by Norah Lofts
Godfrey Tallboys, curious as all children were, wanted to know what was happening. If he opened the door Mamma-Captoft might look back, see that he had left his task and hold it against him when it came to lending of the mule. But he could look out of the window. He was tall for his age, all Tallboys were, but not yet quite tall enough to have much of a view from a window which Master Hobson, who had built the house, had deliberately set high and narrow. But Godfrey dragged up a stool and attained a wider, longer view and saw Mamma-Captoft being manhandled. One man on each side. There was no thought about it. He came of fighting stock—belligerence could be diverted, as it had been with Henry, fighting the weather, fighting circumstance, fighting himself. But in the boy, softly reared, pampered, spoilt, the old tough spirit sprang up. He took the poker from the hearth and ran out.
Something warned him not to shout, not to give any warning. Take the enemy by surprise! Hit where you can hit hardest. Both hands!
He hit Ted Hodgson on the side of the knee; a really crippling blow. The man let go of Mamma-Captoft and clasped his leg in both hands, yelping. Mamma-Captoft, thus released on one side, twisted around but still held by the left hand of the other man who also swung round, still grabbing Mamma-Captoft with one hand, his other ready to snatch the poker. Which he did. The boy’s strength and fury was no match for a full grown man’s. Bert Edgar’s left hand, hurt but not much weakened, thrust the poker back, straight into the face of the fierce little cub who fell backwards into the brambles that edged the path, and lay still.
Mistress Captoft, truly alarmed now, struggled frenziedly and flailed about with her free hand. Bert Edgar said, ‘Lay a hold of the bitch on the other side, Ted. Never mind your knee.’ He had little sensitivity to pain himself and no sympathy for it in others. ‘If you must hobble, lean on her,’ he said.
Once, in Dunwich, Mistress Captoft had seen a woman of known bad character, dragged out of town on a hurdle. Every sea-port had women who lived—and often supported families—on their immoral earnings. Now and again some almost symbolic action was taken against them and that woman had been the victim of one of the brief purges. Banned for ever from the town itself and from the ‘hundred’ of which the town was the centre. Mistress Captoft knew that the term hundred dated from long ago, when each hundred families was regarded as a responsible unit, answerable in law for the behaviour of its members and thus eager to expel anyone really recalcitrant.
Much the same thing, she imagined, was about to happen to her. The way she had been treated; the bigger man’s use of the word bitch: all pointed that way. As she was hustled roughly across a yard and into a kitchen, she prayed urgently if incoherently; God save me, Jesu help me, Holy Mother of God let them leave me my skirt… And all in a muddle her mind was still capable of thinking: How ironic; I lived in sin as they would call it, with Benny; and no stone cast; now, after two years with Master Tallboys and not even a fond word…
But it was not that.
Six Elders sat around the kitchen table. Old Hodgson was suffering one of his fairly frequent bouts of stiffness of the joints and was confined to his bed. The unwritten rules demanded an odd number, seven or five, so that on any vital question there should be a casting vote, but this morning that rule could be ignored for Old Sawyer no longer counted, babbling away about things long ago. Ignore him and that left five, all good men and true—and all violently prejudiced.
They used curiously formal terms, brought out of some remote past. They said: You are accused… They said: You are charged… They asked: How do you plead; guilty or not guilty? All was in order. She was invited, given the opportunity, to defend herself. But against something that she had never, even in nightmare, imagined.
Witchcraft.
The Bishop had described it exactly, a charge easy to bring, difficult to refute. Had the charge been of immorality she could have demanded that they sent for Katharine Dowley to swear on the Bible that though her room lay between she had never seen or heard any comings or goings, that she made both beds and never seen any evidence. David Fuller, who waited at table and mended the fire, could have sworn that no fond word or even glance had ever passed between Master Tallboys and Mistress Captoft. Also, distasteful as it would be to drag in a child, Godfrey could have been asked: Where do you sleep? and the answer would have been: often in the little bed in my father’s room. Oh, that would have been easy.
