Chapter XV: Book FOUR (11)

He was standing beside the bed. As I went in he had just stretched forth his hand and lifted in his great brown fingers the plait of golden hair, so thick and fine, that was ever the pride of poor Jancis. When he turned at my coming, he was like a lad taken in a fault, hanging his head and muttering, as if it should explain his act, which indeed it did—

“I did love her once.”

C H A P T E R F I V E: _The Last Game of Conquer_

IF it had not been that Parson said I must be careful to write all, and leave out none, since to know all made folks kind, but to know a part made ’em worse than if they knew nothing, if it hadna been for that, I’d never have tried to write of those three months at Sarn betwixt the time of the death of Jancis and the time of the troubling of the waters. For there are some things so hard to write of that even a great scholar might boggle at it, and I, though I can do the tall and the short script, am not anything of a scholar, and words be hard to find for some things. I think, times, that in our mortal language there are no words for the things that are of most account. So, when those things come upon us we are struck silent, and can but feel and feel, till our hearts are like a bursting dam. Maybe, in the life yonder, that already I begin to glimpse on the edge of this world, we shall find the proper words. But not yet So, if I fail in what I’ve set out to do, you must pardon what I canna help, and fill up the glats in my speech with the brushwood of your own imagining.

The strangest part of that time was the silence of it. Gideon had always been a silent man, but now he was as bad as the miller. He’d come and he’d go, but not a word would pass his lips. And sometimes he’d stop all of a sudden, as he went about his work, as if he’d been struck of a heap by summat. His thoughts, I guessed it to be. Then he’d straighten his shoulders, and mighty shoulders they were, and go about his work again. I thought it would pass in time, and as nothing was settled between him and Tivvy yet, I made up my mind not to leave the poor lad all alone, but to bide still for a while. Tivvy was in a fix, for she was determined to have Gideon, and yet she was so mortal afraid of the frittening, for the frittening is said to be very bad in a place where mother and babe die together, that she durstna set foot our side of the mere at all. So there we were, in a thick, cruddled silence, that grew ever more and more solid like freezing water or souring milk. Save for the birds, that minded their own affairs and took no thought of us, there were no voices uplifted at Sarn. Evenings, when they hushed, it fell so still that I could hear Gideon’s boat, moored just by the beginning of the caus’y, knocking and knocking with small, reminding taps. And, times, in the kitchen of a night, when Gideon was out, working late at the hoeing of the young corn or at the haying, I’d hold up a bit of tasty victuals to Pussy just to make her mew. And I’d say, “There, now thee’s mewed! Good Pussy!”

When he was in, Gideon was as dumb as the drowned, save that once, on a night of bright moonlight when we were having our supper late after haying, he leaned forrard of a sudden and said—

“Did ye see that?”

“What?” I says.

“Why, somebody went by the door, in a white gown.”

But it wasna till July, in a spell of very thundery weather, hot and still and gloomy, that his strangeness came upon him in good earnest. I was sitting in the doorway, to get what air there was, for it drew off the mere, evenings. I was carding wool, and the white of it, heaped up on my black, made me look like a magpie, I thought. The lilac leaves were limp with the heat, and the mere like hot lead to look at, with the tall thick trees around it, carven out of iron. All round the marges of the mere were the lilies, lying on the heavy water, their small white buds shining. Not a bird spoke, for all were in their coverts, since the heat was so great. Even the water-birds stayed among the reeds, and the boat had given over knocking on the steps, as if the day was fixed now for the passenger to come, and there was no more to do till then. Suddenly Gideon came round the corner all in a sweat of haste, with the brummock in one hand and his hedging gloves still on, for he was busy at the hedges between hay and corn harvest. He stopped when he saw me, and put hand to head, and then broke out in a passion—

“What for do ye sit there the like of that, making game you’re Mother?”

“I never made game to be Mother,” I said. “Whatever ails you?”

“Mother was used to sit there and card wool. I thought you were Mother.”

“Well, I couldna help that,” I said. “But what did you come round the corner in such a courant for?”

“I was pleaching the big thorn hedge, and she came upon the top of it, all in white.”

“Who came upon the top of it?” I asks, impatient

“Jancis,” he says, as quiet as could be, not as if he was saying anything strange, but just as he might speak of seeing Tivvy or Polly Miller. He said no more, but went back to his work, though he gave up the hedge. He’d never argue at all about what he saw, but just say he saw it, and that was all. The next time was when he was hoeing in the big wheat field. He came into the house, very hasty, with the hoe and all, and said he’d seen Jancis ploughing with her two white oxen, in the barley field, and the child sitting up on the nighest ox.

“Now look you, Gideon,” I said, “you mun leave thinking of Jancis, or you’ll be possessed. And a man possessed is pretty far on to madness. You just think of getting on and scraping and saving as you used to, and dunna think of Jancis or Mother till you’re more settled in your mind.”

“I dunna think of Jancis. She just comes.”

