How Tom Croftly spoke his Mind.It was soon known in Roehurst that Captain Culverin had returned from his voyage, and Sir Mark ground his teeth with rage as he heard the news.“The more need to get the matter over,” he said to himself; and he had at once a long interview with the founder, one which set him more at ease, for it was decided then and there that the wedding should he that day week, and Mace was summoned to hear her fate.She heard it without a word, and from that day forward went about the house like one in a dream, but with a strange feeling of excitement ever growing in her brain.Wedding clothes lay about her room, and presents, but she hardly glanced at them. At one of her interviews with Sir Mark she had begged that she might be left much alone, and to her great relief this was accorded to her, and she waited for the eventful eve.She longed to visit Father Brisdone at his hiding-place in the old ironstone pit, but she dared not go, for whenever she set foot beyond the scattered houses she found either Sir Mark or a couple of his men following upon her track. She had this consolation, however, that Gil was evidently in communication with the father, for he had promised to have him on board.At first she was all excitement to know whether Sir Mark had heard her speaking to him; but she felt sure at last that this had not been so, and so she waited.Two or three times over her heart was in a flutter, for there were well-known voices about the place, as Gil’s men arrived escorting some dozens of the country-carts chartered to bear to the foundry-works load after load of dirty-looking saltpetre bags, and sacks of pure, pale yellow stone.These were dangerous times, for all were well-armed, and there was risk enough of encounters between the sailors and Sir Mark’s men, for the former gazed with jealous eyes at the position taken by the latter amongst their old friends; while the latter, who knew of the treatment of two of their companions, longed for an open quarrel and a fight.But the orders were strict on both sides, Gil making Wat Kilby scowl as he gave the most stern commands as to the behaviour of the men when in the little village; and so, day after day, loads and loads of the special commodities were landed and carried away, and Gil made no effort to see his love or even speak.Mace asked her trembling heart whether Gil would know which was the wedding eve, as if he would not be sure; and so great was her desire to hear of the condition of Father Brisdone that she daily made a journey to Tom Croftly’s cottage, where the news she heard was always good; and the father sent her messages to be of good cheer, for he was safe.These visits seemed to puzzle the followers of Sir Mark, who himself had his suspicions that they were made by appointment, and that she here made rendezvous with Gil; but following her one day, the most he saw was a small basket of provisions and a little flask of wine, all of which he set down to charity, and walked back with her quite content.The unloading of Gil’s ship continued rapidly, and the followers of Sir Mark heard one or two mysterious communications about the strange processions that sometimes were seen in out-of-the-way parts at night, but their orders were to keep close to the Pool-house, and no expeditions were made to see what the processions meant.In short, there was a lull in the little hamlet—the calm that precedes a storm—and women whispered that Mother Goodhugh had been foretelling that the time of evil for the house of Cobbe was close at hand.Sir Mark seemed to be passing his time in busily superintending the despatch of the last piece that had been finished, after careful proof, and then in idling about the woods, or rowing upon the Pool, while the preparations for the wedding still went on.Once or twice he occupied himself with shooting the wild fowl with arquebus or cross-bow, but all the same his eyes and ears were attent to every change.Now that the news must have reached the Moat, he studiously avoided visiting there, for he half-laughingly wondered what Anne Beckley would say.Jeremiah Cobbe was of opinion that his intended son-in-law was trying to make friends with all the people about the place, so frequent were his visits from cot to cot; but this was not so, for he was busy trying to learn all he could about Gil’s whereabouts and habits; an inquisition in which he was aided by Master Tarpling, the temporary resident parson; but the total of their knowledge when added up amounted tonil.Once or twice did the founder hesitate as to the course he was pursuing, but in his business encounters with Gil he found him calm and stern, and it struck him that Mace had of late grown resigned; so he let matters drift, fully aware though he was that Sir Mark would now have forced him to keep to his word should he have shown any disposition to draw back.“He’ll make her a good husband,” he said to himself. “She don’t fancy it, perhaps, at first; but a father must be the best judge of what is for his child’s happiness.”He was down at one of his powder-sheds, busying himself, and thinking that the Pool-house would soon be no longer the same, when he came upon Croftly, who, on the strength of his old service, said what he pleased.“Oh, look here, Tom,” said the founder, “Thursday’s to be the wedding-day; you ought to set the men to work getting ready something in honour of the event. It’s a busy time, but I shall not take any notice if some of you stop to rig up a sort of arch.”“Rig up!” said Tom Crofty. “Hadn’t you better ask some of the Captain’s men? It’s more in their way.”“No, no,” said the founder, hastily. “Make an arch of green boughs and flowers, and that sort of thing. You know better than I do; go up to the village and bid the men get the case of viols, and let there be a dance—the girls will be pleased. Tell the men they shall have their shilling and plenty of ale; and you can get some powder—a keg of coarse black—and the two little old guns, and fire ’em off. You can have what wood you like, too, for a bonfire at night. Do the thing well, my lad, and take a holiday all of you. I’ll find the ale.”Tom Croftly took off his cap, and wiped his grimy brow with a blacker hand, as he seated himself on the bottom of an empty keg.“We had a girt meeting ’bout it in the ’ood last night, master,” said Croftly; “and talked it all over.”“Oh, you did?” said the founder, looking pleased. “Well, and what did you settle?”“First find foremost, master, we sattled that we’d muffle the three bells up in the tower o’ the church.”“Why, it’s two miles away, man, and the sound wouldn’t hardly be heard here.”“And then we’d toll ’em all day long.”“Toll them?” cried the founder.“Ay, master, for it be like to us as if young mistress had been put in her grave.”“Nonsense, my lad. She’ll come back sometimes. And it’s a happy day for her.”“Happy, eh, master?” said Croftly roughly. “Look here, you asked for this, so you may as well have it slap i’ th’ mooth. I talked to the boys, and they talked to me; and at last of all they, swore as they’d be damned, every man Jack of ’em, if they didn’t treat the whole thing as a fun’ral, and that, if any of Sir Mark’s chaps tried to get up an ale shouting, they’d shove ’em in the Pool.”“But you musn’t take it like that, Tom,” cried the founder. “It’s very good of the lads to take on so about losing their young mistress, but you must rejoice. It’s to be a happy day.”“She looks like it, master,” cried Tom. “Why her face be terrifying. Where be her bright sperrits, and her sparkling eyes? Don’t you make a mistake about it, master. We don’t take on about losing her, none of us, and we’d half bust every old gun on the place and raise such a girt bonfire as would set the country alight, if she was going to wed the man of her choice. But this gay fly-golding ladybird chap fro’ London! Ah, master, you be doing wrong, and that be what we all say.”“You, Tom Croftly,” roared the founder, angrily, as he writhed beneath the lash of his man’s words, “how dare you speak to me like that?”“Cause it be right,” said Croftly, stoutly. “Haven’t she and the captain been like two lovers ever since they was little children, and sent my heart in my mouth to see ’em playing so nigh the edge of the race?”“I will not listen to such insolence,” cried the founder. “You, Tom Croftly, come for your wage on Saturday night, and give up the cottage the week after.”“And maybe you’ll put William Goodley in my place, eh?” said the foreman.“Maybe I shall,” cried the founder. “You ungrateful rascal!”“Nay,” said the foreman, “you need not trouble yourself, mas’ Bill Goodley would not step into my shoes, nor another man in the place. And, just to show as I beant ungrateful as you say, I’ll stop on.”“Stop on!” roared the founder. “Ay, stop on. Haven’t you just took another good order? Haven’t you got all that ’ood ready for the colliers; and haven’t you just got in a shipload of sulphur and Chinese salt? Lookye here, mas’, you don’t know, I s’pose, that if I left here every man and boy would go as well. No, master, we beant ungrateful, none of us; but we don’t like to see our young mistress sold, and him as should have had her thrown over.”“And pray who is that?” cried the founder.“Captain Culverin, mas’; that be the man she meant to have.”“A wild adventurer—a man who murdered that wretch Churr.”“Nay, master, there beant a man of us here who thinks that he did,” said the workman, sturdily; “and if Captain Gil was here you wouldn’t say it to he.”“I am here, Tom Croftly,” said Gil, stepping into the big powder-shed, “and I thank you and your fellows for your good opinion. But take no notice of this. Master Cobbe here does not believe what he said.”“But I do,” cried the founder, furiously.“Tom Croftly,” said Gil, quietly, but with a flush in his cheek, “go, and leave me with Master Cobbe here. I want to talk with him.”“All right, captain!” said the workman. “Bah!” he added to himself, “if he be’d the lad I thought him, he’d make no more ado but upset the whole of this London trade, and carry young mistress off. I would.”“Now, Gil Carr,” cried the founder, as soon as they were alone. “We’ve done our business. You’ve delivered all your cargo that I want, and you’ve been paid your money. Wouldn’t it have been more decent if you had kept away?”“Perhaps so, Master Cobbe; but there are times when a man feels that he must speak. But, first of all, why do you rake up that wretched story about Abel Churr?”“Because I believe it,” cried the founder, angrily.“Nay, you do not. You know I am innocent, or I should not dare to come to you now, and ask you by all you hold dear to give up this wretched business.”“What wretched business?” cried the founder.“I mean this proposed marriage. Listen to me, Master Cobbe. You have known me from a boy. I have been wayward and rough, perhaps, but fairly honest, for my love for Mace has kept me a better man than I should have been.”“What does all this mean, Gil Carr?”“It means, sir, that I make my last appeal to you before it is too late. I love Mace dearly. Give up this wedding and wait a year—two years—any time you will, till you are satisfied I am innocent of the death of Abel Churr, and then give me your consent. Don’t condemn us both to a life of wretchedness and pain.”Gil had made his appeal at the wrong time. No matter when he had come, he would have met with a stern refusal; but now, when the founder was irritated beyond measure to find the echo of his own feelings in the breast of his very workmen, who, with true British sturdiness, refused to a man to take part in what they looked upon as the selling of his child, he was unable to contain himself, and the pent-up anger came pouring forth.“Go!” he cried, white with rage, as he pointed to the entry. “Go, ere I’m mad enough to strike. Thou hast come now to try and breed fresh dissension—to try and raise my poor, foolish child in rebellion against me. I am not a man of blood, but, look you, your presence near my house from now till when this wedding has taken place will be the signal for my people, or those of Sir Mark, to use force.”“But you will not let the wedding take place, Master Cobbe? For all our sakes, pause in time.”“In time!” cried the founder; “what do you mean? There, no more.”As he spoke he turned and hurried out of the powder-shed, and past two or three more, to enter at last one of the stone buildings, where the casting was carried on; but Gil stuck to his heels, following him closely without noticing Sir Mark, who, on catching sight of him, raised a finger as a signal to one of his men.“You will not sell poor Mace like this,” cried Gil, as the founder turned upon him as if at bay. “Master Cobbe, for both our sakes, pause while there is yet time.”“Out upon thee, Gil Carr; thou maddenest me!” cried the founder. “Yet time? What do you mean by speaking to me like this? Am I not my own master?”“Yes,” replied Gil, humbly; “and this is why I appeal.”“Why you rebel against me, you should say,” cried the founder, passionately. “What am I to understand that you mean by ‘yet time’?”“I mean before it is too late,” said Gil, speaking humbly and imploringly as he forced himself into making this last appeal, before venturing on an act that was repugnant to him, and which on calmer consideration he would have avoided for Mace’s sake.“Gil Carr!” cried the founder, furiously, “go thy way, and let me go mine. I will not be dictated to by the man who has come like a blight upon my threshold. Like a treacherous adder, thou hast stung the hand that warmed thee back to life. Coward—villain—thou could’st do nothing better than set thy snares to trap my weak child. Now go, or—”He raised his hand and dropped it again.“For heaven’s sake, listen to me!” cried Gil, excitedly. “Master Cobbe, I would be an honourable gentleman for my father’s sake, to thee and thine, but you drive me to despair.”In his eagerness he caught the founder by the arm, but the latter turned upon him furiously, mad as he was with rage against himself as much as with the suppliant, whom he struck heavily across the face, and then strode away.Gil staggered back as much from surprise as from the weight of the blow, and the blood in a hot flush of passion suffused his face.“For thy sake, darling,” he said, calming down, “for thy sake. There, Master Cobbe, I have done my duty as a man; if blood be shed in what follows, I wash my hands of it; for ’fore God I swear, that if I fail in one way, I’d kill my darling at the altar before she should become that fellow’s wife.”“Captain—quick—this way, Captain!” cried a voice in a hasty whisper.“What is it, Croftly?”“This way, skipper. Here in at this furnace-mouth; it is open behind. Follow me.”“What for, man?” cried Gil, sternly, as he saw the grimy face of Croftly at the opening to one of the great brick smelting-furnaces now void and cold.“Sir Mark, with a dozen men be surrounding the place.”Gil’s hand flew to his sword, but he let it fall.“Nay,” he said, “we must have the wisdom of the serpent here. We’ll try that first, and if it fails—the sword.”Entering the furnace, then, Croftly helped him into a black passage beyond, which let them pass between two vast stacks of charcoal to the rough track into the forest, which Gil reached unseen, while Sir Mark, with a dozen men, searched the powder-sheds and furnaces in vain.
