The Witch

by Mary Johnston

  CHAPTER XXVIII

  FOUR YEARS

  NO Spaniards came to be driven back, had Aderhold been that magicianwho could do it. It was like a lost island, or the first peopledisland, or the last. Day after day they watched a tranquil sea and sawno point of any sail. Time passed. The Indians from the great islandceased to dream of recapture. Joan and Aderhold ceased to dream ofbeing taken, wrenched apart; ceased to dream of the open boat and ofthe Silver Queen and of the prison and the gallows field. They did notcease to dream of Hawthorn, of Heron’s Cottage and the Oak Grange, ofHawthorn Forest, and all the life that lay on yonder side the prisongates. Joan dreamed of her father and of her uncle the huntsman, ofthe castle and Mistress Borrow and others there, the town as once ithad been to her, and of Hawthorn as once it had been. She dreamed ofHeron’s cottage—of every item there—the well under the fruit trees,the bees under the thatch, the daffodils and every later flower, ofher kitchen and the hearth and the old settle, and her spinning-wheel.She dreamed of gathering faggots in Hawthorn Forest. She dreamed ofAlison and of Will the smith’s son and of Goodman Cole and of manyanother—the vintner in the town, Cecily Lukin and the forester’swife, old Master Hardwick—many another. But all were blended togetherin a dream world, in a gay and bright picture-book, where if there werewitches they were harmless good souls who rather helped people thanotherwise, and where no one was persecuted for thinking things outfor one’s self. In the picture book it seemed almost a laudable thingto do. Aderhold dreamed—and his dream world was wider by his greaterrange of this life’s experience. He dreamed of Hawthorn and HawthornForest and all the roads thereabouts, of the Oak Grange and of Heron’scottage; but he dreamed likewise of a world beyond Hawthorn. He dreamedof his own childhood and boyhood, and they, too, had a picture-booksetting, where the rough became only rich and varied, and what hadseemed sorrow and harm turned an unhurt side. He dreamed of his firstmanhood, and of his search for knowledge, the sacred hunger and thirstand the lamp of aspiration in his hand. He dreamed of old woes andscars, happenings many an one, persons many an one.... But neither henor Joan dreamed any more, with a frightful sense of nearness, with acold start of waking, of sudden, clutching hands, of separation, ofdark and deep gaols where neither could hear the other’s voice, orif the other’s voice was heard, indeed, then heard in a long cry ofanguish. Fear spread its dark wings and left them, and took with itintensity of watchfulness and all the floating motes that made itscourt.

  They had now great strength and health, Joan’s renewed, Aderhold’s suchas it had never been. They stood erect and bright-eyed, their movementshad rhythm, the hand went with precision to its task, the glance fellunerringly, the foot bore them lightly. They bent to life with a smile,frequently with laughter. If life was always a mighty riddle, if attimes it seemed a vivid disaster, yet indubitably there were stretches,as now, when it became a splendid possession!

  “‘I have heard talk of bold Robin Hood, And of brave Little John, Of Friar Tuck and Will Scarlett, Locksley and Maid Marian—’”

  sang Joan. She wove as she sang, for there was cotton for weaving,and she had learned of the Indian women and greatly bettered theirinstruction. She saw garments for them both, hanging from the pegs,lying upon the shelves Aderhold had made. She had traded her skill atmany things for needles of bone, for the vegetable dyes that the womenused, for various matters that she wanted. She was of all women mostfit for such a return to a younger world. Sane and strong and skilled,with the artist arisen from the mere workwoman, she turned back somethousand years, and handled savage life with a creative hand. On allsides latent power came forth. A wise trader, she gathered what sheneeded; a good teacher, she imparted knowledge as she went, withoutostentation, insensibly, with a fine unconsciousness; a worker of thebest, she did that which her hand found to do with _élan_ and precisionand an assured result upon which to base further results. She lackednot for leisure either, nor for a whimsical, sceptical glance upon herown labours, nor for an ability to let it all slip aside while she satand brooded upon the open sea.