“Well, set your mind on other things and she wunna.”

“What things?”

“Why, getting rich, and getting the house.”

“What for?”

“For the same reason you began of it. Because you want it.”

“I dunna want it now.”

“But why? You wanted it so much, you poisoned Mother. You wanted it so much, you gave the nay-word to Jancis. Let alone all the things you did afore, you must have been pretty well clemmed for it to do as you did.”

“Well, I dunna want it now.”

“What for not?”

“Summat went out of it when I did see ’em in the water.”

“Well, think of Tivvy, then. She’d like to go to the Hunt Ball, I know.”

“I wunna take up with Tivvy. I’d liefer swing.”

“Miss Dorabella, then. She’s sweet on you. Take up with her, and she’ll spend her money to save you from Tivvy.”

“Dorabella’s abron. I like a fair woman. Little. With blue eyes. A woman like may and milk.”

“Well, think of me then. Be a bit of company for me now and again.”

“But you be going.”

“Not till you’re more settled in mind, lad. I’ll stop on a bit, if you’ll keep a cheerful heart, and not call old grief to mind.”

But it was no use. In less than a week he came in all of a hurry and said—

“She’s at it again.”

“What, ploughing?”

“Ah. And the barley field’s as bald as a coot.”

“It’s bad seed,” I says, “that’s what it is, Gideon. It’s because you had to buy instead of putting in our own.”

But my heart was heavy, and I couldna see what the end of this would be. I even wished Tivvy would come.

It got to be the usual thing for him to say—

“She came again in the wood to-day.” Or he’d say—“Look ye! There she is, drawing in to the caus’y. There! Now she’s coming up the caus’y, dripping wet. There! Now she’s gone.”

Once he said she beckoned from the boat. But it was always out of doors he saw her, so the house was a kind of refuge, and when he suffered that strange fear, in he’d come, and be more himself. I was glad he never saw anything in the house. I was glad, too, that he never heard anything. It was like as if, being smitten to the heart with the sight of her in the water, he’d lost the power to choose what he _saw_, but could still choose what he heard. And then, at the beginning of August-month, when the corn was just on ripe, he came in and said she’d been singing _Green Gravel_ across the water.

“The sound comes in here,” he said, anxious. So I shut the window.

“Best put some wool in your ears,” I said. For indeed it was pitiful to see a man like Gideon trembling at a gleam of white in the hedge or an echo across the water. So he put wool in his ears and we got on pretty well through the first part of August. Then, it was the evening afore the fair at Sarn Mere, and many of the booths were already set up. We sat down early to our supper because there had come a letter from Miss Dorabella, brought by one of their men, with news in it about Beguildy. So I opened the letter and read it to Gideon, and he took the wool out of his ears to hear; and what it said was that they’d let Beguildy off light, because he’d had great provocation on account of his daughter.

“Domm!” says Gideon. The blazing hate in him burnt up afresh at hearing of the light sentence, and I almost thought it might cure him of seeing things. But in a little while he fell into his melancholy again, and said he’d seen Mother in the oakwood, where the pigs were.

“Now, dear to goodness,” I said, “it was nobody in the world but Miller’s Polly. She’s getting a big girl for her age, and Mother was but little.”

“No,” he said. “It was Mother. They bother me, Prue.”

“There, there!” I said, patting him on shoulder like a child. For indeed when he spoke of his haunting, he seemed as weak and full of fear as a child in the dark.

“Now see, it’ll all come right,” I said. “You must be well plucked and not mind. You was used to be so fond of _Conquer_. Well, now you must play _Conquer_ with your own thoughts.”

But he only looked at me as if he didna understand, and said—

“What she didna like was me speaking unkind of the babe. Very touchy, mothers be, about their babes.”

We sat quiet a bit, and then he said, all of a sudden—“Hark ye! She’s singing _Green Gravel_.”

He listened a long while, though I could hear nothing.

Then he leaned forrard and said she was coming up off the caus’y toërts the house. His face broke out in a sweat, as if he was feared out of his life. But indeed the weather was enough to make anybody sweat without that, it was so hot and dank at once, the worst weather of all at Sarn, which never had much air, being down in a hollow, and which was always damp from the water. On an evening such as this, the walls ran down with water, so that the whitewash shone as if with the tracks of many snails. Over the mere a mist was rising, in trails and wisps, white as wool, thickening and gathering into clotted heaps towards the mid of the mere. Sometimes a wreath of mist would be drawn out like a scarf, and other times it would stand up in the shape of a woman, but wavering upon the air. It seemed to me it might well be one of these ghosts of mist that Gideon had seen. For they rose and sank about the caus’y all the while, as the light airs on the water took them. At Sarn in August there were always heavy mists night and morning, and this was out of the common bad, because we’d had thunder-rain the night before, and a day of brooding heat after it. Bad, I say, because I never could abide mist, and we had such a deal of it, so that sometimes it blotted the farm and the woods and the church right out, as if the mere had turned to milk, and risen up and drowned all.