It was soon known in Roehurst that Captain Culverin had returned from his voyage, and Sir Mark ground his teeth with rage as he heard the news.
“The more need to get the matter over,” he said to himself; and he had at once a long interview with the founder, one which set him more at ease, for it was decided then and there that the wedding should he that day week, and Mace was summoned to hear her fate.
She heard it without a word, and from that day forward went about the house like one in a dream, but with a strange feeling of excitement ever growing in her brain.
Wedding clothes lay about her room, and presents, but she hardly glanced at them. At one of her interviews with Sir Mark she had begged that she might be left much alone, and to her great relief this was accorded to her, and she waited for the eventful eve.
She longed to visit Father Brisdone at his hiding-place in the old ironstone pit, but she dared not go, for whenever she set foot beyond the scattered houses she found either Sir Mark or a couple of his men following upon her track. She had this consolation, however, that Gil was evidently in communication with the father, for he had promised to have him on board.
At first she was all excitement to know whether Sir Mark had heard her speaking to him; but she felt sure at last that this had not been so, and so she waited.
Two or three times over her heart was in a flutter, for there were well-known voices about the place, as Gil’s men arrived escorting some dozens of the country-carts chartered to bear to the foundry-works load after load of dirty-looking saltpetre bags, and sacks of pure, pale yellow stone.
These were dangerous times, for all were well-armed, and there was risk enough of encounters between the sailors and Sir Mark’s men, for the former gazed with jealous eyes at the position taken by the latter amongst their old friends; while the latter, who knew of the treatment of two of their companions, longed for an open quarrel and a fight.
But the orders were strict on both sides, Gil making Wat Kilby scowl as he gave the most stern commands as to the behaviour of the men when in the little village; and so, day after day, loads and loads of the special commodities were landed and carried away, and Gil made no effort to see his love or even speak.
Mace asked her trembling heart whether Gil would know which was the wedding eve, as if he would not be sure; and so great was her desire to hear of the condition of Father Brisdone that she daily made a journey to Tom Croftly’s cottage, where the news she heard was always good; and the father sent her messages to be of good cheer, for he was safe.
These visits seemed to puzzle the followers of Sir Mark, who himself had his suspicions that they were made by appointment, and that she here made rendezvous with Gil; but following her one day, the most he saw was a small basket of provisions and a little flask of wine, all of which he set down to charity, and walked back with her quite content.
The unloading of Gil’s ship continued rapidly, and the followers of Sir Mark heard one or two mysterious communications about the strange processions that sometimes were seen in out-of-the-way parts at night, but their orders were to keep close to the Pool-house, and no expeditions were made to see what the processions meant.
In short, there was a lull in the little hamlet—the calm that precedes a storm—and women whispered that Mother Goodhugh had been foretelling that the time of evil for the house of Cobbe was close at hand.
Sir Mark seemed to be passing his time in busily superintending the despatch of the last piece that had been finished, after careful proof, and then in idling about the woods, or rowing upon the Pool, while the preparations for the wedding still went on.
Once or twice he occupied himself with shooting the wild fowl with arquebus or cross-bow, but all the same his eyes and ears were attent to every change.
Now that the news must have reached the Moat, he studiously avoided visiting there, for he half-laughingly wondered what Anne Beckley would say.
Jeremiah Cobbe was of opinion that his intended son-in-law was trying to make friends with all the people about the place, so frequent were his visits from cot to cot; but this was not so, for he was busy trying to learn all he could about Gil’s whereabouts and habits; an inquisition in which he was aided by Master Tarpling, the temporary resident parson; but the total of their knowledge when added up amounted tonil.
Once or twice did the founder hesitate as to the course he was pursuing, but in his business encounters with Gil he found him calm and stern, and it struck him that Mace had of late grown resigned; so he let matters drift, fully aware though he was that Sir Mark would now have forced him to keep to his word should he have shown any disposition to draw back.
“He’ll make her a good husband,” he said to himself. “She don’t fancy it, perhaps, at first; but a father must be the best judge of what is for his child’s happiness.”
He was down at one of his powder-sheds, busying himself, and thinking that the Pool-house would soon be no longer the same, when he came upon Croftly, who, on the strength of his old service, said what he pleased.
“Oh, look here, Tom,” said the founder, “Thursday’s to be the wedding-day; you ought to set the men to work getting ready something in honour of the event. It’s a busy time, but I shall not take any notice if some of you stop to rig up a sort of arch.”
“Rig up!” said Tom Crofty. “Hadn’t you better ask some of the Captain’s men? It’s more in their way.”
“No, no,” said the founder, hastily. “Make an arch of green boughs and flowers, and that sort of thing. You know better than I do; go up to the village and bid the men get the case of viols, and let there be a dance—the girls will be pleased. Tell the men they shall have their shilling and plenty of ale; and you can get some powder—a keg of coarse black—and the two little old guns, and fire ’em off. You can have what wood you like, too, for a bonfire at night. Do the thing well, my lad, and take a holiday all of you. I’ll find the ale.”
Tom Croftly took off his cap, and wiped his grimy brow with a blacker hand, as he seated himself on the bottom of an empty keg.
“We had a girt meeting ’bout it in the ’ood last night, master,” said Croftly; “and talked it all over.”
“Oh, you did?” said the founder, looking pleased. “Well, and what did you settle?”
“First find foremost, master, we sattled that we’d muffle the three bells up in the tower o’ the church.”
“Why, it’s two miles away, man, and the sound wouldn’t hardly be heard here.”
“And then we’d toll ’em all day long.”
“Toll them?” cried the founder.
“Ay, master, for it be like to us as if young mistress had been put in her grave.”
“Nonsense, my lad. She’ll come back sometimes. And it’s a happy day for her.”
“Happy, eh, master?” said Croftly roughly. “Look here, you asked for this, so you may as well have it slap i’ th’ mooth. I talked to the boys, and they talked to me; and at last of all they, swore as they’d be damned, every man Jack of ’em, if they didn’t treat the whole thing as a fun’ral, and that, if any of Sir Mark’s chaps tried to get up an ale shouting, they’d shove ’em in the Pool.”
“But you musn’t take it like that, Tom,” cried the founder. “It’s very good of the lads to take on so about losing their young mistress, but you must rejoice. It’s to be a happy day.”
“She looks like it, master,” cried Tom. “Why her face be terrifying. Where be her bright sperrits, and her sparkling eyes? Don’t you make a mistake about it, master. We don’t take on about losing her, none of us, and we’d half bust every old gun on the place and raise such a girt bonfire as would set the country alight, if she was going to wed the man of her choice. But this gay fly-golding ladybird chap fro’ London! Ah, master, you be doing wrong, and that be what we all say.”
“You, Tom Croftly,” roared the founder, angrily, as he writhed beneath the lash of his man’s words, “how dare you speak to me like that?”
“Cause it be right,” said Croftly, stoutly. “Haven’t she and the captain been like two lovers ever since they was little children, and sent my heart in my mouth to see ’em playing so nigh the edge of the race?”
“I will not listen to such insolence,” cried the founder. “You, Tom Croftly, come for your wage on Saturday night, and give up the cottage the week after.”
“And maybe you’ll put William Goodley in my place, eh?” said the foreman.
“Maybe I shall,” cried the founder. “You ungrateful rascal!”
“Nay,” said the foreman, “you need not trouble yourself, mas’ Bill Goodley would not step into my shoes, nor another man in the place. And, just to show as I beant ungrateful as you say, I’ll stop on.”
“Stop on!” roared the founder. “Ay, stop on. Haven’t you just took another good order? Haven’t you got all that ’ood ready for the colliers; and haven’t you just got in a shipload of sulphur and Chinese salt? Lookye here, mas’, you don’t know, I s’pose, that if I left here every man and boy would go as well. No, master, we beant ungrateful, none of us; but we don’t like to see our young mistress sold, and him as should have had her thrown over.”
“And pray who is that?” cried the founder.
“Captain Culverin, mas’; that be the man she meant to have.”
“A wild adventurer—a man who murdered that wretch Churr.”
“Nay, master, there beant a man of us here who thinks that he did,” said the workman, sturdily; “and if Captain Gil was here you wouldn’t say it to he.”
“I am here, Tom Croftly,” said Gil, stepping into the big powder-shed, “and I thank you and your fellows for your good opinion. But take no notice of this. Master Cobbe here does not believe what he said.”
“But I do,” cried the founder, furiously.
“Tom Croftly,” said Gil, quietly, but with a flush in his cheek, “go, and leave me with Master Cobbe here. I want to talk with him.”
“All right, captain!” said the workman. “Bah!” he added to himself, “if he be’d the lad I thought him, he’d make no more ado but upset the whole of this London trade, and carry young mistress off. I would.”
“Now, Gil Carr,” cried the founder, as soon as they were alone. “We’ve done our business. You’ve delivered all your cargo that I want, and you’ve been paid your money. Wouldn’t it have been more decent if you had kept away?”
“Perhaps so, Master Cobbe; but there are times when a man feels that he must speak. But, first of all, why do you rake up that wretched story about Abel Churr?”
“Because I believe it,” cried the founder, angrily.
“Nay, you do not. You know I am innocent, or I should not dare to come to you now, and ask you by all you hold dear to give up this wretched business.”
“What wretched business?” cried the founder.
“I mean this proposed marriage. Listen to me, Master Cobbe. You have known me from a boy. I have been wayward and rough, perhaps, but fairly honest, for my love for Mace has kept me a better man than I should have been.”
“What does all this mean, Gil Carr?”
“It means, sir, that I make my last appeal to you before it is too late. I love Mace dearly. Give up this wedding and wait a year—two years—any time you will, till you are satisfied I am innocent of the death of Abel Churr, and then give me your consent. Don’t condemn us both to a life of wretchedness and pain.”
Gil had made his appeal at the wrong time. No matter when he had come, he would have met with a stern refusal; but now, when the founder was irritated beyond measure to find the echo of his own feelings in the breast of his very workmen, who, with true British sturdiness, refused to a man to take part in what they looked upon as the selling of his child, he was unable to contain himself, and the pent-up anger came pouring forth.
“Go!” he cried, white with rage, as he pointed to the entry. “Go, ere I’m mad enough to strike. Thou hast come now to try and breed fresh dissension—to try and raise my poor, foolish child in rebellion against me. I am not a man of blood, but, look you, your presence near my house from now till when this wedding has taken place will be the signal for my people, or those of Sir Mark, to use force.”
“But you will not let the wedding take place, Master Cobbe? For all our sakes, pause in time.”
“In time!” cried the founder; “what do you mean? There, no more.”
As he spoke he turned and hurried out of the powder-shed, and past two or three more, to enter at last one of the stone buildings, where the casting was carried on; but Gil stuck to his heels, following him closely without noticing Sir Mark, who, on catching sight of him, raised a finger as a signal to one of his men.
“You will not sell poor Mace like this,” cried Gil, as the founder turned upon him as if at bay. “Master Cobbe, for both our sakes, pause while there is yet time.”
“Out upon thee, Gil Carr; thou maddenest me!” cried the founder. “Yet time? What do you mean by speaking to me like this? Am I not my own master?”
“Yes,” replied Gil, humbly; “and this is why I appeal.”
“Why you rebel against me, you should say,” cried the founder, passionately. “What am I to understand that you mean by ‘yet time’?”
“I mean before it is too late,” said Gil, speaking humbly and imploringly as he forced himself into making this last appeal, before venturing on an act that was repugnant to him, and which on calmer consideration he would have avoided for Mace’s sake.
“Gil Carr!” cried the founder, furiously, “go thy way, and let me go mine. I will not be dictated to by the man who has come like a blight upon my threshold. Like a treacherous adder, thou hast stung the hand that warmed thee back to life. Coward—villain—thou could’st do nothing better than set thy snares to trap my weak child. Now go, or—”
He raised his hand and dropped it again.
“For heaven’s sake, listen to me!” cried Gil, excitedly. “Master Cobbe, I would be an honourable gentleman for my father’s sake, to thee and thine, but you drive me to despair.”
In his eagerness he caught the founder by the arm, but the latter turned upon him furiously, mad as he was with rage against himself as much as with the suppliant, whom he struck heavily across the face, and then strode away.
Gil staggered back as much from surprise as from the weight of the blow, and the blood in a hot flush of passion suffused his face.
