe that to be true," said 
 Aderhold. "Not yet do they wish freedom around 
 and around. But never will I deny that it is much 
 to begin to image freedom!" 
 
 The ship sailed on through good and bad weather. 
 To the two castaways danger seemed to sleep. No 
 one troubled them on this ship, preoccupied with its 
 own affairs. The fact that they were seen with the 
 agent of the Company procured for them a certain 
 respect. The days slipped by, the weeks slipped by 
 pearl-grey weeks, quiet, halcyon. 
 
 There came a summer eve when, hand in hand, 
 Joan and Aderhold watched England rise from out 
 the sea. None was by. They stood long in silence; 
 then, " Do you remember," said Joan in a low voice, 
 "how we ran through the castle wood with the great 
 moon on high? How we lay in that pit with the 
 branches over us while they that hunted us went by? 
 Do you remember the woman with the three daugh- 
 ters who gave us bread and milk?" 
 
 "I remember it all," said Aderhold. "May we 
 come forth now as then ! . . . The smell of the hay 
 there in the barn where we lay all day. . . . The 
 white road that first night from the prison and the 
 starry sky over the gallows tree." 
 
 "Over the gallows tree!" 
 
 "Once I thought a thing like that the fearfullest 
 thing! Now, though I love life more now than I did 
 
 398 
 
THE ISLET 
 
 then, I do not think so. The old terrors grow smaller. 
 They will come one day, I think, to cause laughter." 
 
 "I understand that," said Joan. "Nor do they 
 matter to me as they did. Neither the gallows tree, 
 nor words like witch and sorcerer, heretic and 
 atheist!" 
 
 The shore before them grew in distinctness, grew 
 and grew as they stood there alone, withdrawn, 
 watching. With that increasing definiteness, that 
 rigour of line and hue and shape, came with a grow- 
 ing form, a growing sharpness of menace, came as it 
 had not come to them before upon this ship, a realiz- 
 ing knowledge that here there was no change; that 
 the hot ploughshares and the sharp swords were yet 
 ready laid for folk like them to move across! Eng- 
 land was England still. . . . They heard upon the 
 wind, " Witch and Sorcerer Witch and Sorcerer 
 doubly damned for that you were judged and lay not 
 still under our judgement! Witch and Sorcerer. . . . 
 Fornicators for in what church were read your mar- 
 riage banns, and what priest with lifted hands blessed 
 your union? . . . Blasphemers, deniers, atheists who 
 pray not to Jehovah! Witch and Sorcerer Witch and 
 Sorcerer " 
 
 They were not wholly free from fear and shrinking. 
 They looked at each other with whitened faces. But 
 they had said true when they had said that they 
 were freer. They recovered, they smiled into each 
 other's eyes. "I wonder how much of us they will 
 hang or burn " 
 
 399 
 
THE WITCH 
 
 The shores grew plainer, higher. There came, sud- 
 denly, a summons to the captain. They found him 
 in the great cabin, papers upon the table. Still short 
 of speech, incurious and literal, he now had duties 
 which he would perform. He had to give account to 
 the proper officers of the Eagle's voyage and of those 
 whom she brought into England, and he proposed 
 not to lose sight of the castaways, Giles and Ellice 
 Herne, until the right authorities gave him quit- 
 tance. He could not remember the Needs Must, 
 but there were many who would. Any saved from 
 any lost ship had an importance, for they could give 
 to her owners information where had been guessing. 
 Therefore the captain meant to send the two ashore 
 with a trusted man who would take them before 
 such and such persons in authority. There they 
 would be questioned, and if they answered to satis- 
 faction would doubtless be helped. The captain, 
 with a wave of his hand dismissing them, turned to 
 other business. He left a sharp enough thorn of 
 anxiety with the two who had fled England on the 
 Silver Queen. 
 
 Night passed. Morning broke English summer, 
 soft and sweet. Here was the Thames mouth, here 
 other winged ships and ships at anchor, here the 
 green shores, the waving trees, the clustered houses, 
 here England England ! 
 
 As they stood watching with full hearts the agent 
 of the Company came to them from the poop deck. 
 ''You have no money? " 
 
 400 
 
THE ISLET 
 
 "No." 
 
 "Have you friends in London?" 
 
 "No." ' 
 
 He held out to Aderhold a woolen purse, open, 
 showing two gold nobles and some silver pieces. 
 " Yes, take it and no need for thanks ! I have got- 
 ten good from you. You will want work?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 " I have weight enough with the Company to get 
 you a clerkship." 
 
 Aderhold thanked him again, and with warmth of 
 feeling, but shook his head. He had plans, he said. 
 But when the agent was gone the two smiled at 
 each other. Gold and plans! . . . They had had 
 plans they had planned. What they had planned 
 was to lose themselves, immediately upon leaving 
 the ship, in the crowd which doubtless would gather 
 at the waterside, then to slip into some street or 
 lane and begone. Somewhere in the tangled heart of 
 London, in some poor street, in some garret, they 
 might find a lodging. Then work to live by. . . . 
 There had risen a vision, not unhomely, comforting, 
 hopeful physician's work among the poor and 
 obscure, sempstress or spinster's work, quiet life in 
 the shadow but with gleams of sun. ... But now 
 the plans seemed hardly even gossamer. 
 
 The Eagle came slowly into port. Aboard was 
 bustle and confusion. With the rattling down of her 
 anchor appeared the small boats, the wherries, 
 clamouring to take all ashore. A barge brought port 
 
 401 
 
THE WITCH 
 
 officers. These came up the side. . . . All was well, 
 all might go ashore. The agent of the Company 
 would go, it seemed, in the port barge. Giles and 
 Ellice Herne watched him leave the ship. He had 
 been a friend; they felt gratitude and liking; they 
 watched the dwindling boat and thought it doubtful 
 if, in this round of life, they would ever see the agent 
 again. . , . 
 
 Their time came they were to go with the 
 second mate, a broad-shouldered, surly, watchful 
 man. 
 
 The catch into which they stepped was crowded 
 with the lesser sort of the Eagle's passengers. Here 
 were the dissatisfied, returning folk, and here with 
 their exploiter were the Indians brought for show. 
 Aderhold, looking at them, had a fleeting thought 
 of a booth, paused before on a morning when he 
 had set out northward from London, years ago. . . . 
 Shipping loomed about them, Thames side before 
 them. The high, narrow houses, the roofs, the win- 
 dows, the roaring streets, the throng about the water 
 steps, pushing and jostling for a sight of the disem- 
 barking talking and shouting, people greeting 
 and being greeted, a swarm and distraction! Joan 
 sat elbow on knee, hand pressed against lips, her 
 eyes wide, and, as far as Thames side was con- 
 cerned, unseeing. What else she saw she did not say, 
 but her face had a soft and brooding look. . . . The 
 catch made its landing. Joan and Aderhold, placed 
 in the stern, were the last to come out upon the 
 
 402 
 
THE ISLET 
 
 water stairs. Before them the second mate shoul- 
 dered his way. About them was the English crowd, 
 beneath their feet soil of England. Home home 
 home where they were born! 
 