“Hark!” says Gideon. “Can you hear _Green Gravel_?”

So strong was his mind, and so much it had the mastery over mine, that I almost thought I did hear a wailing song. And then, without any warning, sitting in the big arm-chair with a set, yearning face, like a man enchanted, as I do think he was, Gideon began to sing the song himself. He held up his right hand, solemn, like parson giving the blessing, and he looked out through the doorway toërts the mere and the caus’y and the slow, white, curdling mist. He sang as if some power was on him that made him. You could see he was bound to sing. He had a rolling voice, a fine bass it was; and though he began very softly, it strengthened as he went on, till the music seemed to master the place. And the way he made that childish song mean such a deal!—all the love he’d had for Jancis, and how he’d wanted her to have everything so grand, and go to the Ball like a lady, and all the fear and pity of her ending. It seemed as if he was easier in mind after, having, as it were, given in and so made peace. Still watching the door, he says—

“Here’s Jancis. Soused with water she is, out of the mere.”

So I said I saw nothing.

“Why, look’s the water dripping off her gown!” he said. “See there, and there, where she goes! Sogging wet she is, by gum!”

He pointed to the floor, and indeed there was water in all the little hollows in the quarries, as if the mere had found a way to soak up through the floor. So I said, yes, I saw the water in the hollows of the quarries.

“Hark at the mud in her boots sooking! Muddy, the mere is. See now, how slow she comes—slow, like she used to walk when she spun with the big wheel. She walks slow because her clo’es are so heavy about her. It’s uphill and agen the heart for Jancis, with the mommet to carry all alone.”

Then he said, worried—

“I wish I hadna mocked at the babe.”

A long while went by. The sounds in the room were less than on the evening Father died. It was as if Sarn, all the live part of it, us and our beasts, the trees full of birds, and the wood ways with wild creatures in them, had sunk to the bottom of the mere where the village was. I was beginning to believe all Gideon said, which was not so very different, after all, from many a tale of frittening we’d heard.

“Look ye now!” he muttered. “She’s going toërts the dairy door. There, she’s gone! ’Twas in the dairy I gave her the nay-word that time afore she went to Grimble’s. There now, she’s coming back. Her yellow head does shine so, she makes me call to mind that wandering light at Lullingford New House.”

He was leaning forrard, staring down the dimmery passage that led to the dairy.

“There, look’s the wet floor!” he said. “It’s like as if she’d brought the mere in along of her. I never thought she’d come in the house. A castle’s easy kept when none comes against it. But now—”

He looked down at the wet quarries a good while.

“Why, she’s gone!” he said then. “Like a golden bee sailing away on the air, and singing as she goes. Look’s pretty!”

He stayed brooding a long time. Then he got up and told me he was going to see to the stock, for the evening was well on to night. He said that in his usual way, and I thought the frittening had lifted from his mind. But as he went out, he turned, and looked at me just as he did the night Beguildy went to seek a seventh child, and said—

“If I’m late, put the key over the stable door.”

I thought, no, if he was out so much as a half-hour, I should go after him. Indeed I almost did then. Summat told me to go. But it seemed so queer, when he was only going to see to the stock, to run after him. So I stayed where I was and began looking in Beguildy’s book, that I bought at the sale, and in the Bible, to see if I could find any cure for such bewitchments. I hadna been reading more than half an hour, if so much, and I suppose it was about nine o’clock, though it seemed later because of the muffling mist and the silence, when all of a sudden there was a taboring at the door, and in rushed Miller’s Tim and Polly too.

“Oh, Prue, Prue! we’d just brought the pigs along, being late because the black un wouldna come out of the rushes, and we’d put ’em in yard, quiet, for fear Mister Sarn ud be angry with us for being late, and we were looking for glow-worms under the orchard hedge, when out comes Mister Sarn. So we hid. And looking from under the hedge we saw him, standing by the water, with his head stooped forrard a bit, like a horse with the staggers. And I told Polly what I heard Granfeyther Callard say. ‘Sarn?’ he says, ‘Oh, Sarn’s known frittening of the beautiful bogey out of the mere, and he’ll never be his own man again.’ And while I was whispering that to Polly, Mister Sarn lifted up his head and seemed to look all around at everything, only there was not much but mist. Then he turned toërts the caus’y, going like a chap in his sleep, and went down the caus’y to the boat, and untied the boat, and got in and took up the oars, and rowed with big strokes away from the farm, straight out where the caus’y went, to the mid of the lake. So we ran round to see if we could get a blink of him, but he was in the mist. The noise of the oars went on for a while, and I wished I was in the boat. But in a bit I was glad I was on dry land. The sound of the rowing stopped.”

“Ah. Dead as dead it stopped,” said Polly.

“We held our breath to see if we could hear aught, but no! It was like the text parson learned us last Sunday, ‘There was silence over all the land till the ninth hour.’ Oh, it was solemn.”

