The Wheelwright's Daughter

by Eleanor Porter

  When Owen spoke again it was so quietly beneath the yowling hill I had to bend to hear him. ‘Father Paul says a dragon will rise to fight with the angels when the last day comes.’

  And like a nod to his words, a great cough came out of the hill. We both looked up. Owen screamed. Perhaps I screamed with him. For above us the slope was rippling like water. A great slab of the ridge began to spill towards us.

  23

  The Slip: the Yew Tree

  I think it was only a second I stared, mouth open, stupid. The wood swept down like a birch brush, a tangle of trees rumpling the field like cloth before it. Then a stone, flung ahead of the mass, struck my temple.

  Helter-skelter, we ran down the unfixed slope. There was a gap in the hedge. I pushed Owen ahead, flung myself after, but my skirt snagged on the hawthorn.

  ‘Go, Owen, go on!’ I screamed as I tore at the worsted. I was like a ewe held fast by its fleece. For a moment Owen stood transfixed, glancing from me to the tide of earth that rushed down at us. I leaned forward and pushed him as hard as I could. ‘Go,’ I shrieked above the roar of the slopes. ‘I’ll catch up.’

  He turned to run. It was the last thing I saw before I was hurled headlong into the ditch by a great ash tree, which had been flicked over like a pin.

  It saved my life. I was held under its fork with air enough to breathe, while the clay spewed about me. I felt the cold sticky darkness of the grave, moving, jostling, around me. The hill itself had become a monster and I was in its teeth. The rocks themselves were screaming. I thought the sound would burst my bones apart. Soil, sticks, boulders, branches bruised and scraped me. I could not breathe for the panic and the screaming and the press of the clay.

  I knew nothing for a long time. When awareness returned to me I was in heavy, suffocating darkness. I lay face down, clay and leaves pasted my tongue and I could scarcely feel my limbs for cold. My fingers by themselves gripped at the ash, which had preserved me. All around and through me there was still the strange terrible sound of the earth being rent. I realised that the ash, the clay, the ruins of the hedge, I myself, all were moving. In jerks and starts the land was sliding. The ash had shaken off most of the dirt that covered it and little by little I turned myself around and pushed at the branches and soil above me until I was able to push my head through to look at the world that was being made.

  What I saw goes beyond belief. Yet it is true. If I live till I am old I hope to see nothing so strange. By the light I could tell it was afternoon and a light snow was falling. My field, with its grass and its hedges, with its great fallen ash, was being dragged eastwards. It was as though someone was pulling one of the embroidered tapestries at the Hall across a bed. There were rucks in the fabric, places where a rip had opened, but the picture still was clear. Strangest of all, I saw a clutch of sheep, with terrified stone eyes, snagged with the grass they lay upon. Mistress Reynolds had been right. The Last Day had come. The fiend was hauling the world to hell.

  Then at last the rending gave way to a tearing and we ceased to move. I had no idea of hours, but there came a moment when I opened my eyes to the sun in the wrong place. It threw light in strange patterns on the new shapes of the land and I knew with a shock that the earth had come to rest. My head was dizzy with cold and hunger, yet I knew I had to get home. I tried to struggle free so that I could stand, but my ankle hurt very badly.

  ‘Owen,’ I called, over and over to the empty fields. There was no answer, only the uncertain bleat of a lamb.

  I could not walk, but by pulling myself up on my elbows and using my good leg I succeeded at last to labour over the earth and grass. Ahead of me a great bank of soil was piled up, as though the devil had given up on his load and dumped it. A twisted yew straddled the bank. It looked strangely familiar. Perhaps if I got to it I could see where I had got to. Perhaps I would find Owen. I crawled over the cold mud and the snow, lugging my bad leg behind me. It took so long, so long, I seemed to make no progress. With each pull it felt as if I stuck my ankle with a knife. My mind would not stay fixed to the task. It veered off. I was a child, bounding down the lane to my grandmother, because she had baked me a honeycake. Oh, the sweet smell of it! ‘Let’s wait for your mother,’ my grandam said. But that wasn’t right, I remembered. There was only freezing mud and pain and the yew tree. My mother was dead. Hunger and cold were dispossessing me of my wits. I must reach the yew tree. My mother was dead. But look, there she was, perched on the branches in a white dress. It was a cold day for such a dress! At last I leaned against the rough bark and watched the snow fall. For hours I watched it. ‘The white dove sat on the castle wall,’ I sang, and laughed, and I felt so light I flew up into the boughs like a bird.

