The Witch

by Mary Johnston

  CHAPTER VIII

  THE SQUIRE’S BROTHER

  FOUR days later she went to walk in Hawthorn Forest. It was a goldenafternoon, and she had hastened her work and got it out of hand. Theroof was mended, the beehives were back, the cottage taking on an airof having been lived in all this while. Old Heron earned by scrivener’swork. It was not much that he found to do, but it gave them plain fareand plain clothes to wear. Joan, too, from time to time sold to amerchant flax that she had spun.... She had gone no way into the forestsince their return, there had been each day so much to do! But to-dayan image had haunted her of how the forest used to look in its garb ofMay.

  She let the gate-latch fall behind her and went out in the grey-greengown that she had spun and dyed herself. She wore a small cap of linenand a linen kerchief. Sunday she would wear a bluish gown, and a capand kerchief of lawn. She was tall and light upon her feet, grey-eyedand well-featured, with hair more gold than brown, with a warm,sun-flushed, smooth, fine-textured skin, and a good mouth and chin andthroat. The sun was three hours high; she meant to have a long andbeautiful time.

  So close to the forest edge was the cottage that almost immediatelygreat trees were about her, leaf-mould and flowerets beneath her feet.The forest was hardly yet in full leaf. There spread about her a divinepale emerald fretwork, and gold light in lances and arrows, and closingthe vistas purple light in gauzy sheets and curtains. The boles ofthe trees were marvels, the great spreading branches kings’ wonders,every slight fern illustrious. The stir and song of hidden birds, thescurrying of a hare, a glimpse down a beechen aisle of a doe and fawn,filled a cup of delight. She was Greek to it all, a country girl ofAttica. Merely to live was good, merely to vibrate and quiver to themyriad straying fingers of life, merely to be, and ever more to be,with a fresh intensity!

  On she wandered with a light step and heart, now by some handbreadth ofsward, now in a maze of trees. Now and then she stood still, gazing andlistening and smelling the good earth. Once or twice she rested uponsome protruding root or fallen log, nursed her knees and marked theminute life about her.

  Happy, happy, happy! with the blood coursing warmly and sanely throughher veins, with her senses keen at the intake and her brain good atcombining.... Open places, small clearings, existed here and there inthe forest with, at great intervals, some hut or poor cottage. So itwas that she soon came in sight of the burned cot and trodden bit ofgarden whence Mother Spuraway had plucked the rue.

  The place lay curiously, half in gold light, half in deep shadow. Thestone chimney was standing, together with some portion of charredrafter. There were currant and gooseberry bushes, and a plum tree,but the bit of garden-hedge was broken down and all things had run towaste. Joan, drawing near, heard children’s voices, and presently,touching the cleared space, came into view of six or seven villageboys, who, roaming at will or sent on some errand through the wood,had found here a resting-stage and fascination. They were aftersomething—she thought a bird’s nest—in a crotch of the plum tree thatbrushed the blackened chimney. She stood and watched for a moment, thencalled to them. “Leave that poor bird alone!” Two or three, turning,laughed and jeered, and one small savage at the foot of the tree threwa stone. Joan was angry, but she could not help the bird—they probablyhad nest and eggs by now. She went on, past the burned cot, and waspresently in the greenwood again.

  After a time she found herself upon the Oak Grange road, running acrossthis corner of the forest. She had not meant to go this way, but amemory came to her of a stream flowing over pebbles, of an old houseand an oak tree around which they used to say the fairies danced atnight. She walked on upon the narrow and grass-grown road, and after alittle time it led her out of the wood and to the edge of the pebblystream. There was a footbridge thrown across, but she did not mean togo over to the other bank. She had no acquaintance at the Grange. Shehad heard Goodman Cole say that the old miser, Master Hardwick, wasstill alive, but was rarely seen without the house. Will the smith’sson had once worked at the Grange, but she did not know if he werethere yet.... She sat down on a stone at this end of the bridge, andregarded now the old ruinous house sunk in ivy, with the long grassand ragged shrubs before it, and now the giant oak where the fairiesdanced, and now the bright blue sky behind with floating clouds, andnow the shallow, narrow river with its pebbly shore, and now sheregarded all in one. _Ripple, ripple!_ sang the water.

  She sat there some time, but at last, with a long breath, she stood up,looked a moment longer, then turned and, reëntering the wood, facedhomeward. She had strolled and sauntered and spent her time. Now thesun was getting low in the west. Presently she left the road and tookthe forest track that would bring her again by the burned cot.

  Through the thinning wood she saw the place before her, in shadow now,except that the top of the plum tree was gold. She thought that shestill heard the boys’ voices. Then, just at the edge of the clearing,she came suddenly face to face with a man.

