Lingood stepped straight into the keeping-room and into the presence of the Banham family, of which the majority, as to number, was ranged up the staircase at a corner of the room; those of ten or eleven on the lower stairs, and the rest, in order of juniority, on those above; the smallest and last of the babies signifying his presence on the upper landing by loud wails. Mrs Banham, a large, energetic, but slatternly woman, whose characteristic it always seemed to grow more slatternly and to spread more general untidiness the more energetic she showed herself, sat in a chair with her hands in her lap and a blue glass smelling bottle in one of them. Opposite her stood Mag Banham, the first-born, a stout, fair, blowzy girl of twenty or so. Both were contemplating the sufferer, a girl of sixteen, haggard and flushed, who sat on a sofa, rocking her head and shoulders, looking piteously from one face to another, and now and again twitching one cheek with the monstrous semblance of a wink.
“O, mother! O, Mag!” she moaned indistinctly, “I do fare that bad! Yow woan’t let me suffer mother, will ye? Mag, yow love me, doan’t ye? An’ father—”
“Ah, my gal, we’ll see ye better soon,” said the mother, and Mag murmured sympathetically.
“Yow den’t ote to give way so, deary,” Mrsnham went on. “Master Murr’ll’s to putt ye aw to rights.”
“Yow doan’t pity me, mother,” the girl pursued, beseeching all present with her eyes; “yow doan’t pity me!”
“Ees, deary, us do, all on us. Take a drink o’ barley watter, do, to squench the fever;” and Mrs Banham offered a quart jug. But the patient would have none of it, thrust it away angrily, indeed, and moaned anew. “An’ when I’m dead you’ll arl say ye’re sorry, p’r’aps — no, yow woan’t, you’ll be glad I’m a-gone!”
Mrs Banham looked despairingly up at Lingood.
“She do sit like that,” she said, in a whisper that all could hear— “she do sit a-dolouring like that arl day an’ night, for bed she’ll hev none of. And then — fits. Who should putt the ev’l tongue on the gal thussens? Dedn’ yow see Master Murr’ll? He were comin’, an’ we bin waitin’ on him.”
Even as she spoke the latch lifted, and Cunning Murrell was at the door, umbrella and frail basket on shoulder. At this there was trouble on the stairs. For the long train of little Banhams, in all stages of undress, the whole proceedings were matter of intense interest and diversion. But while those behind pushed forward rebelliously against their seniors, these latter, though holding to the foremost places, were more disposed to push back; partly in awe of the wise man whom half the country held in fear, but more in terror of their mother’s vigorous hand, which had already driven back the reconnaissance twice in course of the evening. So that instant on Murrell’s appearance a riot arose on the stairs, a scuffle and a tumble, and, amid a chorus of small yells, little Jimmy, all ends up, came bursting though the advance guard, and sprawled on the floor with his shirt about his neck.
“Ow!” he cried. “Ow! Bobby shoved me downstaers!” And with that Mrs Banham left jug and smelling-bottle, and seizing Jimmy by a leg and an arm, drove back the column in panic, and shut the stair-foot door.
“Good t’ye arl,” said Murrell, in his small, sharp voice. “I see smoke from your bake-hus, Mrs Banham. Be the fire well rastled?”
“Ees, an’ I’ll war’nt that’s hot. I’ve arl that yow spoke of, Master Murr’ll, in the ketchen.”
Murrell took the iron bottle from the frail, and followed Mrs Banham into the room behind. There was a sound as of something poured, and a low conversation.
Banham looked helplessly about him, and began again: “‘Tare rare fanteegs we’re in, Steve, sarten to say, an’ it do dunt me arltogither. But the missis, she—”
“An’ they be toe as well as finger nails complete?” came Murrell’s quick voice, as the two returned.
“Ees, that’s arl as yow told me, Master Murr’ll, an’ here be pins an’ needles.”
Murrell shovelled them from his palm into the bottle, and dived again into the frail. Thence he brought dried leaves of four sorts, and these were stuffed in after the pins; and last went a little heap of horse-nails.
“Do you screw it hard, Stephen Lingood,” said Murrell, “with your strong fingers.”
Lingood took the bottle and screwed the stopper down as far as it would go.