  There was a man coming over the field. I looked down at the girl slumped below me. She was trying to shout, but she could not remember how. He came slowly. The light was poor – perhaps he would not see her. After all, her cloak was spotted with snow and she made no sound. She wanted to wave at him, but her arm would not move. Little by little he came nearer; he saw her, he began to call and run. I glanced across at my mother, but she had gone. He was talking to the girl. It was me he was talking to. He bent down and gathered me up and I felt him lift me off the cold clay and hold me close.

  24

  A Vision

  I woke to bright flames. My first thought was that I was in hell, and I was glad for the warmth of it, but I soon came to my senses. The devil does not tuck his sinners in with blankets. I looked around. I was in my own bed. Had I brought the logs home? My head hurt as though the axe had split it. A woman was bent over the fire. She straightened up when she heard me stir.

  ‘Ah, so you have wakened at last. And no fever. You are made of oak, Martha Dynley.’ It was the Widow Spicer. I was amazed. Of all people to see at our hearth, busying around our house, making broth, smiling at me.

  She nodded at me now as though she understood my thoughts.

  ‘It was my Jacob as found you. He was out with the others looking for the Simons boy. Nobody really believed you were lost, you know, what with your father… well, not being his right self. No, Jacob had been out for hours, calling and calling for the boy, but getting no answer. Then he thinks he hears a moaning from the great yew tree. Goodness, there’s a story there, my dear. I’ll tell you later. Anyway he wasn’t affrighted, not my Jacob, although nineteen out of twenty would have hightailed it at such a sound, with night falling. He went straight up and there you were, strewn on the ground like wreckage from a boat. Thought you were dead, he did, but he picked you up, gentle, as if you was one of his birds. Like carrying one of the pheasants, he said it was, and your heart began to flutter like a bird’s, just like a bird’s. He knew by that you were alive.’

  ‘My father,’ I said, but I couldn’t go on, for I saw that his cot was empty.

  ‘Is up at the Hall,’ she answered. ‘Sir William directed it himself, and very good of him it was, too. There’s many who wouldn’t extend the hand of charity to those who work their own ruin. You have a debt to pay there, Martha, though you live to be a hundred. And that’s not all. Mistress Elizabeth directed wood be brought, and food and a blanket. Stopped by herself, she did; charged me to leave the linen and tend to you. All the gentry have been out to see what’s left of Marcle Ridge. Of course we saw it all, down here. Heard it too. The hill woke up and walked. The land itself. It’s a judgment, that’s sure and certain. Why, we all thought the end of the world had come. You’ve never heard such wailing and beseeching. There’s some say Tom should never have been put to the whipping post,’ she dropped her voice to a loud whisper, ‘after his words about the old religion. But if it were so, if it is turning from the old ways has done it, why should it be the Simons boy taken? Everyone knows the statue of St Ann that was found again under Queen Mary had been tucked away under Ann Simons’ bed. It’s not a turning back that’s needed now. You mark my words, girl, this is punishment for superstition and idolatry. The Good Lord has sent a warning.’
/>   ‘Owen,’ I interrupted her, ‘have they found him?’

  ‘They have not.’ And she fell quiet, but only for a moment. ‘His mother is distracted, running hither and thither without much sense. There’s a party gone out now to look for him. Ranged as far as the Fosbury yesternight, sweeping back southerly tonight, Jacob says. Even some of the gentry have joined in. But there’s not much hope now. Little mite like that in this cold. He was never strong. It’s horrible to think of it. The earth pressing down and crushing the life out of him. I said to his mother: “You had best pray for his soul, Ann. He is with the angels now, my dear.” Well, she turned on me with a look as should never be used on a neighbour. There’s some as won’t be helped. That’s the truth of it.’

  ‘Tell them,’ I said. ‘Tell them to look for him in Stockings Field, near the Aylton road.’

  ‘Oh, don’t you worry, dear, they’ll have looked there. I said to my Jacob: “Make sure you go through Grover’s meadow, through Stockings Field and the Readings.” “Mother,” he said, “I’ll go there first.” And the Lord be praised he found you. Oh, you’d be dead if it wasn’t for that boy.’

  ‘Please,’ I said, ‘tell them to look there again.’

