WITCH ANN.
Ann Kerleyhad lived in great peace and contentment for more than seventy-three years. Her neighbours considered her a good plain ’ooman, who always had a kind word for every one, and was so ready to do a good turn for another body as heart could wish. But, lo and behold! one fine morning old Ann Kerley awoke to find herself a witch.
The previous day had been sultry and wild, with spells of fierce sunshine that smote down upon honest people’s heads as they toiled in cornfield or potato-plot, bringing out great drops of sweat on sunburnt faces, and forcing more than one labourer to supplement the shade and comfort of his broad chip hat by a cool moist cabbage leaf. Withal furious gusts of wind rose every now and then—storm-wind, old Jan Belbin said, and he was considered wonderful weather-wise—wind that set the men’s shirt-sleeves flapping for all the world like the sleeves of a racing jockey, and blew the women’s aprons into the air, and twisted the maids’ hats round upon their heads if they so much as crossed the road to the well. Yet this wind would drop as suddenly as it had sprung up; the land would lie all bathed in fiery heat, and a curious sense of uneasiness and expectancy would seem to pervade thewhole of Nature. The very beasts were disquieted in their pasture; the corn stood up straight and stiff, each ear, as it were, on the alert; not a leaf stirred in hedgerow or tree-top; and then “all to once,” as Jan Belbin pointed out, the storm-wind sprang up again, tossing the golden waste of wheat hither and thither like a troubled sea, and making every individual branch and twig creak and groan.
Twilight was at last closing in with brooding stillness, and a group of lads, who had been working for an hour or two in the allotments, gathered idly round the gate, gossiping, and some of them smoking, before proceeding homewards. It was too dark, as Joe Pilcher declared, to see the difference between a ’tater and a turnip, and ’twas about time they were steppin’ anyways. He was in the act of relating some interesting anecdote with regard to last Saturday’s practice in the Cricket field, when he broke off, and pointed up the stony path which led past the allotments.
“Hullo! Whatever’s that?” he cried.
The bent outline of a small figure could be seen creeping along the irregular line of hedge. It was apparently hump-backed, and wore a kind of hood projecting over its face.
“’Tis a wold hag, seemin’ly,” said Jim Ford, craning forward over the top rail.
“There!” cried Joe, “I took it for a sprite, but I don’t know as I shouldn’t be just so much afeared of a witch any day. It be a witch, sure.”
“Don’t be a sammy,” interposed an older man. “’Tis nothin’ but some poor wold body what has been gatherin’scroff. They’ve felled a tree up-along in wood, an’ she’ve a-been a-pickin’ up all as she can lay hands on for her fire. There, ’tis wold Ann Kerley. I can see her now. She’ve a-got a big nitch o’ sticks upon her back, an’ she do croopy down under the weight on’t, an’ she’ve a-tied her handkercher over her bonnet, poor body, to keep it fro’ blowin’ away. There’s your hag for you, Joe!”
“I be afeared, I say,” insisted Joe, feigning to tremble violently. He considered himself a wag, and had quite a following of the village good-for-noughts. “’Tis a witch, sartin sure ’tis a witch. Don’t ye go for to overlook I, Ann Kerley, for I tell ’ee I won’t a-bear it!”
As the unconscious Ann drew nearer he squatted down behind the gate-post, loudly announcing that he was that frayed he was fair bibbering. Two or three of the others made believe to hide themselves too, pretending to shiver in imitation of their leader; and peering out like him between the bars of the gate.
Such unusual proceedings could not fail to attract the old woman’s attention, and she paused in astonishment when she reached the spot.
“Why, whatever be to do here?” she inquired.
Joe uttered a kind of howl, and burrowed into the hedge.
“She be overlookin’ of we,” he shouted. “The witch be overlookin’ of we.”
“Don’t ye take no notice, my dear woman,” said Abel Bond, the man who had before spoken. “They be but a lot o’ silly bwoys a-talkin’ nonsense.”
“Witch!” cried Joe.
“Witch! witch!” echoed the rest.
Ann looked from one to the other of the grinning faces that kept popping up over the rail, and disappearing again.
“Whatever be they a-talkin’ on?” she gasped.
“You be a witch, Ann,” cried Joe. “If you was served right you’d be ducked in the pond. E-es, that you would.”
A small boy, fired with a desire to distinguish himself, picked up a clod of earth, and flung it at her with so true an aim that it grazed her cheek.
“Take that, witch!” he cried.
Joe, not to be outdone, threw another; pellets of earth and even small pebbles began to assail the old woman from the whole line.
Abel Bond promptly came to the rescue, knocking the ringleaders’ heads together, and impartially distributing kicks and cuffs among the remainder.
“Bad luck to the witch!” cried the irrepressible Joe, wriggling himself free; and the shout was taken up by the rest, even as they dodged the avenger.