CHAPTER XXXI 
 
 THE HOUR-GLASS 
 
 THEY were moving with the second mate through a 
 busy street, toward a harsh old pile of buildings. 
 The mate was a watchful man. To start aside from 
 him into some court or lane or other street, to elude 
 him and vanish, was from the start a clearly hopeless 
 thing. Did they try 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 overhanging storeys, with swinging signs. 
 Above showed only one pale stripe of sky. There 
 were booths and shops, with an occasional stentor 
 crying of "What d' ye lack? What d' ye lack?" 
 Many people went up and down type after type 
 that Aderhold recalled. The years since he had been 
 in London had made no great difference. He thought 
 that he discerned more party men in many a 
 greater stiffness of bearing, a darker hue and plainer 
 cut in apparel. The chance words and phrases 
 caught in passing had an interest. . . . 
 
 In old, old days there had come to him at times 
 of crisis, a detachment, an awareness of imperson- 
 ality, a perception that, actor here, he was no less 
 spectator of his action, safe in further space and 
 
 404 
 
THE HOUR-GLASS 
 
 time. The perception returned, and came with 
 greater strength than ever before, and with it, too, 
 an old sense of deepening light. He turned his face 
 toward Joan beside him. . . . She was gazing upon 
 London town, her grey eyes calm and bright, her lips 
 parted, rose colour in her cheeks. In a manner she 
 looked as young, as free from care and danger as 
 when, on a holiday, Joan Heron had come with her 
 father from the huntsman's house in the castle wood 
 and had strolled here and there and to and fro in the 
 town six miles from Hawthorn. She looked as young 
 and like a girl, and yet the next moment there moved 
 beside him 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 and 
 touched Aderhold's. " Do you feel it? I felt only 
 fear this morning, but now, somehow, I do not be- 
 lieve 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 left the Eagle, was now darken- 
 ing rapidly. There came a silver dash of rain, in- 
 creasing to a downpour. With slanted bodies and 
 bent heads men and women hastened to shelter. 
 Some hurried on to destinations not so far away; 
 others, with farther to go, took present refuge under 
 overhanging eaves or in doorways. The rain fell with 
 a steady, rushing sound; the gutters began to fill 
 and overflow; the air grew dark and still. "Stand 
 by," said the mate, "until the cloud empties!" The 
 
 405 
 
THE WITCH 
 
 three stepped under the cover of an antique porch, 
 so jutting from the building of which it made a part 
 that the street had been forced to bend. Others were 
 here before them, perhaps a dozen in all. Some were 
 citizens, three or four country or small town people, 
 viewing the sights of London. These had with them 
 for guide and showman some city friend. 
 
 The latter was speaking with distinctness, in a 
 cheerful and complacent voice. "This was one of the 
 old religious houses. Over yonder used to be 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. "There are 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 burns sinners. If you do not believe in 
 burning sinners, you do not believe in God as shown 
 forth in his written Word." 
 
 " I think witches should be burned," said the citi- 
 zen. 
 
 The first country speaker put in his word again. 
 " I saw one burned once when I was a young man! 
 She was a tall, fair wench, and when the flames went 
 
 406 
 
THE HOUR-GLASS 
 
 up around her she cried out only one thing to the 
 crowd of us watching. She cried it thrice. 'When 
 you feel fire, feel what you have believed ! ' ' 
 
 "What did she mean?" asked the citizen. 
 
 "I do not know," answered the countryman. 
 " There's been an outbreak of witches this summer! 
 They 're getting very bold in the North. If you hear 
 of one, the next day you hear of another. For one 
 thing, as soon as 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 narrow street between the rain- 
 washed houses. They were now at no great dis- 
 tance from their destination. As they walked the 
 two tried to hear the questions that would be put to 
 them and to frame answers. . . . But it was difficult, 
 difficult. In both the impulse that was gathering 
 strength, that was, as they both now began to per- 
 ceive, the destined conqueror, was the impulse still 
 to serve the truth. They were not fanatic, and they 
 loved life. But side by side with the recognition that 
 hardly, hardly could they escape, that they would 
 have to make a tissue of statements that could and 
 in all human likelihood would be disproved, streamed 
 stronger and stronger the distaste for that web of 
 misstatement, the liking for a plain relation of their 
 being and its acts. They were conscious of no ec- 
 stasy, no hot, martyr enthusiasm, but direction was 
 
 407 
 
THE WITCH 
 
 taken. With that deep inward movement came to 
 each a feeling of strengthened personality, of unison, 
 harmony. . . . 
 
 The wet and glistening street, the houses, the 
 roofs, the sky, the people passing up and down, 
 the windows, the signs Before them they saw a 
 swinging tavern sign, painted and cut in the shape 
 of a great hour-glass. The tavern had a wide win- 
 dow, overhanging the street, and in the window, as 
 the three from the Eagle came in line with it, ap- 
 peared the ruddy, determined face of the agent of 
 the Company. He looked out upon the street from 
 which the rain had in great part driven the people; 
 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 the window was a person of im- 
 portance to the Eagle and its seamen. The mate 
 spoke with deference, and was ready to listen when 
 the agent proposed that he and the two shipwrecked 
 folk enter the Hour-Glass and drink a cup of wine. 
 He knew that the agent had seemed to have a liking 
 for the castaways and they were not precisely folk 
 under suspicion, but only to be, as it were, certified 
 for. The agent spoke again with a touch of author- 
 ity, and the mate said, "Very good, sir, and thank 
 you kindly! A few 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 the com- 
 
 408 
 
THE HOUR-GLASS 
 
 mon 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 shipwrecked people 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 clouds were parting, and now a stormy 
 sunlight broke through the window. The street 
 began again to fill with people and their voices 
 came confusedly into the room. A drawer brought 
 wine. 
 
 " I frequent this inn/' said the agent. " Moreover, 
 by good luck, I find that a man whom I greatly de- 
 sire to see is in London and sleeps here at the Hour- 
 Glass. I await him now, and in the mean time lack 
 entertainment. I was glad to see you coming up 
 the street." He poured wine. " Here 's to the Eagle 
 and freedom ! Has England changed to your 
 eyes?" 
 
 "Yes and no," said Aderhold. 
 
 Bow bells were ringing. The sunlight suddenly 
 flooded the room. Without the door the mate's 
 rumbling voice was heard. "Two castaways " 
 
 " I have been gone a year," said the agent. "The 
 man that I am looking for is a coming man in Eng- 
 land, and I expect to learn from him " 
 
 The agent and Aderhold were standing by the 
 table, but Joan had seated herself where through the 
 
 409 
 
THE WITCH 
 
 open casement she could see the clearing sky. The 
 movement brought her into the shaft of light. It 
 bathed, it etherealized face and form. She looked 
 an immortal. . . . Placed so, she came first before the 
 eye when the man, whose step was now heard with- 
 out, swung the door wider and entered the room. 
 