  He was a tall man, plainly dressed in some dark stuff. Stopping as hedid when he saw her, stepping aside a pace to give her room, he chancedto come into a ray of the last slant sunlight. It showed his face, alined, rather strange, not unpleasing face. He was carrying in thehollow of his arm a grey and white cat. The creature lay stretched out,half-dead, blood upon its fur.

  “Ah,” said Joan, “it was that they were tormenting!” She stood still.She was sympathetic with animals; they were like everything else,living and loving to live. She thought they were very like human beings.

  “Aye,” said the man. “But it can recover. It is starved as well.” Helooked at this chance-met young woman. “I meant to carry it back toDorothy at the Grange,” he said. “But I am on my way to visit a sickman and it will be much out of my road. Do you live anywhere near?” Heknit his brows a little. He thought that by now he knew all faces for along way around, but he did not know her face.

  “Aye,” said Joan. “I live at Heron’s cottage.—If you wish me to, I’lltake her and give her milk to drink and let her lie by the hearth for awhile.”

  They were standing beneath the very last line of trees, before therebegan the bit of waste and the ruined garden. The village boys werethere yet, turned—all but two of them—to some other idle sport aboutthe chimney and the fallen beams. These two, loath to give up the beastthey were tormenting, and childishly wrathful against the intruder,stood watching him from behind a thorn bush.

  “Will you do so?” said Aderhold. “That is well! I am going your waythrough the wood. I will carry it until we reach the path to thecottage.”

  They moved from the clearing and the sight of the thorn bush. Itwas dim now in the wood, with an evening wind and darkness stealingthrough. They walked rather swiftly than slowly.

  “I heard that Goodman Heron had come back,” said Aderhold. “You are hisdaughter?”

  “Yes. I’m Joan.”

  “You have been away a long time.”

  “Aye. Three years come Saint John’s Eve.”

  “Three years.—I have been here three years.”

  “You are the physician?” asked Joan. “You live at the Oak Grange withMaster Hardwick?”

  “Aye. At the Oak Grange.”

  “They say that fairies dance there and that a demon haunts it.”

  “‘They say’ is the father and mother of delusion.”

  “I would wish there were no demons,” said Joan, “but some fairies arenot ill folk. But the minister saith that God hates all alike.”

  They came to the edge of the forest, before them the threadlike greenpath to Heron’s cottage. “I must go on now by the road,” said Aderhold.Joan held out her hands and he put in them the white and grey cat. “Youare a good maid to help me,” he said. “I have little power to do aughtfor any one, but if I can serve you ever I will.” He turned to the roadand the sick man, she to the cottage gate.

  The next morning there came a visitor, indeed, to Heron’s cottage,Master Harry Carthew, the squire’s brother, who fastened his horse tothe el
m at the gate, and came up the path between the daffodils in hisgreat boots and his sad-coloured doublet and wide-brimmed hat. Joan,watching from the window,—her father was just without and would meethim,—thought how handsome a man he was, but also how stern was hisaspect, stern almost as if the world were all a churchyard, with gravesabout.... It seemed that he had some writings that he wished copied.As she moved about the kitchen she heard his voice in explanation. Thevoice, she thought, was like the gentleman, a well-made voice, and yethard, and yet melancholy, too. She heard him say that he would ride byin a day or so for the writing—and then he said that the day was warmand asked for a cup of water.

  Old Heron turned his head. “Joan!”

  Joan filled a cup with fresh well water, set it on a trencher forsalver, and brought it forth to the squire’s brother. He lifted it tohis lips and drank. Goodman Cole’s advice to the contrary, Joan stoodwith a level gaze, with the result that she was aware that as he drankhe looked steadily at her over the rim of the cup. It was not a free ordistasteful look, rather it had in it melancholy and wonder. He put thecup down and presently went away.

  Two days thereafter he came with other papers to be copied. A pouringrain arrived upon his heels and he must sit with old Heron in thekitchen until it was over. The room was bright and clean. Joan,having put for him her father’s chair, sat to one side spinning; oldHeron took a stool. They were yeoman stock, and the squire’s brotherwas gentry. Carthew spoke little and the others waited for him tospeak. The room was quiet save for the whirr of the wheel and the rainwithout. The white and grey cat lay by the hearth. Old Heron had thrownfresh faggots on the fire, and the tongues of flame threw a dancinglight.

  The little speech there was, and that solely between the two men, fellupon the affairs of the country. The discovery of the Gunpowder Plotwas seven months old, but England still echoed to the stupendous noiseit had made. Old Heron said something that bore upon the now heavilypenalized state of the Catholics.

  “Aye, they pulled down their own house on their own heads!” answeredCarthew. He spoke with a stern, intense triumph. “I would have themforth from England! There is warrant for it in all histories. As theSpaniards pushed out the Jews, so I would push them out!”