“Bad luck, yourself,” retorted poor Ann, trembling with wrath and alarm. “I’m sure nar’n o’ ye do deserve such very good luck arter insultin’ a poor wold ’ooman what never did ye no harm.”
And she went on her way, grumbling and indignant.
But when she had reached her own little house in the “dip,” and had walked up the flagged path between the phlox bushes and the lavender, and pussy had come rubbing against her legs in greeting, her anger cooled; and by the time her kettle had begun to sing over a bright wood fire, and she had laid out her modest repast of bread and watercress, she fairly laughed to herself.
“Lard! they bwoys be simple!” she said. “They did call I a witch, along o’ my havin’ tied my handkercher over my head. Abel did give it to ’em, but I reckon he didn’t hurt ’em much. Bwoys! there, they do seem so hard as stoones very near. ‘Witch!’ says they. Well, that’s a notion.”
She chuckled again, and set down a saucer of milk for the cat to lap.
“They’ll be callin’ you a witch next, puss,” said she laughing.
Ann carried her bucket to the well as usual next morning, feeling rather more cheerful than was her custom. Rain had fallen shortly after daybreak, but the sky was now clear and limpid, and the air cool. On her way to the well her attention was caught by a loud clucking in her neighbour’s garden, and looking across the dividing hedge she descried a hen violently agitating herself inside a coop, while a brood of yellow downy ducklings some few hours old paddled in and out of a pool beside the path.
“Well, of all the beauties!” cried Ann, clapping her hands together until the bucket rattled on her arm; “why, Mrs. Clarke, my dear, you must have hatched out every one—’tis a wonderful bit o’ luck.”
“E-es, indeed,” agreed Mrs. Clarke, “hatchin’ out so late an’ all. I hope I may do well wi’ ’em.”
“I hope so, that do I,” agreed Ann heartily, and hobbled on towards the well.
One or two women were there, who responded to her greeting with a coldness which she did not at once realise.
“Fine rain this marnin’,” she remarked cheerfully, as her bucket went clattering down the well; “we’ve had a good drop to-year, haven’t we? Farmers may grumble, but, as I do say, ’tis good for the well. We’ll be like to draw a bit less chalk nor we do in the dry seasons. There be all sarts in our well, bain’t there? Water an’ chalk, an’ a good few snails. There, when I do hear folks a-talkin’ about the Government doin’ this an doin’ that, I do say to myself, I wish Government ’ud see to our well.”
Usually such a sally would have been applauded, but, to poor old Ann’s astonishment and chagrin, her remark was received on this occasion in solemn silence. To hide her discomfiture she peered into the moss-grown depths of the well.
“Don’t ye go a-lookin’ into it like that, Ann,” cried a vinegary-faced matron in an aggressive tone. “Chalky water, e-es, an’ water wi’ snails in’t is better than no water at all. ’Tis sure—’tis by a long ways.”
“Ah, ’tis!” agreed the others, eyeing Ann suspiciously.
She straightened herself and looked round in surprise.
“I never said it wasn’t,” she faltered. “Why do ye look at me so nasty, Mrs. Biles?”
“Oh, ye don’t know, I s’pose?” retorted Mrs. Biles sourly. “How be your ’taters, Ann Kerley, this marnin’?”
“Doin’ finely, thanks be,” said poor Ann, brightening up, as she considered the conversation was taking a more agreeable turn.
“Not blighted, I s’pose?” put in a little fat woman who had hitherto been silent.
“Not a sign o’ blight about ’em,” said Mrs. Kerley joyfully. “There, I did just chance to look at ’em when I did first get up, an’ they’re beautiful.”
“That’s strange,” remarked Mrs. Biles, with a meaning sniff. “Every single ’tater at the ’lotments be blighted, they do tell I. Mrs. Pilcher did say when her husband went up there this marnin’ he could smell ’em near a quarter of a mile away.”
“Dear, to be sure!” groaned Ann, sympathetically, being quite willing to condone any little asperities of temper on the part of folks suffering from such a calamity. “’Tis a terr’ble pity, Mrs. Biles. There, ’tis along o’ the ’lotments layin’ out so open like, I d’ ’low. Now my bit o’ garden be sheltered.”
The little fat woman, usually a meek sort of body, snorted fiercely.
“’Tisn’t very likely as your garden ’ud suffer, Mrs. Kerley,” she cried, in a voice that trembled with wrath. “Your garden is safe enough—an’ so was the ’lotments till yesterday.”
“Well, I be pure sorry, I’m sure,” said Ann, looking from one to the other in bewilderment. “’Tis just as luck would have it, I s’pose.”
“Luck, indeed!” cried Mrs. Biles meaningly. “There’s them as went by yesterday as wished bad luck, an’ bad luck did come.”