 The agent started from the table. "Ha, Harry 
 Carthew! I looked to find you " 
 
 But Carthew had neither eye nor ear for the re- 
 turned acquaintance and fellow-resister of the King. 
 Harry Carthew stood like a man turned to stone. . . . 
 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 eyes where enthus- 
 iasm now burned bright and now sank among the 
 embers of itself. He was dressed much as he used to 
 dress. It was the face and figure of the man who had 
 come to Heron's cottage, but there had been a long 
 warfare in the nature and some degree of change. He 
 stood starkly silent, with a great, arrested look, as if 
 the very elements of his being stood still. . . . Joan, 
 rising, passed from the beam of light into the shadow 
 by Aderhold. They stood side by side, hand touch- 
 ing 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 forth only an uncertain and broken 
 sound. Then, " You were long sought. But when 
 
 410 
 
THE HOUR-GLASS 
 
 the Silver Queen came back from Virginia we learned 
 that you had escaped upon her, but had been thrown 
 from her for what you were, and were 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 may 
 enter, sir?" 
 
 The agent turned back into the room, and with 
 him came a slight man with a steeple-crowned hat 
 and a Geneva cloak. Joan and Aderhold faced 
 Master Thomas Clement. 
 
 *" At last there came from the minister's lips, 
 "Thou witch! Thou atheist and sorcerer!" 
 
 The agent of the Company struck his hand against 
 the table. "Who are these?" 
 
 Harry Carthew turned and walked stiffly to the 
 window-seat. When he reached it he sank down, 
 rested his locked arms against the sill, and his fore- 
 head upon his arms. But Master Clement was of 
 more iron make. His long forefinger shot out toward 
 the two; he raised his arms, the black cloak falling 
 away from them, his small figure dilated; he shook 
 his lean and nervous hands; his voice, beginning on a 
 low tone, grew shrill and rapid; his eyes burned. 
 Zeal for the honour of his God had him. 
 
 "Who are they? Scorners of God and deniers of 
 Revelation! Yoke-fellows with Satan and blas- 
 
 411 
 
THE WITCH 
 
 pheming workers and doers of evil! Who are they? 
 Breakers forth from prison and just doom cheat- 
 ers of stake and gallows froth of hell! Who are 
 they? Say not that you have forgotten the 
 Hawthorn trials!" 
 
 "The Hawthorn trials!" 
 
 "Who in England heard not of them? Of the 
 wicked certain ones were hanged, but there broke 
 gaol and escaped the unbeliever and sorcerer Gilbert 
 Aderhold and the witch Joan Heron ! " He stretched 
 his arms higher, he shook his hands more vehe- 
 mently. " But God for his glory," he said, " bringeth 
 them back!" 
 
 Aderhold and Joan stood straight and silent. The 
 shock of the encounter had driven the colour from 
 cheek and lip, but there was no other sign of cowing. 
 They knew now that they were in the arms of death. 
 The knowledge did not frighten. This very day they 
 had taken their direction they were moving now 
 as they had determined. . . . The agent leaned 
 against the table, pale and staring. 
 
 Aderhold turned and spoke to him. "Our names 
 are Joan Heron and Gilbert Aderhold. We are not 
 witch and sorcerer nor yoke-fellows with Satan 
 nor blasphemers of good. But we were judged 
 by our neighbours and by the law to be such, and 
 we were condemned to death and put in prison. By 
 the help of a gaoler who is dead we escaped. We 
 managed to stow ourselves upon the Silver Queen. 
 In the seas near the island where the Eagle found us, 
 
 412 
 
THE HOUR-GLASS 
 
 our names were discovered and the Silver Queen 
 cast us adrift. By this fortune and by that we came 
 first to a larger island and then to the islet from 
 which the Eagle took us. That, so far 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 was ourselves." 
 
 Joan's voice, a rich, clear, low voice, followed his. 
 " I am no witch, and he is no sorcerer. I was a coun- 
 try girl and he a physician who helped many. Now 
 we are a man and woman who fare forward, wishing 
 no ill to any." 
 
 As she spoke she moved, unconsciously, a step 
 nearer to the table. The agent of the Company 
 recoiled, put out his hand against her closer ap- 
 proach. In his face was a white horror. He remem- 
 bered the Hawthorn witch trial. That year he had 
 chanced to be in company with the elder Carthew, 
 and no detail but had been given him. The very 
 words of a ballad made upon the witch Joan Heron 
 came into mind forgotten, he might have thought, 
 long since, but now flashing out in letters of fire 
 hell fire. It had been a ballad sold and bought 
 throughout England, and it spared no strange asser- 
 tion, 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 of sickness 
 passed over the agent's face, no longer ruddy. He put 
 his arm above his eyes. " Avaunt, witch ! " he said. 
 
 413 
 
THE WITCH 
 
 Joan stepped back. Her eyes sought AderholcTs. 
 He bent toward her, took her hands. She smiled 
 and said in the Indian tongue they had learned upon 
 that island. "Heart of my heart! The great sea is 
 cold at first" 
 
 "Hark!" cried Master Clement. "She speaks the 
 tongue she learned of Apollyon!" 
 
 Harry Carthew rose from the window-seat. His 
 face was yet without colour, drawn and sunken, grim 
 and set. For the most part, with an iron effort, he 
 kept his voice under control, but now it broke and 
 sank and now it took a cadence of pain and horror. 
 He leaned against the 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 man is a sorcerer and this 
 woman a witch ! In his Bible God tells us that there 
 are such and commands that they be done to death. 
 Moreover, from old time, wise judges and men of 
 law and knowledge, and devout and holy preachers 
 of the Word have showed us how these wicked 
 abound ! As for these two, all manner of witness was 
 brought against them, and proof irrefragable. Yea, 
 and those who were hanged confessed that these 
 two kept by day and by night companionship with 
 Satan and did monstrous wickednesses. And that 
 the man is an apostate and blasphemer, an atheist 
 worthy of death, has been proved nay, he himself 
 denied nothing in that sort. All that, and the doom 
 
 414 
 
THE HOUR-GLASS 
 
 pronounced against them, in this world and in the 
 next, stands for true and lasting, and I have no 
 part in it, and there the shadow comes not against 
 me. ... But there is 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, and appoint me a day and I will tell it in open 
 church So may offended God pardon me!" 
 
 " Harry Carthew ! Harry Carthew ! " cried Master 
 Clement. ' ' Every man alive has sin against his soul ! 
 The soul of every man alive is black as midnight, 
 and no dawn cometh to it save from one that is not 
 himself ! Unless and save the dayspring chooseth to 
 shine upon that soul, it resteth 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 of the deep gulf of hell, predes- 
 tined and damned of eternity! What have you to 
 do with them, my brother, my son for Christ 
 knoweth I love thee as a son " 
 
 "What had I to do with them?" said Carthew. 
 " I will tell you! At the trial in the town I gave evi- 
 dence that he struck me in the side with a dagger 
 that eve upon his road to prison. I lied. Sorcerer 
 and atheist 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 court she cried 
 out against me. She told truth when she cried that 
 that night I had come to hr cottage to tempt her 
 and that she struck me with a hunting-knife. . . . 
 
