The Broken Font: A Story of the Civil War, Vol. 1 (of 2)

by Moyle Sherer

  CHAP. II.

  "White, I dare not say good, witches (for woe be to him that calleth evil good!) heal those that are hurt, and help them to lost goods.

  "Methinks she should bewitch to herself a golden mine, at least good meat, and whole clothes." FULLER'_s_ _Profane State_.

  While a select few among the maidens and the serving men, who were, totheir great contentment, to figure beneath strange dresses and uncouthvizards in the antimasque, and while some neighbouring gentles ofquality, who were to take part in the masque itself, were rehearsingin the hall, old Philip, the butler, betook himself to the outer gate,and there sitting down on the porter's stone, replenished his pipe,and fell a-thinking about Sir Oliver and Master Noble. But the more hethought, the more he was puzzled; and so he opened his vest to catchthe breeze from the valley, and smoked with half-closed eyes, toomuch accustomed to the glorious scene before him to be always moved byits beauties. Below him, in the rich bottom of the vale, flowed theshining Avon. The white foam of the water at Guy's mill might be seen,and the rush of it might be almost heard.

  The cliff of the renowned Guy presented a fine scarp of stone, thesummit of which was overhung with knotted and rude shrubs of afantastic growth; and far away to the left, at a distance of twomiles, might be seen the lordly towers, and the tall and ivied wall ofWarwick Castle. Such were the objects, which might, we say, have beendiscerned from the spot where old Philip sate, together with broad andpleasant meadows, well stocked with kine and sheep, and many goodlytrees of a stately size, and many a distant coppice of rich underwood.Doubtless the old man had often felt the glad influence of thatscene,--but now, overcome with heat, tobacco, and the labour ofperplexed guesses about the grave mood of his master, he fell fastasleep. Philip was one of those good faithful old creatures whoseworld was his master's, and whose greatest sin was the love ofvictual. This sin was duly punished by black dreams; and now, as helay snoring against the wall, his indulgence over a rich mutton pie atdinner was visited with the terrors of one of those nightmare visionswith which he was deservedly familiar. He dreamed that it was thestatute fair, and that they were roasting an ox whole in themarket-place of Warwick. The frontlet of the poor beast was gailygilded, and the horns were painted blue, and gilt at the tips. Themighty spit turned slowly round. On one side stood a fat cook bastingthe brown loins that the beast might not burn, and on the other astout and expert carver occasionally stopped the rude spit, and with along broad knife detached savoury portions for the greedy by-standers,who, on receiving the same, dropped their penny of thanks into the capof the carver, and, slipping out of the crowd, made way for others.Dreams are to the dreamer realities. Philip's mouth watered: hethought he had never before seen beef so delicious; fat and lean intheir exact proportions; the meat of the finest grain, juicy, and fullof gravy; but then his suit, his badge, his pride of place, forbadehis wishes: partake of the dainty he could not, but he might go near,just out of curiosity, and for mere amusement. Lo and behold! with anangry bellow forth leaped the furious beast, his eyes all fire, thespit point issuing from his foaming mouth, his carcass smoking anddripping, and half the sirloins cut away. He singled old Philip fromthe crowd; he lowered his blue and gilded horns; he shook the spitbetween his grinning teeth; and as he made his rush, old Philip died athousand deaths in one, and woke into another world,--that other hehad so shortly quitted. Nor was the object on which his waking eyesfirst rested exactly calculated to compose his terrors. A crowd ofnoisy clowns was standing round him; and in the midst of them, upon ahurdle, they bore an old withered and bony woman, crooked andblear-eyed, who was counted the witch of that neighbourhood, and wellknown by the name of yellow Margery of the Sand Pit.

  They set down the hurdle close at Philip's feet, and called loudly forjustice and Sir Oliver. "Hag!"--"Crone!"--"Beldame!"--"To thefaggot!"--"To the river,"--"Justice in the King's name!"--were thevarious cries by which the impatient rustics frighted all thehousehold of Milverton from their propriety and their pleasures, andbrought most of them forth to the gate, and the rest to the hallsteps, or the casements. Sir Oliver himself came forth, among thefirst, loudly rating them. "Why, how now, ye rude varlets; isMilverton a pot-house, and the seat of justice an ale bench?Speak--what would you?--speak, you, Morton,--you should know betterthan to head a rabble rout of this fashion."

  "Why then, troth, Sir Oliver, as thou art a worshipful knight, and aking's justice, not man, woman, nor child in the whole parish can suptheir porridge in peace or sleep o' nights for this old witch Margery:we've crown witness enough to hang, drown, and burn her twenty timesover."

  "Not so fast, not so fast, neighbour," said Sir Oliver, seatinghimself on the stone from which old Philip had retired melting withfear. "Where are the witnesses, and what have they to say? Let themstand forth."