Ann fairly gasped. Mrs. Biles threw out her hand warningly.
“Take your eyes off I, Mrs. Kerley. Take ’em off, I say! I bain’t a-goin’ to have ’ee overlookin’ of I, same asyou did do to poor Joe Pilcher—’tis well if the poor bwoy don’t die of it.”
Ann obediently dropped her eyes, a nightmare-like sensation of oppression overwhelming her.
“I d’ ’low ye won’t deny ye did overlook Joe Pilcher,” went on Mrs. Biles; “there, ye did no sooner turn your back yesterday, nor the lad was took wi’ sich a bad pain in his innards that he went all doubly up same as a wold man.”
“Well, that’s none o’ my fault,” expostulated Ann warmly, for even a worm will turn. “He’ve a-been eatin’ summat as disagreed wi’ he.”
“Nothin’ o’ the kind!” cried the women in chorus.
“It comed so sharp as a knife,” added one, “all twisty turny.”
“The poor bwoy did lie upon the floor all night,” put in another, “a-pankin’ and a-groanin’ so pitiful. ‘Ann Kerley has bewitched I,’ says he. E-es, the bwoy come out wi’ the truth. ‘’Tis Mother Kerley what has overlooked I,’ says he.”
“Well,” returned Ann vehemently, “I never did nothin’ at all to the bwoy. ’Tis nonsense what you do talk, all on you. He’ve a-been eatin’ green apples—that’s what the matter wi’ he.”
“Green apples!” exclaimed Mrs. Biles, with shrill sarcasm. “Dear, to be sure, if a bwoy was to be upset every time he ate a green apple, there wouldn’t be a sound child in village. He hadn’t had above five or six, his mother did say herself, an’ he can put away as many as fourteen wi’out feelin’ the worse for it. Ye must agree ’tis verystrange, Ann—there, ye did say out plain for all to hear: ‘Bad luck, yourself,’ says you to the innercent bwoy. ‘Ye won’t be like to have such very good luck, nar’n o’ you,’ says you, an’, sure enough, there be the ’taters blighted, an’ there be the poor bwoy upset in’s inside.”
“I didn’t really mean it, neighbours,” faltered Ann, looking piteously round. “I was a bit vexed at the time, an’ when the lads did start a-floutin’ me wi’ stones an’ that, and a-callin’ ill names and a-wishin’ me bad luck, I just says back to ’em, quick like, ‘Bad luck, yourself!’ an’ ’twasn’t very like they’d have good luck; but I didn’t mean it in my heart—not me, indeed. The Lard sees I hadn’t no thought o’ really wishin’ evil to nobody—that I hadn’t, neighbours. You don’t believe I did have, do ’ee now, Mrs. Whittle?”—turning in despair to the little woman on her right—“you, what has knowed I sich a many year—you did ought to know I wouldn’t wish no harm to nobody.”
Mrs. Whittle looked sheepish and uncomfortable. Despite the sinister aspect of things, her heart melted at her old crony’s appeal.
“Why, I scarce can believe it,” she was beginning, when Mrs. Biles struck in:—
“Deny it if you can, Ann Kerley. There’s the ’taters blighted, an’ there’s the bwoy took bad, an’ it’s you what wished ’em ill-luck. What can ye make o’ that, Mrs. Whittle? Ye’ll ’low ’tis strange.”
Mrs. Whittle shook her head dubiously, and Ann, deprived, as she thought, of her only ally, threw her apron over her head, and wept behind it.
“Don’t ’ee take on, Mrs. Kerley, that’s a dear,” said Mrs. Whittle, softening once more. “’Twas maybe a chance thing. You did say them words wi’out thinkin’ an’ they did come true to be a warnin’ to ’ee. We do all do wrong sometimes; this ’ere did ought to be a warnin’ to all on us.”
“I’m sure ’twill be a lesson to I,” sobbed Ann inarticulately. “So long as I do live I’ll never say such things again. ’Twas very ill-done o’ me to ha’ spoke wi’out thought, sich a wold ’ooman as I be, an’ so near my end an’ all, an’ the Lard has chastised I. I can’t do more nor say I’m sorry, an’ I hope the A’mighty ’ull forgive me.”
“There, the ’ooman can’t say no fairer nor that,” said Mrs. Whittle, looking round appealingly; “she can’t do more nor repent.”
“Oh, if she do repent it’ll be well enough,” said Mrs. Biles darkly. “’Tis to be hoped as she do repent. But by all accounts ’tis easier for to begin that kind o’ work nor to leave it off again.”