  ‘I’m sure they have it under control,’ she said, a little more tartly. ‘Sir William himself is out there. I know you’ve always been fond of the boy, Martha, but it was a hard night last night, ice as thick as my finger in the troughs. Snow coming, too, by the look of it. The hill itself rose up and made a grave for him. Best to pray for him. He’s in the Lord’s hands now. The potage should be ready.’

  I regarded her from my bed. Silly prattler, all pleased and comfortable with herself in front of the fire. I pulled my legs to the ground and stood, gathering the blanket around me like a cloak. My head swam, I thought my legs would buckle, but I grasped at the wall to steady myself and dragged at my wet boots. My right ankle had swollen but somehow I forced it in. Mistress Spicer stirred the pot and noticed nothing. Each step felt like a knife in my ankle bone, but I reached the door. My hand was on the latch when she turned and saw me.

  ‘And wherever do you think you are going, child?’ she said, waving the ladle in my face.

  My head began to swim again and I clung to the latch for support. I didn’t think I had the strength to argue with her.

  ‘Stockings Field,’ I said.

  ‘Get back into your bed at once. Wilful girl! Who do you think will be blamed when they find you dead in the dirt? You may walk yourself to hell when your sot of a father returns, but till then I am charged to look after you and look after you I will. You’ll not lose me my favour with Mistress Elizabeth. Oh, no.’ And with every word she lunged at me with the ladle as though we were jousting with spoons.

  I pulled the door open; a rush of cold air and darkness slapped me back. There was a man turning towards the house. At the sight of me he ran forward. I had not known I was falling.

  ‘Oh, thank the Lord, Jacob.’ Mistress Spicer bustled behind us as he laid me back on the cot. ‘Perhaps she’ll listen to you. If she was anything of mine she’d know the rod, that she would. Tell her. She has to bide here and drink her broth. Goodness! What I have to put up with. She had no business surviving up there all that time. Who knows but she might be dangerous, never mind that she’s half dead.’

  ‘Martha,’ Jacob said, ignoring his mother, ‘you must rest. It’s not safe for you to be out yet. What is it?’

  He laid his hand on mine and it felt strong and warm, and tears began to prick behind my eyes. I pulled my own hand away.

  ‘I beg your pardon, Miss Dynely,’ he chuckled.

  I’m not a child, I thought, to be laughed at like that. I waited for the room to stop whirling. Then I made myself look straight at him, trying to push from my mind our last meeting in the stables and how he despised me.

  ‘Thank you, for bringing me home,’ I said stiffly. ‘It seems I owe you my life. But you need to go out again, go directly to Stockings Field. I think Owen will be there, or near there.’

  ‘He will do no such thing,’ his mother put in. ‘He will sit down here and drink some broth with us.’

  ‘Please go. Now,’ I said.

  ‘Why, why do you think he is there?’ he asked, not smiling now, brushing his mother back as she tried to interrupt.

  ‘He was with me. We saw the hill falling and I pushed him into the field to run. He may not have got far. I feel in my heart he is hiding, in the crook of the hedge where the spring rises.’ And suddenly I could see him in my mind, crouched still, covered over by a grey-white mass. It must be the snow, the snow that was coming. I felt a great weight of hopelessness.

  ‘What is it?’ Jacob said, seeing me look blank.

  ‘I don’t know,’ I answered, my voice sliding into a wail. ‘I saw Owen in my mind, all under the white snow. I think it’s too late; it must be too late already. You’ll not find him.’

  ‘That’s an evil vision, Martha. Put it aside.’ he said. ‘The fields are all twisted about, but I’ll trace the lines of Stockings Field. No, Mother, don’t try to stop me. I’ll come back soon.’

  He put out his fingers as though to squeeze my hand but thought better of it, nodded, stooped under the low door and stepped out into the night.

  ‘Well, I hope you’re satisfied. Sending him out on a wild-goose chase and him not eaten for hours. And bad weather coming in. I won’t sleep a wink tonight, not one wink.’

  She held the ladle up as though she had a mind to step over and strike me. I had no stomach for a fight.

  ‘I’m sorry, Mistress Spicer. I know the debt I owe to your family. If Jacob had not found me it would be me freezing to death out there. If anyone is like to find the boy it is Jacob. Oh, yes,’ I added as if to myself, ‘what a hero he’ll be, and all the gentry coming from round about to hear about the happenings here. Sir William will be sure to honour him. I wouldn’t be surprised if the bishop himself came to hear of it.’

