The Witch and the Priest (epub)

by Hilda Lewis

  “No,” he said, “no.” And covered his face.

  “Yes, priest, yes! Nor is it less true when you hide your eyes. Such a poor creature may have a spot upon her body—for it is more often we women that are accused; a natural spot, even so common a thing as a ringworm. But the world cries out, Here is the Mark. And so they must hang. It is those you should pity of your Christian charity. You have never been hurt in the flesh, priest; hurt wantonly, hurt cruelly, in the name of righteousness. Till then do not speak of devils; no devil can torment like your righteous man that is afraid.”

  “It is not true,” Samuel Fleming groaned. “In other countries, perhaps. In Scotland and in France, yes; in Italy, maybe; in Switzerland certainly and in Spain. But not here, not in this good land of ours. As my Saviour hears me, if there was torment I did not know it.”

  “And will your saviour forgive you for not knowing, you that set yourself up as a judge? And if he does? It will not be forgiven you by those poor souls whose bodies you tormented and then hanged.”

  He held out his hands and looked at them, a little puzzled, as though he expected to find blood on them; but she went on, implacable. “Yes, you, priest, you! Though your own eyes did not see nor your own hands move—you guard the law; you and the rest of your magistrates and judges. The law of a people is precious and must be guarded—as we witches know, that accept the Law from the Master and cherish it with our lives. For the law is more than any man or any woman or any child. The law is that by which the spirit lives; by which your god himself lives.”

  He looked at her and there was nothing to say. He was a man reputed wise in words—swift to the reply, cunning in dispute. But she, he thought now, outdid him in cunning.

  “Not in cunning,” she said gently, “but in the truth. Being out of the body and my soul naked between heaven and hell I can do no other. Priest, I speak the truth.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  Samuel Fleming walked in the August garden; he walked slowly, feeble yet with his sickness. And, as he walked, there came to his ears the purling of the river—a small bright river . . . innocent. Yet he had known it to rise in flood and sweep a man away; he had been all-but drowned himself once! He looked with pleasure at the bridge he had built; the little stone bridge, strong and beautiful. Yes, there it stood—and would stand; he had left money for its upkeep so that ever after men could walk safely when they came to church.

  “Yet there were things to do first, priest!” She stood before him, translucent as the water. “Men and women may take the long way to church when the river is in flood—which is not often; or the wooden bridge have served them still. But in this parish of yours there are always some who shiver and shake—yes, even this hot day—because of empty bellies and empty hearths.”

  And when he would have answered that his sister saw to it that none went cold or hungry, she said quickly, “Mistress Davenport is kind; but her soup, good though it be, is not enough. You cannot keep body and soul together with a sup now and then. A bit of bread and cheese from one’s own shelf, every day punctual as the sun and a warm fire, may yet save souls for your god. There are some who make their pact with the Master to save themselves from the slow and bitter death of poverty.”

  At this moment Hester herself came across the lawn, the white cat at her heels.

  “I thought I heard voices,” she said looking about her, surprised to find him alone. “I was sure William was with you. I have to speak to him about my new bed of sparrowgrass. He did not trench deep enough for all my talking. Now there is little; and that, poor enough. Oh!” She stopped and shivered. “It is cold! Who would believe it is August? And yet—” she looked up puzzled, “the sun is as hot as my kitchen fire. But then,” she went on, answering herself as was her way, “the wind blows cold from the river.” She looked at it fondly. “Who should suppose so small a river could make so great a difference? Well, Jennet shall bring you a shawl.” She turned to go. “Send Will to me, if you see him,” she said across her shoulder. “There shall be plain speaking about the sparrowgrass. Francis may come home suddenly—who knows? And certainly there is none fit for Cecilia when she comes to dine.”

  “Francis is not likely to come for many a long day, more’s the pity! As for Cecilia—there’s enough and to spare at Belvoir.”