  As for Aderhold, he was and was not the man of the Oak Grange. He wasthat man freed where he had been bound, fed where he had been starved.

  Their domain grew in fitness and beauty. By the time the perfectwinter had passed into the languors of spring, and spring into theheats and rains of summer, and summer again into cooler, fairer days,they had achieved about them an Arcadian right simplicity, as far frommeagreness as from excess. The large hut, palm-thatched, stood in awell-stocked garden. Great trees gave them shade; a spring of clearwater for ever a cooling, trickling sound. Around all they planted aflowering hedge. Within this round sounded the hum of their industriesand their own clear voices. Without was the eternal voice of the sea,and in and out and around, the voice of the moving air.

  The murmur of the Indian village was likewise there, but it did notcome athwart; it travelled equably with the other sounds. They hadcome to have a fondness for the dwindling village, an affection forthis remnant of a remnant of a people. They were poor savages, theyhad flaws and vices, but save that they were less complex, lessintertwined with later offshoots, more plain stalk and plain word,their flaws and vices differed in no great wise from those that mightbe viewed in France or England. At times the village seemed like avillage of children, and then again it might seem very old and somewhatwise. Once or twice they had seen it waver toward a village of beasts,heavily swaying toward the animal only. But Aderhold had seen thathappen in France and Italy—they might both think that they had seenit happen in England. On the very morrow it was something more thananimal. At times it was something much more—something much higher. Andthey knew that flaws and vices lurked in themselves also—unplucked-outweeds yet living a slow dark life in the backward-reaching abyss. Theyunderstood the village, and they tried to help. They did help, and byslow degrees the village came to change affection with them. As for theold chief, every other day he came to see them.

  He was of an enquiring and speculative turn of mind, and it was hiswont to bring unsolved questions to the vine-shaded strip of bareearth before the hut, and there, seated on a mat with a few followerssquatted around, propound them to the two. To most of the islanders allthings, outside the narrowest range, were supernatural. The old man’sscope was wider, and the daring of his scepticism, proportioned to hisenvironment, would have qualified him for a dungeon in most countriesthat Aderhold knew.... Here upon this island all was as a sketch, afaint model and portent only of what, in seventeenth-century Europe,had become enlarged, filled in and solid. Generically it was the same;it was but a question of degree of intensity and of accretions. TheseIndians also held for an external deity, so extruded, so external thatsteps—that intermediaries—must be extruded to cover the extrudedspace between, to reach the extruded Ear and Mind. Moreover, theydid not maintain this a flowing process, but continually let theextrusions of remote ancestors dam the stream. They had idols whomcertainly not even the old chief might with impunity criticize. Theyhad “Thou shalts” and “Thou shalt nots” which were wise and might longremain so, and those which had been wise and were now meaningless,colourless, making neither for much good nor much harm, and thosewhich might once have been wise but were now hurtful, and those whichnever had been wise and grew in folly. They had notions, dim, not asyet fearfully positive, of a future life of reward or punishment,where they would do without limit or term—throughout eternity,indeed—that which, Indians upon this island, they most liked to doin this present moment, or would suffer, alike for ever, just thosepains which at present they acutely disliked. They placed great meritin belief without question, obedience without discrimination, and aprostrate attitude. They had extruded Authority. Nothing had a propermotion of its own, but everything was moved by something else. Thedisclaimer of responsibility, of generic lot and part, was general. Thedisinclination to examine premises was supreme. They had found theirdespot in Inertia.

  But the old chief was exceptional. He was wary and paid respect to
taboos. That done, he loved to talk. He brought to Aderhold questionssuch as, at the dawn of philosophy, an intelligent barbarian mighthave put to Thales or Anaximander. Aderhold answered as simply andwell as he might; where he could not answer, said so. Now and thenthe more active-minded of the old man’s escort brought queries. Joanalso listened and questioned. Aderhold, answering, taught in terms ofnatural science and a general ethic—very simply, for that, here, wasthe only way....