“You should have come to me then,” I said. “But quick now! What else?”

“Why nothing else at all,” says Tim, “saving a great splash. I never heard such a splash, not even when the brindled calf fell into the water.”

“Ah. Dear to goodness, it _was_ a splash!” says Polly.

“Then it went quieter and quieter, and we held breath and listened, but there was nought. And I did call on Mister Sarn’s name, but none answered. And I was feared and so was Polly, and we ran to you.”

The boat! I must get to the boat. I ran down the caus’y, tearing off my skirt, but there was no need to swim, for the boat was coming back, since the air drew from the other end of the mere, sending the currents toërts us, and these currents were stronger at the time of the troubling of the waters. A dreadful thing it was to see that empty boat come stealing in, slow, slow. I catched it and got in, taking up the oars which Gideon had unshipped, for even in this hour he couldna do anything slipshod or careless. I pulled out, calling to the children to run for Sexton, he being the nighest. They were soon gone, and glad to go. And I rowed out to the mid of the lake, feeling in the water with the oars, looking here and there, and calling his name, though I knew all the while it was too late. I was still rowing and calling when I heard Sexton shout from the shore.

“Me and Sam will go while you rest a bit,” he said. “But we’ll never find Sarn. You canna drag the mere out there. It’s too deep. None were ever found that went in there.”

They rowed away, and as they came toward the middle of the mere. I heard them singing, as we’d sung over Father long ago—

“_Your good deeds and your bad, dear man,_
_Afore the Lord shall meet._”

Only they left out about the turf at head and foot, for the water was his grave. Ah! The whole of that great stretch of water wasna too much to make the grave of a man as strong as that one. The mile-long mist that lay upon the place wasna too grand a shroud. For though he was wrong, and did evil, and hurtid folks with his strength, yet he never did meanly, nor turned out bad work, nor lied. “The granite mountain, quartzite, b’rytes,” he said once to me, speaking of his own hardness. And he was like them all. He could no more give in than the granite can crumble like sandstone. And now he’d played his last game of _Conquer_, and what he played with wasna one of the big pink-and-white ones, but his own life.

And since the other player was one that none can ever hope to conquer, it shivered into brittle fragments in a moment, and so Gideon Sarn lost his last game.

C H A P T E R S I X: _The Breaking of the Mere_

THAT was a night of grief and fear which nothing in life has ever made me forget. Sexton and Sammy, after a vain search, went home. I was alone under the coverlet of fog, in that place full of ghostly footsteps. I said a prayer for dying men. Then I sat hour by hour beside the fire, in that dim slothfulness of the spirit which a great sorrow or a great amazement will bring. It was the strangest Wake Eve I’d ever known, and the most grievous night of all my life. I thought how Gideon forbade me to go down into the water as folk did of old time, and be cured of my ill. And now, see! he was gone down into the mere himself, to be cured of his own curse. Then I thought of golden Jancis, and the little babe, and Missis Beguildy, and Father and poor Mother, all dead too. It seemed Death had been very busy at it, swiving among us. Ah! It was a bitter watching, for I ever liked those I cared for to be in good case. A year back, there was Jancis chosen for the sport called Heaving the Chair, for which the prettiest girl was always called out. There she was in her blue gown, I minded it well, with a crown of summer flowers on her head and a posy in her hand, lifted high in the chair by two strapping young fellows, while the rest came by, one by one, to see who she’d choose. All the young chaps were in it, but only one girl, so you may guess there was a deal of heart-searching over who’d be chosen.

They gave her a posy, and one fellow held a basin of water, and when she’d chosen her chap, she dipped the posy in the water and smote his face with it, which made everybody laugh.

And Jancis had chosen Gideon, of course, and he’d waited till the very last, because it pleased him to see all the others turned away and to know he wouldna be. And she smacked his face well with the posy, and gave her sweet, tinkling laugh, and then he lifted her down, which was part of the game, and gave her a kiss, which wunna. And I thought now, how untoërt a thing it was that she should have soused his face with water, as if in token that she should baptize him in the mere, ’ticing him to his death, and that it was the coming round of the fair day that had been the last straw. So I sighed, thinking—‘we be all His mommets, and He orders the play.’

I called to mind also how Gideon won the guinea for whistling best and clearest. He could whistle very well, and also he could keep his face straight in spite of all the fooling of the merry-andrew, who tried to make them laugh. For if Gideon was at the making of money he took it in such good sadness that nothing in the world could even make him smile. Beguildy whistled well also, but his best chance of a prize was always the yawning match, in which Granfeyther Callard ran him very close. Beguildy would come to the fair, though it angered Sexton, who persisted in saying it was a festival of the Church, and not for wizards, and who made himself very busy about everything, as if he was chief man.