Also—and this was a thought to chill the heart—even had such defence failed, she would still be alive; publicly whipped perhaps and, wearing nothing but her petticoat, run out of Intake on a hurdle. But alive. A so-called witch had no chance at all. Procedures varied. Sometimes she was stripped and searched for any unusual mark, a mole or a wart by which she was supposed to suckle her familiar; or she was pricked with pins to discover an insensitive part—held to serve the same purpose. She could be starved, denied sleep, forced to walk up and down until her feet were bloody rags and she made a confession simply to escape further torments. Death was certain. Burn the witch! There was another way, ironically called a test. Throw a witch into water; if she floated she was a witch and could be taken out and burned; if she sank, she drowned and was regarded as innocent. Then everybody said what a pity and gave her Christian burial…
Oh God, I have sinned, grievously, but grant me, of Thy mercy, death by drowning.
Except for prayer there was nothing she could do except deny all charges which she did stoutly, though without hope. She said that she knew nothing of Bert Edgar, had never spoken to him; did not even know that he had a bull. She asked why should she wish to harm him?
Ah, they knew the answer to that. From the mouth of the priest himself. They could have called him in and confronted her with him but Father Matthew, though informed of what was planned, had excused himself from taking any part in it. A priest, they must understand, could not disobey a direct order from his Bishop. His Grace had told him to do nothing; therefore he must do nothing.
What was planned was a swimming; it was the showiest way and provided most entertainment for the ordinary people.
Outside Bert Edgar said to Ted Hodgson, ‘Come on, walk about, else it’ll stiffen on you.’ That was, in Intake, the rough-and-ready method of dealing with most injuries, short of a broken bone. Bert had a suspicion that his thumb was broken—and for that Ted Hodgson was to blame. Hit on the knee by a brat no older or bigger than Bert’s own firstborn and dancing about as though his feet were on fire. If Ted hadn’t let go the woman’s arm so that he’d been left to deal with her and with the young rascal, he’d have given him something to remember.
Hobbling, forced to walk about the yard, each step more painful, Ted Hodgson said, ‘Wait a bit, Bert,’ and propped himself against the rails of the empty pig-sty. ‘You ever known a young ’un behave that way?’
‘No, I never. It’d be leathered out of them, afore they was that size.’ Even his own wanted, eldest son, always privileged in the matter of food and general treatment, knew the limits of paternal indulgence and never over-stepped the limit.
‘Come up without a sound,’ Ted Hodgson said; anxious to explain why he had been taken unawares. ‘And struck with the strength of ten. And then, when I looked round, he wasn’t there. I’m beginning to wonder… Bert, some of them have cats and toads and such things.’
‘Never mind about that. She’s as good as done for. Come on, walk. Don’t you ’o’n’t get down to see her swum.’
‘I reckon my leg’s broke.’
‘Don’t talk so daft. Broke bones grate. Listen to this!
He gave audible evidence of his own broken bone, and was too ignorant to know that a knee-cap, without being broken, could shift.
Godfrey Tallboys disentangled himself from the brambles. He couldn’t breathe through his nose, which hurt when he put up an experimental finger, and seemed to be lopsided. There was nobody on the path now. And, his blow struck, he knew that he was no match for two grown men. He thought of David and dismissed the thought; lame. But the
re was Father. And there was the mule which now he did not need permission to use. He began to run, breathing heavily through his mouth.
Many people had hung about Bert Edgar’s yard while the trial went on in the kitchen—his premises were used because he was the injured party and the Elders had no settled meeting place—but some had already gone down to the riverside, to get a good place for the show.
There was one main dipping place from which most women fetched water. There were only two wells in Intake, one at the priest’s house, the other at Knight’s Acre. When the river ran high, anybody could dip a bucket from anywhere along the bank, thus saving a bit of a trudge, but when the water lowered, women—always the water carriers—went to the Steps, cut into the clay bank and reinforced by lengths of sawn timber. Awaiting the winter rains now, the river ran slow but steadily, level with the fourth step from the bottom. To this place, Mistress Captoft, her thumbs already tied together, was brought. A few people crossed themselves to ward off the evil eye, most hissed and jeered. Women held up their small children, so that they might see and remember.