 415 
 
THE WITCH 
 
 What was I? I was a young man, mad for a fair 
 woman fair as her mother Eve who sinned before 
 her! What was I? I was a man desirous to increase 
 in name and fame, desirous of leadership who 
 therefore must not let men view his sin ! But it was 
 sin, and I know not if there be a greater " 
 
 If he began as to a more general audience, he 
 ended with a haggard-eyed appeal to Master Clem- 
 ent. . . . The minister's frame trembled; with a pale 
 and scared face he fronted Harry Carthew whom 
 he truly loved. " Harry Carthew! Harry Carthew! 
 Pray to God " 
 
 "I pray," said Carthew. " Night and day, I 
 wrestle in prayer. I thought that He had answered 
 and given me peace in service. The moment I 
 ceased to serve and to act for this England, that 
 moment Gehenna opened in my soul. ... But now 
 I see that He wanteth open confession. " He turned 
 upon the two where they stood beyond the shaft of 
 light. " Joan Heron, I wronged you, and Gilbert 
 Aderhold, I wronged you, and that I must say, 
 though you be the Fiend's own! I must say it, 
 though I stood in heaven and looked across the gulf 
 upon you in hell " He sank upon a bench 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 Company leaned against the table, 
 white and shaken. Master Clement came to Car- 
 
 416 
 
THE HOUR-GLASS 
 
 thew, put his hand on his shoulder, and spoke in a 
 trembling voice. "A great sin verily, and greatly 
 to be repented. . . . But not the great sin, Harry 
 Carthew not the Unpardonable Sin. . . . God 
 will have mercy. He will forgive. Have you not 
 served Him well, and will you not do so, ever the 
 more zealously? And will you not forever more 
 guard your ways, that you fall not again into the 
 pit? I trow that you will ! Harry Carthew Harry 
 Carthew, we will pray together! You are too valu- 
 able This very night I will come, and on our 
 knees we will wrestle with Him as did Jacob of 
 old " 
 
 Joan and Aderhold stood hand in hand. What 
 now they felt and thought was simple and whole. 
 This room with its occupants seemed not to have 
 over-greatly to do with them it had widened out 
 they felt a larger world. ... It was as though 
 these old quarrels were childish concerns and fears 
 and quarrels small, intense, unknowing things 
 childish, pitiful. They felt them so, and yet they 
 did not feel old, they felt young. . . . 
 
 Aderhold spoke, again to the agent of the Com- 
 pany. " Knowing nothing of our story, save that we 
 were shipwrecked folk, you showed us much kind- 
 ness. It does not hurt to take the thanks of ship- 
 wrecked folk. Believe that we are grateful for 
 that kindness. This is to end, we know, in giving us 
 into the hands of the law. Then let them call those 
 who will take us." 
 
THE WITCH 
 
 Carthew rose from the seat where he had thrown 
 himself. What wild emotion had possessed and 
 actuated him was driven to cover and stillness. His 
 face was grey, but set and grim with no softening 
 in its lines. He would have said that softening were 
 further sin. Out like a burned candle had gone long 
 since his passion for Joan Heron that had never 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 for were not long in coming. Without 
 the Hour-Glass it was now bright afternoon and 
 many people going up and down. Whenever and 
 wherever watch or ward was summoned the act of 
 its summoning was apt immediately to become 
 known. It was so here and now, and a crowd began 
 to gather before the Hour-Glass. How there started 
 a whisper of heinous crime, of escaped and retaken 
 caitiffs, it were hard to say. Perhaps the host or the 
 now staring and greatly excited mate of the Eagle 
 had heard somewhat and had repeated what he had 
 heard. But there started a murmur which grew to a 
 buzzing sound and threatened to become clamour, 
 "What was done? Who is it? Ho, there, Hour- 
 Glass! What happened?" The law appeared - 
 half a dozen burly armed men with an officer at their 
 head. "Within the Hour-Glass! Let us pass, good 
 
 418 
 
THE HOUR-GLASS 
 
 people, let us pass!" They entered the tavern. 
 Outside the crowd and the noise grew. "Traitors?" 
 cried one, and another, "Poisoners?" but a third, 
 "I can see through the window. It's a woman 
 Witch/ Witch!" 
 
CHAPTER XXXII 
 
 A JOURNEY 
 
 THEY lay for a month in prison in London. Then, 
 all procedures having been met, the law would 
 return them to the county where they had offended 
 and the gaol from which they had broken and the 
 gallows field which had waited six years. 
 
 They rode from London in company of a sheriff and 
 a dozen horsemen, and they went by the road which 
 Aderhold had travelled years before. He recognised 
 this place and that. Where the ways were bad - 
 and they were often bad they dismounted and 
 went afoot. So many were with them and so no dan- 
 ger at all was there of escape, that they were left 
 unshackled, were even let to draw a little to them- 
 selves. At first the guard was rough of tongue, ready 
 with frequent, unneeded commands, ready with 
 coarse gibes. But the two answered quietly, or were 
 silent without sullenness, and there was something 
 in them that gave check. ... At last the men con- 
 veyed them without insult, without much further 
 speech to them direct. At night, when they came to 
 town or village, they were lodged in the gaol. When 
 they passed where there were people, and if it be- 
 came known what manner of felons were here, they 
 met with savage jeers and execrations. Sometimes 
 
 420 
 
A JOURNEY 
 
 mud was thrown, sometimes flints. But it was not 
 the guard's cue to tell names and offence and Eng- 
 land was not as populous then as now and there 
 were long miles of lonely peace. To Joan and Ader- 
 hold they seemed at times miles of a beautiful, a 
 sunny peace. They knew how to talk together with 
 few words, with a glance of the eye. And there were 
 many times when, some space allowed them and the 
 guards talking among themselves, the road became 
 as it were their own. Then they spoke freely, though 
 with low voices. 
 
 It was late summer, with autumn well in view 
 upon the slope of the year. The landscape was grow- 
 ing russet, and none the less fair for that. And it 
 was England England after the blue plains of the 
 sea and the low, coral isles. And it was country and 
 pure air after the fetid London prison. And it was 
 the land where they were born it was home, seen 
 after years away. These green fields and spreading 
 trees this English sky these birds and flowers 
 and crystal streams these were no foes of theirs. 
 These had never cast them out. Here as elsewhere, 
 the great round earth had its own orthodoxy, but 
 took scant heed of man's. . . . They saw England 
 after long absence; and for all that they were to be 
 slain here, they could find it beautiful, and for all 
 that they knew where ended this road, they played 
 with the happenings upon it. 
 
 Twenty miles out from London the sheriff's horse 
 cast a shoe, and at the next smithy all must halt 
 
 421 
 
THE WITCH 
 
 Grey Dick was shod. The smithy stood in the 
 pleasant shadow of an oak so great that it must 
 have been growing when the Conqueror came over. 
 The hot smithy fire glowed within, iron struck 
 rhythmically against iron. Beyond the tree was a 
 well, and all were thirsty. They had not drawn 
 bridle for several hours. The men dismounted - 
 the two prisoners were given leave to do likewise, 
 even to rest upon the earth beneath the oak. 
 
