Book 4 — chapter six: The Breaking of the Mere

THAT was a night of grief and fear which nothing in life has ever made me forget. Sexton and Sammy, after a vain search, went home. I was alone under the coverlet of fog, in that place full of ghostly footsteps. I said a prayer for dying men. Then I sat hour by hour beside the fire, in that dim slothfulness of the spirit which a great sorrow or a great amazement will bring. It was the strangest Wake Eve I’d ever known, and the most grievous night of all my life. I thought how Gideon forbade me to go down into the water as folk did of old time, and be cured of my ill. And now, see! he was gone down into the mere himself, to be cured of his own curse. Then I thought of golden Jancis, and the little babe, and Missis Beguildy, and Father and poor Mother, all dead too. It seemed Death had been very busy at it, swiving among us. Ah! It was a bitter watching, for I ever liked those I cared for to be in good case. A year back, there was Jancis chosen for the sport called Heaving the Chair, for which the prettiest girl was always called out. There she was in her blue gown, I minded it well, with a crown of summer flowers on her head and a posy in her hand, lifted high in the chair by two strapping young fellows, while the rest came by, one by one, to see who she’d choose. All the young chaps were in it, but only one girl, so you may guess there was a deal of heart-searching over who’d be chosen.

They gave her a posy, and one fellow held a basin of water, and when she’d chosen her chap, she dipped the posy in the water and smote his face with it, which made everybody laugh.

And Jancis had chosen Gideon, of course, and he’d waited till the very last, because it pleased him to see all the others turned away and to know he wouldna be. And she smacked his face well with the posy, and gave her sweet, tinkling laugh, and then he lifted her down, which was part of the game, and gave her a kiss, which wunna. And I thought now, how untoërt a thing it was that she should have soused his face with water, as if in token that she should baptize him in the mere, ’ticing him to his death, and that it was the coming round of the fair day that had been the last straw. So I sighed, thinking—‘we be all His mommets, and He orders the play.’

I called to mind also how Gideon won the guinea for whistling best and clearest. He could whistle very well, and also he could keep his face straight in spite of all the fooling of the merry-andrew, who tried to make them laugh. For if Gideon was at the making of money he took it in such good sadness that nothing in the world could even make him smile. Beguildy whistled well also, but his best chance of a prize was always the yawning match, in which Granfeyther Callard ran him very close. Beguildy would come to the fair, though it angered Sexton, who persisted in saying it was a festival of the Church, and not for wizards, and who made himself very busy about everything, as if he was chief man.

Thinking of all this, I was sick at heart, for what is there more grievous than calling to mind old, merry randies? Then you say, “Ah, this one or that one was here then.” And you remember how you were so strong in your joy, you could even be merry over jests that played upon great and solemn things. You call to mind how such an one said, “A goose walks over my grave!” and laughed. And you remember that the one who said it has been under the sod a long while. So the thought of last year’s fair set me crying, though the drowning of Gideon didna. Indeed, it was out of the ornary strange, his dying, and not like the common lot, for he neither died in his bed nor by violence, but went into the mist of his own will and wish, and then was not. And that we never found him seemed to me only a rightful ending to a life which so cut itself adrift from all pleasant, feckless human ways and doings. He belonged to none, seemingly, for he gave the go-by to his nearest kin. What he had most truck with was the earth and the water from which he was building himself a life to his mind. Rock, and troubled water, heavy earth, trees groaning yet unyielding in the storm, all these he was kin to, though he didna love them. He took hold of them, browbeat them, made them his’n. And in the doing of it he fell, as it were, among thieves, for they took hold of him and made him their slave. It seemed to me he couldna die like other men, and be sodded, and lie in six feet of soil, and have a name-stone. No. He must have large room and be free of all, roaming at will in the troubled currents of the mere, in the mid of his own farm and his own woodland. How can you cry for such a thing as this? Can you cry about a thunder-bolt or a cloud-burst? No. It was only when I remembered those few times when he gave in that I could cry for him, as when I called to mind how he put his arm across his face at the fire, and sobbed.

