“How come yiz lost her?” I asked Mercy.
“Was it our job to lock her in? We thought she was here of her own free will.”
“But did she leave of her own free will?”
“Aye, that’s the question.”
We looked at the men gathered in the yard, waiting for their orders.
“The house has been overrun with clergy since she landed in here. Look at them, they’re like crows.” She nodded towards a group in black. “Mind you, even men of God have a vain streak. The smaller the man, the bigger the buckles on his shoon.”
“Did anythin’ happen the whiles she was here, Mercy? Was she troubled by witches?”
“It was quiet as the grave. Apart from all the ministers prayifyin’ over her. Mister Sinclair was full of conceit, thinkin’ no witchin’ was possible inside his four walls. But he fairly guldered me name the-day, afore the dew was lifted off the grass. Such a state he was in, jiggin’ from foot to foot, yellin’ at me to search the house because the young lady was gone from her bedchamber. I looked high and low, and Thomas Kane went through the outhouses, but n’ether hide nor hair of her we found.”
“The Constable will have to be tould,” I said.
“Thomas has gone for him. The minister’s hopin’ the young lady will turn up afore he gets here. Between you, me and the wall, he’s none too pleased about lookin’ foolish in front of Brice Blan.”
Mister Arnold was splitting the men into pairs, directing them to where they should search, when I went up and bobbed a curtsey. “Pardon me, sir. I’m the Haltridges’ maid.”
“State your business.”
“Well, sir, Mistress Dunbar was allus talkin’ about Lock’s Cave. She said the witches took her to it, to work their magic. She might be there now.”
“I see.” He signalled to Bob Holmes. “I understood Lock’s Cave was watched. But this young person believes Mistress Dunbar may be there.”
“There was a pair of men livin’ nearby kept an eye on it for a time, but I could’n rightly say if they’re still watchin’ it. They never saw nothin’ suspicious. They might a give up.”
“The caves must be seached, starting with Lock’s Cave. Who can you send?”
“Edward Baxter, Billy Nelson and his brother Adam. Three sound men.”
“Double the numbers. We must act on all information.”
After the minister bustled off, Bob Holmes said, “Thonder cave’s no place for a Christian soul to set foot.”
“Aye. But Mary Dunbar said the witches gathered there because Lock’s power was strong, on account of what was throwed in a hole in the cave.”
“What do you know about that?”
“I ken it’s where his skull was buried.”
“And the rest of him?”
I met his eye fair and square. “You should know, Bob Holmes. Peggy McGregor says your people helped do what was done to his body.”
“Aye, she has the right of it. My father joined in with what had to be done. Lock was the very offal of a man. As vicious as he was avaricious. He cud’n go into sacred soil on account of the monstrous sins he committed. And he did’n deserve to be put complete into the ground e’ther. The men from about here, we cut him up – it was the right thing to do.”
“Maybes, but killin’ him didn’t put paid to him. His shade was left free to wander Islandagee.”
“Impossible. We dug holes and pinned each part of him into the ground with a hazel stake. It was done so he cud’n walk again.”
“The head, too?”
“Not the head. Nobody could bring themselves to touch it any more than they could help. My father said the sight of the leer on his face would unman you. Besides, a hazel stake wud’n pierce a skull. No, it was hidden away separate to the rest of the body.”
“The job was on’y half-done, then.”
Bob Holmes took his pipe out of his mouth and studied me, the way he’d look a cow over. “Ellen Hill, there’s more to you than meets the eye.”
“Better that than less to me than meets the eye.”
“Are you sayin’ we need to find the skull, and pin it to the earth – with a metal spike, maybes?”
“It might put an end to our troubles.”
“Mister Sinclair would call it a heathen act.”
“He would, sir.”
He nodded. “I’ll tell the men searching Lock’s Cave to dig for the skull.”
* * *
“Dear Lord, is she wandering Islandmagee in her nightgown?” asked the mistress.
“Mercy Hunter said Mistress Dunbar’s cloak and gown were gone.”
“We must thank the Almighty for small mercies.” She walked to the casement and looked out. “Was any mention made of Mistress Anne Haltridge?”
“Not that I heared.”
“My cousin didn’t talk about her at the minister’s house, before she went missing?”
“Mercy Hunter never mentioned it, mistress.”
“Good.” She ran her finger over the shutter, checking it was dust-free, but her mind was elsewhere. “I can’t help worrying –“
“Aye, mistress?”
“I shouldn’t even say it. But it’s been preying on my mind. I feel her presence in this house. It’s as if she never left it.”
“Mistress Mary?”
“No, Ellen, my husband’s mother. I fear she might be part of these disturbances. Even though I helped wash her body, and prepare her for the grave with my own hands. The minister says she’s dead and gone, and I mustn’t keep trying to bring her back to life. To do that is to question God’s design. But I feel she has unfinished business here, and wasn’t ready to be taken.” She bowed her head into her chest, voice muffled. “I know what folk say.”