 The four children of the smith sat upon a log and 
 watched with an intensity of interest horses and 
 men and all their movements, and the man and 
 woman half sitting, half lying beneath the oak. The 
 smithy dog came up to these two, snuffed around 
 them, and then lay down at their feet. Clink! 
 Clink! and the trees began to wave in an afternoon 
 breeze, and the voices of the men about the well and 
 the smithy door sounded cheerful and hardy. The 
 two had no misliking for the bright world. They 
 sat watching the children. . . . The youngest child, 
 a yellow-haired mite of three, would make an 
 excursion of its own from the log, past the oak, to 
 the door. In the course of the journey it came upon 
 a protruding root, stumbled over it and fell. Joan 
 sprang forward and lifted it to its feet. "There, 
 there ! You 're not hurt Look at the pretty flower 
 you fell against!" The child decided not to cry, 
 laughed instead. Joan's arm curved about the sturdy 
 small form and pressed it to her. "Ah, what a good 
 baby!" The child was willing to stay and play, 
 
 422 
 
A JOURNEY 
 
 but with suddenness found herself released, given a 
 gentle push back toward the three upon the log. 
 Joan took her seat again upon the turf. " It was n't 
 wise to touch her. It 's strange that it should be so, 
 but if any saw they might bring it against her when 
 she is grown." 
 
 She spoke without any pain for herself in her 
 voice, but with yearning and tenderness for the 
 child. "Now she's there and happy! She's got a 
 stick to play with." 
 
 "Joan, Joan!" said Aderhold. "There will come 
 a day-" 
 
 The horse was shod, the well-water drunk, guard 
 and prisoners took again the road. The smith and 
 his man had, at the last, their curiosity satisfied. 
 "Witches and wizards! Nay, if I had known 
 that" 
 
 The road presented its stream, here full, here very 
 thin, of autumn travel. Little pictures and the 
 whole picture had a clear, a vivid interest. Market 
 people went by, drovers with cattle, sturdy beggars, 
 children, country girls and swains, carters and their 
 carts, mounted travel of merchants or justices or 
 churchmen or country gentlemen. The mounted 
 travel would always, authoritatively, have its curi- 
 osity gratified. "A ward with prisoners ! Who are 
 your prisoners, sheriff? " The second morning it was 
 a party of young gallants who would know this. 
 They wore feathered hats, fine riding-clothes, boots 
 of soft leather, their hair somewhat long and 
 
 423 
 
THE WITCH 
 
 curled. They were for King and Church would 
 all live, perhaps, to fight on that side. "Prisoners! 
 What are your prisoners, sirrah!" Then, when they 
 knew, "Witch! Witch! A young witch, too! 
 Let 's see her Zounds ! Who 's the man? . . . The 
 Hawthorn two who fled! Gilbert Aderhold Joan 
 Heron! 11 Certain of these gallants had been in 
 London and knew of the recapture. It had been 
 common talk. The king had learned of it. "Joan 
 Heron ! Joan Heron ! Let 's see let 's see ! Grey 
 eyes gold hair no, hair like bronze, pale 
 bronze. . . . Would you dare to kiss a witch ?" 
 No!" "Yes!" "No!" "Yes, I would!" 
 "To make the Devil jealous that were a parlous 
 thing!" "Parlous or not, if she hath grey eyes 
 and red lips " "Kiss her clip her in thy 
 arms and to-night she will come as succuba and kiss 
 and clip thee! Then hark to thy roar, ' Avaunt, thou 
 hag! Will none save me from the foul fiend?" 
 "Joan Heron! Rememberest the ballad, THE 
 DEVIL AND JOAN HERON?" "But thou'rt 
 not called 'Daredevil' for naught!" "Do you 
 dare me?" "Yes, yes! We dare you!" "Kiss 
 her hard, clip her fast No, no. Master Sheriff! 
 Fair play make a ring! . . . Now! Now!" . . . 
 " Well, thou hast courage! " . . . "She did not strug- 
 gle, as do honest women or those who would be 
 thought honest!" "To-night, to-night, when thou 
 hast put out the light, look to find her!" "Ha, 
 ha! ha, ha! JOAN HERON " 
 
 424 
 
A JOURNEY 
 
 They won away from those of the feathered hats. 
 Space widened between the two cavalcades, the 
 voices of the gallants died from the ear. The road 
 lay bright and sunny, the morning air blew fresh and 
 sweet. The great earth swept calm to the horizon, 
 the sky sprang, a pure and cloudless arch. For a 
 long way the road ran lonely of travellers other than 
 the sheriff, his men, and the prisoners. Joan and 
 Aderhold, riding together, talked in low tones. 
 After a time they were passing through a forest. 
 They loved the brown earth and the bracken, the 
 boughs overhead, the purple distances. 
 
 "I remember this wood," said Aderhold. "I lay 
 and rested under these trees and wondered what was 
 before me. . . . And I could not see thee. I did 
 not know the lovely thing that was before me." 
 
 "And that night, at home, I slept and dreamed 
 and saw not thee." 
 
 "There are glories in our lives. With every pain 
 and sorrow counted in, we have not been unhappy." 
 
 "No. Pain did not win. And the light was 
 brighter yesterday than the day before, and brighter 
 to-day than yesterday. . . . Look at the bird flying 
 up!" 
 
 The third night the troop did not arrive, in time 
 for rest, at any town or village. A heavy rain had 
 fallen and delayed progress. They came at dark 
 to three or four mean houses, clustered around one 
 of better proportions, an inn by the sign just made 
 out through the dusk and the autumn mists. There 
 
 425 
 
THE WITCH 
 
 was not much to eat, but it might be made to do 
 straw could be shaken down there was a great 
 fireplace where blazing warmth might be had. . . . 
 To Joan and Aderhold, accustomed to the sun, good 
 was this warmth! There was one great stone- 
 flagged room, large as a baron's hall. When the 
 dozen men of their guard disposed themselves, there 
 was yet space where the ruddy glow might reach 
 them, dry their clothing wet with the rain, warm 
 their bodies. Where there was not overmuch for any, 
 their portion of supper was small, indeed, but it 
 sufficed. When all would sleep, lying about the fire 
 upon the straw which the inn's servitors brought in, 
 the two were thrust to a corner at the far end of the 
 place, farthest from the door. A watch was set 
 a stanch man relieved each two hours by another. 
 The sheriff meant no slipping of the wizard and 
 witch out of his fingers. But sleeping time was not 
 yet come. The two sat to one side, watched, but no 
 more closely than was thought necessary. 
 
 Beside the sheriff and his men there were the host 
 and hostess, three or four uncouth servingriien and 
 maids, and one other traveller, belated like the rest. 
 This was a gentle-faced old man, the parson, it was 
 learned, of a parish a dozen miles away. . . . The 
 night before, in a town of fair size, the names of his 
 prisoners becoming known, the sheriff had had 
 trouble to rescue them from the mob that gathered. 
 This day, therefore, he would keep secret the full 
 heinousness of the pair along the way and here it 
 
 426 
 
A JOURNEY 
 
 was said only that they were a man and woman 
 accused of witchcraft and apostasy, being transferred 
 from one gaol to another. 
 
