The Witch. Mary Johnston

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СКАЧАТЬ knew the look—he had seen it before, in France and elsewhere, upon peasant faces and upon faces that were not those of peasants. It was not an unusual look in his century. Again, for the millionth time, imagination had been seized and concentrated upon the Satanic and was creating a universe to command. Will shivered, then he put his hand to his ear.

      “There is nothing there,” said the physician, “but your ear itself.”

      “Mice never come out of men’s mouths,” said Will. The physician knew the voice, too, the dry-throated, rigid-tongued monotone. “The comfort is that most of the wicked are women.”

      “Then take comfort,” said Aderhold, “and come away. Those figures are but the imagination of men like yourself.”

      But Will was not ready to budge. “Twelfth night, I was going through the fields. They were white with snow. Something black ran across and howled and snapped at me.”

      “A famished wolf,” said Aderhold.

      “Aye, it looked like a wolf. But this is what proved it wasn’t,” said Will. “That night in Hawthorn Forest Jock the forester set a trap. In the night-time he heard it click down on the wolf and the wolf howl. He said, says he, ‘I’ve got you now, old demon!’ and went back to sleep. But at dawn, when he went to the trap, there was blood there and a tuft of grizzled hair, but nothing else. And so he and his son followed red spots on the snow—right through the forest and across Town Road. And on the other side of the road, where the hedge comes down, they lost it clean—not a drop of blood nor the mark of a paw on the snow. But the dog they had he ran about, and at last he lifted his head and bayed, and then he started—And where, sir, do you think he led them? He led them to the hut of old Marget Primrose between Black Hill and Hawthorn Brook. And Marget was lying huddled, crying with a bloody cut across her ankle. And they matched the hair from the trap with the hair under her cap.”

      “They did not match with care,” said Aderhold. “And there are many ways by which a foot may be hurt.”

      “Nay,” said the serving-man, “but when they brought the trap and thrust her leg in it the marks fitted.” He continued to stare at the stone wolf tearing the ear. “That’s been four years, and never since have I been able to abide the sight of a wolf!... Witches and warlocks and wizards and what they call incubi and succubi and all the demons and fiends of hell, and Satan above saying, ‘Hist! this one!’ and ‘Hist! that one!’ and your soul lost and dragged to hell where you will burn in brimstone, shrieking, and God and the angels mocking you and crying, ‘Burn! Burn forever!’—Nay, an if they do not get your soul, still they ravage and ruin what you have on earth—blast the fields and dry the streams, slay cow and sheep and horse, burn your cot and wither your strength of a man.... Thicker than May flies in the air—all the time close around you, whether you see them or you don’t see them—monkeys and wolves and bat wings flapping.... Once something came on my breast at night—Satan, Satan avaunt!”

      Aderhold leaned across, seized the bridle of the other’s horse, and forcibly turned Will from further contemplation of the sculptured portal. “Come away, or you will fall down in a fit!”

      Carthew ahead was in motion, the mules with the litter following. Will rode for a few paces with a dazed look which was gradually replaced by his usual aspect. The red came back into his cheeks, the spring into his figure. By the time they had reached the bridge he was ready for something palely resembling a disinterested discussion of the supernatural.

      “Isn’t it true, sir, that witch or warlock, however they’ve been roaming, must take their own shape when they cross running water?”

      “Whatever shape matter takes is its own shape,” said the physician, “and would be though we saw it in a thousand shapes, one after the other. I have never seen, nor expect to see, a witch or warlock.”

      “Why, where have you travelled, sir?” asked the yeoman bluntly; then, without waiting for an answer, “They’re hatching thick and thicker in England, though not so thick as they are in Scotland. In Scotland they’re very thick. Our new King, they say, does most fearfully hate them! Parson preached about them not long ago. He said that we’d presently see a besom used in this kingdom that would sweep such folk from every corner into the fire! He read from the Bible and it said, ‘Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live!’”

      He spoke with considerable cheer, the apple-red back in his cheeks. “It’s good to feel,” he said, “that they are nearly all women.”

      They were trampling across the bridge, on either hand the sparkling water, above their heads the vivid sky. “They are neither man nor woman,” said Aderhold. “They are naught. There are no witches.”

      He had spoken abstractedly, and more unguardedly than was his wont. The words were no sooner from his tongue than he felt alarm. They were not safe words to have spoken, even in such simple company as this. He looked aside and found that Will was staring, round-eyed. “No witches?” asked Will slowly. “Parson saith that none but miscreants and unbelievers—”

      “Tell me about your church and parson,” said Aderhold calmly, and, aided by a stumble of Will’s horse and some question from the litter behind them, avoided for that time the danger.

      They crossed the bridge and left behind the winding river and the town that climbed to the castle, clear-cut and dark against the brilliant sky. Before them, lapped in the golden sunshine, spread a rich landscape. Field and meadow, hill and dale, crystal stream and tall, hanging woods, it flickered and waved in the gilt light and the warm, blowing wind. There were many trees by the wayside, and in their branches a singing and fluttering of birds. The distance shimmered; here was light and here were violet shadows and everywhere hung the breath of spring. From a hilltop they saw, some miles away, roofs and a church tower. “Hawthorn Village,” said Will. “The Oak Grange is two miles the other side.”

      Master Hardwick parted the curtains of the litter and called to the physician. His heart, he said, was beating too slowly; it frightened him, he thought it might be going to stop. Aderhold reassured him. He had a friendly, humorous, strengthening way with his patients; they brightened beneath his touch, and this old man was no exception. Master Hardwick was comforted and said that he thought he could sleep a little more. His lean hand clutched the other’s wrist as he stood dismounted beside him, litter and mules and Will on the sumpter horse having all stopped in the lee of a green bank disked with primroses. Master Hardwick made signs for the physician to stoop. “Eh, kinsman,” he whispered. “You and I are the only Aderholds in this part of the world. And you are a good leech—a good leech! Would you stay at the Oak Grange for your lodging, man? I’ve no money—no money at all—but I’d lodge you—”

      The miles decreased between the cavalcade and the village. Aderhold was riding now alone, Carthew still ahead, and Will fallen back with the litter. Looking about him, the physician found something very rich and fair in the day and the landscape. Not for a long time had he had such a feeling of health and moving peace, a feeling that contained neither fever nor exhaustion. There was a sense of clarity, strength, and fineness; moreover, the scene itself seemed to exhibit something unusual, to have a strangeness of beauty, a richness, a quality as of a picture where everything is ordered and heightened. It had come about before, this certain sudden interfusion, or permeation, or intensity of realization, when all objects had taken on a depth and glow, lucidity, beauty, and meaning. The countryside before him was for an appreciable moment transfigured. He saw it a world very lovely, very rich. It was noble and good in his eyes—it was the dear Earth as she might always be.... The glow went as it had come, and there lay before him only a fair, wooded English countryside, sun and shadow and the April day.

      He saw the village clearly now, with a sailing of birds about the church СКАЧАТЬ