  "First, here's Master Crumble, the clerk; then, afore him, here'sMaster Screw, the great witch-finder from Coventry; and here's Jock,my carter; and old Blow, the blacksmith, and Pollard, your worship'swoodman."

  "Stop, stop, I can't hear all at once,--say thy say, Crumble."

  "Why, your worship, my sow--your worship, my sow is dead: all of asudden, this blessed morn, as I poured out her wash, down she lay allin the shivers; and if the poor dumb creature had been her own fleshand blood, my old woman could not ha' taken on more. Says I, directly,'This is a bit of Margery's work; for I see her brush the old sow withher black petticoat at the lane end, Sunday was a week.' It's quite aplain case you see, Sir Oliver."

  "Stand back, you silly man."

  "Silly, forsooth. I am thirty-seven year clerk of the parish, comenext Lammas, and I say it's writ on the Bible, 'Thou shalt not suffera witch to live.'"

  "That is true enough--it is so; but how do you know a witch?"

  "Why, I know that a man's not a witch."

  "That is true, thou art a man and no witch. But how dost thou knowone?"

  "Why, it is an old woman, not to say any one, but a crook back, with ahooked nose, and a peaked chin like Margery."

  "Master Crumble, I have done with thee, and in the matter of thy sow'sdeath do acquit Margery."

  "That's not crown law, nor Gospel charity," said the old clerk, as hestepped back into the crowd, who muttered and whispered among eachother till the next witness spoke out. This was the witch-finder.

  "Please your worship, I am ready to make oath that she hath afamiliar, always about her in the shape of a brown mouse; for I haveseen it crawling about her neck, and playing and feeding in her hand."

  Here there was a mixed utterance of triumph and horror in the crowd,and Sir Oliver himself looked grave.

  "What dost thou answer to this, Margery?"

  "They say true in that they say I have a tame mouse; and haven't courtladies their monkeys, and their parrots, and their squirrels, andtheir white mice,--and why mayn't an old lone woman have her pet aswell as they?" As thus she spoke, she held out her open hand, and alively brown mouse sat up quietly on the palm seemingly quite tame.There was a slight shudder ran through the veins of all present; andCuthbert Noble, fearing lest this mode of defence might rather hinderthan help her, went up to advise her better.

  "A warm blessing on you, Master Noble,--the blessing of one whom youhave saved before, and are trying to save again."

  Here Cuthbert stopped her, and observed to Sir Oliver aloud, that thismouse was but such a pet as a shepherd's boy might play with, and thatthe old woman, whose ways were odd, had once told him that when shewas a child and her little brother died, she had taken to a fieldmouse which he had petted, and that she had ever since as one diedprocured another.

  The worthy knight was now for discharging Margery; but Farmer Mortoninsisted that they should hear his carter's story. Accordingly Jockstepped forward, and smoothing down his hair said,--"Please yourworship, I lost my best startups (high shoes) the day before lastcattle fair, and precious mad I was; and Sukey Sly told me if I wentto old Margery, and took her a wheaten loaf, and crossed he
r palm witha silver penny, she'd tell me where to find 'em. Well, I went, and theold woman said she didn't want to have aught to say to me. 'Look ye,'says I, 'Margery, here I be, here's the bread and here's the money: Iha' lost my startups, and you must tell me where to find them; and Iwo'n't budge till you do.' So with that she puts her mouse downagainst the loaf, and finely he nibbled away, and she set of a brownstud for a bit, and then told me to wait for the first full moon, andthen, exactly at midnight, to walk backwards from the yard gate to thedung mixen, with my eyes fixed on the moon, and that I should findthem on the mixen; but if it were before or after twelve o'clock, andif I looked behind me, or took my eyes off the moon, the charm wouldbe broke, and I should never see my startups again; and sure enough Inever have seen 'em."

  There was a little titter among the women; and Sukey Sly, whose legswere set off in a pair of new red stockings, could not suppress alaugh at Jock's story: but the clowns called out for justice, and SirOliver had much ado to pacify them. He did so at last, by assuring theold woman, that, on condition she told what was the great charm bywhich she was said to cure diseases, she should be set free.

  "Cure diseases! God bless you, Master! why I'm a poor helpless oldbody, that can't cure myself, and should starve but for pity," saidMargery. "However, may be, once or so in a quarter there comes somewilful body like Jock, with a tied-up face, and makes a witch of me,whether or no, and will have the charm. Then I take his loaf and hismoney, and I say,--

  "'My loaf in my lap, My penny in my purse; Thou art never the better; I'm never the worse.'"