“Now ’tis ready, neighbours,” Murrell squeaked, “an’ you give aer to what I tell. We go arl to the bake-hus — an’ come you, too, Stephen Lingood, for true witness. An’ mind you arl,” he went on with gusto, for he enjoyed the authority his trade gave him, “once the bake-hus door shuts on us, not a word mus’ one speak. What I hev prepared will putt sore pain an’ anguish on the hainish witch that hev laid the ill tongue on this house. ’Tis a strong an’ powerful spell, an’ ‘haps the witch may be druv to appear before us, bein’ drawed to the sput in anguish; ‘haps not; ’tis like that’s a dogged powerful witch, an’ will stay an’ suffer, an’ not be drawed. But come or stay, not one word mus’ be spoke, or the spell makes nothen. If come she do, she’ll speak, with a good axcuse, that’s sarten, that some here may be drawed to answer, an’ break the spell; or may make count to meddle with the oven; so heed not her words, nor make one sound. But ‘haps she won’t come.”
Banham shuffled uneasily, and looked at his wife. But she stooped to Em and took her arm.
“Come,” she said, “we’re goin’ in the bake-hus, Em, to cure ye.”
The girl had ceased to rock herself, and now stared sullenly at the floor. “I’m afeard,” she said; “feard o’ the witch.”
“There’s no call to be feared,” the mother answered; “us be with ye, an’ Master Murr’ll, with proper deadly power over arl witches. So come now.” She took her firmly, and presently the girl rose and went.
Banham took the rushlight, and, shading it with his hand, went last of the group into the yard. The nearest of the outbuildings was the bakehouse, scarce three yards from the kitchen door. From its chimney white smoke rose, and when the door was opened the smell of wood fire was sharp in the nostrils. Murrell turned and took the rushlight from Banham, shaking his forefinger and tapping his lips as he did so, to remind the company of his orders. When all were within he shut the door, and lifted the latch of the brick oven. The fire was over high for baking, and the white ash had scarce begun to settle over it; even the bricks glowered a murky red, and cracked as Murrell raked the embers with a hook. A cut faggot lay on the hearth, and of this he flung in a good half, so that the fire burst into a clamour of crackles and a hum of flame. When it seemed at its highest he pitched the iron bottle into the midst, and all crouched and waited.
Lingood began to hope that the bottle was not altogether steam-tight after all, and by signs induced the others to keep as far as possible from the oven. The patient was calmer now, and quiet, viewing the proceedings with a dull curiosity, her head against her mother’s shoulder. Lingood stood by the wall, and sucked a little nervously at his pipe. He feared an accident, but it would never do to spoil the arrangements now, or at any time to set in question anything done by Murrell, who, as everybody knew, was the most learned man in Essex. As for Mag and her father, both sat and stared, open-mouthed, much as Jimmy and Bobby would have done had they been admitted to the bakehouse.
Presently a slight sound was heard from within the oven, and Lingood knew that the steam had found a tiny vent at the screw-stopper. But it was tiny indeed, and it was only because of the perfect stillness that the faint hiss could be heard at all. Even the rushlight was noisier.
And then, as all listened, there was a sharp sound without. It widened every mouth and eye, for it was the click of the gate in the outer fence. There was a louder clap as the gate slammed to, and then the sound of footfalls nearing the bakehouse. Only Lingood, because of his position, could see through the window, or would have dared to look. He saw but a dark figure, and, as it passed the window, a white face. And with that the door opened.
The women shrank together, and Murrell turned
, stooping still, to face the entrance. On the threshold an old woman stood — a pale old woman in rusty black. With a skin clear almost beyond nature, she had a firm, perhaps a hard mouth, and overhanging brows, thick and grey and meeting in the middle. Howbeit her expression was rather one of fortitude than of harshness.
She looked about the bakehouse as in some sort discomposed by the gathering, and then said, nodding toward the oven, “I could see you were hottin’ your oven this late, Mrs Banham, an’ I thote ‘haps you might let me put in a bit o’ breadstuff ‘long o’ yours.” She faltered and looked doubtfully at the silent company. “If that be no ill-convenience,” she added apologetically, and produced a full white cloth from under her shawl.
There was no answer, though every eye was on her. It was plain that she was uneasy. “My niece Dorrily hev made a gooseberry pie,” she pursued, “but with that we den’t want to trouble ye, thinkin’ that Mrs Cheadle were a-bakin’, though it seem she a’n’t.”