  But when the old chief and his followers had gone away from thevine-clad porch, and the murmur of the village came faintly acrossthe evening, when, their day’s labour done, they went down to thesea, to the coral ledge or crescent of pale sand, and lay there bythe blue, unending water; or when, night having fallen, they restedin the moonlight on the black-and-white chequered ground beneath thepalms, they spoke more fully, shared more completely the inner worlds.Love could not rest with them in the physical. Freedom, dilation,redoubling, rapid and powerful vibration, energy, colour, music, allmounted from the denser to the rarer universe. Their minds interfused,there came moments when their spirits might seem one iridescent orb.They were one, ... only the next instant to be exquisitely different... then to approach and blend again. At such times they spoke in lowtones, with slow, rounded words, of the deepest waters where theirsouls drank of which they had knowledge, or they spoke not at all,having no need to.... At other times they talked of the past and thefuture and the whole round world. Steadily they learned of each other:Joan much from Aderhold, Aderhold much from Joan.

  They had lived here a year—they had lived here more than a year. Whenthey had lived here two years, when they, no more than the Indiansabout them, watched the horizon for any ship, when they had ceased todream of separation, change, and disaster, when it was fully home, withthe sweetness and fragrance of home—then was born their child.

  Joan lay upon the clean, woven mats in the bright moonlight. Aderholdput the babe in her arms, then stretched himself beside them. Her greyeyes opened upon him. “Gilbert—Gilbert—I love you so—”

  “I love you so—”

  She took his hand and guided it with hers until it rested upon thechild, wrapped in cloth which she had woven. “Life from life and addedunto life,” she said. “Love from love and added unto love.”

  The child was a woman child, and they named her Hope. She grew andthrived and they had great joy in her. When the old chief came to seeher, he held her in his hands and gave her a musical name of his own.They translated it, Bird-with-Wide-Wings. Henceforward now they calledher by this Indian name and now they called her Hope. The old chiefgrew fond of her, came oftener than ever, would sit in sun or shadequite still and content beside the cotton hammock in which she swung.The days went by, the weeks, the months, and she continued to thrive.She had Joan’s grey eyes, but save for this she was liker Aderhold. Shelay regarding them, or laughed when they came toward her, or put out asmall hand to touch them; she was happy and well, and they were glad,glad that she was on earth.

  The hot season came and the rains, and in August heavy storms. Treeswere levelled and the frail huts of the village suffered. The sea camehigh upon the land and the rain fell in sheets. In the dim hut with thedoor fast closed, Aderhold and Joan and the babe rested in security.The babe slept; the two lay and listened to the fury without.

  “There comes into my mind,” said Joan, “the black sky and the dead airand the lightning and thunder that Sunday in Hawthorn Church.”

  “It came to me then, too,” answered Aderhold. “Some finger in thisstorm strikes the key.”

  There was a silence. Both saw Hawthorn Church again and thecongregation, and Master Clement in the pulpit. Both felt again thedarkness of that storm, the oppression and the sense of catastrophe.In mind again each, the remembered bolt having fallen, left the churchand took the homeward road. Joan hurried once more over the sighinggrass, past the swaying trees, saw Heron’s cottage and the breakingstorm. Aderhold passed again through Hawthorn Forest and crossed thestream before the Oak Grange, reached again the fairy oak and theGrange. He was again in Dorothy’s kitchen, stooping over the fire—inhis old room with his unfinished book beneath his hand—upon thestairs—the door was opening—the men to take him.... The blast withoutthe hut changed key. The babe woke, and Joan, lifting her, moved to andfro. When she was hushed and sleeping, the strong echo, the returnedemotion had disappeared. They kept silence for a little, and then theytalked, not of old things but of the island, of their trees and gardenand harm from the hurricane that must be repaired, and then of thevillage and the children of the village. They were beginning now toteach these.

  The storm passed and other storms. There came around again the days ofbalm, the perfect weather. The child Hope was a year old. Their joyin her was great, indeed. For themselves, they were husband and wife,lovers, friends, fellow scholars, fellow workers, playmates. Theirfriendship with the Indians was stronger by a year, their servicestronger. The old chief came often and often, and the child crowed andlaughed and clapped her hands to see him.