Thinking of all this, I was sick at heart, for what is there more grievous than calling to mind old, merry randies? Then you say, “Ah, this one or that one was here then.” And you remember how you were so strong in your joy, you could even be merry over jests that played upon great and solemn things. You call to mind how such an one said, “A goose walks over my grave!” and laughed. And you remember that the one who said it has been under the sod a long while. So the thought of last year’s fair set me crying, though the drowning of Gideon didna. Indeed, it was out of the ornary strange, his dying, and not like the common lot, for he neither died in his bed nor by violence, but went into the mist of his own will and wish, and then was not. And that we never found him seemed to me only a rightful ending to a life which so cut itself adrift from all pleasant, feckless human ways and doings. He belonged to none, seemingly, for he gave the go-by to his nearest kin. What he had most truck with was the earth and the water from which he was building himself a life to his mind. Rock, and troubled water, heavy earth, trees groaning yet unyielding in the storm, all these he was kin to, though he didna love them. He took hold of them, browbeat them, made them his’n. And in the doing of it he fell, as it were, among thieves, for they took hold of him and made him their slave. It seemed to me he couldna die like other men, and be sodded, and lie in six feet of soil, and have a name-stone. No. He must have large room and be free of all, roaming at will in the troubled currents of the mere, in the mid of his own farm and his own woodland. How can you cry for such a thing as this? Can you cry about a thunder-bolt or a cloud-burst? No. It was only when I remembered those few times when he gave in that I could cry for him, as when I called to mind how he put his arm across his face at the fire, and sobbed.

All that night I thought of him, and the dark was full of cold fear, and a horror gathered about the place, it seemed so lone, as if it didna belong to the world at all. I knew I couldna spend another night there, and I began wondering what to do with the live stock, since nobody else would set foot here after such doings. No, not if it was ever so! Sexton refused out and out, and if he wouldna, nobody would. Not a soul would buy the place, and though I could leave the fields we’d laboured on to go back into wood and heath, yet the live stock must be seen to as long as it was there. Yet I was determined to bide there no longer, but to flee away as they did from the cities of the plain, not for any fault in the place, but for what Gideon had made of it. I’d shift to-morrow. But what to do with the beasts I couldna think, for if I asked anyone even so much as to water them, they’d say, “No, no, missus, there’s summat to be seen there.”

At last came the blessed dawn, and the mist lay like a vasty shining cloud on the place, but as the sun swam up, full of power and warmship, not to be gainsayed, the mist came loose all in a piece, and lifted slow, till there was a space betwixt its under side and the mere, where the coots swam, like bees running about between two boards. Then one-half of the tree-trunks came free, so that the forest seemed to be mounded up with snow. It lifted and lifted, and at last went into the sky, and failed amid the clouds of dawn. Then the clouds faded, and there were only the proper heavens, blue as bird’s eye. As soon as the mist lifted, I saw that the mere had broken in the night, and the water was thick and troubled, simmering all over, so that the lilies were stirred as they lay anchored. When the blessed sunshine came, a way out came also into my mind. It was fair day. There’d be a sight of people here. Why not take the creatures to the fair, and make a pen, and get somebody to sell them? They could go cheap. Ah. That was it! So when I’d fed the stock, and milked, I fetched all into the fold, to be ready, and tidied the house, drawing the curtains, and set out to Sexton’s to ask if I could put up a pen and bring the beasts, and get the crockman to sell them by auction, as he sold his wares. Sexton didna care about it much, but seeing he knew he’d got no authority, and the fair being held in our wood, he could do no else than agree. Tivvy looked very spitefully at me, for she wanted sore to be missus at Sarn, not to speak of her being sweet on Gideon, and she seemed to blame me that all had gone wrong. But I’d no time to waste, for already the first waggons were coming to the fair ground. It was still the custom then to deck out a waggon for each village with flowers and boughs, to bring the people. Or sometimes the young ones would walk, the men and women in separate companies, singing as they came. But they went back two by two, men and maids. They were setting out the booths when I went by, spiced ale and the gingerbread-babies Moll liked, mint cakes and pebble brooches and combs to stand high in the hair. A woman had lit a fire and was getting ready the huge bowl of hasty pudding for the trial, which could eat it hot quickest. The waggons rolled along the wood ways with the same sound as at our harvest home. The folk chattered like a lot of jays, until they came to the fair ground and heard the news about Gideon. I could hear when each waggon heard tell, for a hush fell on all. Then I suppose they thought, well, they were a-nigh the church, that was on holy ground, and the accursed place was at the other end of the mere, so they took heart and began to chatter again. I saw Mister Huglet and Mister Grimble, thick as thieves, and they scowled at me as I went by.

All along the wood-path there was a great stirring of dragon-flies, and the lustre-coloured damsels looked grand, sailing over the crimson bosses of dragon’s blood, that is the wild geranium. I thought, ‘The wind lifts in the branches, the lilies be in blow, the dragon-flies be coming out of their shrouds, but Kester Woodseaves has forgot me.’ For by this he was to have raught back. And why should he remember a woman with a curse upon her, a hare-shotten woman, in danger of being accused of witchcraft? No, he wouldna call me to mind again. He’d take up with that young woman he spoke of that didna spare her blushes.