Still nobody spoke. Em clung to her mother, shaking and staring, and all the nearer choking for the hand Mrs Banham laid across her mouth to keep her quiet. Murrell raised his finger to maintain the silence, and gazed keenly in the old woman’s face. Banham’s jaw had dropped till it could drop no farther. There was a still pause.
“I wouldn’t ask,” the old woman went on, ill at ease and perplexed, “but the bricks be fallen out o’ my oad oven, an’ that Dan Fisk that was to mend it, he den’t come.”
Still not a word. There was something hostile, and more than hostile, in the general gaze, and the old woman, bewildered still, now spoke with some acerbity. “If you woan’t,” she said, “there’s no harm done, though a civil answer ‘ud cost ye nothen.’ Haps the oven’s full o’ some oather thing, but leave that as may be, the least you give a beggar’s an answer, neighbours. ‘Taren’t your habit to keep a shut mouth, Mrs Banham.”
Mrs Banham gave no reply but a glare of hate. There was sign of a sob breaking through the hand that was over Em’s mouth, and then —
The oven door shot through the window, and the place was full of flying embers and stinking steam. Blinded and half-stunned, everybody scrambled at random, and the first distinct sound after the deafening bang was the shrill voice of Murrell from the midst of the rout. “’Tis done, and done well! So go arl ev’l sparrits from out o’ this household, an’ so be the witch hurt an’ tormented an’ overthrowed!”
Overthrown the old woman was, in truth. The oven sill was something near four feet from the ground, so that their crouching position had saved the cunning man and his clients, who, save for a fright and a few burns, were little the worse. Lingood, too, in his corner, had no more to lament than a hole or two scorched in his clothes, but the old woman lay still, with a cut in her cheek, for she had been standing almost in the path of the explosion. When the rushlight had been found and relighted Murrell pointed. “See,” he said, “’tis done, an’ done double. Blood drawed above the breath!”
And, indeed, it was plain that the shock had wrought a change in Em, for she was laughing quietly. It was not the unpleasant, noisy laughter, full of hiccups, that had signalised the sole change in her gloom in the last few days, and she spoke cheerfully. “To think ‘twere Mrs Mart’n! But there, I knowed it arl along. ’Tis done now arltogether an’t it, mother? I’m a-well now, Mag. But I knowed it were Mrs Mart’n arl along, den’t I, mother? Ha, ha! Ees, sarten to say!”
Lingood lifted the old woman’s shoulders, and made to loosen her bodice about the neck.
“Fling her out, Steve Lingood, fling her out!” cried Mrs Banham. “Let her gownd choke her if ‘twill, an’ let the devil hev his own!”
But Lingood stolidly rested the woman against his knee, and began a clumsy attempt at restoring her. “You’ve had your will,” he said, “an’ now ‘haps you’ll give her a cup o’ watter.”
Banham, whose meek vacuity not even an explosion could destroy, after a gaping pause to assimilate Lingood’s meaning, took a step toward the door, but stopped at his wife’s command.
“Yow stay where yow be, Joe Banham!” she cried furiously. “Let me see yow bring bit or sup for that darty witch that hev put the ill tongue on your own flesh an’ blood darter! An’ if ’tis watter yow want for her, Steve Lingood, there’s a foison o’ watter in t’hosspond for sich faggits! Taake an’ swim her!”
“She ote to be drownded,” said Mag, “if drownd she ‘ool.”
And Murrell added his rebuke. “That queer me, Stephen Lingood,” he said gravely, “to see you aidin’ and comfortin’ so wicked a witch. Since you’ve touched her, take her out an’ leave her to God’s will.”
Lingood, fumbling awkwardly and looking for help in vain, was aware of a quick step in the yard, and with it an urgent voice. “Mrs Banham, Mrs Banham! is’t an accident? Is my aunt here?”
The voice was at the door, and in another moment a girl in a print gown was within, kneeling by the old woman — the girl who had asked news of the war that evening of Roboshobery Dove. “O, what is’t?” she cried. “Mrs Banham, be she hurt?”
The answering torrent of abuse stupefied the girl, but in its midst the old woman opened her eyes and made a move to rise. The girl began to wipe the blood from her cheek, but Lingood nodded sharply toward the door and lifted her by the shoulders.
“Yes — come; come out,” the old woman said faintly, as the smith aided her steps. But the girl stood in amaze. She, too, was clear-skinned and pale, with long black hair; and her firm black eyebrows exhibited, though in a less degree, the family peculiarity of a join at the meeting. She faced the storm with little understanding, though she heard her aunt called a witch again and again.