  The rain stopped; he rose to go. Old Heron opening the door, let in aburst of fresh sweetness. Joan stood up from her wheel, and, as Carthewpassed, curtsied. He made an inclination of his head, their eyes met.There was that in his look that both challenged and besought, that, atall events, left her troubled enough.

  Again two days and he came to recover what was copied. Again she satand span, and again she was conscious that he looked at her rather thanat her father, and that, though he spoke aloud only to her father,there was some utterance trying to pierce its way to her. He wentaway—but the next day he came again, when there was no looking for him.

  Her father was away to the village. She was at the well, beneath theapple tree, by the heartsease bed. She turned from lifting the cool,brimming, dripping bucket, and saw him close beside her.

  “Good-day,” he said.

  “Good-day, sir.—He is not here. Father is not here!”

  “I am sorry for that,” he answered; then, after a silence in which shebecame aware that he was fighting, she knew not why, for breath, “Butyou are here.”

  “Aye,” said Joan. “I—I have so much to do.” She left the bucket on thecoping of the well and started toward the cottage. “Father went but alittle while ago. You may overtake him, sir,—”

  Carthew stood before her. “I have seen you at church three times. Ihave seen you here three times. For years I had not thought of earthlytoys—my mind was set on the coming of the Kingdom of God.... And now_you_—_you_ come.... I think you have bewitched me.”

  Joan’s heart beat violently. A strong presence was beside her, beforeher. She wrenched herself free. “You must not speak so, sir. You mustnot speak so, Master Carthew! I am naught to you—you can be naught tome.” Brushing by him, she began to walk swiftly toward the cottage.

  He kept beside her. “You are much to me—and I will be much to you....God knoweth the struggle, and knoweth if I be damned or no!—But now Iwill abide in this land that I believed not in—but I will serve Himstill; even where I am, I will serve Him more strictly than before! Soperhaps He will accept, and not too dreadfully condemn.... Do not doubtthat I mean honestly by you.”

  “What you mean or mean not, I know not!” said Joan. “But I am all but astranger to you, sir, and I will to remain so! Will you not go?—and myfather shall bring you the writings—”

  Carthew’s hand clasped and unclasped. He had gone further than he evermeant to go to-day. Indeed, he had no plan, no gathered ideas. He mighthave pleaded that he was himself a victim, struck down unawares. Forceswithin had gathered, no doubt, for a violent reaction after violent,long-continued repression, and chance had set a woman, young and fair,in the eye of the reaction—and now in his soul there was a dividedwill and war, war! His brow showed struggle and misery, even while hiseyes and parted lips desired wholly.

  With effort he won a temporary control. “I did not mean to frightenyou. I mean no harm. I will say nothing more—not now, at least. Yes, Iwill ride away now, and come for the writing another day.—See, I amnaught now but friend and well-wisher!”

  That a squire’s brother should conceive that he might take some slightliberty with a cotter’s daughter, that he might, on a May day and nonelooking, snatch a kiss or steal an arm about her, was truly, in Joan’stime, neither a great rarity nor a great matter. If it went no furtherthan that, it need not be especially remembered. Rebuff with vigour,if you chose, but so that the thing ended there, it was no hangingmatter! At the castle, page or esquire might have been more forwardthan Carthew, and Joan, though she sent them about their business,might have done so with some inward laughter. But Master Harry Carthew!He was a Puritan, strict and stern, he was always with the minister,he walked with the Bible and by the Bible. He was no hypocrite either;it was easy to see that he was earnest. Then what did he have to dowith coming here so, troubling her so? Joan felt a surge of anger andfright. Something boding and pestilential seemed to gather like a mistabout her.

  The two, both silent now, moved out of the shadow of the fruit treesinto the blossomy handbreadth before the cottage door. As they did so,Alison Inch came by the gate, saw the horse fastened to the elm, and,looking through the wicket, Carthew and Joan. If she had meant to comein or no did not appear; she stood stock-still for a moment, then putherself into motion again and passed on.

  If Carthew saw her, he paid no attention. But Joan saw her, saw herface quite plainly. When Carthew—with a sudden and harsh “Good-bye forthis time; or, good-bye forever, if so be I can yet kill this thingwithin me!”—strode away and through the gate, and, mounting his horse,rode off with a stiff bearing, not looking back, she stood for a momentor two with a still, expressionless face, then, moving slowly to thedoorstep, sat down and took her head into her hands. She was seeingagain Alison’s face. “That’s what she meant the other day—she meantthat at church I was minding, not the psalm, but that man.... Then,doth she mind him so herself that she looked so, there at the gate?...Woe’s me!” mourned Joan. “Here’s a coil!”