  The balmy days, the perfect weather passed, and the spring passed.Summer again with its heats and rains was here. With the first greatstorm, in the hut with the door fast closed, shutting out the swayingand the wind and the hot, rain-filled air, Joan, playing with thelittle Hope, keeping her from being terrified by the darkness and therush of sound, suddenly fell quite still where she knelt. She turnedher head; her attitude became that of one who was tensely and painfullylistening.

  When she spoke it was with a strange voice. “Does it come again to youas it did last year?”

  “Yes,” said Aderhold; “it comes by force of association. Dismiss itfrom your mind.”

  “It comes as close as though it were going to be real again.”

  “It is the darkness and oppression and the feeling of being pent. Itwill pass.—Look at the Bird-with-Wide-Wings! She is laughing at us.”

  The hurricane raved itself to a close; the light came and the blue sky,the sun shone out. There followed a week of this; then, one morning atsunrise, Joan, coming out of the hut into the space beneath the trees,looked seaward and uttered a cry. “Gilbert—Gilbert!”

  Aderhold came to her side. “What is it?”

  Her arm was raised and extended, the hand pointing. A ship stood offthe island.

  All that day it was there; it hovered, as it were, it reconnoitred.It sent out no boats, but there was something that said that it hadseen the village. It came near enough, and the clearing would bevisible from the rigging. The Indians’ canoes, moreover, were thereupon the beach.... It was a ship with dingy sails, with a bravo air,yet furtive, too. Once it clapped on sail and dwindled to a flake, andthose who watched from out a screening belt of wood thought that it wasgone. But it seemed that it meant only to sail around the island, forpresently the outlook in the tallest tree saw its shape, having doubleda long point, enlarge again across this green and silver spit. When thesecond morning dawned, there it was again, dusky, ill-omened, ridingthe deep water beyond the reef that somewhat guarded the shore.... Thenthe air thickened, and there threatened a hurricane. The ship turnedand scudded away. While the sky darkened, she vanished, sinking beneaththe horizon to the south.

  The storm broke, reigned and passed. When it was over, when, save forthe myriad small wreckage and the whitened and high-running sea, therewas calm again, then fell talk and discussion enough as to that ship,foreboding enough, excitement enough in the village. The Indians madenew spears or tried trusted old ones, sharpening afresh every point.They had bows and arrows, though they put more dependence in theirspears, and in short hatchets, headed with bits of sharpened rock.Whatever weapons there were were got in order. That done, all that theycould do was done. Their not unhealthful clime, their search for food,their fishing, swimming, their games and ceremonial dances kept theirbodies, slight and not greatly muscular though they were, yet in acondition of some strength and readiness. Now they had only to wait....They waited, but no ship came back, nor other ships appeared.
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  The bad season passed, the good days came around again, and still nofleck of a sail showed on all the round of the blue ocean. The Indiansceased to glance up continually from whatever employment they wereabout. Now they looked not once a day, now they ceased all activeexpectation, now the matter grew dim, remote, now it faded almost frommind. The old chief, perhaps, still looked seaward, but the village atlarge had short memories when immediate anxieties were lifted. Lifetook up again the old, smooth measure.

  But Aderhold and Joan could not forget. Subtly they felt that thecurrent was wearing another channel. There were cloud shapes below thehorizon. They were happy. Their joy in each other and in the child was,if that could be, deeper—the very shape of fear gave an intensity, alambent rose and purple, a richer music—made it deeper. Their serviceto the folk among whom they had fallen was no less.... But they felt athreat and a haunting and a movement of life from one house to another.

  At last, on a calm and glorious morning, they saw the ship again—thatship and another. The two lowered sail, down rattled the anchors; theyswung at ease in the still water beyond the fringing reef. Their flagswere Spanish; they sent a shot from a culverin shrieking across tothe land. It sheared the top of a palm tree; the green panache cametumbling to the ground. Birds rose with clamour and fled away; the shotechoed from a low hill back in the island. Forth from the ships’ sidesput boats—boat after boat until there were a number—and all filledwith armed men.