“Folk get bees in their bonnets. They say more’n they should.”
“They say Mistress Anne Haltridge lies restless in her grave.”
“You must put such thoughts out of your mind, mistress. They’ll only serve to fash you.”
“I cannot help it. They overwhelm me. Oh sweet Lord, I wish I had never agreed to Mary coming to this house. Or leaving it either, unless it was to go home to her parents. Aunt Dunbar entrusted her to my care, and I have failed her. I should have listened to you, Ellen. You didn’t want her going to Mister Sinclair’s house. Oh Mary, Mary, what’s to become of you?”
* * *
That afternoon, while I scoured the chamber pots at the back of the house, Mercy Hunter appeared at my side.
“My master thinks I’m fetching a jug of buttermilk from you. His corns have him crippled.”
“He’ll need to steep his feet for at least two hours in hot buttermilk to draw them out. A wee dabble is no good,” I said.
“Ach, he can do as he likes. I bain’t his skivvy.”
I was glad to leave my task, and lead her into the kitchen. “Any news of Mary Dunbar?”
“None. Frazer Bell is headin’ one of the search parties. He says she could be lyin’ in a shuck with a broken leg. My master says if that’s all’s the matter with her, he’ll be content.”
“He fears the coven has her?”
“Aye. If thon’s the case, she’s better off dead an’ buried.”
“But, Mercy, the searchers might still be in time to save her.”
“My master says the witches must a gathered for one of their unholy Sabbaths last night, to spirit her away. They must a cast a spell over our household, because none heared the young lady leave. Elders were sittin’ up in the kitchen, whilin’ away the hours of darkness, but they seen nothin’. By the by, Constable Blan has another witch. Mary Dunbar described her in detail yesterday, and was able to give part of her name. They brought in three women, just to be on the safe side, and she picked one out.”
“Who is it?”
“Kate McAlmond – she lives up Balloo direction. She says she spent the night with a neighbour. But the minister says that makes no odds. It’s well known witches can send their shapes to do their biddin’ when their bo
dies are somewhere else. The Constable’s men have Kate McAlmond in the stable, tryin’ to get her to give up her partners in sin.”
“Have you seen her? Does she look guilty?”
“I cud’n resist a wee keek. Even though me granny says a witch’ll curse you, quick as look at you. She was jukin’ down in the straw, shiverin’ on account of the Constable havin’ her ducked in the cattle trough to put manners on her. But she tould him nothin’.”
Lightning was striking here, there and everywhere on Islandmagee. It could be any one of us next, I thought.
“Cat got your tongue, Ellen? Shove over there, you have the cosiest spot in the house.” She jammed her shanks against mine on the wee seat I favoured.
“Mercy, if I was locked up, would you come and see me?”
“Why would you be locked up?”
“Innocent people go to gaol. Mistakes get made.”
“The master says witches have deserted God, and anybody does that, they deserve to be punished. Bad enough if you’re a heathen and never knowed God, says he, but to be given His grace and turn your back on it is beyond the pale. You’ll burn in hell for all eternity, and the demons will laugh at your screams as they feed the fire.” She stared into the flames.
By and by, I asked her did she want a drop of something. My master never noticed if we slipped the odd glass out of his bottles, and Mercy liked a sup when the chance came her way. There was never any drink in the minister’s house.
“Naw, I have no stomach for it. I hear the searchers are goin’ over Lock’s Cave with a fine-tooth comb. Bob Holmes is mighty exercised about it.”
“Aye, Mary Dunbar has a thing about Hamilton Lock.”
“Why should she care about him?”
“Maybes on account of all the badness he got up to. She seems to find him . . . well, I har’ly like to say.”
“What?”
“Excitin’. She’s allus askin’ after him.”
“He was a wrong ’un, by all accounts. But sure all that was years ago.”
“Some wrongs need to be righted,” I said. “No matter how long it takes.”
“What’s that got to do with Mary Dunbar being witched, Ellen?”
“Nothin’. Just thinkin’ out loud.”
“Right and wrong. Wrong and right. Your head’d be noddled tryin’ to tell them apart. I’m fed up of Islandmagee, so I am. Ellen, why don’t you and me shake the dust of it off our feet? I’ve heared about assisted passages to the New World. We could ship out and be somethin’ called an indentured servant, in Philadelphia or some such place, and work off the debt over time.”
“Ach no, I couldn’t bear to stand on the deck of a ship, watchin’ Islandmagee disappear. I belong here.”
“Well, I don’t. I’ll just have to go on me own then.” Mercy cracked her knuckles, and tried to give her cheeky grin. “Anyhow, time I was on me way back to Ballymuldrough. No rest for the wicked.” But it was only a ghost of a smile.
* * *
Frazer Bell found Mary Dunbar, round about the time Mercy Hunter and I were yarning. She was soaked to the skin, lying hidden by rushes in the boggy field hard-by Larne Lough. There was a deep cut on her scalp, where she must have tripped and hit herself on something sharp, before passing out.