All that night I thought of him, and the dark was full of cold fear, and a horror gathered about the place, it seemed so lone, as if it didna belong to the world at all. I knew I couldna spend another night there, and I began wondering what to do with the live stock, since nobody else would set foot here after such doings. No, not if it was ever so! Sexton refused out and out, and if he wouldna, nobody would. Not a soul would buy the place, and though I could leave the fields we’d laboured on to go back into wood and heath, yet the live stock must be seen to as long as it was there. Yet I was determined to bide there no longer, but to flee away as they did from the cities of the plain, not for any fault in the place, but for what Gideon had made of it. I’d shift to-morrow. But what to do with the beasts I couldna think, for if I asked anyone even so much as to water them, they’d say, “No, no, missus, there’s summat to be seen there.”

At last came the blessed dawn, and the mist lay like a vasty shining cloud on the place, but as the sun swam up, full of power and warmship, not to be gainsayed, the mist came loose all in a piece, and lifted slow, till there was a space betwixt its under side and the mere, where the coots swam, like bees running about between two boards. Then one-half of the tree-trunks came free, so that the forest seemed to be mounded up with snow. It lifted and lifted, and at last went into the sky, and failed amid the clouds of dawn. Then the clouds faded, and there were only the proper heavens, blue as bird’s eye. As soon as the mist lifted, I saw that the mere had broken in the night, and the water was thick and troubled, simmering all over, so that the lilies were stirred as they lay anchored. When the blessed sunshine came, a way out came also into my mind. It was fair day. There’d be a sight of people here. Why not take the creatures to the fair, and make a pen, and get somebody to sell them? They could go cheap. Ah. That was it! So when I’d fed the stock, and milked, I fetched all into the fold, to be ready, and tidied the house, drawing the curtains, and set out to Sexton’s to ask if I could put up a pen and bring the beasts, and get the crockman to sell them by auction, as he sold his wares. Sexton didna care about it much, but seeing he knew he’d got no authority, and the fair being held in our wood, he could do no else than agree. Tivvy looked very spitefully at me, for she wanted sore to be missus at Sarn, not to speak of her being sweet on Gideon, and she seemed to blame me that all had gone wrong. But I’d no time to waste, for already the first waggons were coming to the fair ground. It was still the custom then to deck out a waggon for each village with flowers and boughs, to bring the people. Or sometimes the young ones would walk, the men and women in separate companies, singing as they came. But they went back two by two, men and maids. They were setting out the booths when I went by, spiced ale and the gingerbread-babies Moll liked, mint cakes and pebble brooches and combs to stand high in the hair. A woman had lit a fire and was getting ready the huge bowl of hasty pudding for the trial, which could eat it hot quickest. The waggons rolled along the wood ways with the same sound as at our harvest home. The folk chattered like a lot of jays, until they came to the fair ground and heard the news about Gideon. I could hear when each waggon heard tell, for a hush fell on all. Then I suppose they thought, well, they were a-nigh the church, that was on holy ground, and the accursed place was at the other end of the mere, so they took heart and began to chatter again. I saw Mister Huglet and Mister Grimble, thick as thieves, and they scowled at me as I went by.

All along the wood-path there was a great stirring of dragon-flies, and the lustre-coloured damsels looked grand, sailing over the crimson bosses of dragon’s blood, that is the wild geranium. I thought, ‘The wind lifts in the branches, the lilies be in blow, the dragon-flies be coming out of their shrouds, but Kester Woodseaves has forgot me.’ For by this he was to have raught back. And why should he remember a woman with a curse upon her, a hare-shotten woman, in danger of being accused of witchcraft? No, he wouldna call me to mind again. He’d take up with that young woman he spoke of that didna spare her blushes.