“For thy sake, darling,” he said, calming down, “for thy sake. There, Master Cobbe, I have done my duty as a man; if blood be shed in what follows, I wash my hands of it; for ’fore God I swear, that if I fail in one way, I’d kill my darling at the altar before she should become that fellow’s wife.”
“Captain—quick—this way, Captain!” cried a voice in a hasty whisper.
“What is it, Croftly?”
“This way, skipper. Here in at this furnace-mouth; it is open behind. Follow me.”
“What for, man?” cried Gil, sternly, as he saw the grimy face of Croftly at the opening to one of the great brick smelting-furnaces now void and cold.
“Sir Mark, with a dozen men be surrounding the place.”
Gil’s hand flew to his sword, but he let it fall.
“Nay,” he said, “we must have the wisdom of the serpent here. We’ll try that first, and if it fails—the sword.”
Entering the furnace, then, Croftly helped him into a black passage beyond, which let them pass between two vast stacks of charcoal to the rough track into the forest, which Gil reached unseen, while Sir Mark, with a dozen men, searched the powder-sheds and furnaces in vain.
How Mother Goodhugh went to Work.“Thou wicked old hag,” cried Anne Beckley, angrily, as she stood in Mother Goodhugh’s cottage. “Here have I, against my better sense, trusted to thee, and laid bare the secrets of my heart, and for what?” Mother Goodhugh smiled maliciously. “To make thee rich with gold pieces while thou hast done naught but mock at me and laugh.”“Nay, sweet Mistress,” said the old woman, “I smiled not at thee. I thought of what had passed.”“And what had passed?”“Thou hast not known thine own heart, and one day it has been set on Captain Culverin, and another day on the gay young knight of London.”Anne gave her foot an impatient stamp.“What is that to thee?”“Naught, sweet Mistress, with the beautiful eyes and lips. Ah, would I were a man and young,” said the wily old flatterer. “But it be much to spells. The spirits will not be mocked at. Thou comest to me and sayest, ‘Mix me powerful philtres that shall win Sir Mark’s love’, and, when thou dost administer it according to the form I gave, thy thoughts be all the while on Culverin Carr. How canst blame me if they do not act!”Anne stamped on the floor again.“I don’t care,” she cried. “What did you promise me? Was it not that I could win the love of either.”“Ay,” said Mother Goodhugh; “and I worked hard; but Mistress Mace Cobbe worked hard too, and had better luck.”“Don’t mention her wretched name.”“But I must, sweet child. How her beautiful eyes fire up and sparkle!” she said, as if to herself. “She be a white witch, and weaves powerful spells with her father’s wealth. For his money helps her to buy costly things my pittance will not touch.”“I have given thee crowns and pounds,” cried Anne.“All spent on thee and thy philtres,” returned Mother Goodhugh. “Then Abel Churr has been taken away through the tricks of that white witch Mace, who has forced Culverin Carr to slay him, that I might not battle against her. Ah, fair Mistress Anne, she be a potent witch.”“Then she shall be burned,” cried Anne Beckley, savagely. “I have but to swear against her before my father, the justice, of her goings on, and she would be seized and pinioned and tortured.”“And serve her duly,” cried the old woman, with malicious glee.“Even as I could have thee seized, Mother Goodhugh,” cried Anne, “if I so willed.”“Nay, but thou would’st not be so cruel to one who has served thee so well.”“Served me so well?” cried Anne, fiercely. “What have you done?”“Tried to win thee lovers,” said Mother Goodhugh, whining.“Ay, and Gilbert Carr treats me with scorn, and Sir Mark marries that thing—that creature, Mace Cobbe.”“Nay,” cried the old woman, “it be not so.”“But it is so,” cried Anne, “and I am scorned by both. I heard Sir Mark talking the wedding over with Master Peasegood, and it will be at the Pool.”“Both scorned thee!” cried Mother Goodhugh, raising her hands; “and thou so beautiful to the eye, and I’ll warrant me so sweet to the touch. She be a powerful witch indeed.”“Then I’ll denounce her for one!” cried Anne, passionately; and the old woman’s face lit up with glee, but became serious directly after, as she grew thoughtful.“Nay, child, it would be in vain.”“But this marriage shall not be.”“Why not wed Captain Culverin?”“Hideous old fool, I tell thee he scorns me!” cried the passionate woman. “He loves that wretched creature. I’ll denounce her, that I will. I’d like to see her burn.”“She deserves it, too, child; but it would be in vain. Sir Mark and his men and Culverin Carr and his men would defend her. She has witched them to her side.”“But the wedding must not be.”“Nay, it shall not, then,” cried the old woman.Anne Beckley walked up and down the little room for a few minutes, and then with an ugly look disfiguring her handsome, weak face, she stopped short before the old woman.“Dost know how they served the old woman over at Morbledon?” she said, with a malicious smile.“Yes, yes,” cried Mother Goodhugh, hastily; “I heard.”“They tied her neck and heels, and threw her into the pond to see if she would swim.”“Yes, yes; the idiots and fools.”“They nearly drowned her. Eh? Does that touch thee, Mother Goodhugh?” said Mistress Anne, maliciously, as she saw the old woman fall a-trembling.“Yes, yes, yes. It was very cruel.”“And then she was committed to prison on my father’s warrant, and perchance she will be burned at the stake.”“Nay, nay, it be too horrible,” said the old woman, whose face was now blanched with terror.“It is only what they’d do to thee, Mother Goodhugh, if I denounced thee for witches’ practices.”“Then I’d denounce thee, too!” cried the old woman, turning upon her like the trampled worm.“And, if you did, who would believe thee, thou wrinkled, ugly, spiteful crone, who goest cursing through the village, and evil-eyeing all around? Denounce me? Ha, ha, ha!” cried the girl, throwing back her head as her eyes flashed, and she looked really handsome; “Do I look like a witch?”“No, no, no, dearie, you are lovely as woman can be,” cried the old crone.“Then I’ll get thee burned for deceiving me!” cried Anne.“Nay, child, nay,” cried the old woman, piteously; “thou would’st not be so cruel.”“I can, and I will,” cried the girl, stamping her foot. “I have been a fool to listen to thee, and thou hast taken advantage of me to get my money, and laughed at my weakness because I was sick with love; but I’m not such a fool as to be unable to get revenge. Mother Goodhugh, I’d come to see thee burnt.”“Nay, nay,” cried the old woman, grovelling on the floor before her; “don’t talk so, dearie, it be too horrible.”“A great stake and a chain, and faggots piled round thee, and the fire blazing, and Mother Goodhugh roasting. Ha, ha, ha! it would be a gay revenge on an old witch.”“Nay, child, nay, but I be not a witch,” cried the old woman, who seemed palsied with dread.“Then why did’st profess to me that thou wast?” cried Anne, striking her again and again, the old woman only cowering down as she received the blows, and piteously begging her tormentor not to denounce her. “Thou deceived’st me scores of times, and I, fool that I was, listened, and was befooled more and more. Now, hark ye, Mother Goodhugh, I have thee tight. Thou canst not win their love for me, but thou can’st get me revenge. Look here: stop that wedding.”“I will, child; I will, dearie.”“You shall!” cried Anne. “Mind this: I warn you. If that wedding takes place, and Mace Cobbe becomes Dame Leslie—”“Yes, yes, yes!” cried the old woman.“I’ll denounce thee as a witch, and laugh to scorn any accusations or railings against me; and I’ll come and spit at thee as thou burnest at the stake.”“Oh!” half shrieked the old woman, tearing at her bosom as she heard the other’s words, and felt their power. Then, recovering herself, she began to fawn upon her visitor.“Have no fear, dearie. The wedding shall not be. I can stay it—I can stay it. I have but to lift up my hand, and it is done.”“I believe thee not!” cried Anne, “but I warn thee. If that wedding takes place, pray to all thy familiars to save thee, or flee from here, for if not I’ll have thee dragged to the stake and burned. Thou knowest that I can,” she said, as she turned to go.“Yes, child—yes, dearie.”“Then remember!”Anne went out of the cottage as she said the last words, and, as Mother Goodhugh thought of the atrocities that had been committed against weak old women who had professed some occult art, she shivered, and in imagination saw the flames rising round her withered limbs.“She could do it, she could do it,” she cried piteously. “But I’ll stop it: I’ll stop it. The house is cursed, and the wedding shall not be; for I can stop it, and I will.”Left alone to her thoughts, Mother Goodhugh began to suffer from a fit of terror, which completely gained the mastery over her, as she recalled all that she knew about the terrible sentences passed upon reputed witches. There was something fascinating in being able to gain the fear of the common people, and to be looked up to as a kind of prophetess; but she avowed now that the price paid was very dear. She had won many triumphs, and been looked up to as a wise woman, but if she were denounced as a witch, those who had feared and paid her for her utterances would turn upon her, for she was ready to own how seldom her prophetic promises had come true.One in a hundred, however, was quite sufficient to keep up her character; and when there were failures there were always some side utterances that could be brought to bear to soften defeat or turn the matter to her advantage. And so for years she had managed to keep up the character of a wise woman, and amass no inconsiderable amount of the rustic people’s savings, for there was always something upon which she could be consulted, and, in spite of her fears, she sat hugging herself upon her success as she thought of this.“What be I to do?” she muttered; “and how be I to go to Cobbers house? If I go I shall be sent away. Why be not Abel Churr here to help me?”In spite of her efforts to fight back her dread, the recollections of the death scenes she had heard described made her tremble, and, when a hasty step was heard outside, she rose with a cry of horror, and darted towards the inner chamber, but paused on the threshold, as she heard a woman’s voice repeat her name.“Mother Goodhugh, Mother Goodhugh!”“Yes; who be it?” she said, and, tottering to the door, she opened the latch with trembling hand to as it were admit a ray of light to her breast, for the visitor brought hope.It was Janet.“Well, child,” she said, “and why have you come?”“Don’t ask me yet, mother,” whispered the girl, hurrying in, and helping to close the door. “If Mas’ Cobbe knew I be come here he would half kill me.”“Of course, of course, child! It be very wrong to come and visit poor Mother Goodhugh. Aren’t you afraid I should curse you, child?”“Oh no, mother!” cried the girl, who, now that she was inside, recovered herself. “I want you to bless me.”“Ah, child, and how?”“Oh, mother,” giggled the girl, “you know. How do young women want to be blest?”“With a husband, eh, dearie?” said the old woman with a cunning leer, as she scanned Janet’s pretty, weak face, and thought about how her good fortune had played into her hands by sending her a tool with which, if she were skilful, she could work her ends.“But thou should’st not make me say it out loud, mother,” said Janet, with another giggle; “but, when there be so much courting and love-making up at home, how can a girl help thinking about such things?”“Ay, truly, dear, how indeed! But why should not so bonnie a maiden win a husband, I should like to know.”“What, as Mistress Mace?” said Janet, pouting.“Nay, as Mistress Janet,” said the old woman, chuckling. “Well, well, and who is it to be, and what can I tell thee?”“I want—I want to know—”“Ay, ay, speak out, dearie.”“I want to know,” faltered Janet, glancing at the door of the inner room and then at that of the entrance, “I want to know—Oh, I daren’t ask it,” she said, turning red and pale by turns.“Thou would’st know the name of thy husband.”“Ay, how could you tell that?” cried the simple girl.“Such things be as plain to me as if they were written in a book. Sit down there,” she cried, pointing to a stool in the middle of the room.Janet hesitated, but the old woman took up her crutch-handled stick and struck the floor imperiously, with the result that the girl took the seat, and Mother Goodhugh drew a rough circle round her as she stood behind the stool.“I want to go back now; I must go back now,” said the girl, with trembling voice.“Thou canst not go now until the spell is off,” whispered Mother Goodhugh, as she thrust her hand into a capacious pocket and took out a ball of glass, lined inside with some white metal, which gave it the appearance of a convex mirror.“Shall I see anything very dreadful, and will it pook me?” faltered the girl.“I hope not, but I cannot promise,” said Mother Goodhugh. “Sit quite still, and if anything dreadful comes I will answer for it that thou be not hurt much.”Janet’s heart throbbed as she saw the old woman come before her and go down upon her knees, her face convulsed, and lips moving rapidly; then, holding the glass in both hands, her brow puckered as she gazed straight into it.“What be this I see?” she cried in a hoarse voice; “a dark, tall, sun-browned man with pointed beard, half soldier, half sailor, who looks upon thee with eyes full of scorn.”“Has he dark grey eyes, mother?” whispered Janet, in an awe-stricken voice.“Ay, child, and a dashing, roving look.”“It be Culverin Carr,” muttered the girl, pressing her hand to her throbbing heart.“And now I see an old rough, grey man, big, and harsh, and stark, who would wed thee, but I know him not, for he keeps his head away.”