When I got home, I gathered together all the sheep and pigs, the cows and oxen, and drove them, riding upon Bendigo, to the fair. By good fortune they were all fain of me and went where I told them. Then I went back and put the fowl and ducks, the geese and turkeys in boxes and hampers, and wheeled them on the barrow. I’d left them shut up, to catch them the sooner. The people stared when they saw me riding through the wood with my flocks and herds afore me, for the creatures made a great stir, baaing and grunting and mooing, misliking the woods. And as we went, there we all were in the troubled water, dimly shadowed, and I thought how we had been reflected there when we buried Father. Then, all the fields and barns, fold and shippen, being void of life, I put Pussy in a basket and locked the door. And I thought, now the ghosts could have the place, yes, all of them, even as far back as Tim, that had the lightning in his blood. My vow that I took to Gideon was cancelled now. I’d no more to do here. What should I stay for, with nobody to ask a hand’s turn of me? I was for the road. What road I didna know, but I thought it would be lonely. I’d packed a few things to leave with Miller, for him to take to Lullingford, else, I had what I stood in, and the old Bible, and my book. So I set forth from the farm, where Sarns had been time out of mind. It was hard to leave the fields I’d laboured so long upon, but it would have been harder to stay. I shivered to think how the church spire would point across the water at the haunted house this night, lying over that deepest, darkest place where Gideon was.

They were selling the things by the time I got back to the fair, with a pewter tankard to put the money in. So, not wishing to have part or lot in the merrymaking, I sat down on the churchyard wall to wait till all was done and I might go. The bidding was pretty brisk, for the beasts didna carry any curse, folk supposed, though they did come from an ill place. Sexton bought Bendigo, and Moll’s father bought the oxen for his maister. Callard had some of the cows, the other things were bought up in good time, and I gave Pussy to Felena, because I thought she had a good heart, though not much respectability—or maybe it was because of that.

She said—

“Do you get tidings of Weaver, Prue?”

“No,” I said. “We’ve not heard this long while.”

“He’s one in many,” she said. “Ah! He does seem to me to be of other stuff than we are. As if he came from afar. Do you mind how we played _Costly_ for Weaver’s soul, you and me? But I doubt some fine madam in the city ’s catched his soul by this.”

All the while, as we talked, and as I sat lonesome on the churchyard wall, I was ware of black looks cast at me, side-glances, a pushing out of the lips, and lifting of shoulders, and some would draw away a bit as I passed. I wondered what this might be, for though the old tales about me had gone on growing in the lonely farms, as I knew, and though a misfortune is enough, times, to turn people against you, as if they thought it was the hand of the Lord meting punishment for sin, yet it didna seem to me enough to explain the looks I got, which did cut me to the heart, for in them I saw hatred. I ever loved my kind, and as I once said, I was like one standing at the lane ends with a nosegay to offer to the world as it rode by. But instead, it rode me down. Ah! On this day of mid August, in the time of the troubling of the waters, it rode me down.

I was considering, and wondering what to do, for I was waiting for some people who were driving to Bramton, and would take me, and so I should be part way to Silverton. If I went now, I’d get no lift, and besides, the money couldna be counted till it was all in, so the crockman could take his pay of so much in the shilling. On both counts I was bound to wait.

Missis Miller came up, quiet, and said she’d been there since the first and she’d heard a deal said about me, and the whispers were started by Grimble and Huglet, here one and there one, saying this and that, with a nod or a wink, maybe, or a snaking of the head, and, “Pity. A tidy young woman, too!” Or, “Summat should be done about it. Parson ought to see about it.” So the talk got fixed on me, she said, and no sooner did they tire of speaking of the manner of Gideon’s death than they’d start of me. The younger ones had been brought up on tales of how I roamed the country at night in the body of a hare, and had a muse under this very churchyard wall. Miss Dorabella’s words at the _Mug o’ Cider_ had stayed in people’s minds, and then the fire had fixed on us the idea of a curse, for though Beguildy did it, yet ’twas thought the Lord wouldna have suffered him to do it at a righteous farm. Then the drowning of Jancis made things ten times blacker, and Gideon’s death put the last touch to it. There was something here that the folks couldna understand. The only cause for all the misfortune that they could see was the curse of God. There must have been a Jonah in our ship, they thought. And as Mother had always been liked, and Gideon thought pretty well of, as a man bound to get on, it seemed to them that I must be the one that called down the curse. They’d reasoned it out slow, as we do in the country, but once they came to the end of the reasoning they were fixed, and it would take a deal to turn them. This was the reason for the hating looks, the turnings aside, the whispers. I was the witch of Sarn. I was the woman cursed of God with a hare-shotten lip. I was the woman who had friended Beguildy, that wicked old man, the devil’s oddman, and like holds to like. And now, almost the worst crime of all, I stood alone. I may say that in our part of the country, whatever happened in other parts, it was thought suspicious to stand alone. This might be because in those lost and forgotten farms in the mountains and the flooded lands about the meres, where in the long winters the winds would howl around the corners of the house like wolves, and there was talk of old terrible things—men done to death in sight of home; the fretting of unhappy ghosts at the bottle-glass windows, that once they owned, but now were the wrong side of; the dreadful music of the death pack; the howl of witches such as I was said to be, riding with blown leaves upon the gale; the threat of gentlemen of the road who had long lain at the crossways—nobody could choose to be alone, and nobody without good reason would condemn another to be alone. Therefore, if you were alone you were as good as damned.