When I got home, I gathered together all the sheep and pigs, the cows and oxen, and drove them, riding upon Bendigo, to the fair. By good fortune they were all fain of me and went where I told them. Then I went back and put the fowl and ducks, the geese and turkeys in boxes and hampers, and wheeled them on the barrow. I’d left them shut up, to catch them the sooner. The people stared when they saw me riding through the wood with my flocks and herds afore me, for the creatures made a great stir, baaing and grunting and mooing, misliking the woods. And as we went, there we all were in the troubled water, dimly shadowed, and I thought how we had been reflected there when we buried Father. Then, all the fields and barns, fold and shippen, being void of life, I put Pussy in a basket and locked the door. And I thought, now the ghosts could have the place, yes, all of them, even as far back as Tim, that had the lightning in his blood. My vow that I took to Gideon was cancelled now. I’d no more to do here. What should I stay for, with nobody to ask a hand’s turn of me? I was for the road. What road I didna know, but I thought it would be lonely. I’d packed a few things to leave with Miller, for him to take to Lullingford, else, I had what I stood in, and the old Bible, and my book. So I set forth from the farm, where Sarns had been time out of mind. It was hard to leave the fields I’d laboured so long upon, but it would have been harder to stay. I shivered to think how the church spire would point across the water at the haunted house this night, lying over that deepest, darkest place where Gideon was.

They were selling the things by the time I got back to the fair, with a pewter tankard to put the money in. So, not wishing to have part or lot in the merrymaking, I sat down on the churchyard wall to wait till all was done and I might go. The bidding was pretty brisk, for the beasts didna carry any curse, folk supposed, though they did come from an ill place. Sexton bought Bendigo, and Moll’s father bought the oxen for his maister. Callard had some of the cows, the other things were bought up in good time, and I gave Pussy to Felena, because I thought she had a good heart, though not much respectability—or maybe it was because of that.

She said—

“Do you get tidings of Weaver, Prue?”

“No,” I said. “We’ve not heard this long while.”

“He’s one in many,” she said. “Ah! He does seem to me to be of other stuff than we are. As if he came from afar. Do you mind how we played Costly for Weaver’s soul, you and me? But I doubt some fine madam in the city ’s catched his soul by this.”

All the while, as we talked, and as I sat lonesome on the churchyard wall, I was ware of black looks cast at me, side-glances, a pushing out of the lips, and lifting of shoulders, and some would draw away a bit as I passed. I wondered what this might be, for though the old tales about me had gone on growing in the lonely farms, as I knew, and though a misfortune is enough, times, to turn people against you, as if they thought it was the hand of the Lord meting punishment for sin, yet it didna seem to me enough to explain the looks I got, which did cut me to the heart, for in them I saw hatred. I ever loved my kind, and as I once said, I was like one standing at the lane ends with a nosegay to offer to the world as it rode by. But instead, it rode me down. Ah! On this day of mid August, in the time of the troubling of the waters, it rode me down.

I was considering, and wondering what to do, for I was waiting for some people who were driving to Bramton, and would take me, and so I should be part way to Silverton. If I went now, I’d get no lift, and besides, the money couldna be counted till it was all in, so the crockman could take his pay of so much in the shilling. On both counts I was bound to wait.