“Mas’ Wat Kilby!” muttered Janet, with a sigh.“And now I see another, who is at thy feet, child; a handsome man in silk and velvet, who looks prayerfully in thy face, and asks thee to let him love thee.”“Tell me more of him!” cried Janet, eagerly.“I can see but little more, child, only that he has white hands with rings upon them, and a sword is hanging to his belt. He looks a handsome and a courtly youth, such as we have not in these parts here.”“’Tis Sir Mark,” said Janet to herself.“He looks love to thee, but a woman of thy size and shape steps in between thee, and tears him away.”“What be she like?” cried Janet.“I cannot see, child, for her head be turned away, but surely it be thee, from the turn of the head. How be this? Thou tightest against thyself.”“Nay, ’tis Mistress Mace Cobbe. Let me look.”“Thou art right; it be thy young mistress; and see, the gallant tries to reach thee, and her hand be raised to strike, and—How strange!”“What be it, mother?”“The glass has grown dim, as if a black shadow had passed over it, and I can see no more. Try thou, my child.”“Nay, nay, I dare not; it be too terrifying!” cried Janet, thrusting back the crystal.“’Tis better not,” said the old woman. “It be dangerous at times. There, child, I can tell thee no more to-day.”“But tell me, mother, what can I do? Pray give me your help.”“Help, child! How can I help thee?”“It be all so true,” whispered Janet. “He loves me, and she has come between us, and I hate her. What shall I do?”“Does she love him?”“I think so. I don’t know.”“What could I do to help her?” muttered Mother Goodhugh, as if communing with herself, but loud enough for the silly girl to hear. “I could give her a philtre that would turn her own love for this gallant to hate, and so comfort her poor suffering heart. See, child,” she said aloud, “I will give thee a potion that thou shalt take a little at a time in every meal; and, at the end of a week, thou shalt feel so strong a hatred of this lover of thine that thou shalt feel perfect rest. Will that do?”“No, no!” cried Janet; “I don’t want to—Yes, yes!” she cried, as an idea seemed to flash across her brain, and Mother Goodhugh’s eyes sparkled as she saw how well her plans would be carried out by the foolish girl who, she felt sure, would administer the drops to Mace in place of to herself; and, going into the inner room, she remained away for some few minutes before returning to Janet, and, pressing a little bottle in her hand—“Take that, child, but let no soul know whence thou hadst it.”“Trust me for that, mother,” cried Janet, joyously. “What shall I pay you?”“Pay me, child!” cried the old woman. “Nothing, dearie; I am no old money-getting witch, but a simple, decent woman, who does these things for love. There, dearie, give me a bonny kiss of those red lips, and go thy way; Mother Goodhugh will help thee again if thou should’st come.”“But mother,” said Janet, glancing back at the door.“Yes, child, yes?”“Will this act quickly and soon?”“Yes, child; why?”Janet reddened and hesitated, while the old woman’s eyes seemed to search her through and through.“Speak to me at once, child. But just as thou wilt, I can read thy thoughts, I know,” and she laughed maliciously.“Oh, mother!” cried Janet, bursting into tears.“I think thou hast been very wicked, Janet.”“Nay, mother, I could not help it; I tried so hard to be good.”“My duty should be to tell Mas’ Jeremiah Cobbe.”“Nay, nay, mother, he’d drive me hence, and Mas’ Peasegood would make me stand out before all the people in the church. Nay, good mother, give me something, pray. Sir Mark’s stout followers be rude wicked men. And Mas’ Wat Kilby, too,” she sobbed.“I’ve given thee that which will help thee—I can do no more,” said Mother Goodhugh, sternly.“Now thou’rt angered with me, mother,” pouted the girl. “I wish I had not come and told thee, that I do.”“Tchah! she says,fold me,” laughed the old woman, “when I knew as well as all the world will soon know, Janet, an’ thou do not use my philtre.”Janet turned pale.“Pray forgive me, mother, I’ll use the drops.”“Ay, go and use them, and through them win a husband, child. Then all will be well.”“Yes, yes, mother!” cried Janet, eagerly.“There, I forgive thee; but get thee a husband quick. Kiss me, child. Now go.”The girl eagerly pressed her ripe red mouth to the pale and withered lips of the old woman, and then, after a glance outside to see that she was not watched, she hurried back towards the Pool, while Mother Goodhugh stood looking after her, and softly rubbed her hands.“If aught should happen,” she muttered, “the girl dare not speak, for I gave her the stuff to take herself. It would be her doing, and the wedding would not take place. But what would Mistress Anne Beckley say?”She stood thinking for a few minutes before she spoke again.“Nothing. She dare say nothing. But I be a witch, be I, madam? Have a care, then, for thyself. If one of two people is to die, why should it be I? But we shall see, we shall see: there be time enough yet.”End of Volume II.
“Thou wicked old hag,” cried Anne Beckley, angrily, as she stood in Mother Goodhugh’s cottage. “Here have I, against my better sense, trusted to thee, and laid bare the secrets of my heart, and for what?” Mother Goodhugh smiled maliciously. “To make thee rich with gold pieces while thou hast done naught but mock at me and laugh.”
“Nay, sweet Mistress,” said the old woman, “I smiled not at thee. I thought of what had passed.”
“And what had passed?”
“Thou hast not known thine own heart, and one day it has been set on Captain Culverin, and another day on the gay young knight of London.”
Anne gave her foot an impatient stamp.
“What is that to thee?”
“Naught, sweet Mistress, with the beautiful eyes and lips. Ah, would I were a man and young,” said the wily old flatterer. “But it be much to spells. The spirits will not be mocked at. Thou comest to me and sayest, ‘Mix me powerful philtres that shall win Sir Mark’s love’, and, when thou dost administer it according to the form I gave, thy thoughts be all the while on Culverin Carr. How canst blame me if they do not act!”
Anne stamped on the floor again.
“I don’t care,” she cried. “What did you promise me? Was it not that I could win the love of either.”
“Ay,” said Mother Goodhugh; “and I worked hard; but Mistress Mace Cobbe worked hard too, and had better luck.”
“Don’t mention her wretched name.”
“But I must, sweet child. How her beautiful eyes fire up and sparkle!” she said, as if to herself. “She be a white witch, and weaves powerful spells with her father’s wealth. For his money helps her to buy costly things my pittance will not touch.”
“I have given thee crowns and pounds,” cried Anne.
“All spent on thee and thy philtres,” returned Mother Goodhugh. “Then Abel Churr has been taken away through the tricks of that white witch Mace, who has forced Culverin Carr to slay him, that I might not battle against her. Ah, fair Mistress Anne, she be a potent witch.”
“Then she shall be burned,” cried Anne Beckley, savagely. “I have but to swear against her before my father, the justice, of her goings on, and she would be seized and pinioned and tortured.”
“And serve her duly,” cried the old woman, with malicious glee.
“Even as I could have thee seized, Mother Goodhugh,” cried Anne, “if I so willed.”
“Nay, but thou would’st not be so cruel to one who has served thee so well.”
“Served me so well?” cried Anne, fiercely. “What have you done?”
“Tried to win thee lovers,” said Mother Goodhugh, whining.
“Ay, and Gilbert Carr treats me with scorn, and Sir Mark marries that thing—that creature, Mace Cobbe.”
“Nay,” cried the old woman, “it be not so.”
“But it is so,” cried Anne, “and I am scorned by both. I heard Sir Mark talking the wedding over with Master Peasegood, and it will be at the Pool.”
“Both scorned thee!” cried Mother Goodhugh, raising her hands; “and thou so beautiful to the eye, and I’ll warrant me so sweet to the touch. She be a powerful witch indeed.”
“Then I’ll denounce her for one!” cried Anne, passionately; and the old woman’s face lit up with glee, but became serious directly after, as she grew thoughtful.
“Nay, child, it would be in vain.”
“But this marriage shall not be.”
“Why not wed Captain Culverin?”
“Hideous old fool, I tell thee he scorns me!” cried the passionate woman. “He loves that wretched creature. I’ll denounce her, that I will. I’d like to see her burn.”
“She deserves it, too, child; but it would be in vain. Sir Mark and his men and Culverin Carr and his men would defend her. She has witched them to her side.”
“But the wedding must not be.”
“Nay, it shall not, then,” cried the old woman.
Anne Beckley walked up and down the little room for a few minutes, and then with an ugly look disfiguring her handsome, weak face, she stopped short before the old woman.
“Dost know how they served the old woman over at Morbledon?” she said, with a malicious smile.
“Yes, yes,” cried Mother Goodhugh, hastily; “I heard.”
“They tied her neck and heels, and threw her into the pond to see if she would swim.”
“Yes, yes; the idiots and fools.”
“They nearly drowned her. Eh? Does that touch thee, Mother Goodhugh?” said Mistress Anne, maliciously, as she saw the old woman fall a-trembling.
“Yes, yes, yes. It was very cruel.”
“And then she was committed to prison on my father’s warrant, and perchance she will be burned at the stake.”
“Nay, nay, it be too horrible,” said the old woman, whose face was now blanched with terror.
“It is only what they’d do to thee, Mother Goodhugh, if I denounced thee for witches’ practices.”
“Then I’d denounce thee, too!” cried the old woman, turning upon her like the trampled worm.
“And, if you did, who would believe thee, thou wrinkled, ugly, spiteful crone, who goest cursing through the village, and evil-eyeing all around? Denounce me? Ha, ha, ha!” cried the girl, throwing back her head as her eyes flashed, and she looked really handsome; “Do I look like a witch?”
“No, no, no, dearie, you are lovely as woman can be,” cried the old crone.
“Then I’ll get thee burned for deceiving me!” cried Anne.
“Nay, child, nay,” cried the old woman, piteously; “thou would’st not be so cruel.”
“I can, and I will,” cried the girl, stamping her foot. “I have been a fool to listen to thee, and thou hast taken advantage of me to get my money, and laughed at my weakness because I was sick with love; but I’m not such a fool as to be unable to get revenge. Mother Goodhugh, I’d come to see thee burnt.”
“Nay, nay,” cried the old woman, grovelling on the floor before her; “don’t talk so, dearie, it be too horrible.”
“A great stake and a chain, and faggots piled round thee, and the fire blazing, and Mother Goodhugh roasting. Ha, ha, ha! it would be a gay revenge on an old witch.”
“Nay, child, nay, but I be not a witch,” cried the old woman, who seemed palsied with dread.
“Then why did’st profess to me that thou wast?” cried Anne, striking her again and again, the old woman only cowering down as she received the blows, and piteously begging her tormentor not to denounce her. “Thou deceived’st me scores of times, and I, fool that I was, listened, and was befooled more and more. Now, hark ye, Mother Goodhugh, I have thee tight. Thou canst not win their love for me, but thou can’st get me revenge. Look here: stop that wedding.”
“I will, child; I will, dearie.”
“You shall!” cried Anne. “Mind this: I warn you. If that wedding takes place, and Mace Cobbe becomes Dame Leslie—”
“Yes, yes, yes!” cried the old woman.
“I’ll denounce thee as a witch, and laugh to scorn any accusations or railings against me; and I’ll come and spit at thee as thou burnest at the stake.”
“Oh!” half shrieked the old woman, tearing at her bosom as she heard the other’s words, and felt their power. Then, recovering herself, she began to fawn upon her visitor.
“Have no fear, dearie. The wedding shall not be. I can stay it—I can stay it. I have but to lift up my hand, and it is done.”
“I believe thee not!” cried Anne, “but I warn thee. If that wedding takes place, pray to all thy familiars to save thee, or flee from here, for if not I’ll have thee dragged to the stake and burned. Thou knowest that I can,” she said, as she turned to go.
“Yes, child—yes, dearie.”
“Then remember!”
Anne went out of the cottage as she said the last words, and, as Mother Goodhugh thought of the atrocities that had been committed against weak old women who had professed some occult art, she shivered, and in imagination saw the flames rising round her withered limbs.
“She could do it, she could do it,” she cried piteously. “But I’ll stop it: I’ll stop it. The house is cursed, and the wedding shall not be; for I can stop it, and I will.”
Left alone to her thoughts, Mother Goodhugh began to suffer from a fit of terror, which completely gained the mastery over her, as she recalled all that she knew about the terrible sentences passed upon reputed witches. There was something fascinating in being able to gain the fear of the common people, and to be looked up to as a kind of prophetess; but she avowed now that the price paid was very dear. She had won many triumphs, and been looked up to as a wise woman, but if she were denounced as a witch, those who had feared and paid her for her utterances would turn upon her, for she was ready to own how seldom her prophetic promises had come true.
One in a hundred, however, was quite sufficient to keep up her character; and when there were failures there were always some side utterances that could be brought to bear to soften defeat or turn the matter to her advantage. And so for years she had managed to keep up the character of a wise woman, and amass no inconsiderable amount of the rustic people’s savings, for there was always something upon which she could be consulted, and, in spite of her fears, she sat hugging herself upon her success as she thought of this.