 Under this description the inn folk looked aside at 
 them with great curiosity and fear. At supper time 
 none could be found willing to carry to them from 
 the kitchen their bit of coarse bread and pitcher of 
 water. The host was busied elsewhere ; the hostess 
 put down her foot that she would not ; the men and 
 maids laughed vacantly and stared, but would not 
 budge in that direction. The old man, the parson, 
 who chanced to be by, uttered a word of gentle 
 chiding, then, as all still hung back, himself picked 
 up the bread and water and carried them to the two. 
 They thanked him. He stood looking at them with 
 a gentle, pained face. Called to supper at the long 
 table where the sheriff and his men were noisily tak- 
 ing places, he went away. But presently, his own 
 frugal meal quickly made, he came back. Theirs, 
 too, was made. They were seated on the stone floor- 
 ing, shoulder against the wall, hand touching hand. 
 They had no look of wicked folk. 
 
 The old man found a stool, brought it and sat 
 down beside them. " You look worn and tired. The 
 roads have been bad to-day." 
 
 He spoke to Joan. "Bad here and there," she 
 said. "We are a little tired." 
 
 The old man sat looking from one to the other. 
 Then he spoke with simplicity. " Is it true that you 
 are apostates from religion?", 
 
 427 
 
THE WITCH 
 
 "What," said Aderhold, "is religion? Is it love 
 of good? Then, with our hand in death's, I dare aver 
 that we are not apostates!" He smiled at the old 
 man. "Since we entered this room you have shown 
 us a piece of religion." 
 
 " I would show you truly," said the old man ear- 
 nestly. "I would show you Jesus." 
 
 Aderhold answered gently. "You do so, sir. Be- 
 lieve that all of us know Jesus when we meet him." 
 
 The old man looked from one to the other. "You 
 do not seem to me wicked people. I know not how 
 it is, but you seem " The sheriff and his men 
 rose noisily from table. There immediately ensued a 
 bustle in the place boards and trestles being taken 
 away bundles of straw brought in men going 
 forth to look after the horses men coming in with 
 the breath of the wet night. One came and called 
 the old parson, drew him away toward the small 
 inner room where he was to rest. Going, he said 
 but one word more to the two. "Good-night. I 
 wish you good sleep." 
 
 The host who had called him held up his hands. 
 "Reverend sir, I marvel how you can stand to talk 
 with such miscreants " 
 
 Joan and Aderhold lay upon the stone floor and 
 slept. . . . Night passed, the rain ceased, the clouds 
 broke, dawn came with magnificence. The old par- 
 son, approaching, too, in the course of nature, his 
 death hour, slept on like a child in the inner room. 
 But Joan and Aderhold went forward with the 
 
 428 
 
A JOURNEY 
 
 guard. The inn sank from sight, the road stretched 
 before them. 
 
 This day, riding into a village, they found there, 
 the centre until their arrival of excited interest, no 
 less a matter than an officer of the law with three or 
 four subordinates, come from the town to which 
 they were bound despatched thence by the au- 
 thorities with orders to meet upon the way the party 
 known to be bringing from London that witch and 
 sorcerer, join themselves to it, and so give touch 
 of that town and county's importance, assuming 
 charge, as it were, even leagues away, of their own 
 sinful ones. . . . Aderhold and Joan recognized the 
 head figure across the years they saw him again 
 at the Hawthorn trials a tall, lean, saturnine 
 minor piece of the law's machinery who had herded 
 the prisoners in and out of that hall of judgement. 
 He was so tall and lean and lantern- jawed and grim 
 that he might have been a prize man for the role of 
 Death in a mystery play. For his part he came and 
 looked at them, threw back his head and laughed. 
 "Ha, ha!" he said. "We've got you back! The 
 wicked do not prosper!" With that he returned to 
 the sheriff with whom he would ride. . . . This vil- 
 lage was of the places where stones and other mat- 
 ters were flung, together with whatever epithet came 
 to the lips. Joan and Aderhold opposed a quietness. 
 Both were bleeding when at last the law persuaded 
 or threatened down the raised hands and bore them 
 away for its own blows. Out even upon the open 
 
 429 
 
THE WITCH 
 
 road came, borne by the wind, "Witch Witch 
 Witch! Vile Witch !" 
 
 There was a man with the added party who 
 proved to be of kin to the Hawthorn end of the 
 county. He knew Hawthorn and Hawthorn Forest. 
 Riding near to the two prisoners and discoursing 
 with his fellows, the two heard mention of many a 
 familiar name. He had a body of great bulk and a 
 round, good-humoured face, and a liking for his own 
 speech which he delivered so as not to disturb his 
 superiors in a monotone of low pitch. The two 
 heard him talk of the Hawthorn crops and fields and 
 weather, of the times good and bad, of the stock, the 
 sheep and cattle, of the streams and woods, of the 
 people. . . . This day was a high, cool autumn day 
 with a tang in the air. The sun shone, but there was 
 a wind and whirling leaves. Joan and Aderhold 
 knew that now there were not many miles. ... At 
 dusk they halted within a hamlet where the folk 
 were too few to do more than stare and talk. There 
 was no gaol. The two were thrust into a damp and 
 dark place where firewood was piled. Bread and 
 water were given them, but no straw for sleeping 
 upon. When the heavy door was shut and barred, 
 and those without and the hamlet's self sunk into 
 sleep or silence, all was as black, as cold and still, as 
 the grave is supposed to be. 
 
 The two knew that next day they would reach 
 the town and the prison from which, six years and 
 more ago, they had fled away. There they would be 
 
 430 
 
A JOURNEY 
 
 separated. . . . Probably they would die together 
 - would be brought forth together to die might 
 then each reach the other's hand, might clasp it until 
 nearly the last. But not again in this life would they 
 be together like this, alone together, free, shut from 
 the world. . . . To-night, at first, all things flowed 
 away save the fact that they loved, save human 
 passion and sorrow and clinging. They lay in the 
 space left by the heaped firewood, in the intense 
 dark, and they held each other in their arms, close, 
 close! as if to defy all parting, and there were broken 
 words and sighs and tears. The last night the 
 last night 
 
 The higher mood returned, though slowly, slowly. 
 With the bending of the night toward dawn, it was 
 here. They lay with clasped hands, and when they 
 spoke they spoke of love. All things else flowed 
 away, or did not flow away, for it was now as though 
 love tinted all, made the vast whole warm and vital. 
 . . They spoke of their child, and of their island life 
 and home ; they spoke of the old chief. They spoke of 
 people they had known and loved of old Roger 
 Heron, of Master Hardwick of many, of all peo- 
 ple. The draff and dross, the crooked and bent, all 
 came into the glow, the solvent. Love love 
 love! . . . Love took this form and took that form, 
 and now it flew with these wings, and now with other 
 wings and it was love of the body and the earth 
 and all nature, and it was love of wisdom love of 
 knowledge love of the search love of love 
 
 43i 
 
THE WITCH 
 
 love of truth ! It was love that was not afraid that 
 rose on splendid wings that outwatched the night 
 and saw the morning coming. . . . 
 
 Outside began, faintly, a stirring. A cock crew 
 and was answered. A dog barked the cock-crow 
 came again. A grey light stole in at the keyhole and 
 under the door of the windowless place they were in. 
 It strengthened until they could make out each 
 other's face and form. The dog barked again, men's 
 voices were heard. 
 