Missis Miller came up, quiet, and said she’d been there since the first and she’d heard a deal said about me, and the whispers were started by Grimble and Huglet, here one and there one, saying this and that, with a nod or a wink, maybe, or a snaking of the head, and, “Pity. A tidy young woman, too!” Or, “Summat should be done about it. Parson ought to see about it.” So the talk got fixed on me, she said, and no sooner did they tire of speaking of the manner of Gideon’s death than they’d start of me. The younger ones had been brought up on tales of how I roamed the country at night in the body of a hare, and had a muse under this very churchyard wall. Miss Dorabella’s words at the Mug o’ Cider had stayed in people’s minds, and then the fire had fixed on us the idea of a curse, for though Beguildy did it, yet ’twas thought the Lord wouldna have suffered him to do it at a righteous farm. Then the drowning of Jancis made things ten times blacker, and Gideon’s death put the last touch to it. There was something here that the folks couldna understand. The only cause for all the misfortune that they could see was the curse of God. There must have been a Jonah in our ship, they thought. And as Mother had always been liked, and Gideon thought pretty well of, as a man bound to get on, it seemed to them that I must be the one that called down the curse. They’d reasoned it out slow, as we do in the country, but once they came to the end of the reasoning they were fixed, and it would take a deal to turn them. This was the reason for the hating looks, the turnings aside, the whispers. I was the witch of Sarn. I was the woman cursed of God with a hare-shotten lip. I was the woman who had friended Beguildy, that wicked old man, the devil’s oddman, and like holds to like. And now, almost the worst crime of all, I stood alone. I may say that in our part of the country, whatever happened in other parts, it was thought suspicious to stand alone. This might be because in those lost and forgotten farms in the mountains and the flooded lands about the meres, where in the long winters the winds would howl around the corners of the house like wolves, and there was talk of old terrible things—men done to death in sight of home; the fretting of unhappy ghosts at the bottle-glass windows, that once they owned, but now were the wrong side of; the dreadful music of the death pack; the howl of witches such as I was said to be, riding with blown leaves upon the gale; the threat of gentlemen of the road who had long lain at the crossways—nobody could choose to be alone, and nobody without good reason would condemn another to be alone. Therefore, if you were alone you were as good as damned.

I canna tell you what a sinking of the heart all this gave me. For to one that can feel the love and hate of others flowing about her without word spoken, and who can only do well in warmship of the soul, even a little misliking is enough to nip the blossom.

“Now,” says Missis Miller, “I know what it’s like, a bit, for mine’s said to be under a curse, and cause he gives, indeed, but you dunna, and I say, ‘Beware of Grimble!’ He’s fause, is Grimble. Huglet’s all of a roar, but you know what he’s after. With Grimble you dunna. He’ll drop a word here and a word there like thistledown, and you see nought and think nought, but dear to goodness, what a crop of thistles! And I doubt the thistles be all up and just about in blow.”

While she was yet speaking, Tivvy darted up to me, all in black, for she’d given out that she was promised to Gideon, and she says—

“You boxed my ears, Prue Sarn! Now see!”

With that she jumped up on the wall and shouted out—“People all, I’ll speak this once and no more. A wronged woman I am. Sarn was promised to wed with me to-day’s five months, and it’s five months gone that I should have been Missis Sarn. For Sarn did love me right well. But she stopped it. Prue Sarn stopped it. For she put me in such mortal fear, I couldna come near the place. Clouted me, she did. And she being a witch, I was afraid of her. She wanted to be missus there, seesta! Couldna abide anybody else to have a say in things. And see what’s come to pass! She’s missus there altogether now, and the very next day after my poor Sarn’s death she sells all. Oh, she’s a heartless piece! There’s no wickedness she wouldna do. Five months I’d ought to have been Missis Sarn, but for her. She’s so strong, because she’s a witch!”

I was astounded at the furious way she said it, till I remembered that she was expecting a love-child, which was ten times worse as she was Sexton’s daughter, and what Sexton would do when he knew was awful to think of, and so Tivvy must have somebody to put the blame on. But no sooner was she finished than up gets Grimble. There he stood, with his long nose pointing down as if he was considering, among all he could say, what he’d fix on.

“People,” he began, “this is a solemn day. In this here water lies a fine farmer. Ah! A man as would have made a mark on Sarn. Look at the ploughing he’d done! Bound to be rich, he was. Promised to a tidy young woman, too, and a righteous, for we know that her brother can come as pat with a text as any man even in the memory of Granfeyther Callard.”