The bound thumbs held her hands in the attitude of prayer and though she was shaken by fear and deathly pale, she was still thankful. Not to be burnt. And still to be clothed. And in a way she was resigned; she had sinned, in loving Benny; had confessed and been absolved too seldom. Now, if only she could drown quickly… Some time in Purgatory—for who would buy a Mass for her?—and then Heaven; a reunion of disembodied spirits all within the aura of the glory of God. Her parents, the brother she had loved and who had died before he was four; kind old Master Captoft. In Heaven where there was neither marriage nor giving in marriage.
As somebody tied her skirts about her ankles with a cord she prayed again. God, let me die quickly. Lord into Thy hands I commend my spirit…
She fell with a splash and went down like a stone. Was under long enough for some people to have doubts. The innocent drowned, didn’t they? More people crossed themselves. Then, some way down river but well within view, she rose to the surface and seemed to be riding on the water, bobbing a little, as though taking leave of Intake with a curtsey this way and that. A witch, all right.
They were prepared for that. Plough ropes with nooses all ready, young men, swift of foot and practised in catching one wanted animal out of a number, all set to run along the bank and take her, alive, to the fire, also ready in Bert Edgar’s yard.
And then the impossible happened. Just where the river made a slight curve but still in the sight of all, Mistress Captoft was literally taken up, seemed for a breath-space to walk the water, and vanished into the forest on the further bank.
Nobody lived, or had ever lived, so far as anyone knew, on that side of the river. Along the bank where the curve of the river deposited silt at certain seasons there were trees; and there were trees, too, on some islands of higher ground so that looking across the river the far side gave the appearance of being wooded. There were, however, stretches of dangerous swamp. Nobody at Intake had first or even fourth hand experience of the place but some old tales had survived. Once upon a time… Stories of men stepping on to what looked like green pasture and sinking to the knees, the thighs, the chest. The swamp began a few miles south of Baildon and extended, growing less and less wooded, to the coast. There it changed into sand dunes. Because of its reputation as a dangerous place it was avoided even by charcoal burners or refugees from justice. No wolf howled there, no fox barked, no deer flitted. Waste Wood belonged to birds, squirrels and snakes.
It was plain that Mistress Captoft had not been saved by any human intervention.
‘Sick it up,’ old Hodgson said, thumping her back. He loosened and lifted the noose from about her body and with his knife cut the cords. She was sick, dizzy, and bewildered, drenched and terribly cold but in her right mind. Blue-lipped and with teeth chattering she tried to thank him but he cut her short.
‘Never mind that now. We gotta get on the move.’ He removed the outer one of the two rough coats he was wearing and pushed her arms into it. ‘Soon warm up,’ he said. ‘Drink this.’ He removed the plug from a small leather bottle and she gulped down a dose of what felt like liquid fire. He unhitched and wound the rope which he had fastened to a tree-trunk. He had had faith in his eye, and in his judgement, but had not trusted his strength to haul her in unaided; she was a well-fleshed woman and wet clothes weighed heavy. ‘I gotta be back in my bed by sun-down and the ford’s a way up. You all right, now?’ Telling her to keep exactly behind him, he set off at a good pace. The path which he had trodden down and hacked out earlier in the day lay clear ahead; it’d have been different in summer, when vegetation could spring back into place within an hour. Once he paused and said, ‘Careful now. That ain’t grass. Jump!’ He did so himself, surprisingly spry for an old man whose stiffness of joints had for years prevented him from doing any heavy or unpleasant task. His daughter-in-law had once said, very sourly, ‘The only thing about him that ain’t stiff is his jaw. He can allust eat.’ Ted Hodgson had added, ‘And his tongue!’ He was a carping old man.
Now he jumped over a space where the swamp was encroaching and waited to see how she managed. ‘Well done!’ he said, and set off again. Here, because the swamp was creeping in, the screen of trees grew thinner and Intake, on the other bank, was visible.