Presently she found speech to exclaim: “She’s no witch! Master Murr’ll, what ha’ you been at?”
But her aunt pulled her by the skirt and commanded: “Come! Come yow away, Dorrily!”
And so they went with Lingood into the lane.
III. — PROLOGUE MISPLACED
THE cottage overlooking the castle lane was in more than one sense a habitation apart from Hadleigh, and it had been so for long. For the Martins were “foreigners” — that is to say, they came from fifty or sixty miles off along the coast, and what was of much more serious importance, they were connected with the coastguard. In 1831 great changes were made in the revenue service, and it was then that John Martin and his wife came to the Leigh station. Now in those days the revenue service was not popular in this part of the coast — nor, indeed, in any other part. Smuggling was a great trade — not quite so great here as it was in parts of Kent, perhaps, but a large enough trade considering the thinness of the population, and a paying trade. Indeed, it was carried on with something more of impunity than in the famous smuggling districts on the south coast, where both smugglers and King’s men were more numerous and more active. The nearest guard station after Leigh was at Shoeburyness, almost seven miles along the coast, and the men were few. More, they were familiar and native to the district, and apt to be very luke-warm friends of the King, it was hinted; and certainly they were no very bitter enemies of the smugglers. As for the old riding officer that trotted harmlessly between, usually along the main road behind the cliff-ridge, and safely out of sight, he was regarded less as a terror than as an object of pleasant entertainment and a runner of fool’s errands for the amusement of the idle humourist. It is possible that this was not the only part of the coast where similar conditions existed; but under King William great changes came. Men were moved into strange districts, were forbidden to marry among their new neighbours, and were made to live as much apart as was possible. So, in the general shifting of the pieces in the game, John Martin and his wife, humble and inconsiderable pawns, were put down in the midst of the enemy at Leigh, Mrs Martin’s brother, Reuben Thorn, going with them, and taking his wife too.
The force of repulsion between the revenue men and their neighbours came not alone from the King’s side, in shape of regulations. For if the service men were loth, as
in duty bound, to associate with those about them, these latter on their side regarded with a natural suspicion and dislike the strangers who were come among them to overset the pleasant course of life to which they were accustomed; not only to cut off the easy supply of good liquor and good tobacco which was felt to be every man’s elementary right, but also to cut off the source of much prosperity to freighters and venturers, and of liberal and easy wages for every man who could carry two tubs on a dark night. There was a jealous watch, too, for informers and babblers (though, in truth, they were rare enough), so that, for their own sakes, few displayed an ambition to contract relations of any sort with the coastguard, and there was a great difficulty in finding lodging for the men and their families.
John Martin and Reuben Thorn had long househunting troubles, and got over them at last by renting between them the cottage over Hadleigh Castle Lane. It was empty and badly out of repair, and it had a vaguely evil name, in some indistinct way acquired from the memory of the man who hanged himself in the castle barn. But it had advantages. First, after so long lying empty, it was cheap; it enabled the two related couples to live together, and share expenses; and it was some little way removed from other cottages, so that the men could come and go without being under common observation. It was the property of one Simon Cloyse, of Leigh, a man of Dutch descent, like many hereabout. He was a “warm” man, of various trades; he kept an inn and a shop; he held shares in divers fishing craft; sometimes he lent money; but it was said that he, as well as his father before him, had done best out of smuggling. Not as an active smuggler, taking personal risks, for it was never Sim Cloyse’s way to take a risk of any sort; but as a freighter, who found as much of the money needed as would enable him to take to himself the best part of the profits. To keep such transactions wholly secret in such a community as that of Leigh were an impossibility, but it was a fact that nowhere, and at no time, could the keenest eye have detected a single scrap of positive evidence connecting Sim Cloyse with a contraband operation of any sort. Still matters seemed so to fall out that few of the active and more daring smugglers, the boatcaptains and the like, but found themselves, in some mysterious way, in Sim Cloyse’s debt — a condition no Leigh man was ever known to get out of. Golden Adams, in particular, a daring and perhaps a rather quarrelsome young fellow, was said to have run a rare rig on Sim Cloyse’s money for a while, and now to be growing desperate in consequence.
Delphi Complete Works of Arthur Morrison Page 111