  This confession was followed by laughter, in which most joined; and,except the clerk of the parish and the balked witch-finder, alldispersed in such good humour, that the poor old crone was releasedfrom her hurdle and her troublesome attendants, and, with a basket ofbroken meat and a bottle of ale, was suffered to hobble back to herhovel in the sand pit, without let or hinderance. It is true thatMargery was most justly liable to the charge of imposture in thematter of Jock; and certain that, but for the easy and kind temper ofthe knight, and the good humour which her own quaint and jocularconfession suddenly struck out of the wayward crowd, she might havebeen committed by Sir Oliver, or half drowned by the brutal andsuperstitious rustics on her road back to her miserable hovel. But asshe lived at a lone spot on the far side of the Avon, and was notoften seen in the parish of Milverton, and as the good knight (thoughby no means free from the prevalent belief in witchcraft, and stilldoubting whether under the form of a mouse she was not attended by animp, as the witch-finder had averred,) was a timid magistrate, hatedtrouble, and sincerely feared doing what was either wrong in law orsevere in punishment, he rejoiced to be well quit of the troublesomeappeal. Nevertheless, he was not a little secretly disturbed, when,late in the evening, old Philip--in a fear which had not even yieldedto the comforting warmth of a cup of spiced ale--related to him hiscomical dream, with manifold exaggerations, and expressed his stoutbelief that he had been possessed during his sleep by the evilinfluence of old Margery.

  Truth to say, at the period of which we write such was the fear andhatred of those forlorn and miserable old women, whose unsightlyfeatures, infirm gait, and cross tempers, excited among theirneighbours any suspicion that they held intercourse with evil spirits,and exercised the powers of witchcraft, as drove forth the unhappybeings to lonely abodes in solitary places. Here again, in thevicinity of some village, remote from the scene of their persecution,their very loneliness, all compelled and oppressive as it was, didmost naturally subject them anew to the suspicions of freshoppressors. So bloody, too, were the laws which at that time disgracedthe statute book, having for their end the punishment of witchcraft,so cruel were the modes of trial among the mean and malignant personswho drove a lucrative trade as witch-finders, and so credulous was theignorant and easily abused multitude, that, upon evidence far lesscolourable with guilt than that adduced against Margery, unfortunatepersons of both sexes were publicly executed without shame and withoutpity. In numberless instances false confessions were extorted from thehopeless sufferers by torture, and adduced upon the day of trial, orproclaimed at the place of execution. Thus a rooted persuasion of theexistence of sorcery and the practices of witchcraft was fixed in theminds of the vulgar, and even infected those of the better and theeducated classes. As a natural consequence of this terriblesuperstition, some of the poor creatures suspected of witchcraft, whofound themselves thrust out of the pale of human sympathy--avoided andshunned by some, beaten and set upon by others--did madden, andmumble curses in their gloomy solitude, and at last began to suspectthemselves as the servants of unseen spirits, and the partakers of asupernatural power.

  In the breast of Cuthbert Noble the vulgar and cruel prejudiceconcerning witchcraft had no place. His humane and enlightened fatherhad very early instilled into his mind clear notions of the love andcare of the great Father of the human families; of the sacredness ofhuman life, indeed of all life, and of the holiness of creation;--andhe had, moreover, taught him to regard all particular cases of severeand inexplicable suffering as parts only of one vast and mysteriouswhole, and subserving, in the great end and issue, some wise, holy,wonderful purpose of divine and universal love. He had taught him,too, that ours was a marred and fallen nature; and how and by whatmeans, and in whose divine person, it actually was restored; and howall the sons of Adam had become capable, through divine mercy, ofpartaking all the benefits of that restoration of man's nature--insome degree even in this troubled and probationary state--in full andsatisfying perfection in that state which is future and eternal.Hence, to the eye of Cuthbert, every one of human form was an object,though not perhaps of personal interest and affection, yet of wonderand of reverence, as a creature of God, born for immortality--animperishable, an indestructible being; and, when the crimes and errorsof his fellow-creatures stirred up his angry passions to punish andwithstand them, the sense of his own weakness and his own sinfulnesswas ever waiting for him in his heart's closet, to rebuke and humblehim in the calmness of solitude. But Cuthbert as yet had been littletried; he knew not what spirit he was of. He thought that his placidand firm father was the model which he surely followed; but thesettled and peaceful joy of that amiable and benevolent and subduedfather was as yet unknown to him.

  However, the character and the life of Parson Noble will be the betterunderstood and conceived of by transporting our reader to the villagein Somersetshire where he dwelt, and where, had it been her goodfortune to have been a parishioner of his, old Margery, in spite ofher wild and withered aspect, might have lived unmolested and in peacewith her neighbours, and would not have lacked such acquaintance withthe mercy of the great Redeemer, as it is in the power of a mere humaninstrument to impart.