 Joan and Aderhold rose to their knees, to their 
 feet, steadying each other, holding by the firewood. 
 The place, through the night, had had the chill of 
 the sepulchre. They knew it to be their last moment 
 together ; hereafter, to the end, there would be others 
 by. They stood locked in each other's arms, their 
 lips meeting. . . . Steps were heard without and the 
 fall of the chain from across the door. They released 
 each other, they stood apart. The door swung open, 
 light rushed in. "Come forth, you wicked ones! 
 Time to ride on and to-night we '11 lodge you in 
 the nest you flew from!" 
 
 There could not have been a fairer autumn day. 
 And now as they rode the country grew more and 
 more familiar. . . . While the day was yet young, 
 all were halted for a few minutes before a tavern set 
 among trees, its sign a great rose painted on a black 
 ground. While ale in jacks and tankards was brought 
 forth for the guardians of the law, the two prisoners 
 had brief speech together. 
 
 432 
 
A JOURNEY 
 
 11 The Rose tavern," said Aderhold. "It was in 
 this place that I first met Master Hardwick. It was 
 here that came the turn toward Hawthorn." 
 
 "We have not far to go now." 
 
 "No, not far." 
 
 In the doorway stood the tall hostess that Ader- 
 hold remembered. She stood with arms akimbo, re- 
 garding the prisoners with a mien so hostile as to- ap- 
 proach the ferocious. "Aaah!" she said. "I'd like 
 to help bring straw and wood ! " She spat toward the 
 two. "Have n't I had things bewitched? a gold 
 earring taken from under my eyes, and our ricks 
 burned, and ill luck for a year running and a bat 
 this summer came flapping through the house every 
 eve, and none could beat it down!" She was speak- 
 ing to the constable's man who knew Hawthorn. 
 "Wherever that vile witch has been this weary time, 
 be sure she 's sent her word out over all these parts 
 to do us harm " 
 
 "And that's very possible," said the round-faced 
 man. 
 
 "Are n't you going to take them by Hawthorn?" 
 
 "Yes," answered the other. "Turn off this side 
 of town go round by Hawthorn Wood then 
 through Hawthorn, and so back to town and the 
 prison. It 's miles out, but Hawthorn wants it done. 
 There T s a murmur of more witches and it 's good 
 warning to see how such folk fare!" 
 
 Joan and Aderhold, startled, exchanged glances. 
 They had not thought of that of coming to their 
 
 433 
 
THE WITCH 
 
 prison from the Hawthorn end. They would be 
 longer together. Joan's lips parted. "And Haw- 
 thorn Forest- Ah, maybe we shall see Heron's 
 cottage" 
 
 The sun and shadow on the road, the waving 
 trees, the white fleets of clouds in a blue, blue sky. 
 . . . They came to the crossroads with the suicide's 
 grave they came to the rise of earth where stood 
 the gibbet with its swinging chains they came to 
 a view of the castle wood and the castle and the town 
 beyond. One of the men asked a question of the 
 round-faced man. "Who lives up there?" 
 
 "The earl," said the round-faced man. " But he 's 
 away now. It used to be that if he was n't there his 
 cousin, Sir Richard, was. But Sir Richard went to 
 France, and they say he married there and has a son. 
 I used to know Gervaise his man. But Gervaise 
 has gone too." 
 
 The sun made of the castle woods golden woods. 
 Joan could see the Black Tower see where deep 
 among the trees would be the huntsman's house. 
 A great bird rose above the gold-green and sailed 
 away. . . . Here, a mile from the first outlying house, 
 was the narrow and little-used road that, curving 
 aside from the town, led through some miles of coun- 
 try, tilled and untilled, to Hawthorn Forest; then, 
 with a half turn, came at its leisure to Hawthorn, 
 and so touched again the highway. They took this 
 road. 
 
 Until they came to a stream, in size between a 
 434 
 
A JOURNEY 
 
 brook and a river, the country was to the two as the 
 other familiar country. But this was the stream 
 that murmured past the Oak Grange. They were 
 riding by its shore, they were going toward the 
 Grange now indeed it grew to be known land. 
 Aderhold knew every winding. . . . The two rode as 
 in a dream. Before them, in the distance, in a golden 
 haze, rose a forest. " Hawthorn Wood" and 
 Joan's voice made the words dreamy music. The 
 sun was warm now, the sky was blue, the leaves were 
 falling, but without sadness, ready to go, to return 
 once more to the elements, build again. The stream 
 bent and the road with it. There came a long reach 
 of murmuring water, sliding by a pebbly strand. 
 Across it now were fields that once had gone with 
 the Oak Grange. ... A little farther, and they saw 
 the old house, and before it the fairy oak. 
 
 Just at the footbridge across the stream sounded 
 an order to halt. The lean, grim man whom the town 
 had sent spoke in a harsh and rattling voice. "This 
 is where he made gold and practised sorcery. 
 Thou God-denier! behold thy old lair, how accursed 
 it looks!" 
 
 To the two it did not seem accursed. It stood an 
 old, deserted, ruinous house, but the ivy was green 
 upon it, and the sunshine bathed it, and 'the swal-^, 
 lows circled above the roof. The oak tree in front 
 lived, and from its acorns were growing other oaks. 
 . . . Joan and Aderhold looked long and earnestly. 
 The air was thronged with memories and there 
 
 435 
 
THE WITCH 
 
 seemed a weaving music. They were not unhappy 
 - the artifex within them was not unhappy. But 
 those that were with them thought that they must 
 be so. 
 
 The horses were in motion again. And now the 
 road turned and became Hawthorn Forest road that 
 ran to Hawthorn. The Oak Grange passed from 
 sight, the murmur of the stream left the ears. They 
 were within Hawthorn Forest. The great trees rose 
 around ; there fell gold shafts of light ; there came the 
 odour, damp and rich, of the forest mould deepen- 
 ing, deepening since old time. Down a purple vista 
 they saw deer moving a faint wind was blowing 
 there was a drifting, drifting down of leaves. . . . 
 To Joan and Aderhold this forest breathed music. 
 They were glad to be here once again. They knew 
 the single trees and the groups of trees, they knew 
 each picture within a picture: loved the detail and 
 loved the whole. It was sweet, before death, to have 
 been in Hawthorn Wood again. 
 
 Heron's cottage. When they were forth from the 
 forest they would see that plainly, riding by. Per- 
 haps they would draw rein there too. The red crept 
 into Joan's cheek, her grey eyes grew bright and 
 wistful. . . . The forest stopped; the grassy road 
 brought them out into full sunshine, a high blue sky 
 arching the open, autumn country. Heron's cottage. 
 . . . There was yet the green path from the road, 
 yet the fruit trees, bronze now and trembling in the 
 wind but there was no thatched cottage. "Vile 
 
 436 
 
A JOURNEY 
 
 witch !" said the tall man, "Hawthorn burned your 
 house." 
 
 Hawthorn there was no great distance now to 
 Hawthorn. There had never been much passing 
 on this road, little human life going up and down. 
 This day there seemed none ; moreover, a cot or two 
 by the wayside showed no folk about the doors, ap- 
 peared shut and left to care for themselves. At dawn 
 a man had been sent forward on a fresh horse the 
 loneliness of the road now connected itself with that. 
 "Everybody's gone to Hawthorn," said the round- 
 faced man. 
 