“What be I to do?” she muttered; “and how be I to go to Cobbers house? If I go I shall be sent away. Why be not Abel Churr here to help me?”
In spite of her efforts to fight back her dread, the recollections of the death scenes she had heard described made her tremble, and, when a hasty step was heard outside, she rose with a cry of horror, and darted towards the inner chamber, but paused on the threshold, as she heard a woman’s voice repeat her name.
“Mother Goodhugh, Mother Goodhugh!”
“Yes; who be it?” she said, and, tottering to the door, she opened the latch with trembling hand to as it were admit a ray of light to her breast, for the visitor brought hope.
It was Janet.
“Well, child,” she said, “and why have you come?”
“Don’t ask me yet, mother,” whispered the girl, hurrying in, and helping to close the door. “If Mas’ Cobbe knew I be come here he would half kill me.”
“Of course, of course, child! It be very wrong to come and visit poor Mother Goodhugh. Aren’t you afraid I should curse you, child?”
“Oh no, mother!” cried the girl, who, now that she was inside, recovered herself. “I want you to bless me.”
“Ah, child, and how?”
“Oh, mother,” giggled the girl, “you know. How do young women want to be blest?”
“With a husband, eh, dearie?” said the old woman with a cunning leer, as she scanned Janet’s pretty, weak face, and thought about how her good fortune had played into her hands by sending her a tool with which, if she were skilful, she could work her ends.
“But thou should’st not make me say it out loud, mother,” said Janet, with another giggle; “but, when there be so much courting and love-making up at home, how can a girl help thinking about such things?”
“Ay, truly, dear, how indeed! But why should not so bonnie a maiden win a husband, I should like to know.”
“What, as Mistress Mace?” said Janet, pouting.
“Nay, as Mistress Janet,” said the old woman, chuckling. “Well, well, and who is it to be, and what can I tell thee?”
“I want—I want to know—”
“Ay, ay, speak out, dearie.”
“I want to know,” faltered Janet, glancing at the door of the inner room and then at that of the entrance, “I want to know—Oh, I daren’t ask it,” she said, turning red and pale by turns.
“Thou would’st know the name of thy husband.”
“Ay, how could you tell that?” cried the simple girl.
“Such things be as plain to me as if they were written in a book. Sit down there,” she cried, pointing to a stool in the middle of the room.
Janet hesitated, but the old woman took up her crutch-handled stick and struck the floor imperiously, with the result that the girl took the seat, and Mother Goodhugh drew a rough circle round her as she stood behind the stool.
“I want to go back now; I must go back now,” said the girl, with trembling voice.
“Thou canst not go now until the spell is off,” whispered Mother Goodhugh, as she thrust her hand into a capacious pocket and took out a ball of glass, lined inside with some white metal, which gave it the appearance of a convex mirror.
“Shall I see anything very dreadful, and will it pook me?” faltered the girl.
“I hope not, but I cannot promise,” said Mother Goodhugh. “Sit quite still, and if anything dreadful comes I will answer for it that thou be not hurt much.”
Janet’s heart throbbed as she saw the old woman come before her and go down upon her knees, her face convulsed, and lips moving rapidly; then, holding the glass in both hands, her brow puckered as she gazed straight into it.
“What be this I see?” she cried in a hoarse voice; “a dark, tall, sun-browned man with pointed beard, half soldier, half sailor, who looks upon thee with eyes full of scorn.”
“Has he dark grey eyes, mother?” whispered Janet, in an awe-stricken voice.
“Ay, child, and a dashing, roving look.”
“It be Culverin Carr,” muttered the girl, pressing her hand to her throbbing heart.
“And now I see an old rough, grey man, big, and harsh, and stark, who would wed thee, but I know him not, for he keeps his head away.”
“Mas’ Wat Kilby!” muttered Janet, with a sigh.
“And now I see another, who is at thy feet, child; a handsome man in silk and velvet, who looks prayerfully in thy face, and asks thee to let him love thee.”
“Tell me more of him!” cried Janet, eagerly.
“I can see but little more, child, only that he has white hands with rings upon them, and a sword is hanging to his belt. He looks a handsome and a courtly youth, such as we have not in these parts here.”
“’Tis Sir Mark,” said Janet to herself.
“He looks love to thee, but a woman of thy size and shape steps in between thee, and tears him away.”
“What be she like?” cried Janet.
“I cannot see, child, for her head be turned away, but surely it be thee, from the turn of the head. How be this? Thou tightest against thyself.”
“Nay, ’tis Mistress Mace Cobbe. Let me look.”
“Thou art right; it be thy young mistress; and see, the gallant tries to reach thee, and her hand be raised to strike, and—How strange!”
“What be it, mother?”
“The glass has grown dim, as if a black shadow had passed over it, and I can see no more. Try thou, my child.”
“Nay, nay, I dare not; it be too terrifying!” cried Janet, thrusting back the crystal.
“’Tis better not,” said the old woman. “It be dangerous at times. There, child, I can tell thee no more to-day.”
“But tell me, mother, what can I do? Pray give me your help.”
“Help, child! How can I help thee?”
“It be all so true,” whispered Janet. “He loves me, and she has come between us, and I hate her. What shall I do?”
“Does she love him?”
“I think so. I don’t know.”
“What could I do to help her?” muttered Mother Goodhugh, as if communing with herself, but loud enough for the silly girl to hear. “I could give her a philtre that would turn her own love for this gallant to hate, and so comfort her poor suffering heart. See, child,” she said aloud, “I will give thee a potion that thou shalt take a little at a time in every meal; and, at the end of a week, thou shalt feel so strong a hatred of this lover of thine that thou shalt feel perfect rest. Will that do?”
“No, no!” cried Janet; “I don’t want to—Yes, yes!” she cried, as an idea seemed to flash across her brain, and Mother Goodhugh’s eyes sparkled as she saw how well her plans would be carried out by the foolish girl who, she felt sure, would administer the drops to Mace in place of to herself; and, going into the inner room, she remained away for some few minutes before returning to Janet, and, pressing a little bottle in her hand—
“Take that, child, but let no soul know whence thou hadst it.”
“Trust me for that, mother,” cried Janet, joyously. “What shall I pay you?”
“Pay me, child!” cried the old woman. “Nothing, dearie; I am no old money-getting witch, but a simple, decent woman, who does these things for love. There, dearie, give me a bonny kiss of those red lips, and go thy way; Mother Goodhugh will help thee again if thou should’st come.”
“But mother,” said Janet, glancing back at the door.
“Yes, child, yes?”
“Will this act quickly and soon?”
“Yes, child; why?”
Janet reddened and hesitated, while the old woman’s eyes seemed to search her through and through.
“Speak to me at once, child. But just as thou wilt, I can read thy thoughts, I know,” and she laughed maliciously.
“Oh, mother!” cried Janet, bursting into tears.
“I think thou hast been very wicked, Janet.”
“Nay, mother, I could not help it; I tried so hard to be good.”
“My duty should be to tell Mas’ Jeremiah Cobbe.”
“Nay, nay, mother, he’d drive me hence, and Mas’ Peasegood would make me stand out before all the people in the church. Nay, good mother, give me something, pray. Sir Mark’s stout followers be rude wicked men. And Mas’ Wat Kilby, too,” she sobbed.
“I’ve given thee that which will help thee—I can do no more,” said Mother Goodhugh, sternly.
“Now thou’rt angered with me, mother,” pouted the girl. “I wish I had not come and told thee, that I do.”
“Tchah! she says,fold me,” laughed the old woman, “when I knew as well as all the world will soon know, Janet, an’ thou do not use my philtre.”
Janet turned pale.
“Pray forgive me, mother, I’ll use the drops.”
“Ay, go and use them, and through them win a husband, child. Then all will be well.”
“Yes, yes, mother!” cried Janet, eagerly.
“There, I forgive thee; but get thee a husband quick. Kiss me, child. Now go.”
The girl eagerly pressed her ripe red mouth to the pale and withered lips of the old woman, and then, after a glance outside to see that she was not watched, she hurried back towards the Pool, while Mother Goodhugh stood looking after her, and softly rubbed her hands.
“If aught should happen,” she muttered, “the girl dare not speak, for I gave her the stuff to take herself. It would be her doing, and the wedding would not take place. But what would Mistress Anne Beckley say?”
She stood thinking for a few minutes before she spoke again.
“Nothing. She dare say nothing. But I be a witch, be I, madam? Have a care, then, for thyself. If one of two people is to die, why should it be I? But we shall see, we shall see: there be time enough yet.”
End of Volume II.
How the Witch said there should be no Wedding.“That Mother Goodhugh must have a care of herself,” said Sir Thomas a day or two later; and Anne let fall her work upon her knee to listen to her father’s words.“And pray why?” said Dame Beckley, who was shaking up some strange infusion of herbs in a bottle.“I hear strange things of her,” said Sir Thomas; “things that, as a justice, I shall be bound to stay.”“And why?” said the dame, as she took out the stopper and had a long sniff at the contents of the bottle.“Because they savour of witchcraft and the use of spells. His Majesty has opened a stem commission against such dealings, and as one whom he has delighted to honour I feel bound to show my zeal.”“Fiddle-de-dee!” cried Dame Beckley; “show thy zeal by growing wiser, Thomas. Smell that!”As the dame held the bottle beneath her lord’s nose, Anne glided out of the room, and made her way towards Mother Goodhugh’s cot, where she found the old woman ready to meet her with a suspicious look, and, with a feeling of gratified malice, told her of the words her father had let drop.“But you could stay him, dearie,” said the old woman, with a look of terror which she could not conceal.“Yes. But tell me—what have you done?”“Wait, dearie, wait,” whispered the old woman. “The wedding will never be.”“But it takes place in four days!” cried Anne. “Sir Mark actually dared to come over and tell my father.”“And he told thee, dearie?”“Nay, he told my mother, and she told me.”“Four days,” said the old woman trembling; “four days. The time be short, but it will do. I tell thee the wedding will never be.”“Can I believe thee this time, Mother Goodhugh?” cried the girl excitedly.“Give me thy word as a lady, that I shall not be ill-treated by thy father and his people, and I swear to you the wedding shall never be.”“There is my hand,” said Anne; and, as the old woman held it, there was a strange look on the girl’s face as she bent down and Mother Goodhugh whispered to her for a few minutes, after which she hurried from the cottage.“And they call me witch, and think me ready to do any evil!” she muttered as she gazed after the girl; “while that young, fairly-formed creature has a heart full of devilry such as never entered mine. But it must be done—it must be done.”She sat brooding over her cold hearth till evening: and then, as soon as it was dark, put on her cloak, took her stick, and walked cautiously to the Pool-house, where she succeeded in getting to the kitchen window unperceived, reaching in and touching Janet on the shoulder with her stick as she sat nodding near it in her chair.The girl started, and as her eyes fell upon the face of the visitor her lips parted to utter a cry, but the peculiar look on the old woman’s face seemed to fascinate her, and she sat back gazing at her as Mother Goodhugh climbed in at the casement, and stood by her side.“Wh-what do you want?” faltered the girl.“I’ve come to see thee, dearie,” said the old woman, smiling. “I want to know how you be getting on.”“But you must not stay here!” cried Janet, making an effort to recover herself. “If master knew he would drive me hence.”“Go and tell him, then, child,” said Mother Goodhugh mockingly. “Go and tell him that Mother Goodhugh has come to ask thee about thy love affairs, and the philtre she gave thee. What? You will not? He, he, he, he! What a strange girl you are.”“But you must not stay!” cried Janet in alarm. “If you were found here master would never forgive me.”“He is sitting smoking and drinking in his parlour, dearie, and never comes this way after dark.”“Yes, yes, he does!” cried the girl; “he comes sometimes to go down to the powder-cellar with a lantern.”“What, through that door?” said Mother Goodhugh, pointing.“Nay, nay! That be the beer cellar. That be the way to the powder-cellar,” she said, pointing to a massive door, down a couple of steps. “That be the first door, and there be another farther on at the end of the passage.”“Lawk adear!” said Mother Goodhugh, “and aren’t you afraid, when they bring the stuff down?”“They never bring it through here,” said the girl. “They let the little barrels down through a hole covered with a flat stone outside there amongst the trees, and master goes along with Tom Croftly to take it, in their slippers, and then comes back and locks it up.”“Ay, and I’ll be bound to say always carries the keys in his pocket, eh!”“No,” said the girl, shaking her head. “They hang on a nail in the passage by the door.”“There, I don’t want to know about the powder, dearie,” cried Mother Goodhugh. “Oh, the horrible stuff! I always begin to curse when I hear it mentioned, so we won’t talk about it. I came to see you, and talk about love, and—”“But you mustn’t stop, indeed you mustn’t stop,” whispered Janet. “Suppose Mistress Mace should come?”