  “That is not at all the same thing,” she said, obstinate as some gentle women can be. “It is my pleasure to give my guests the thing they like whether they have it already or not. Besides, there is no sparrowgrass at Belvoir so sweet and juicy as mine. I had best go and find Will. Come, puss!”

  The cat did not stir. She put out a hand and it backed and spat. There it stood, four feet planted, back arched, spitting and glaring.

  “What ails the creature?” Hester said. “What does he see? A ghost, perhaps? And who could blame any ghost for wandering abroad this sweet summer day?”

  Behind him he heard Joan Flower laugh. Hester stared past him beneath her shielding hand.

  “Yes, certainly puss has seen a ghost!” she said and her laugh was uncertain. “Come, puss.”

  And when the creature stood, unmoving, like a cat in snow, save for the quiver of its anger and the glowing of its eyes, he heard a voice behind him whisper, Go, cat, go!

  Hester’s head turned sharply from right to left. “I could believe in daylight ghosts—all but.” She laughed; but again her laugh had an edge to it. “Come, puss.”

  She turned towards the house and the cat followed.

  “If you must come,” he told Joan Flower, “then come where you can frighten no-one.”

  “I have frightened no-one,” she said. “As for her—” she nodded in Hester’s direction, “she is more likely to frighten me. She is one of God’s fighters; for all her gentleness she gives no quarter. As to how I come or when or where—I take my chance as I may; we cannot go on like this for ever. And so, priest, to the battle!”

  He sighed, reluctant to leave the bright flowing water, and the garden with its roses nodding and blowing and the lilies pouring richness upon the warm air, and the heartsease and love-lies-bleeding, all enclosed in neat clipped box.

  His study had a greenish underwater look after the bright garden. The sky lifts a man’s soul heavenward, he thought, and threw the casement wide so that the sunlight rushed in. He could hardly see her now in the strong light; but he heard her, felt her, knew her to be there. He wished he had not refused Hester’s offer of a shawl; even indoors, with the sun streaming through the open window, he felt the piercing cold that came from her.

  “Well?” she asked. “Have you considered the things we spoke of yesterday?”

  He nodded. “That some poor souls are annoyed in prison . . .”

  “Tormented was the word, priest.”

  It was a word he could not take as yet; he went on,

  “. . . I believe. And I am ashamed; I am bitterly ashamed. And I believe also you did not bewitch the lady Catharine. And yet—” he leaned chin upon palm, “cold as ice and stiff as iron; frothing at the mouth as her brothers had done; like them crying out all wild with terror; staring with blind eyes; passing out of the body and returning not knowing what had passed. Strange, strange. . . .”

  She shrugged. “Who can understand the heart of a child?”

  “Suffer the little children to come unto Me,” Samuel Fleming said softly. “Certainly He understood. They ran and clasped Him about the knees.”

  “You can draw any child with honey,” she said, “but understanding is a different thing.”

  “And your Master—is he more understanding than the Son of God?”

  “Why yes! The Master loves little children; and He is more honest than your god. For you take the new-born babe and offer him to God; you baptize him with your holy water and with the mark of the cross. And he is too little to understand and he is too weak to refuse . . . but often he cries aloud when it is don
e. And that is a thing you know well.

  But my Master. When we offer our children, He makes the Mark, it is true. But He does not accept them; not one does He accept. He waits until they are old enough to know what it is they do. Then He asks them, Are you willing? And, Do you understand? And again, Are you willing? Then and only then does He accept them. And He is very kind to children and they have no fear of Him. They run to his knees and they embrace Him about the neck and they kiss his cheeks. And He calls them sweet names—bird and lamb and little hare. But He allows no child to fool Him. That child who is not true is beaten until he comes weeping and cringing to the Master’s grace.