“Ah. That’s righteous!” calls out the old man from the cart where he sat “But old Camperdine could run him pretty close, the one as Beguildy had in bottle, I mean. Ah! He was a good un with a text when he was in liquor! I’ve heard him roll ’em out till you wanted a yard-stick to measure ’em. But when he was sober, not a text would he say. Very bawdy he was then. But in liquor, oh, indeed to goodness it was a miracle!”

“As I say,” Mister Grimble went on in his reasonable voice, “her brother can mouth a text, her father’s Sexton, her mother’s Sexton’s married wife, so it stands to reason she’s a good young woman. And you’ve heard what she said. I tell you, what she says is true, and more than true. Now listen. Since birth Prudence Sarn’s been a woman smitten by the Lord. What she does she canna altogether help, being in the power of Satan. That’s why she roams the land, as we know. That’s why she was friend to Beguildy, and learned all his wickedness off him, for like finds like. That’s why she puts her eye on this one or that one, a child or a beast, or a field of corn, it’s no matter. It dwines, whatever it is, dwines and withers away. Or she’ll as soon kill outright. What did she do to my dog, as was worth a deal to me? Ah! And darker things yet. Blacker and blacker. What did her mother die of? People, she died of foxglove tea. Poisoned. Sexton’s missus is my witness. Who nurses a sick mother? Her daughter. Well, people, what do you say to that?”

There was a muttering in the crowd, a pushing and stirring to look at me, where I sat, struck dumb with astonishment. But nobody said anything as yet. Country folk dunna condemn in a hurry. They were ready tinder, but the flint wunna put to it yet.

“And darker,” says Grimble. “But first let Missis Sexton and Tivvyriah Sexton stand up and say in one word if it be true. Now then. Aye or no?”

“Aye!” said both together.

“Now, why did that feckless young creature, Jancis Beguildy, and her poor child, meet their deaths in the water? Who was alone in the house with them when it took place? Prudence Sarn! Why was Jancis irksome to the witch? Because she knew things. She knew the devil’s tricks that were played betwixt her father and the witch. And as she’d no money, she came to threaten to speak unless she was well paid, and that Prudence Sarn wouldna do. So, when nobody was there but the weak, nesh little thing, trammelled with her baby, and Prue Sarn, who’s as strong as a man, Jancis Beguildy met her death in the water.”

There were murmurs again, but it would need more than the death of the wizard’s daughter, who was in ill odour, to rouse them.

“But there’s worse,” said Grimble. “When Sarn took up with Tivvyriah, his sister didna like it. She wanted to keep on being missus. She wanted no other woman about the place. She’d got rid of her mother on that count. Ah! Liefer would she have no brother, friends, than have a married brother.”

A sigh went through the crowd, which must have numbered three hundred souls, all told, for it was a big fair.

“What did she do?” Grimble went on, and the hate in his eyes when he looked at me was awful to see. “Why, when dusk drew on and the mist rose, and Sarn was dipping water for the beasts, she did push him in, and then took the boat out to deceive Sexton, having put such dread upon the miller’s children that they durstna say the truth.”

He waited a minute for the people to understand. Then he said—

“Hare-shotten! A witch! Three times a murderess!”

And on the instant Huglet roared out—

“Suffer not a witch to live!”

The flint was set to the tinder. A howl went up. There were cries of—

“Tromple on her!”

“Stone her!”

“Let her drown!”

There was nobody to speak for me, except such as would not be heard. Sexton was gone home. He was a fair-minded man, and I think he’d have stood for me. Most of the people were strangers. Some were neither for me nor against me.

Felena pushed her husband forrard, telling him to speak for me, but they shouted—

“Thee’s in danger of damnation thyself, shepherd! How do ye pay yer rent?”

They came on me like the rising of a winter flood. They sent some to the church for the ducking-stool. And still the voice of Huglet went roaring on.

“Suffer not a witch to live!”

I do think I fainted for very terror, for I knew no more, till I felt the chill water, and came up gasping, feeling the ropes that tied me to the ducking-stool, and hearing the roaring of Huglet, which seemed like the blaring of some great demon.