“But she won’t come, dearie. She’s in the corner of the parlour window with the handsome young spark from town.”“How do you know?” cried Janet. “How do I know, child! He-he-he! Do you think there’s anything I don’t know? You came to me because I was the wise woman, eh?”“Ye-es,” faltered the girl. “Well, didn’t you expect me to be wise, child, eh?”Janet shrank as far away from her as she could, and stared at her, round of eye and parted of mouth.“Look here, dearie,” whispered the old woman, “don’t try to deceive me. I’m such a good friend, but such a bad enemy. You wouldn’t like to make me angry, and set me cursing and ill-wishing you.”“N-no,” faltered Janet, who began to be horribly frightened of the penetrating eyes that seemed to read her inmost thoughts.“No, of course you would not. How often dids’t say Mas’ Cobbe went down into the powder-cellar?”“Only once a month,” said the girl, “when they’ve finished working.”“Then he’ll be going down directly?”“Oh, no; they finished there last week, and it will be three weeks, just,” faltered Janet.“Dear me, will it?” said the old woman. “But, as I was saying, it would be so horrible if I cursed you, though it is not me, my dear, but something in me that does it. It be an evil spirit,” she whispered, “and I’ve known girls as handsome as you lose their round, red cheeks, and soft, smooth skin, and their eyes have grown sunken, and their foreheads wrinkled. It be very horrible, my dear, but I couldn’t help it.”Janet tried to get up and go away, but her visitor’s fierce, sharp eyes seemed to hold her back in her seat, a fact which Mother Goodhugh well knew and rejoiced in.It was the only pleasure the old woman had, and she felt at times like this how it recompensed her for the dread she felt of the stringent laws. A curious smile played round her thin lips, and Janet shuddered as the old woman leaned forward till her face was close to that of her victim.“How is the love going on, dearie?” she whispered.“Don’t—ask—me,” faltered the girl.“You didn’t take the stuff, dearie, to give yourself ease?”“How—how did you know?”“How did I know? He-he-he!” laughed the old woman, with a cacchination that was enough to freeze the girl’s blood. “I know, child, and you can’t deceive me. Why didn’t you take it?”“I—I was afraid,” stammered Janet. “Mary Goodsell took some once, but it killed her and her baby too.”“Afraid? Stuff! Afraid to give yourself ease when Mistress Mace was torturing you by her love-makings with the fine spark who played with you, and pretended to love you.”“He didn’t pretend,” said the girl, indignantly. “He did love me till she came between.”“Ah, yes, child, I suppose so; but she be a white witch and very strong, and she would come between and master him. She could lead him wherever she liked, and win him to love her with her spells. Don’t trouble your poor, dear heart about him any more, my child, but take the drops, and be happy.”“I—I don’t think I dare,” faltered the girl.“Dare? Pish! child, you be too brave and handsome a girl not to dare. It be a pity, too, that she should have come between,” said Mother Goodhugh, musingly. “Ah! I have known cases where handsome, noble gentlemen have come down into country places and seen village girls, not so beautiful as thou, child, and married them, and taken them away; and a few years after they have come back looking fine ladies, with their diamonds, and jewels, and carriages, and servants.”Janet’s eyes sparkled as this indirect piece of flattery went on.“I’ll take it,” she said hastily; “I’ll take it.”“Take it? Of course you will, dearie!” cried Mother Goodhugh; “and now look here, my child. I want something of thine to complete a little spell I have at work. Thou hadst a ribbon round thy neck when thou earnest to me.”“Yes,” said Janet, “a red one; Mas’ Wat Kilby gave it to me.”“Nay, then, child, that will not do. I only want an inch cut from it by thy left hand; but if it be tainted by an old man’s love it would not do. Let me see. Thou hast not anything given thee by the young court gallant?”“No,” said the girl. Then, with a hasty glance around, she whispered “I have a piece of lace he gave to Mistress Mace, and which she would not wear.”“That will do, child; go, get me the tiniest scrap of that, and I will weave a spell that shall bring thee happiness and peace.”Janet rose and opened the door, and listened.“They be all in the room,” she whispered, as she closed the door again.“That be well. Be quick, child, and let me get out of this place.”“Thou wilt not move while I am gone.”“Nay, nay, child, not I; but harkye, leave the door ajar while thou art gone up stairs, so that if I hear a step that be not thine I may flee.”Janet looked doubtful for a moment, and then turned to go.“I need not bring the whole piece?” she whispered.“Faith, no, child; I’ll not rob you of it. The tiniest scrap be all I want. It must be something that the knight has touched.”Janet nodded, and slipped out of the room, but ere she reached the staircase Mother Goodhugh was at the passage door listening; and, as the last stair creaked beneath the weak girl’s tread, the old woman had glided into the passage, peered about by the light of the rush-candle burning on a stand, and uttered a grunt of disappointment. The next moment, though, she saw what she wanted, in the shape of a couple of keys hanging high up, close to the ceiling; and, stepping on a chair, she just reached them, and, lightly crept back along the passage to sit down in the kitchen, panting from exertion and excitement combined.Before she could compose herself Janet was back, too much excited herself to notice the old woman’s hurried breathings.“I’ve got it,” she cried, producing a handsome piece of lace. “I must cut some off here. Be quick; I be in such a fright for fear some one should come.”“That will do, dearie,” said the old woman, tearing off a scrap from one end. “There, put it away, and let me begone. Take the drops, child, and give thyself ease. You don’t care for such love as his.”Janet did not reply, but gladly opened the door to get rid of her unwelcome visitor, who stepped out into the dark night, and hurried away across the little bridge, and into the lane, where she turned to shake her stick at the peaceful-looking house, with its lighted windows.“Now we shall see—now we shall see!” she cried. “Two ways open, and my sayings coming to pass. There will be no wedding now.”
“That Mother Goodhugh must have a care of herself,” said Sir Thomas a day or two later; and Anne let fall her work upon her knee to listen to her father’s words.
“And pray why?” said Dame Beckley, who was shaking up some strange infusion of herbs in a bottle.
“I hear strange things of her,” said Sir Thomas; “things that, as a justice, I shall be bound to stay.”
“And why?” said the dame, as she took out the stopper and had a long sniff at the contents of the bottle.
“Because they savour of witchcraft and the use of spells. His Majesty has opened a stem commission against such dealings, and as one whom he has delighted to honour I feel bound to show my zeal.”
“Fiddle-de-dee!” cried Dame Beckley; “show thy zeal by growing wiser, Thomas. Smell that!”
As the dame held the bottle beneath her lord’s nose, Anne glided out of the room, and made her way towards Mother Goodhugh’s cot, where she found the old woman ready to meet her with a suspicious look, and, with a feeling of gratified malice, told her of the words her father had let drop.
“But you could stay him, dearie,” said the old woman, with a look of terror which she could not conceal.
“Yes. But tell me—what have you done?”
“Wait, dearie, wait,” whispered the old woman. “The wedding will never be.”
“But it takes place in four days!” cried Anne. “Sir Mark actually dared to come over and tell my father.”
“And he told thee, dearie?”
“Nay, he told my mother, and she told me.”
“Four days,” said the old woman trembling; “four days. The time be short, but it will do. I tell thee the wedding will never be.”
“Can I believe thee this time, Mother Goodhugh?” cried the girl excitedly.
“Give me thy word as a lady, that I shall not be ill-treated by thy father and his people, and I swear to you the wedding shall never be.”
“There is my hand,” said Anne; and, as the old woman held it, there was a strange look on the girl’s face as she bent down and Mother Goodhugh whispered to her for a few minutes, after which she hurried from the cottage.
“And they call me witch, and think me ready to do any evil!” she muttered as she gazed after the girl; “while that young, fairly-formed creature has a heart full of devilry such as never entered mine. But it must be done—it must be done.”
She sat brooding over her cold hearth till evening: and then, as soon as it was dark, put on her cloak, took her stick, and walked cautiously to the Pool-house, where she succeeded in getting to the kitchen window unperceived, reaching in and touching Janet on the shoulder with her stick as she sat nodding near it in her chair.
The girl started, and as her eyes fell upon the face of the visitor her lips parted to utter a cry, but the peculiar look on the old woman’s face seemed to fascinate her, and she sat back gazing at her as Mother Goodhugh climbed in at the casement, and stood by her side.
“Wh-what do you want?” faltered the girl.
“I’ve come to see thee, dearie,” said the old woman, smiling. “I want to know how you be getting on.”
“But you must not stay here!” cried Janet, making an effort to recover herself. “If master knew he would drive me hence.”
“Go and tell him, then, child,” said Mother Goodhugh mockingly. “Go and tell him that Mother Goodhugh has come to ask thee about thy love affairs, and the philtre she gave thee. What? You will not? He, he, he, he! What a strange girl you are.”
“But you must not stay!” cried Janet in alarm. “If you were found here master would never forgive me.”
“He is sitting smoking and drinking in his parlour, dearie, and never comes this way after dark.”
“Yes, yes, he does!” cried the girl; “he comes sometimes to go down to the powder-cellar with a lantern.”
“What, through that door?” said Mother Goodhugh, pointing.
“Nay, nay! That be the beer cellar. That be the way to the powder-cellar,” she said, pointing to a massive door, down a couple of steps. “That be the first door, and there be another farther on at the end of the passage.”
“Lawk adear!” said Mother Goodhugh, “and aren’t you afraid, when they bring the stuff down?”
“They never bring it through here,” said the girl. “They let the little barrels down through a hole covered with a flat stone outside there amongst the trees, and master goes along with Tom Croftly to take it, in their slippers, and then comes back and locks it up.”
“Ay, and I’ll be bound to say always carries the keys in his pocket, eh!”
“No,” said the girl, shaking her head. “They hang on a nail in the passage by the door.”
“There, I don’t want to know about the powder, dearie,” cried Mother Goodhugh. “Oh, the horrible stuff! I always begin to curse when I hear it mentioned, so we won’t talk about it. I came to see you, and talk about love, and—”
“But you mustn’t stop, indeed you mustn’t stop,” whispered Janet. “Suppose Mistress Mace should come?”
“But she won’t come, dearie. She’s in the corner of the parlour window with the handsome young spark from town.”
“How do you know?” cried Janet. “How do I know, child! He-he-he! Do you think there’s anything I don’t know? You came to me because I was the wise woman, eh?”
“Ye-es,” faltered the girl. “Well, didn’t you expect me to be wise, child, eh?”
Janet shrank as far away from her as she could, and stared at her, round of eye and parted of mouth.
“Look here, dearie,” whispered the old woman, “don’t try to deceive me. I’m such a good friend, but such a bad enemy. You wouldn’t like to make me angry, and set me cursing and ill-wishing you.”
“N-no,” faltered Janet, who began to be horribly frightened of the penetrating eyes that seemed to read her inmost thoughts.
“No, of course you would not. How often dids’t say Mas’ Cobbe went down into the powder-cellar?”
“Only once a month,” said the girl, “when they’ve finished working.”
“Then he’ll be going down directly?”
“Oh, no; they finished there last week, and it will be three weeks, just,” faltered Janet.
“Dear me, will it?” said the old woman. “But, as I was saying, it would be so horrible if I cursed you, though it is not me, my dear, but something in me that does it. It be an evil spirit,” she whispered, “and I’ve known girls as handsome as you lose their round, red cheeks, and soft, smooth skin, and their eyes have grown sunken, and their foreheads wrinkled. It be very horrible, my dear, but I couldn’t help it.”
Janet tried to get up and go away, but her visitor’s fierce, sharp eyes seemed to hold her back in her seat, a fact which Mother Goodhugh well knew and rejoiced in.
It was the only pleasure the old woman had, and she felt at times like this how it recompensed her for the dread she felt of the stringent laws. A curious smile played round her thin lips, and Janet shuddered as the old woman leaned forward till her face was close to that of her victim.
“How is the love going on, dearie?” she whispered.
“Don’t—ask—me,” faltered the girl.
“You didn’t take the stuff, dearie, to give yourself ease?”
“How—how did you know?”
“How did I know? He-he-he!” laughed the old woman, with a cacchination that was enough to freeze the girl’s blood. “I know, child, and you can’t deceive me. Why didn’t you take it?”
“I—I was afraid,” stammered Janet. “Mary Goodsell took some once, but it killed her and her baby too.”
“Afraid? Stuff! Afraid to give yourself ease when Mistress Mace was torturing you by her love-makings with the fine spark who played with you, and pretended to love you.”
“He didn’t pretend,” said the girl, indignantly. “He did love me till she came between.”