  I watched her anger turn to pride and preening as I spoke. ‘Well,’ she said, ‘you’re a wild unbridled thing but you’ve got a head on your shoulders. There’s those who make trouble and those who make good the trouble others cause.’

  ‘I shouldn’t wonder if a ballad were not written of it,’ I added, grimacing at myself that I had gone too far. But she nodded as she ladled out the broth at last and hummed an air, as if trying out the tune already.

  25

  Jacob’s Search

  When I woke all was quiet. Every part of me ached – even lifting my arm to my face exhausted me. I could feel that I was cut about, too. My eye felt swollen and in places my skin stuck to the rough cloth of the blanket. I listened for my father’s cough and then remembered he was not there. The smell in the cottage was all wrong. Tears leaked out of my eyes. Through the gap in the curtains that shut off my cot I could see Goody Reynolds asleep in my father’s chair before the fire. Her scrawny hands twitched in her lap and she mumbled, but I could not make out the words. Then came the sound of the latch and voices and stamping feet. She jumped up in a flurry and one after another men stumbled in, till the place could hold no more. Jacob was with them, and the Widow. Groggy with sleep though I was, I recognised Sir William himself take a cup from her. I lay very still behind the curtain.

  He spread his large hands wide. ‘Well, madam,’ he bellowed, as though to Parliament itself, ‘there’s no better feeling in the world than to be proud of a fine son and, madam, you can be proud today. Why, the boy has rescued not one, but two strays from the flock. Not one, but two, mark you.’ And he grabbed Jacob by the shoulder and clapped him on the back.

  I leaned up on my arm. So Owen was found! I wanted to shout out for particulars, but fear prevented me. The presence of so many men in our cottage quite confounded me. Even if I had been able to speak, I should have been ashamed to appear like this before gentlemen – for there were at least two others with Sir William whom I recognised from the Hall.

  I did not have to wait long for th
e news. With a great bustle the party departed, leaving Goody Reynolds, Jacob, and his mother, who was rubbing away with her apron at the coin Sir William had pressed into her hand. Jacob sat quiet on a stool, warming his hands on a great bowl of broth. After a moment he addressed me.

  ‘It is all right, Martha, they are gone. You were right, you know. But it was not an evil vision.’ He laughed. ‘Not snow, Martha, sheep.’

  ‘Whatever are you talking about?’ his mother put in. ‘Why, the boy is losing his wits. Did you hear Sir William, sister? I am so glad I insisted on Jacob’s going out again. Drink your soup, boy, and tell us what happened.’

  I hooked the curtain back and carefully sat up on my bed to listen.

  ‘Remember, Mother,’ Jacob went on, ‘Martha insisted I looked in Stockings Field. Said she had a vision of Owen smothered by whiteness? Well, listen. I went out, meaning to find the other men and tell them what Martha had said. I thought they might laugh, but I found old George Tanner first, and he heard me out and nodded.

  ‘“Aye,” he said, “there might be something in it. She’s a queer one and no mistake. It’s not the first time she has seen things. There’s good in some of her visions, whatever people say. Found my pig for me, she did, that time it had wandered over to Millpound Coppice.”

  ‘We hailed the others and made our way to the remains of Stockings Field, or what we could make of it, what with the dark and the snow blowing in our faces. It was hard going, too, for the ground is now all soil and rubble, with trees and hedges thrown out of place. We feared what we might find, with the chapel itself thrown down and the dead that lie there scattered.’

  ‘The chapel gone?’ I blurted.

  ‘Aye, Martha, you didn’t know? Well, it’s no surprise, seeing as you were being carried along with it. The slide of earth took the chapel with it. There are blocks of stone strewn about, but much is buried. The biggest wonder of all is the great yew. The tree you came to rest in, Martha, it is that same tree from the graveyard. Carried over a hundred paces and planted again by the grace of God. I can only think you were guided to it. But to get back to Owen’s story. Some of the men were afraid, and truth be told, I was afraid myself of what might lie beneath us. We dared not look down. Our feet slid on the frozen mud and every lurch sickened us, in case we pressed down on the face of one of the dead, ripped out of its resting place and writhing in the earth. The screech of an owl sent us all cowering; it seemed to us like the howl of a damned soul. Every one of us knows someone in that burial ground. We tried to put it out of our minds.