 Hawthorn Church, stone amid stone-like yew 
 trees, Hawthorn roofs showed over the rim of the 
 fields. Out of a coppice rose a lark and soaring high 
 sang up there in the blue. The Hawthorn Forest 
 road joined the highroad; guard and prisoners com- 
 ing upon this turned now to Hawthorn village. Car- 
 thew House they passed Carthew House they 
 passed the outlying cottages, among them that of 
 Alison Inch they came into Hawthorn and to 
 Hawthorn Church and Master Clement's house. 
 Here were the people. . . . 
 
 A bench had been placed by the churchyard gate, 
 and upon this stood Master Clement, raised as by a 
 pulpit over Hawthorn. Near him stood Squire 
 Carthew and his brother, and the latter stood grim 
 and grey as granite. It was his intention to rise in 
 church the coming Sunday and before all Hawthorn 
 acknowledge that six-years-past sin. He owed that 
 
 437 
 
THE WITCH 
 
 to God. The confession might or might not put in 
 jeopardy his future in England, but, however that 
 might be, he would make it make it publicly ! 
 So he might have peace and could go on with the 
 great work, assured that God had forgiven. . . . 
 For to-day he had made himself come hither, taking 
 it as part of his duty. Master Clement had urged 
 that it was his duty. With a stern face he gazed upon 
 the two, but they, after one glance, looked at him 
 no more. 
 
 All around, packed in the churchyard and the 
 street, were the people of Hawthorn and its neigh- 
 bourhood. How many familiar faces they saw 
 but how few out of which superstition had not 
 razed kindliness! Heretofore on this journey, where 
 they had been set in the eye of a gathered crowd, 
 the two had met with physical blows no less than 
 with hard words. But the Hawthorn throng was 
 held in hand. No stone or clod or refuse was 
 thrown. The hard words arose, broke over them 
 heavily, a sordid and bitter wave. But this, too, the 
 minister checked. He raised his arms and flung them 
 wide, he shook his lean and nervous hands. Thrust 
 to the front of the throng stood the tinker with 
 whom Joan had once walked on the road from the 
 town. "Hist, hist!" said the tinker. "Now will 
 they hear their last sermon!" 
 
 " ' And the sea gave up the dead which were in it; and 
 death and hell delivered up the dead which were in them, 
 and they were judged according to their works. . . . 
 
 438 
 
A JOURNEY 
 
 And whosoever was not found written in the book of 
 life was cast into the lake of fire! 1 
 
 "'And the devil that deceived them was cast into the 
 lake of jire and brimstone where the beast and the false 
 prophet are, and shall be tormented day and night for- 
 ever and ever. ' ' 
 
 Hawthorn drew in its breath and shivered with 
 that sermon. They said that it was the greatest that 
 Master Clement had ever preached, and he had 
 preached a-many great ones! Some of the simpler 
 folk almost looked for fire to come down from heaven 
 and consume the wicked leech and that vilest witch 
 where they stood. It would have been a wonderful 
 sight and lesson! But doubtless God wanted the 
 forms of the law carried out though they could 
 not but still think how wonderful would have been 
 a visible sign. . . . 
 
 Joan and Aderhold were an hour in Hawthorn. 
 ... It passed; all hours passed, though some, and 
 this among them, went on wounded feet. 
 
 It passed. They were in motion again. The 
 Hawthorn folk that cried bitter words behind them, 
 the narrow street, the small, familiar houses with 
 dooryards where the flowers were fading, the ale- 
 house, the green, the sexton's house, other houses, 
 the elms and willows that marked the village end 
 all were overpassed, left behind. Here at last was 
 the open road, and they had six miles to ride together. 
 . . . Hawthorn faded from the mind. 
 
 It was afternoon. The gold light lay softly over 
 
 439 
 
THE WITCH 
 
 the country that had always seemed to them a very 
 fair country that seemed so still. The wind had 
 fallen. They rode side by side. Those that guarded 
 them were tired with the long day and its various 
 excitements. These rode in silence or talked among 
 themselves in voices somewhat subdued, and for a 
 time let the prisoners go unmarked. When they 
 came within sight of the town it would be different. 
 Then all would straighten in their saddles and 
 closely surround the two, assuming the proper air of 
 vigilance. But now they allowed them to ride side 
 by side and gave no heed to what words they might 
 speak to each other. 
 
 They were simple words that Joan and Aderhold 
 spoke old, old words of love and tenderness. They 
 spoke of courage. And they spoke of Truth, the 
 Origin and Goal. And they loved each other, and 
 the light of all suns, and they found song and sweet- 
 ness, promise and fulfilment even in this autumnal 
 day. . . . 
 
 The miles fell away like the leaves from the trees. 
 The ground rose; they had a great view bathed in 
 the amber light. There flowed a gleaming crescent. 
 1 'The river!" said Joan. 
 
 The town that they had seen from the south, now 
 they saw from the north. They saw the river and 
 the arched bridge, the climbing streets and many 
 roofs ; they saw the great church and near it the dark 
 prison, and above the town the castle and the castle 
 wood. The sun was sinking, the light was reddening; 
 
 440 
 
A JOURNEY 
 
 above, the sky sprang pure, without a stain, for the 
 fleets of clouds had sailed away. 
 
 The tall, lean man spoke. "Witch and blasphemer! 
 do you see yon ragged field sloping down? That is 
 where we will hang you." 
 
 Joan and Aderhold, going toward the river, looked 
 upon the ragged field with steadfastness, but gave 
 but few moments to that sight. Before them was 
 the arched bridge, and they saw, even on this side of 
 it, people gathering. Presently the sheriff's men 
 would come between them, surrounding each, mak- 
 ing one go before the other. Now they had these last 
 few moments side by side. Their hands might touch, 
 their eyes be eloquent. Farewell and farewell 
 and oh, fare you well, love my love! . . . 
 
 The road descended to the river and the bridge. 
 There arose the sound they knew from the crowd 
 they knew. The sheriff's men pushed between them ; 
 they must go one before the other. So each might 
 be better seen as well as better guarded. They 
 crossed the river; they mounted the steep street; 
 they came to the town square, past the great church's 
 sculptured portal. . . . The two had been ordered 
 to dismount, were now afoot. . . . Here was the 
 pillory here was the black prison's frowning front, 
 the prison steps, the open door. . . . The setting 
 sun flooded the place with red light. A flint, flung 
 by some strong arm, had cut Aderhold 's forehead. 
 With his hand he wiped the blood away and looked 
 
 to see Joan. She was upon the prison steps, lifted so 
 
 441 
 
THE WITCH 
 
 that the roaring crowd might see her. That great 
 light from the sun beat strongly upon face and form. 
 The form was drawn to its height, the face was high, 
 resolved, and beautiful. But the crowd shouted, 
 "The witch! The witch! Look at the light as of 
 fire ! The fire has her already ! Witch Witch - 
 Witch!" 
 
 Joan mounted the last step, the black prison 
 gaped for her, she entered. Aderhold, mounting, 
 met also that great shaft of light. The voice of the 
 crowd swelled, grew phrensied, but he heeded it not, 
 and with a face lit from within followed Joan into 
 the prison. 
 
 THE END 
 
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