She turned on her heel with this parting innuendo, and, taking up her full bucket, walked away. The others followed suit, and Ann, left alone, sobbed on for a moment or two with a feeling akin to despair, and then, drawing down her apron, wiped her eyes with it sadly, wound up her pail from the depths where it had lain forgotten, and made her way homewards.
For days afterwards she was ashamed to show her face, and rose at extraordinarily early hours in order to procure her supply of water, and crept out of her own quarters at dusk to make her necessary purchases.
One morning, about a week after the affair at the allotments, when Ann sallied forth as usual for water, she paused incidentally to look over her neighbour’s gate. The hen-coop was still in view, the hen cackling, and the ducklings waddling up and down the path. But how few of them there were! Only three! What could have become of the others? Possibly they were squatting at the back of the coop. She was craning her head round in order to ascertain if this were the case, when a window in Mrs. Clarke’s house was thrown open, and that lady’s voice was heard in angry tones:—
“I’ve catched you at it, have I? I’ve catched you at it! Well, you did ought to be ashamed of yourself, Ann Kerley. To try an’ do me a mischief—me, as has been sich a good neighbour to ’ee.”
“Why, what’s the matter?” returned Ann, backing away from the gate, and raising dim, distracted eyes.
“I’ve catched you in the very act,” continued Mrs. Clarke vehemently. “Says I to myself when the ducklin’s kep’ a-droppin’ off like that, ‘I wonder if it can be Ann?’ says I, an’ then I thinks, ‘No, it never can be Ann; her an’ me was always friends,’ I says. Ah, you ungrateful, spiteful creetur’!”
An arm, clad in checked flannelette, was here thrust forth, and the fist appertaining thereto emphatically shaken.
“I’m sure,” protested the unfortunate Ann, staggering back against her own little gate, “I don’t know whatever you can mean by such talk, Mrs. Clarke; I never touched your ducks. I be a honest ’ooman, an’ I wouldn’t take nothin’ what didn’t belong to I.”
“I don’t say you stole ’em,” retorted Mrs. Clarke, “but I say you overlooked ’em, an’ that’s worse; a body ’ud know what to be at if ’twas only a thief as was makin’ away wi’ ’em, but when ’tis a witch—Lard, whatever is to be done? I couldn’t ha’ thought ye’d ha’ found it in your heart to go striking down they poor little innercent things. What harm did they do ye? Sich beauties as they was. But there, ye must go gettin’ up in the very dummet that ye mid overlook the poor little creetur’s, so that, one after another, they do just croopy down an’ die.”
“Mrs. Clarke,” said Anne, solemnly and desperately, “I can’t tell how sich a thing did come about—I can’t indeed. ’Tis no fault o’ mine, I do assure ye. I wouldn’t ha’ had they poor little duck die for anything. I never wished ’em ill. I was admirin’ of ’em. I never had no other thought.”
“Well, see here,” returned Mrs. Clarke, somewhat mollified. “Don’t ye look at ’em at all, that’s a good ’ooman. Maybe ’tis no fault o’ yourn, but ’tis very strange, Mrs. Kerley, what do seem to have come to you to-year. You do seem to bring bad luck, though you midn’t do it a-purpose.”
“I’m sure I don’t,” protested Ann, “an’ I can’t believe, Mrs. Clarke, as a body can do bad wi’out knowin’ it.”
“Well, ’tis queer, I d’ ’low,” agreed her neighbour, “but when a body sees sich things for theirsel’s as do happen along o’ you, they can’t but believe their own eyes. Ye mind that there bar-hive what Mr. Bridle got last month?”
“E-es,” returned Ann feebly, “I mind it well. I neversee sich a handsome contrivance nor so clever. Mr. Bridle showed it to I.”
“E-es, I d’ ’low he did,” agreed the other, with a certain triumph. “I d’ ’low ye was a-lookin’ at it a long time.”
“I was,” confessed Ann, with a sinking heart.
Mrs. Clarke nodded portentously. “That’s it,” she said. “The bees be all dead, Mrs. Kerley. Bridle, he did say to I yesterday, ‘I couldn’t think,’ says he, ‘whatever took the bees. I had but just moved them out of the wold skip and they did seem to take to the bar-hive so nice,’ he says, ‘an’ now they be all a-dyin’ off so quick as they can. I couldn’t think,’ he says, ‘what could be the reason, but I do know now. I do know it was a great mistake to ha’ brought Ann Kerley up to look at ’em.’”
“Oh dear, oh dear,” cried the last-named poor old woman, wringing her hands, “do he really think I did hurt ’em?”
“He do, indeed,” said Mrs. Clarke firmly. “There, my dear, it do seem a terr’ble thing, but you be turned into a witch seemin’ly, whether it be against your will or whether it bain’t.”
Ann stood motionless for a moment, her hands squeezed tightly together, her face haggard and drawn.