I canna tell you what a sinking of the heart all this gave me. For to one that can feel the love and hate of others flowing about her without word spoken, and who can only do well in warmship of the soul, even a little misliking is enough to nip the blossom.

“Now,” says Missis Miller, “I know what it’s like, a bit, for mine’s said to be under a curse, and cause he gives, indeed, but you dunna, and I say, ‘Beware of Grimble!’ He’s fause, is Grimble. Huglet’s all of a roar, but you know what he’s after. With Grimble you dunna. He’ll drop a word here and a word there like thistledown, and you see nought and think nought, but dear to goodness, what a crop of thistles! And I doubt the thistles be all up and just about in blow.”

While she was yet speaking, Tivvy darted up to me, all in black, for she’d given out that she was promised to Gideon, and she says—

“You boxed my ears, Prue Sarn! Now see!”

With that she jumped up on the wall and shouted out—“People all, I’ll speak this once and no more. A wronged woman I am. Sarn was promised to wed with me to-day’s five months, and it’s five months gone that I should have been Missis Sarn. For Sarn did love me right well. But _she_ stopped it. Prue Sarn stopped it. For she put me in such mortal fear, I couldna come near the place. Clouted me, she did. And she being a witch, I was afraid of her. She wanted to be missus there, seesta! Couldna abide anybody else to have a say in things. And see what’s come to pass! She’s missus there altogether now, and the very next day after my poor Sarn’s death she sells all. Oh, she’s a heartless piece! There’s no wickedness she wouldna do. Five months I’d ought to have been Missis Sarn, but for her. She’s so strong, because she’s a witch!”

I was astounded at the furious way she said it, till I remembered that she was expecting a love-child, which was ten times worse as she was Sexton’s daughter, and what Sexton would do when he knew was awful to think of, and so Tivvy must have somebody to put the blame on. But no sooner was she finished than up gets Grimble. There he stood, with his long nose pointing down as if he was considering, among all he could say, what he’d fix on.

“People,” he began, “this is a solemn day. In this here water lies a fine farmer. Ah! A man as would have made a mark on Sarn. Look at the ploughing he’d done! Bound to be rich, he was. Promised to a tidy young woman, too, and a righteous, for we know that her brother can come as pat with a text as any man even in the memory of Granfeyther Callard.”

“Ah. That’s righteous!” calls out the old man from the cart where he sat “But old Camperdine could run him pretty close, the one as Beguildy had in bottle, I mean. Ah! He was a good un with a text when he was in liquor! I’ve heard him roll ’em out till you wanted a yard-stick to measure ’em. But when he was sober, not a text would he say. Very bawdy he was then. But in liquor, oh, indeed to goodness it was a miracle!”

“As I say,” Mister Grimble went on in his reasonable voice, “her brother can mouth a text, her father’s Sexton, her mother’s Sexton’s married wife, so it stands to reason she’s a good young woman. And you’ve heard what she said. I tell you, what she says is true, and more than true. Now listen. Since birth Prudence Sarn’s been a woman smitten by the Lord. What she does she canna altogether help, being in the power of Satan. That’s why she roams the land, as we know. That’s why she was friend to Beguildy, and learned all his wickedness off him, for like finds like. That’s why she puts her eye on this one or that one, a child or a beast, or a field of corn, it’s no matter. It dwines, whatever it is, dwines and withers away. Or she’ll as soon kill outright. What did she do to my dog, as was worth a deal to me? Ah! And darker things yet. Blacker and blacker. What did her mother die of? People, she died of foxglove tea. Poisoned. Sexton’s missus is my witness. Who nurses a sick mother? Her daughter. Well, people, what do you say to that?”

There was a muttering in the crowd, a pushing and stirring to look at me, where I sat, struck dumb with astonishment. But nobody said anything as yet. Country folk dunna condemn in a hurry. They were ready tinder, but the flint wunna put to it yet.

“And darker,” says Grimble. “But first let Missis Sexton and Tivvyriah Sexton stand up and say in one word if it be true. Now then. Aye or no?”

“Aye!” said both together.