  Oh He would have understood the little lady well enough! Sweet, He would have said, deceive whom you will—your god, if you can—and I shall praise you. But try to cheat Me, and it will be a sorry day for you; your last, perhaps! Oh He would have seen through her saucy ladyship! When she knew all hearts heavy with grief, heard the prayers, saw the tears; and when she saw these hearts lift a little when the sickness lifted, drop again when the sickness dropped down again, why then she felt herself left out. Little lady in the cold. Yes, the Master would have understood her very well.”

  “But,” Samuel Fleming said, unwilling even to glance at the truth, “she grieved; she truly grieved. More than once I wiped her tears and we prayed together; I felt my own prayers stronger for a child’s tears.”

  “Of course she grieved; of course she prayed; of course she wept. But do you not imagine that some of it—and not a little—was for the neglected little lady? No, she was not sick; though sometimes she feared she might be stricken. To envy the sick is not to desire the sickness. And when she found she did not sicken, why, then she feigned the matter.”

  “So young . . . and so cunning? It is not possible.”

  “You are over-trusting, priest. All children are cunning. Yet, it could be that, in a while, the thing she feigned became real. In the end, maybe, she did not fully understand the game she played.

  The spell had failed; the little lady went free of us. My daughters took failure each in her way. To Meg—child of John Flower—it meant try no more. But Philip—begotten when the blood was hot—failure pricked on. She wore a keen and spiteful look; and I would watch her wondering what she meant to do. Oh I knew well enough what she had threatened; but I could not believe it anything but threat. Margaret was, after all, her sister; and the thing was too horrible.”

  Samuel Fleming saw the long shudder that shook her body so that it moved and flickered like water.

  “But if I did not believe it, Meg did. Fear had sharpened those dull wits of hers. She knew.

  And so time dragged on to the next Sabbath. Candlemas, and the cold winter wind blowing and the cold stars pricking; and I riding cold as a corpse with my fears; and as heavy. Lagging behind, Margaret rode. There was a lost look about her as though she carried a dead thing within her. And, indeed, I think she carried her dead child in her heart. It is not given to every woman, priest, to be a witch, any more than every man can be a saint. Philip flew, spurring on her mount, all impatience to be there. She had neither stick nor familiar to carry her; but her mount bore the tormented face of Tom Simpson—a poor creature abused and bedevilled. She had bewitched him so that he must carry her wherever she commanded. And when he did not carry her fast enough, she struck him in the eye with her naked heel and beat upon his back with a wand so that the stripes showed bloody.

  She was lit with her malice and I thought, Small wonder the Master loves her above us all. I did not know then that already He was angered by her folly and wearied of her presumption. For she set herself above all others, even the oldest and the wisest. I did not know that already the Captain had been at the Master’s ear . . . though I might have guessed it. For I had heard her declare—and not once neither—that soon the Master would set the Captain aside and name her Coven Maiden in his place. So I did not know that already the days of her life were numbered; and with them Margaret’s days; and my days, also.

  And so we came to the place of the Sabbath. For the first time I was not eager; neither for the rites, nor for the feast. For myself I was not afraid. I had done those tasks that fell to my hand. No great evils, certainly; and not continual evil. It was not to be expected. The soul can no more bear the weight of continual evil than the weight of continual good. Good and bad is the natural lot of us all—saint and sinner alike.

  We began, as always, with the Adoration of the Master. When we had saluted Him in a ring with uplifted foot, the circle broke and the long line moved before Him . . . and all the time my heart was sick with fear. I saw Philip, at the head, rise on tiptoe to reach the light between his horns; her grave thin face bent downwards to her own candle, her long fingers shielded its flame. I tried to tell myself that there was no malice here, but it was no comfort. Philip would perform the rites with due solemnity whatever should come later; behind that quiet face her anger burned.

  I moved in my turn and stood before Him seeking to pluck some message from his face. Through the black mask the eyes stared blank as stone. I moved on.

  And now it was Meg’s turn to stand before the God. And, as she stood, I saw the hand holding the candle tremble so that she could not light it. The line, slow-moving, dropped to a halt; and we stood, watching. The hand holding the candle jerked from left to right. Not one had pity for my wretched child; and, in my own heart, greater than pity, was fear; and, priest, the fear was for myself.