“I think I’ll go indoor a bit,” she said, after a pause. “I’ll go indoor an’ set me down. I don’t know what to do. Mrs. Clarke——?”
“E-es, my dear. There, you needn’t look up at I so earnest—I can hear ’ee quite well wi’out that.”
Ann turned away with an impatient groan, and wentstaggering up her path. The other looked after her remorsefully.
“Bide a bit, Mrs. Kerley, do ’ee now. What was ye goin’ to ax I?”
“I was but goin’ to ax,” faltered Ann, still with her face averted, “if you’d be so kind as to fetch I a drop o’ water this marnin’ when you do go to get some for yoursel’. There, I don’t some way feel as if I could face folks—an’ there mid be some about. ’Tis gettin’ a bit late now.”
“E-es, sure; I could do it easy,” agreed Mrs. Clarke eagerly. “I could do it every marnin’—’tisn’t a bit more trouble to fill two pails nor one. An’ ’t ’ud be better for ee, Ann, my dear, not to go about more nor you can help till this ’ere visitation wears of.”
“’T ’ull never wear off,” said Ann gloomily, as she walked unsteadily away.
Now, as Mrs. Clarke subsequently remarked, those words of Ann’s made her fair bibber, same as if a bucket of cold water were thrown down her back. She was full of compassion for her neighbour, and, though she was willing to believe that the strange, unpleasant power of which she had suddenly become possessed was unwelcome to her and unconsciously used, she was nevertheless forced to agree with Mrs. Biles that that didn’t make the thing no better, and that the more Ann Kerley kept herself to herself the safer it would be for all parties.
Meanwhile, the anguish of mind endured by the unwilling sorceress defies description. Day by day her deplorable plight became more evident to her. Now anindignant farmer’s wife would come to complain that butter had not come, and on poor Ann’s protesting that she had never so much as set foot near the dairy, would retort that she had been seen gathering sticks at nightfall in the pasture, and had doubtless bewitched the cows. Now a village mother would hastily snatch up a child when it toddled towards the witch’s house; even the baker tossed the weekly loaf over the gate in fear, and left his bill at Mrs. Clarke’s, saying he would call for the money there. That lady informed her of the fact through the closed door as she dumped her morning bucket of water on the path without, adding that if she would like to leave the money in the bucket when she put it ready overnight, it would save trouble to every one.
Ann Kerley understood: even her old crony was now afraid to meet her face to face.
As she realised this she fell to crying feebly and hopelessly, as she had done so often of late, and Pussy came and jumped upon her knee, rubbing herself against her, and gazing at her with golden inscrutable eyes. The warm contact of a living creature, even a cat, was comforting, and the old woman hugged her favourite closely; but presently, struck by a sudden thought, she pushed it away, and turned aside her head.
“There! get down, love! do—get away with ’ee, else I’ll maybe be doin’ thee a mischief. Oh dear, Puss, whatever should I do if anything happened to thee?”
The idea positively appalled her, and from that moment she was careful to avert her face when she set the cat’s food before her.
Perhaps the greatest trial of all was the Sunday church-going.
“I d’ ’low the Lard won’t let I do nobody no harm in His House,” she had said to herself at first, almost hopefully; and she had donned her decent Sunday clothes eagerly, not to say joyfully. She was by nature sociable, and had suffered as severely from the inability to indulge in an occasional chat, a little harmless gossip, with this one and that one, as from a sense of being under a ban.
So she had set forth cheerily, volunteering “A fine marnin’, neighbours,” to the first group she had passed upon the road. But dear, to be sure! how the folks had jumped and squeezed themselves against the wall to let her go by! She had not had the heart to greet the next couple, staid elderly folk, who were pacing along in front of her, full of Sabbath righteousness; but presently the man had looked round, and had then nudged his wife, and she had gathered up her skirts and scuttled on without so much as a glance over her shoulder. Poor Ann had fallen back and turned aside into a by-path until all the congregation had streamed in, and then had crept up the steps alone, and made her way to her place blindly, for her eyes were full once more of piteous tears.
But even there humiliation awaited her, for she found herself alone in her pew, none of its accustomed occupants being willing to worship in such dangerous proximity.
“I must be a terr’ble wicked ’ooman, sure,” groaned Ann to herself, and raised her poor smarting eyes to theeast window, whence the figure of the Good Shepherd looked back at her, full of compassion and benignity.
But Ann quickly dropped her eyes again. Was He not carrying a lamb upon His shoulder? It seemed to her that even the painted innocent would droop and falter beneath her gaze.
And so thenceforth she started for church long after the other members of the congregation, and instead of seeking her own place, stole humbly to a dark corner, where, hidden away behind a pillar, she worshipped in sorrow of heart.