“Ah, yes, child, I suppose so; but she be a white witch and very strong, and she would come between and master him. She could lead him wherever she liked, and win him to love her with her spells. Don’t trouble your poor, dear heart about him any more, my child, but take the drops, and be happy.”
“I—I don’t think I dare,” faltered the girl.
“Dare? Pish! child, you be too brave and handsome a girl not to dare. It be a pity, too, that she should have come between,” said Mother Goodhugh, musingly. “Ah! I have known cases where handsome, noble gentlemen have come down into country places and seen village girls, not so beautiful as thou, child, and married them, and taken them away; and a few years after they have come back looking fine ladies, with their diamonds, and jewels, and carriages, and servants.”
Janet’s eyes sparkled as this indirect piece of flattery went on.
“I’ll take it,” she said hastily; “I’ll take it.”
“Take it? Of course you will, dearie!” cried Mother Goodhugh; “and now look here, my child. I want something of thine to complete a little spell I have at work. Thou hadst a ribbon round thy neck when thou earnest to me.”
“Yes,” said Janet, “a red one; Mas’ Wat Kilby gave it to me.”
“Nay, then, child, that will not do. I only want an inch cut from it by thy left hand; but if it be tainted by an old man’s love it would not do. Let me see. Thou hast not anything given thee by the young court gallant?”
“No,” said the girl. Then, with a hasty glance around, she whispered “I have a piece of lace he gave to Mistress Mace, and which she would not wear.”
“That will do, child; go, get me the tiniest scrap of that, and I will weave a spell that shall bring thee happiness and peace.”
Janet rose and opened the door, and listened.
“They be all in the room,” she whispered, as she closed the door again.
“That be well. Be quick, child, and let me get out of this place.”
“Thou wilt not move while I am gone.”
“Nay, nay, child, not I; but harkye, leave the door ajar while thou art gone up stairs, so that if I hear a step that be not thine I may flee.”
Janet looked doubtful for a moment, and then turned to go.
“I need not bring the whole piece?” she whispered.
“Faith, no, child; I’ll not rob you of it. The tiniest scrap be all I want. It must be something that the knight has touched.”
Janet nodded, and slipped out of the room, but ere she reached the staircase Mother Goodhugh was at the passage door listening; and, as the last stair creaked beneath the weak girl’s tread, the old woman had glided into the passage, peered about by the light of the rush-candle burning on a stand, and uttered a grunt of disappointment. The next moment, though, she saw what she wanted, in the shape of a couple of keys hanging high up, close to the ceiling; and, stepping on a chair, she just reached them, and, lightly crept back along the passage to sit down in the kitchen, panting from exertion and excitement combined.
Before she could compose herself Janet was back, too much excited herself to notice the old woman’s hurried breathings.
“I’ve got it,” she cried, producing a handsome piece of lace. “I must cut some off here. Be quick; I be in such a fright for fear some one should come.”
“That will do, dearie,” said the old woman, tearing off a scrap from one end. “There, put it away, and let me begone. Take the drops, child, and give thyself ease. You don’t care for such love as his.”
Janet did not reply, but gladly opened the door to get rid of her unwelcome visitor, who stepped out into the dark night, and hurried away across the little bridge, and into the lane, where she turned to shake her stick at the peaceful-looking house, with its lighted windows.
“Now we shall see—now we shall see!” she cried. “Two ways open, and my sayings coming to pass. There will be no wedding now.”
How Culverin Cark sealed up the Store.The autumn sun shone brightly down into the ravine that led up to the mouth of Gil Carr’s store, and the steep sides were glorious with the bright berries that glistened amongst the changing leaves. Where the briony, with its bronze green foliage, flung down its wreaths, there was cluster after cluster of orange scarlet fruit. The brambles hung down thorny strands black with rich ripeness that there was no hand to gather; and wherever a prickly holly, all glistening glossy green, had rooted in some crevice of the sand-rock, it was covered with yellow berries awaiting more kisses from the ardent sun before blushing scarlet for the Christmas-tide.The ferns were beginning to be dappled on their dark green fronds with gorgeous dashes of orange and chrome, mingled with crimson, red as blood, and the dyes of the finger-leaved maple were nearly as bright. Where the white tails of the rabbits could be seen disappearing as their owners heard a tramp of many feet, the dense small-leaved sloe-bushes, with their cruel thorns, showed many a row of tiny plums of the richest violet, dusted with a delicate pearly bloom. The late blossoms of the yellow rag-wort clustered amidst the purple heath, and glossy ivy hung in strands swinging in the hot sunshine with the tender tips just brushing the seeded grass self-turned into useless hay.Hot, still, and breathless lay the ravine, with all its natural riches, ripe with the fullness of the season, and now resting, waiting the coming of the cold wintry winds, that, sweeping up from the sea, should heat and tear and bear away the brightness of the autumn and turn all to desolation and death.Suddenly a velvety blackbird, with its orange bill and yellow-circled eyes, uttered its alarm-note and flew along like a streak of night away up and along the side of the ravine to the over-hanging woods. A chat that had been busy twittering its song over a golden clump of furze stopped half-way and dived amongst the purple heath, while a glistening lizard, that had half taken the alarm from the scattering rabbits, ran beneath the leaves.The steps in the distance grew plainer on the ear, and a greeny olive snake raised its head where it lay in a twirl upon a shelf of short, fine, sun-browned turf, darted its tongue out over its hard shiny jaws, and glided under the root of a tree, seeming to give warning of danger by its low hiss to an adder higher up the stony way, for the little viper condescended to raise its head where it lay like a scaly letter S upon the mossy stump of a hazel bush, round whose green, mouldering, gnarled stem were clustered, like chalices, so many thickly-veined fungi that looked as if roughly cast in orange-tinted deadened gold.The danger seemed to be far off, for the viper lay down its spade-shaped head once more, yawned, and seemed disposing itself for another sunny sleep, but had hardly arranged its tail to its satisfaction when—rustle—tap—something fell from above, and struck it sharply on the back.It was only a hazel nut that could hang no longer in its husk, but ripened into a soft warm brown, it had dried and dried till a leaf or two above it had ceased to give its shade, and then it had fallen like a warning upon the viper’s back.A moment before and the little reptile was sluggishness itself; this blow, light as it was, seemed to galvanise it into life, for a quick spasm darted through it, there was a sharp wave, and the raised head was ready to strike, while the eyes, that had a moment before resembled dim oxidised silver, now glittered like tiny jewels, as the whole creature seemed to become the picture of malicious rage, and sought where to drive deep its poison-fangs.There was somehow a kind of resemblance between the little serpent and Anne Beckley, though there was no one by to see, as, failing an object at which to strike, the reptile seemed to consider that discretion was the better part of valour; and, slowly lowering its crest, it threw its body into a series of horizontal waves, and gradually disappeared beneath some tawny—golden bracken on the slope.The steps came nearer, and suddenly there was a movement on the edge of the cliff, high above the store, where a bronzed man took his place, evidently on the look-out.Directly after another was seen scaling the side of the ravine to post himself on the slope over the entrance, while again another suddenly appeared amidst the furze on the green shoulder which overlooked the sloping downs.Gil Carr’s men did not often visit the place by day, hence the precautions against being watched by some intruder.High up above the cavern, the gaunt figure of Wat Kilby suddenly showed against the sky. Then he shrank down into a little depression half overgrown with trees, and soon after a thin, pale blueish vapour arose, and kept rising, as, pipe in mouth, the old sailor seated himself upon a block of stone to watch.Meanwhile, up the bottom of the ravine, close down by where the clear stream wandered in its deep fern-hung mossy shades, a little party of some twenty men wound their way.Every man seemed well-armed, and, with the exception of their leader, all appeared to be carrying a burden, either a small keg or a little chest, or a heavy packet, which they bore through the clustering bushes, which seemed to interlace their arms and try to stay them as they forced their way amongst the rocks.After climbing pretty close to the end, at a word from Gil the loads were set down, arms laid aside, and by means of half a dozen pike-staves the great stone was rolled away.The men then waited while Gil went in and lit a lanthorn, returning soon after to make a sign, when one by one they all lifted and bore in their loads, following their leader for some distance to where the dim light showed an inner cavern, whose sides and roof had evidently been roughly chiselled out by the hands of man.Here the fresh additions to the stores of the place were neatly deposited, and the sailors sat down, while Gil busied himself in examining a bale or two that seemed to have been gnawed by rats.“I wonder where the skipper shoved that spying fellow Churr—him as we searched for?” said one of the men in a low voice to his nearest comrade.“Further in, somewhere,” was the reply; “I thought I could smell him just now.”“That be rats,” said the other; “I know them well enough. But does the place go in far?”“I believe you, my lad. I once went in ever so far with old Wat and the skipper carrying lanterns.”“Did you?” said the other, eagerly; “and what be it like?”“Like this here. All the same—hole after hole, with rough stone pillars to support it all, just as it must have been dug out.”“Bah! chap, this was never cut out,” said the other. “It came natural like.”“Never cut out? Come natural like? Look here, my lad,” said the sailor, rising and pointing to marks upon the wall that seemed to have been made with some rough tool.“Yes, but anybody might have done that,” said the younger man.“You can think what you like,” said the other. “I’m telling you what the skipper told old Wat, and you never knew him tell a lie. He said to old Wat, ‘My father found the way rabbiting when a boy, and forgot all about it till he felt the want of a place to store things in unknown to other folk, and then he recollected this.’ He said it was made by folks as lived underground hundreds of thousands of years ago.”“Oh?” said the other.“Yes; and they dug first one and then another, as they wanted them, and grew bigger in numbers, and that it went right in farther than they’d ever been on account of the bad air.”“Same as down among the bilge in the ship’s hold?”“That’s so. The skipper’s father was most stifled by it once when he tried to go right in.”“But do they go right in?” The elder sailor struck the top of an empty barrel a sharp rap with the hilt of his sword, and the other’s question was answered, for the sound went echoing into the distance till it died away.“It be a queer sort of place,” said the other, with a half shudder. “Hang me if I’d like to be boxed up here along with Abel Churr, if the skipper’s stowed him there.”“Plenty of room and good water,” said the other, pointing down to where the source of the stream outside ran trickling through the interstices of the stone, and formed tiny pools of limpid clearness.“Ugh! the place smells damp and cold, and I should expect to come out, if I was shut up here, all over blue mould.”“Like a bit of ship’s cheese, eh? Come along: here’s the skipper.”“Now, my lads!” cried Gill, just then, “work with a will, plenty to do.”He led the way, and the men followed him with a sense of relief out into the bright sunshine, where the ferns fringed the rough arch over the entrance to the hole.They glanced at the heaps of stores and the various shipping chandlery, spare sails and cordage, but all was so familiar that nothing excited their interest.Just as they reached the outside there was a whistle from below, and Gil uttered an impatient ejaculation. But hurrying a little distance down, he peered over a mass of rock, to see one of his men, who had been on sentry, leading a dark figure with bandaged eyes.“Father Brisdone!” said Gil. “Bring him along, my lad.”Going forward, he quickly undid the handkerchief and threw it aside.“I forgot to tell them, father,” he said, holding out his hand; “there was no need with you.”“I do not wish to pry into any of your secrets, my son, that you do not care to trust me with,” said Father Brisdone, smiling as he took the young man’s hand.“Trust you, father? Why, I’d trust you with anything. But you look weary and hot with your journey. Sit down on yon stone: this is nature’s parlour. Here is something to eat. Lockyer, a bottle of that wine from the case inside on the left. The cup too.”Leading the father to a nook by the side of the entry, he placed refreshments before him, and then said—“Now you shall see us lock up the house, for it may be a year before we return.”“Why should you show me?” said Father Brisdone, smiling.“Why should I not show the man whom I have always looked upon as a trusty friend?” retorted Gil. “Now, my lads,” he said, and, leaving the father’s side, he soon had his men busy with spade and shovel. First of all the old stone was reared into its place. Then smaller blocks were thrust in here and there, so as to completely wedge it in. Then shovels of stones were thrown into fissures, and sods of earth, mingled with grass and heather, were carefully arranged; after which broad-fronded ferns, roots of rag-wort, grasses, and bramble roots were planted, dead leaves sprinkled here and there, and touch after touch given till nothing seemed left to be done but to pour water over the new earth to bind it together, and make the plants take root.“There,” said Gil to the father, as he stopped by him, hot and panting; “unless some spy has watched our work, that is safe enough, for in a week’s time those things will be growing again.”“Yes, that will be secure enough,” said the father, rising. “Thanks, my son, I was indeed faint for want of food. And now, what next?”“Next, father, you will accompany my man there on board. The little ship lies ready in the river; he will take you down in the skiff. If all’s well we shall be with you soon after midnight, and then heaven send us favouring gales, for we shall drop down the river on the tide, and put to sea at once.”“But no bloodshed, my son. For heaven’s sake do not let the hand that leads your promised wife on board be red with the blood of a fellow-man.”“Father,” said Gil, sternly, “I am no cut-throat; I am no lover of the sword. I go to-night to fetch my wife, and I go with peace and love towards all; but if that man or his followers stand in my path to prevent us, they must take what follows, for I cannot trifle now.”Father Brisdone sighed.“You know the consequences; if I do not get her away to-night, they are to be wed at eight o’ the clock, and to stay that, there must be a deadly fray. Trust me, father; and, if I can help it, no blood shall be shed.”“I trust you, my son. Go, and my blessing be with you. I shall make the little cabin a chapel, where I shall pass the time in prayer for your success.”“And then, father, a chapel where you make her mine by ties that none can break.”“Amen, my son, amen!” said Father Brisdone; and they parted, the father to follow his guide down the valley, and Gil to lead his men through one of the forest tracks in the direction of Roehurst Pool, Wat and the other watchers closing in behind.The advance was made with caution to within a mile of the foundry, where, beneath a spreading oak, Gil called a halt, and cast his eyes over his party of twenty sturdy, well-armed men, every one of whom could handle his weapon well.“That will do, my lads,” he said in his quick, imperious way. “Now lie down, and eat and rest. Silence, every man; not a word above a whisper. Goodsell, Kingley, two hundred paces each of you along the track. A good look—out, and a quick whistle, if so much as a berry-hunting child approach.”His orders were carried out, and then with the soft autumn evening rapidly drawing nigh, Gil also went out through the forest to watch and listen for the approach of footsteps that might end in the discovery of his men.