Frazer carried her in to us.
“Thank God,” said the mistress, followed by, “What came over you, Mary?”
“I had to get back to Knowehead. The house was calling me.”
“Why?”
“I answer its need.”
“Best leave the questions till she’s had a chance to rest,” said Frazer Bell. “She wouldn’t have lasted too many more hours out there in the fields.”
I mixed Mary Dunbar one of Peggy McGregor’s tonics, while she was put to bed with a hot jar and happed up warm as toast. The mistress dressed her cut and said she would sit with her through the night. I offered to share the watch, but she was afraid to let Mary out of her sight.
“It’s on my conscience I nearly lost her, Ellen,” she said.
Frazer Bell and Noah Spears were still in the house when I went downstairs. Their voices carried along the passage.
“Bob Holmes had us crawlin’ over every inch of Lock’s Cave,” said Noah. “He was’n just lookin’ for the lassie, whatever he was after. He would’n tell us, though – just that we’d know it when we found it.”
“And did you?”
“Hard to say. We come upon something had the minister hoppin’ about, mind you. ’Twas a wee poppet, of wood and wool, with a lock of Mary Dunbar’s hair on its head, an’ one of her ribbons wrapped round its body. Mister Sinclair says witches use them dolls for their charms.”
* * *
A letter came from my master, saying he was making arrangements to return to us, and it put a spring in the mistress’s step – aye, and in mine, too, for all my need to tread carefully. I was never done running as more clergymen rolled up from far and wide for a gawp at Mary Dunbar. Islandmagee had never been so popular. Bob Holmes dropped by, and whispered to me there was no skull found in Lock’s Cave. “Maybes the witches took it with them, to use wherever else the coven meets,” says he.
Just as I was thinking there was nobody left to come a-calling, doesn’t the Lord Mayor of Carrickfergus himself pay us a visit. And no wonder, with his gaol being filled by this one lass. Constable Blan brought him in, looking like the cat that got the cream as he presented him. The mistress was equally impressed, rustling about in a flame-coloured silk petticoat in honour of all her important visitors. She ordered milk punch to warm them up. It was well into March, but spring was backward that year, the few leaves barely taking the bare look off the trees. I heated some of Parsley’s creamy milk, and added whiskey, sugar and nutmeg. It smelled so tasty, I couldn’t resist a sip from each goblet before I carried through the tray.
The Mayor was a full-bellied gentleman by the name of Henry Davies. He dressed like an earl with rings the size of pigeon’s eggs, and a coat with shoulder knots and a fur collar to keep chills at arm’s length, as befitted the first citizen of Carrickfergus. His people were Welsh, and had done well for themselves. They pranced round as though born to lord it over us. None of them made old bones, mind you. All wealth and no health.
The Mayor took a pinch of snuff from a silver box in his waistcoat pocket, brought it to his nose and sneezed. He looked delighted with himself, once his eyes stopped watering.
“Nothing like it for clearing the head,” said the Constable, though a good sneeze would have snapped him in two.
The Mayor let fly again, and Blan moved sideways.
The Mayor was full of his beehive, which produced the best honey in the land, according to him. Constable Blan nodded away at every blessed thing the Mayor said, but the mistress wasn’t cut out for discussing husbandry. As soon as there was a pause, she volunteered me to fetch Mary Dunbar, who was resting. In fairness to the young lady, it must have been tiring having ministers constantly watching you to see if you were possessed, and quoting Hosiah and Exodus and what not.
“Before she arrives,” said the Mayor, “I should warn you that I need to study this young person. We cannot rule out madness instead of witchcraft.”
“Madness? Impossible.” The mistress was put out at the slur, but she couldn’t give the Mayor a piece of her mind. She looked to the Constable to back her up, but he knowed which side his piece was buttered.
The Mayor sipped his milk punch, and touched a handkerchief to his lips. “Unfortunately, it is possible. It is an explanation we have to consider. We must not presume witchcraft.”
“I can assure your lordship, my cousin was perfectly sane till she came to Islandmagee. But naturally you must judge for yourself.”
The interview started off civilly, with Constable Blan keeping in the background as the Mayor told Mary Dunbar he trusted she was on the mend, now that the women accused of scourging her were behind bars.
“Rest assured, we are moving swiftly to ascertain wh
o – and what – lies behind these noxious acts committed against your person. Four women, all from Islandmagee, have been interrogated, and their examinations noted down. I am here to decide whether there is a prima facie case against them, and if they should be committed for trial.”
“Mister Sinclair says it’s the worst case of witchcraft he’s ever encountered, your lordship,” said Mary.
“Mister Sinclair is not the judge of this. A court of law needs evidence. None of the women you named have been in trouble before. There is nothing recorded against their reputations.”
“Mister Sinclair says that’s because witches are possessed of low cunning.”
The House Where It Happened Page 22