Such a state of things could not have continued if the old rector had been at home, but he was away holiday-making in Switzerland, and thelocum tenens, a young curate from the neighbouring town, could not be expected to notice a matter of the kind.
One Sunday afternoon it chanced that Farmer Joyce, who lived up Riverton way, drove over to Little Branston, and was good enough to give a lift to his neighbour, Martha Hansford, Ann’s married daughter, who was feeling, as she confessed, a bit anxious at not hearing from her mother.
“There, she haven’t a-wrote since I can’t say when,” she explained to the farmer, as the trap went spinning along the road; “she don’t write herself, mother don’t, but she do generally get somebody to drop me a line for her, and I haven’t heard a word to-month; no, nor last month either.”
“Rheumatics perhaps,” suggested the farmer.
“I’m sure I hope not, Mr. Joyce. My mother havenever had sich a thing in her life, an’ ’tis to be hoped she bain’t a-goin’ to begin now.”
“The wold lady’s busy, very like,” hazarded Mr. Joyce, after ruminating a while. “The time do slip away so quick, an’ one day do seem so like another, folks can’t always be expected to put their minds to letter-writin’.”
“Lard love ’ee, sir,” returned Martha, startled into familiarity, “farmer folks mid be busy enough, an’ lab’rin’ folks too—I can scarce find the day long enough to put in all as I’ve a-got to do—but mother! what can a poor wold body like mother have to work at, wi’out it’s a bit o’ knittin’, or some such thing. No, it’s summat else, an’ I’m sure I can’t think what it can be.”
Mr. Joyce was not imaginative enough to assist her by any further hypothesis; therefore, he merely touched up the horse and remarked reassuringly that they would soon be there. And for the rest of the drive Martha devoted herself to the somewhat difficult task of keeping her three-year-old boy, Ally, from wriggling out of her arms.
Dropped at the bottom of the “dip” wherein was situated Mrs. Kerley’s cottage, Martha hastened towards it, Ally trotting gleefully beside her. Instead of finding the cottage door open—as might have been expected this sunny October afternoon—and catching a glimpse of her mother’s quiet figure in its elbow-chair, she found the house shut up, and apparently no sign of life about the place. The very garden had a neglected look, or so it seemed to her; and the little window, usually gay with flowers, was blank and desolate, the check curtain within being drawn across it.
“Mother!” cried Martha, in a tone of such anguish that Ally immediately set up a corresponding wail. “Oh mother, whatever is to do? Be you dead? Oh, mother! be you dead?”
To her intense relief she heard the sound of a chair being pushed back over the flagged floor within, and her mother’s well-known step slowly cross the little kitchen.
“Martha! be it you, my dear?” But she did not open the door, and when Martha eagerly tried the latch she found that it did not yield.
“Mother, mother,” she cried in an agony of fear, “oh, mother, what is it? Why don’t ye let I in?”
“I can’t, my dear,” came the tremulous voice from within. “No, don’t ax it of I. I dursen’t, Martha! There, I mid do ’ee a mischief.”
“Mother, what be talkin’ on?” Martha was beginning incredulously, when her small son, impatient of the delay, fairly drowned her voice with shrill clamour for admittance, and vigorous kicking of his little hobnailed boots at the panels of the door. Martha snatched him up and impatiently clapped her hand over the protesting mouth. In the momentary pause that ensued she heard her mother weeping.
“Be that Ally? Oh, my blessed lamb! Oh, dear heart! Oh, oh!” Then in a louder key came the words broken by sobs: “Take en away, Martha, do—take en away, lovey! Somethin’ bad might happen else!”
Here Ally, wrenching himself free, burst into a roar of indignation, and his mother, popping him down on theground, threw herself upon the door, and, exerting all her strength, succeeded in bursting it open.
With a wail Ann shrank away from her into the farthest corner of the room, hiding her face against the wall.
“Don’t ye come a-nigh me, Martha, don’t ye—don’t ye! And take the blessed child away! Take him away this minute!”
“I’ll do nothin’ o’ the kind,” returned Martha vehemently. “Be you gone crazy, mother? Whatever is the matter?”
“Nay, my dear, I bain’t gone crazy—it be worse, a deal worse. I can’t tell however it did come about, Martha, but, there, I be turned into a witch! I be evil-eyed, they d’ say! There, ye’d never believe the terr’ble things what have a-come about along o’ me jist lookin’.”
Martha dropped down in a chair and burst out laughing. She was a hale, hearty young woman, who had had a bit of schooling, and took a sane and cheerful view of life.
“God bless us, mother!” she cried, wiping her eyes at last and springing up, “what put such a notion as that in your head? You a witch! You hurtin’ things wi’ lookin’ at ’em! I never did hear such nonsense-talk in my life!”