The autumn sun shone brightly down into the ravine that led up to the mouth of Gil Carr’s store, and the steep sides were glorious with the bright berries that glistened amongst the changing leaves. Where the briony, with its bronze green foliage, flung down its wreaths, there was cluster after cluster of orange scarlet fruit. The brambles hung down thorny strands black with rich ripeness that there was no hand to gather; and wherever a prickly holly, all glistening glossy green, had rooted in some crevice of the sand-rock, it was covered with yellow berries awaiting more kisses from the ardent sun before blushing scarlet for the Christmas-tide.
The ferns were beginning to be dappled on their dark green fronds with gorgeous dashes of orange and chrome, mingled with crimson, red as blood, and the dyes of the finger-leaved maple were nearly as bright. Where the white tails of the rabbits could be seen disappearing as their owners heard a tramp of many feet, the dense small-leaved sloe-bushes, with their cruel thorns, showed many a row of tiny plums of the richest violet, dusted with a delicate pearly bloom. The late blossoms of the yellow rag-wort clustered amidst the purple heath, and glossy ivy hung in strands swinging in the hot sunshine with the tender tips just brushing the seeded grass self-turned into useless hay.
Hot, still, and breathless lay the ravine, with all its natural riches, ripe with the fullness of the season, and now resting, waiting the coming of the cold wintry winds, that, sweeping up from the sea, should heat and tear and bear away the brightness of the autumn and turn all to desolation and death.
Suddenly a velvety blackbird, with its orange bill and yellow-circled eyes, uttered its alarm-note and flew along like a streak of night away up and along the side of the ravine to the over-hanging woods. A chat that had been busy twittering its song over a golden clump of furze stopped half-way and dived amongst the purple heath, while a glistening lizard, that had half taken the alarm from the scattering rabbits, ran beneath the leaves.
The steps in the distance grew plainer on the ear, and a greeny olive snake raised its head where it lay in a twirl upon a shelf of short, fine, sun-browned turf, darted its tongue out over its hard shiny jaws, and glided under the root of a tree, seeming to give warning of danger by its low hiss to an adder higher up the stony way, for the little viper condescended to raise its head where it lay like a scaly letter S upon the mossy stump of a hazel bush, round whose green, mouldering, gnarled stem were clustered, like chalices, so many thickly-veined fungi that looked as if roughly cast in orange-tinted deadened gold.
The danger seemed to be far off, for the viper lay down its spade-shaped head once more, yawned, and seemed disposing itself for another sunny sleep, but had hardly arranged its tail to its satisfaction when—rustle—tap—something fell from above, and struck it sharply on the back.
It was only a hazel nut that could hang no longer in its husk, but ripened into a soft warm brown, it had dried and dried till a leaf or two above it had ceased to give its shade, and then it had fallen like a warning upon the viper’s back.
A moment before and the little reptile was sluggishness itself; this blow, light as it was, seemed to galvanise it into life, for a quick spasm darted through it, there was a sharp wave, and the raised head was ready to strike, while the eyes, that had a moment before resembled dim oxidised silver, now glittered like tiny jewels, as the whole creature seemed to become the picture of malicious rage, and sought where to drive deep its poison-fangs.
There was somehow a kind of resemblance between the little serpent and Anne Beckley, though there was no one by to see, as, failing an object at which to strike, the reptile seemed to consider that discretion was the better part of valour; and, slowly lowering its crest, it threw its body into a series of horizontal waves, and gradually disappeared beneath some tawny—golden bracken on the slope.
The steps came nearer, and suddenly there was a movement on the edge of the cliff, high above the store, where a bronzed man took his place, evidently on the look-out.
Directly after another was seen scaling the side of the ravine to post himself on the slope over the entrance, while again another suddenly appeared amidst the furze on the green shoulder which overlooked the sloping downs.
Gil Carr’s men did not often visit the place by day, hence the precautions against being watched by some intruder.
High up above the cavern, the gaunt figure of Wat Kilby suddenly showed against the sky. Then he shrank down into a little depression half overgrown with trees, and soon after a thin, pale blueish vapour arose, and kept rising, as, pipe in mouth, the old sailor seated himself upon a block of stone to watch.
Meanwhile, up the bottom of the ravine, close down by where the clear stream wandered in its deep fern-hung mossy shades, a little party of some twenty men wound their way.
Every man seemed well-armed, and, with the exception of their leader, all appeared to be carrying a burden, either a small keg or a little chest, or a heavy packet, which they bore through the clustering bushes, which seemed to interlace their arms and try to stay them as they forced their way amongst the rocks.
After climbing pretty close to the end, at a word from Gil the loads were set down, arms laid aside, and by means of half a dozen pike-staves the great stone was rolled away.
The men then waited while Gil went in and lit a lanthorn, returning soon after to make a sign, when one by one they all lifted and bore in their loads, following their leader for some distance to where the dim light showed an inner cavern, whose sides and roof had evidently been roughly chiselled out by the hands of man.
Here the fresh additions to the stores of the place were neatly deposited, and the sailors sat down, while Gil busied himself in examining a bale or two that seemed to have been gnawed by rats.
“I wonder where the skipper shoved that spying fellow Churr—him as we searched for?” said one of the men in a low voice to his nearest comrade.
“Further in, somewhere,” was the reply; “I thought I could smell him just now.”
“That be rats,” said the other; “I know them well enough. But does the place go in far?”
“I believe you, my lad. I once went in ever so far with old Wat and the skipper carrying lanterns.”
“Did you?” said the other, eagerly; “and what be it like?”
“Like this here. All the same—hole after hole, with rough stone pillars to support it all, just as it must have been dug out.”
“Bah! chap, this was never cut out,” said the other. “It came natural like.”
“Never cut out? Come natural like? Look here, my lad,” said the sailor, rising and pointing to marks upon the wall that seemed to have been made with some rough tool.
“Yes, but anybody might have done that,” said the younger man.
“You can think what you like,” said the other. “I’m telling you what the skipper told old Wat, and you never knew him tell a lie. He said to old Wat, ‘My father found the way rabbiting when a boy, and forgot all about it till he felt the want of a place to store things in unknown to other folk, and then he recollected this.’ He said it was made by folks as lived underground hundreds of thousands of years ago.”
“Oh?” said the other.
“Yes; and they dug first one and then another, as they wanted them, and grew bigger in numbers, and that it went right in farther than they’d ever been on account of the bad air.”
“Same as down among the bilge in the ship’s hold?”
“That’s so. The skipper’s father was most stifled by it once when he tried to go right in.”
“But do they go right in?” The elder sailor struck the top of an empty barrel a sharp rap with the hilt of his sword, and the other’s question was answered, for the sound went echoing into the distance till it died away.
“It be a queer sort of place,” said the other, with a half shudder. “Hang me if I’d like to be boxed up here along with Abel Churr, if the skipper’s stowed him there.”
“Plenty of room and good water,” said the other, pointing down to where the source of the stream outside ran trickling through the interstices of the stone, and formed tiny pools of limpid clearness.
“Ugh! the place smells damp and cold, and I should expect to come out, if I was shut up here, all over blue mould.”
“Like a bit of ship’s cheese, eh? Come along: here’s the skipper.”
“Now, my lads!” cried Gill, just then, “work with a will, plenty to do.”
He led the way, and the men followed him with a sense of relief out into the bright sunshine, where the ferns fringed the rough arch over the entrance to the hole.
They glanced at the heaps of stores and the various shipping chandlery, spare sails and cordage, but all was so familiar that nothing excited their interest.
Just as they reached the outside there was a whistle from below, and Gil uttered an impatient ejaculation. But hurrying a little distance down, he peered over a mass of rock, to see one of his men, who had been on sentry, leading a dark figure with bandaged eyes.
“Father Brisdone!” said Gil. “Bring him along, my lad.”
Going forward, he quickly undid the handkerchief and threw it aside.
“I forgot to tell them, father,” he said, holding out his hand; “there was no need with you.”
“I do not wish to pry into any of your secrets, my son, that you do not care to trust me with,” said Father Brisdone, smiling as he took the young man’s hand.
“Trust you, father? Why, I’d trust you with anything. But you look weary and hot with your journey. Sit down on yon stone: this is nature’s parlour. Here is something to eat. Lockyer, a bottle of that wine from the case inside on the left. The cup too.”
Leading the father to a nook by the side of the entry, he placed refreshments before him, and then said—
“Now you shall see us lock up the house, for it may be a year before we return.”
“Why should you show me?” said Father Brisdone, smiling.
“Why should I not show the man whom I have always looked upon as a trusty friend?” retorted Gil. “Now, my lads,” he said, and, leaving the father’s side, he soon had his men busy with spade and shovel. First of all the old stone was reared into its place. Then smaller blocks were thrust in here and there, so as to completely wedge it in. Then shovels of stones were thrown into fissures, and sods of earth, mingled with grass and heather, were carefully arranged; after which broad-fronded ferns, roots of rag-wort, grasses, and bramble roots were planted, dead leaves sprinkled here and there, and touch after touch given till nothing seemed left to be done but to pour water over the new earth to bind it together, and make the plants take root.
“There,” said Gil to the father, as he stopped by him, hot and panting; “unless some spy has watched our work, that is safe enough, for in a week’s time those things will be growing again.”
“Yes, that will be secure enough,” said the father, rising. “Thanks, my son, I was indeed faint for want of food. And now, what next?”
“Next, father, you will accompany my man there on board. The little ship lies ready in the river; he will take you down in the skiff. If all’s well we shall be with you soon after midnight, and then heaven send us favouring gales, for we shall drop down the river on the tide, and put to sea at once.”
“But no bloodshed, my son. For heaven’s sake do not let the hand that leads your promised wife on board be red with the blood of a fellow-man.”
“Father,” said Gil, sternly, “I am no cut-throat; I am no lover of the sword. I go to-night to fetch my wife, and I go with peace and love towards all; but if that man or his followers stand in my path to prevent us, they must take what follows, for I cannot trifle now.”
Father Brisdone sighed.
“You know the consequences; if I do not get her away to-night, they are to be wed at eight o’ the clock, and to stay that, there must be a deadly fray. Trust me, father; and, if I can help it, no blood shall be shed.”
“I trust you, my son. Go, and my blessing be with you. I shall make the little cabin a chapel, where I shall pass the time in prayer for your success.”
“And then, father, a chapel where you make her mine by ties that none can break.”
“Amen, my son, amen!” said Father Brisdone; and they parted, the father to follow his guide down the valley, and Gil to lead his men through one of the forest tracks in the direction of Roehurst Pool, Wat and the other watchers closing in behind.
The advance was made with caution to within a mile of the foundry, where, beneath a spreading oak, Gil called a halt, and cast his eyes over his party of twenty sturdy, well-armed men, every one of whom could handle his weapon well.
“That will do, my lads,” he said in his quick, imperious way. “Now lie down, and eat and rest. Silence, every man; not a word above a whisper. Goodsell, Kingley, two hundred paces each of you along the track. A good look—out, and a quick whistle, if so much as a berry-hunting child approach.”
His orders were carried out, and then with the soft autumn evening rapidly drawing nigh, Gil also went out through the forest to watch and listen for the approach of footsteps that might end in the discovery of his men.