  So in the silence we waited. And He, with us; a God in stone.

  How long she stood there trying to kindle the light I do not know. But at last the thing was done. It was done and we made as though to move again. She took a half-step forward; and then the shudder took her; her whole body shook, all rigid, like that of the dying; I half-expected to hear the rattle in her throat. The lighted candle fell from her hand.

  We stood, not daring to believe the thing we saw—the blue flame drop and disappear in the black earth. Such a thing, within the knowledge of the oldest witch, had never happened. A groan went up; one long groan like the voice of all despair.

  But still the Master said nothing. I caught sight of my younger daughter. There was the faintest smile about her half-open mouth.

  I saw the Master sign to Margaret to drop out; and the worshippers moved on.

  But it was not the end; for having performed the lighting of the lights, we must move again to give the Homage of the Kiss.

  And all the time Margaret sat apart on the ground, her face in her hands, hidden by the long fall of her hair. And so she continued and did not offer the Kiss nor did He ask it. And that, too, had never been known.

  Then He gave us the signal that we might sit; and we sat silent facing his throne. Now it was the time for us to tell of the work we had done to his glory; and my fear mounted as, one by one, we stood to speak.

  Ellen Greene had robbed the grave of two infants and would have robbed more had she not been disturbed. She had brought a great pot of fat; we should not go short of our ointment for many a day. The man Randall had bespelled the sheep of Sir George Manners so that they sickened and died, they and their lambs with them. And for this an innocent man—William Berry of Langhorne—went to the gallows. Joan Willimott had bewitched the pigs of one who had given her stale bread instead of fresh; and for the same reason she had cursed the wife of Anthony Gill over at Frisby, so that the goodwife and her child died together. As for myself, do you remember, priest, when your orchard failed? The fruit hung full and sound; yet overnight it crawled with maggots and had to be burnt.”

  He nodded.

  “That was my work. Mistress Davenport, meeting me in the village, had taken it upon herself to scold me that I came to church no more; and that the lights of my house shone till daylight and the noise of our junketing disturbed the quiet night. Nor did she care who heard her words. And I put the curse upon her black pig so that it ran this way and
that and swelled and died.

  And so it went on, each one standing with his tale.”

  “And always the same tale,” Samuel Fleming sighed. “The fields of the good man blasted, the fruits of the bad man prospered; a cow, a sheep, an ox or a pig bewitched to its death.”

  “And a child here and there, also,” she reminded him, smiling. “Do not forget the children!”

  “I am not likely to forget them.”

  “A fair calendar. I should have rejoiced. And yet, sitting there, I began to wonder if this were all to life—the working of small evils and the trembling of the soul that we had not found sufficient for our hands to do! And, when this life was done, would it be as the Master promised—eating and drinking and the satisfying of desire? And if that were so, what did He promise that we had not already here upon earth? Surely eternal life should promise something better than the life we know. For the first time I began to doubt.”

  “God was working in you,” Samuel Fleming said.

  She shook her head. “Why should he? I had renounced my baptism and all hope of part in him.”

  “He is more merciful than human soul can conceive.”

  “It was a pity he did not show it that night. For still it went on and on—one after another offering his evil at the feet of the Master. And once again it was Margaret’s turn.

  She made no move. She sat there in the midst of us; yet she sat alone—abandoned, cast-off. And my fear grew; the fear that was both for her and for me. Hers was a soul not worth the bargain. I had cheated the Master. And the girl, too, I had cheated. I had promised her eternal joys; but it was a path too fearful for her feet to tread. I had brought her along that path; and there was neither going forward nor backward.

  Now in the awful silence, the eye of the Master turned upon her. But still she sat, fingers clasped so that the shining bone glistened through the skin like ivory; and her fair hair falling about her face and about her neck and about her bosom. And all the time she neither spoke nor heard nor knew what happened.