“But it be true, Martha—it be true!” returned Ann, still hiding her face in her trembling hands. “There, I’ve seed it myself. Don’t you come too nigh, my dear, and for mercy’s sake keep the darlin’ child away!”
“Nay, but I won’t,” retorted Martha; and, catching up the child, she advanced with a determined air. “You shall look at us—both of us—that you shall! Kiss grandma, Ally, love—that’s it! Pull away her hands,and give her a big hug. There, the mischief’s done now, if mischief there be. Bain’t he growed, grandma? Bain’t he a fine boy? There, come an’ sit ye down and take en on your knee and feel the weight of en.”
Ann could not withstand the spell of the little clinging arms, the kisses rained upon her withered cheek. She suffered the child to climb from his mother’s arms into hers, and hugged him back passionately.
“Bless you, my lamb! Bless you, my darlin’ little angel! Dear, but he be a fine boy, Martha. Bless you, love! E-es; grandma ’ull find en a lump o’ sugar. Ah, Martha, I be a-feared—it do seem a terr’ble risk; but, there, I can’t think but what the Lard ’ull purtect the innercent child.”
“Now, you come along, mother, and sit ye down, an’ don’t ye go so trembly. You’ll not hurt Ally; he be a deal more like to hurt you, such a mischievous boy as he be. Now, then, whoever has been frightenin’ of ye with such talk?”
“My dear, they do all say it,” murmured Ann, looking fearfully round.
Brokenly, and with many digressions, she told her tale. Long before she had ended Martha was weeping too—weeping with indignation and with a sense of despair; for, argue as she might, she could not divest her mother of her persuasion in her own fell powers. If Ann herself could not be convinced of the folly of the supposition, what hope could Martha have to do away with the unjust suspicions of the neighbours?
Each fresh proof of the ostracism which had becomeher mother’s portion added to her wrath and woe. She had not had a bit of meat to her dinner, as was invariably the case on Sunday, not having dared to venture forth to buy it. There was not so much as a drop of milk in the house, the child who usually brought it having declined to perform that office. Ann had not liked even to go out and get herself a few “spuds”—there were so many folks about on Saturdays, she explained. There was no fire in the grate, though the autumn day was sharp, for Farmer Cosser had “dared” her to pick up any more sticks in his field.
“I d’ ’low ye’d ha’ been dead afore long, if I hadn’t ha’ come,” cried Martha, and then fell a-sobbing again. What was the use of her having come? What good could she do?
The two women were sitting together in very melancholy mood, when Farmer Joyce called to say that he would hitch the horse at six o’clock, and Martha must meet him at the top of the road.
“Hullo!” he cried, breaking off short at sight of their tearful faces, “be you all a-cryin’ in here?”
And then Martha, eager for sympathy, made bold to clutch at his stout arm and pour forth her tale. The farmer, leaning against the door-post, listened at first in amusement, afterwards with an indignation almost equal to the daughter’s own.
“I never did hear such a thing!” he cried emphatically, as she paused for breath. “They must be a pack o’ sammies in this place—and wicked uns, too. Dear heart alive! they’ve fair gallied the poor wold ’ooman out ofher wits. Be there any one about? I’ll soon show ’em what I think of ’em.”
“There’s a good few folks just goin’ their ways to church,” cried Martha, eagerly pointing up the lane.
“Then I’ll step up and give ’em a bit o’ my mind,” returned he. “You come along wi’ I, Mrs. Kerley—don’t ye stop for to put on your bonnet—throw this ’ere ’ankercher over your cap—else we’ll not be in time to catch ’em, maybe.”
“No, I dursen’t do that,” protested Ann, plucking away the handkerchief which he had thrown over her head; “’twas that which did first start the notion. ’Twas a windy day, d’ye see, an’ I was going to pick a bit o’ scroff, an’ I just tied my handkercher round my head—an’ when the bwoys did see I, they did pelt I wi’ stones and call I witch.”
“Young rascals!” ejaculated the farmer, who had by this time hauled her out of the house, and was hurrying with her up the lane. “Come on, Martha! Make haste, ’ooman! There be a lot of ’em yonder.”
In a few moments he and the breathless women found themselves in the midst of quite a little crowd, for Farmer Joyce had waylaid the first group he came across, and the sound of his stentorian tones, raised in wrathful accusation, speedily summoned others.
“You be a wise lot here, you be!” he cried; “you do know summat, you do. Tell ’ee what—you be the biggest lot o’ stunpolls as ever was seed or heerd on. This be your witch, be it?—thikky poor wold ’ooman what have never done anybody a bit o’ harm in her life—poor woldAnn Kerley what was born and bred here, and did get married to a Little Branston man an’ all, and what have lived among ye so quiet an’ peaceful as a body could do. Why, look at her! Look at the poor wold frightened face of her; d’ye mean for to tell I that’s the face of a witch?”