“Now, why did that feckless young creature, Jancis Beguildy, and her poor child, meet their deaths in the water? Who was alone in the house with them when it took place? Prudence Sarn! Why was Jancis irksome to the witch? Because she knew things. She knew the devil’s tricks that were played betwixt her father and the witch. And as she’d no money, she came to threaten to speak unless she was well paid, and that Prudence Sarn wouldna do. So, when nobody was there but the weak, nesh little thing, trammelled with her baby, and Prue Sarn, who’s as strong as a man, Jancis Beguildy met her death in the water.”

There were murmurs again, but it would need more than the death of the wizard’s daughter, who was in ill odour, to rouse them.

“But there’s worse,” said Grimble. “When Sarn took up with Tivvyriah, his sister didna like it. She wanted to keep on being missus. She wanted no other woman about the place. She’d got rid of her mother on that count. Ah! Liefer would she have no brother, friends, than have a married brother.”

A sigh went through the crowd, which must have numbered three hundred souls, all told, for it was a big fair.

“What did she do?” Grimble went on, and the hate in his eyes when he looked at me was awful to see. “Why, when dusk drew on and the mist rose, and Sarn was dipping water for the beasts, she did push him in, and then took the boat out to deceive Sexton, having put such dread upon the miller’s children that they durstna say the truth.”

He waited a minute for the people to understand. Then he said—

“Hare-shotten! A witch! Three times a murderess!”

And on the instant Huglet roared out—

“Suffer not a witch to live!”

The flint was set to the tinder. A howl went up. There were cries of—

“Tromple on her!”

“Stone her!”

“Let her drown!”

There was nobody to speak for me, except such as would not be heard. Sexton was gone home. He was a fair-minded man, and I think he’d have stood for me. Most of the people were strangers. Some were neither for me nor against me.

Felena pushed her husband forrard, telling him to speak for me, but they shouted—

“Thee’s in danger of damnation thyself, shepherd! How do ye pay yer rent?”

They came on me like the rising of a winter flood. They sent some to the church for the ducking-stool. And still the voice of Huglet went roaring on.

“Suffer not a witch to live!”

I do think I fainted for very terror, for I knew no more, till I felt the chill water, and came up gasping, feeling the ropes that tied me to the ducking-stool, and hearing the roaring of Huglet, which seemed like the blaring of some great demon.

C H A P T E R S E V E N:

“_Open the Gates as wide as the sky,_
_And let the King come riding by._”

I CAME to myself, and opened my eyes, wondering what the great trompling was, and thinging it was Bendigo got loose. Then I remembered that Sexton had taken Bendigo away, so I looked to see what it might be, for all the waggon horses had been taken back to Plash Farm for the day. I looked up, and straightway I thought I must have died, and be now in Paradise.

There, looking down upon me from his nag, with a dwelling gaze so blazing with life that, if I hadna been sure the other way, I should have thought he loved me, was none other than Kester Woodseaves. Older-seeming he was, a little, and his face even cleaner cut than afore, as if the soul had been busy chiselling at it. As for his eyes, all the light of heaven was in them, not to speak of a very pleasant touch of the old Adam. They took me in from head to foot, and I was at rest. Ah! tied to the ducking-stool, in such sad case as no self-respecting woman could choose to be seen in by any man, let alone the man she loved, I was yet at rest. I cared for nothing now. I werrited about nothing. Kester was here. Kester had gotten things in hand. What could ail me? Such was my faith, that though three hundred people, more or less, were set against me, and only Kester for me, yet I knew that I was safe. I could have turned on my side and gone to sleep on that old ducking-stool as if it was a feather bed, so comfortable I was in my mind.

“Well,” says he at last, “well, Prue, my dear, you be in poor case!”

And he gave a little smile, as much as to say, “But not for long!”

“I be,” I answered, and my voice was all of a tremble with joy, “in very poor case, Kester Woodseaves.”

He gave a look round, and then beckoned to Felena. She darted forrard, as if she was his slave.

“Untie those, ’oot?” he said, pointing to the cords.

As she was doing it, she whispered—

“I dunna care what they do to me. I’ll work his will. A man to die for!”

“Is there any fellow here friend to me enough to catch a holt of my nag a minute?” he asks.

Callard called out—

“I will, and welcome.”

Afore he got off, Kester looked all around, and he says—

“Well, you were having a fine randy, I must say! Last time it was a little white ox. Now it’s a woman whiter than lily. I know very well who’s egging you on.”

Some hung their heads, but most were angered to have their fun stopped.

Kester went up to Grimble.

“You and me’s had ado afore, Grimble,” he says. “You’re too mean and twisty to be treated as a man. If you dunna like the treatment you get, you can fight me any time you like. But you’re only good enough to laugh at. Your nose is too long, Grimble. It stirs about in everybody’s business.”

And with that, he gave Grimble a tremenjous blow on the nose with his fist, and Grimble roared so, being a real coward, that the people couldna help but laugh.

Then Kester went to Huglet and he said—

“You’re aboveboard all right. You dunna do things secret. Man, I could hear you hollering even to Plash! Oot wrostle?”