‘There’s the village,’ he said. ‘The ford ain’t so far now.’
It was not a ford in the proper sense of the word—a place where a river is shallow enough to be crossed by foot. Long centuries earlier some indefatigable Roman engineer had planned a straight road and a bridge which would shorten by twenty miles the distance between Baildon and Colchester. The fact that on the other side of the river the land was swampy had not deterred him; he planned a causeway.
With thousands of others he had been recalled when the barbarians threatened the Empire and his work had never been even half completed. His length of straight road—though its solid foundations and its paving stones remained almost intact, had been forgotten, neglected, overgrown; and of his planned bridge only some piers remained worn smooth by the river. Old Hodgson—Young Hodgson then—and another boy had discovered the stones one day, a day between haymaking and harvest, when even hard worked little boys had a few leisure days. They’d spent a happy afternoon, jumping from one stone, only just awash, to another and then gone home and forgotten all about it.
The other boy was dead and Old Hodgson had only remembered when he had to.
They crossed and were in Layer Wood.
‘Now mind what I say,’ Old Hodgson said. ‘I take this short cut, straight back to the village and get myself to bed. You have a longer road. You can’t go near the village. So walk straight on and you’ll come to a pool; bear to your right then and you should come out not far from the back of Knight’s Acre.’ It was dusk already under the trees and he’d never known a woman who had any sense of direction or who wasn’t scared of the dark so, despite his own urgent need for haste, he spared her another minute, telling her the way again and adding, ‘And there’s nowt to be scared of; there ain’t the wolves about there used to be.’
‘I can never, never thank you sufficiently; but I shall remember you in my prayers.’
‘If they ever guess what I been up to, it’ll take more’n prayers,’ he said, and trudged away.
The steer sold well. Henry went along to Master Turnbull’s office and deposited half the price. Master Turnbull could see more sense in putting money aside for a living girl than for a boy who had vanished eight? yes, eight years ago; he was only sorry that the whole of the young lady’s fortune had not been entrusted to him, with no consultation with the Bishop of Bywater. He could have done better for her. He would have repudiated hotly the term money-lender—the Jews had been money-lenders, usurers, until they were banished nearly two hundred years earlier; Master Turnbull was a manager of money, his own and that of sensible people, like Master Tallboys who entrusted him with sums great and small. He was scrupulous
ly honest; knew that small sum added to small sum mounted up; believed that money, properly handled, could breed money and that a man should be flexible. He was fiercely anti-clerical. But when he had once mentioned the pity that it was that a Bishop should ever have been involved, Master Tallboys had given him one of those candid blue looks and said in a way that robbed his words of any offence, ‘No doubt you could have done better. But you could not have obtained a place for her in Sir Barnabas Grey’s household.’ And that was true. A law man who was not also a churchman was still regarded as a man of inferior breed; but Time would see to that. Master Turnbull, always alert to the drift of things, was pretty certain that the day of the middle class man would come. Maybe not in his time but in his son’s.
Henry bought—since he had the waggon—some household things which Mistress Captoft had asked for and, thank God, he could now pay, even for small luxuries. Even for a cask of wine. Reared for the most part in great poverty, he always felt slightly guilty when he spent anything on what was not an absolute necessity. Mistress Captoft had, in a way, imposed standards on him for which he was not yet ready. Admirable standards; it was true that Godfrey needed new clothes; that Katharine deserved the good servant’s Christmas dole of stuff for a working dress. He didn’t grudge but even spending what he could afford now reminded him of the past when he could afford so little; and made him think of the future, always uncertain. When he felt like this he was always disgusted with himself and gave a thought to his father who once, for the first time in his life with a hundred pounds in hand, had built Knight’s Acre, sparing nothing, even the pargeting. Sir Godfrey had spent his last penny on the house—and then could not afford to live in it. It was Walter who had made the farm, the thing which had sustained the house for more than twenty years and must continue to do so.