“Well, she did blight our ’taters,” growled somebody.
“An’ she did overlook Mrs. Clarke’s young duck——”
“Did she?” retorted Farmer Joyce, sarcastically. “Well, she didn’t overlook my young duck, and they be dead—the most on ’em—what do ye make o’ that? Did ye never hear, you wise folk, as duckling do mostly die in thunder weather? And I’ll warrant you be too wise hereabouts to have heerd that this be a blight-year. A lot o’ my ’taters be blighted——”
“I’m sure,” put in poor Martha, eagerly, “our ’taters be blighted too. There, my husband do say ’tis scarce worth while to get ’em up.”
“I s’pose,” cried Farmer Joyce, looking round with withering sarcasm, “I s’pose this ’ere witch have a-gone and wished ill-luck to her own darter’s ’taters. ’Tis very likely, I’m sure. And there’s another thing—I did hear some tale o’ bees a-dyin’ arter they’d a-been put in a new hive.”
“That’s true enough.” “’Tis true, sure,” came one or two voices in reply, not with any great enthusiasm, however; then a man’s sullen tones—“’Tis so true as anything. They was my bees, an’ I can answer for ’t bein’ true.”
“How much food did ye put in for ’em when ye did shift ’em?” inquired Joyce, fixing his eyes on the speaker.
“How much food? I d’ ’low bees be like to keep theirselves.”
“Not when you do take their store off ’em so late in the season. You’ve a-killed your own bees, good man; they were too weak, d’ye see, to keep wosses off when they did come a-fightin’ of ’em. I’d ha’ thought you’d ha’ been clever enough to ha’ knowed that, seein’ what knowin’ folks you be in Little Branston. There, you did know poor wold Mrs. Kerley tied her ’andkercher over her head to make herself a witch—’twas that what made her a witch, weren’t it? Now I be a witch, bain’t I?”
He whisked off his hat suddenly, and drawing a cotton handkerchief from his pocket threw it over his head and tied the ends beneath his chin. The sight of his large red face with its fringe of grey whisker looking jubilantly out of the red and yellow folds, was irresistibly comic; the bystanders fairly roared. The farmer was quick to follow up his advantage.
“I must be a witch,” he persisted, “seein’ as I’ve a-got a witch’s head on;” then, seized by a yet more luminous inspiration, he crowned the meek and trembling Ann Kerley with his own broad-brimmed and shaggy beaver.
“Now, Mrs. Kerley be a farmer. She must be a farmer, sure, for she be a-wearin’ a farmer’s hat. There be jist so mich sense in the one notion as t’other. Here we be—Farmer Kerley and Witch Joyce!”
The merriment at this point grew so uproarious that the clergyman in his distant vestry very nearly sallied forth to inquire the cause; but it died away as suddenly as it had begun. The sight of poor old Ann’s lined facelooking patiently out from beneath its ridiculous headgear was, on the whole, more pathetic than ludicrous; folks began to look at each other, and to own to themselves that they had been not only foolish, but cruel. Every word that the farmer spoke had carried weight, and he could have employed no more forcible argument than the practical demonstration at the end. He was the very best advocate who could have been chosen to plead for her—a good plain man, like themselves, who thoroughly understood the case. By the time Farmer Joyce had resumed his hat and restored his handkerchief to his pocket, the cause was won. People had gathered round Ann with rough apologies and kindly handshakes, and she was escorted homewards by more than one long-estranged friend.
When little Ally, who had been asleep on the settle, woke at the sound of the approaching voices, and came trotting out of the banned house, rubbing his eyes and calling loudly for “Grandma,” the good women nodded to each other meaningly, and said that he was a fine boy, bless him, and he wouldn’t be likely to look so well if—— And then somebody sniffed the air, and observed that he shouldn’t wonder but what Mrs. Kerley’s ’taters was a bit blighted too, and Mrs. Kerley replied that she was sure they mid be, but she didn’t know, for she hadn’t had the heart to look. And then the expert returned authoritatively that he was quite sure they was done for, which seemed wonderfully satisfactory to all parties.
And then Farmer Joyce bethought him that it was time to hitch the horse, and the rest of Ann’s friends rememberedthat “last bell” would soon ha’ done ringing; so gradually the little crowd melted away, and Martha embraced her mother with a thankful heart, and went away likewise, leaving Ally behind, according to the farmer’s advice, who had reminded her in a gruff whisper that the little chap would be more like to take off the wold body’s mind from that there queer notion nor anything else.
So the little house, which had been so desolate a few hours before, was now restored to homely joy and peace; and when Martha looked back from the summit of the lane, she saw her mother standing, all smiles, in the open doorway, shading her eyes from the sun, which was making a glory round the curly head of the child in her arms.