Read Cunning Murrell Online

Authors: Arthur Morrison

Tags: #Historical Romance

Cunning Murrell (16 page)

Now if Cunning Murrell had had a favourite son whom he was bringing up in
the practice of his own trade, he might have seized this opportunity to call
him in and impress on him certain maxims which, though never precisely
formulated, had always governed himself. As for instance:

“Be upright in all things. If there be a contention, and one of the
parties come to you, knowing you to have been already retained on the other
side, whatever error you may induce him to commit, whatever loss of money he
may incur, and whatever information you may pump out of him, will be the
result of his own fault.”

“Shame the devil by telling the literal truth. If any man be deceived by
the literal truth, he must be a fool, and deserves to suffer.”

For indeed the long use of spells and conjurations had bred in him a vast
regard for words merely, since they were manifestly so potent an influence.
Others have reached the same persuasion by a different road. So that to
Murrell, as sometimes to greater men, a word, or a phrase, or a sentence,
which accorded precisely with his inmost mind, and at the same time was apt
in particular circumstances to carry a wholly different meaning to the minds
of others, was a valuable instrument of trade.

He had, in fact, expected just such a visit from Cloyse as he had
received, for he had at least as clear and as quick a view of the position
and chances of things as Cloyse himself. But finding that the visit did not
come instant on the repulse by pistol-fire from Castle Hill, whereof he had
learned from Golden Adams, he began to suppose that either Cloyse had been
badly wounded, or was about to carry the business in some unknown way; and
being, by reason of the poverty of the moment, near as impatient as Adams
himself, he resolved to learn what he might at Leigh of Cloyse’s health, and
perchance see him and renew, in the light of fresh circumstances, the offers
he had carried before. He had reached Leigh Strand in time to see Cloyse’s
departure from his house, and to observe the direction he had taken; and then
was able to take advantage of the shrimp-cart to reach Hadleigh first.

But all these matters, with the unformulated maxims, were hidden in the
cunning man’s head; for he had never had any favourite child, and of the two
remaining alive the son was at that moment fast asleep in the farmhouse where
he worked, three miles away, and had never been taught as much as to read;
and the daughter, though she was but a few yards off, was as illiterate as
her brother, and as dull of mind. So that none profited by Cunning Murrell’s
wisdom; and he, his dance danced to its end and his grin relaxed, took hat,
umbrella, and frail, and soon was stealing down the castle lane, toward the
stile.

XVI. — A DAY AT BANHAM’S

THE little stars were gone, and of the great stars but one
or two remained to twinkle yet a space in the west. Paleness had spread high
in the sky, and away on the very edge of the waters, beyond where the Pan
Sand and the Girdler lay invisible, a flush was rising and spreading. The
broken towers of Hadleigh Castle were haggard in the grey light, and Golden
Adams’s face seemed scarce less haggard, as he rose from the stones whereon
he had been sitting and dozing, stood erect, and stretched his arms. The hill
and the marshes below, the water, and the far Kent shore, all were ashy grey
alike, and over the marshes wisps and rags of white mist changed and turned
and ran together like ghosts alarmed by the coming day.

The flush grew and deepened at the water’s edge, and then, like arrows
from the sun in ambush, two long rays shot high above, and another. And with
that the first tinge of colour was borne into the greyness, soft and
vaporous, pink and blue, faint as pearl. More rays sprang, wider now, and in
a moment a blazing segment stood above the sea. Light ran before it, leaving
colour in its track, driving the ghosts into hiding behind copses and in the
hollows of hills, and carrying the iridescence far to west and south. And at
that the nests, restless already with wakening twitters, broke into full
song, and began the eager traffic of the day. Hill and marsh were green and
glistening, daisies peeped, and the sun lifted quick and great from the sea,
and flung out its gold to make the blue water merry.

The old towers took the warmer tint of day, and Golden Adams’s hard
features regained their natural brown, no whit paled by his nights of
watching and dozing. He took the fur cap from his head, beat off the dew
against his palm, and shook more dew from his coat. Then, with a last look
round land and water, he slowly descended to the coppice, there to lie for
the day, and to sleep as he might.

Up in the meadows work was toward, and the sound of the stone sweeping the
scythe-blade. The life of Hadleigh and its fields went its even way till
seven o’clock. Then the men trooped in to breakfast, and the cows trooped out
from the morning milking.

Dorrily Thorn tended her aunt, worked in the garden, and after breakfast
returned from the post-office happy in possession of a letter from Jack.
Young Sim Cloyse straggled in from Leigh, indefinite of aim, but vaguely
hoping that Dorrily Thorn might be in a less curt mood, and not altogether
deaf to persuasion in the matter of Prittlewell Fair. Lingood’s forge clanged
and glowed; and Cunning Murrell slept till he was called to doctor Banham’s
horse.

At Banham’s things were at sixes and sevens. Not that that was not the
normal state of Banham’s; but to-day things went wrong with a more than
commonly persistent perversity. It was a suitable place for muddle and
trouble, for Banham, like everybody hereabout, no matter what his regular
trade, did his small bit of farming with an acre or so, a cow, and a few
pigs, leaving it much to the mismanagement of his wife. If Mrs Banham had had
no more than her household duties to disorganise she would have done it very
thoroughly, and would never have let a day slip without broken crockery,
spoiled meals, infantile avalanches on the stairs, tumblings into tubs, torn,
scorched, and lost linen, and other such domestic entanglements. But all was
chaos since those duties were complicated with attendance on a small
farmyard: one set about with tottering sheds, whereof while the roof fell in
the doors fell out; so that the Banham poultry and pigs pervaded the village
as widely as the Banham offspring, and some of the latter were in perpetual
quest and pursuit of some of the former.

But this day was worse than all. It was one of Banham’s late-starting
mornings, and Bobby, Jimmy, and the rest had all fallen downstairs and been
patched and mended and smacked, and had spilt their teacups and been smacked
again, and Mrs Banham had industriously spread the beginnings of the day’s
disorder, ere Banham, going with young Dick, his eldest boy, to harness the
horse, found it shivering and “winnicking” and lifting its off hind leg,
whereon was a nasty cut, just over the fetlock. Banham, stooping to examine
the cut, found both hind legs sore and bruised, and the animal very tender of
a touch. Then Dick pointed to a splintered bucket in a far corner, and a
little staring made it plain to father and son that everything within
hoof-reach had been kicked and broken—a thing not so instantly
noticeable as it might have been, by reason of most things in the Banham
establishment being broken already. And when the horse was unhaltered there
was a sad large swelling just under the right eye, tenderer than all the
bruises, and wholly closing the lids.

Poor Banham gaped and stared in dismay. A small bruise or a cut or two he
would have treated well enough himself, but all this—and especially the
mysterious swelling at the eye—must be seen to by Cunning Murrell. So
Dick was sent for him with all speed.

Murrell found the whole family about the stable, which was a longish shed,
made to accommodate the horse at one end and the cow at the other, with a
cart between. Mrs Banham’s firm opinion was that the horse had been
bewitched, and Mag Banham inclined to the same belief. Em chuckled and wept
and winked that horrid wink that had returned to her of late.

Cunning Murrell went over the horse with practised fingers, and in
response to Mrs Banham’s repeated suggestions of witchcraft was disposed to
agree with her. How had the cow been?

Instantly it was remembered that all sorts of things had been amiss with
the cow. She had been cross-grained yesterday, and reluctant to yield her
milk; she had kicked over the pail on Tuesday—or was it Saturday? She
was hot and feverish and fretful—which, of course, could not be due to
the warm weather and nightly confinement in a shed. But more than all, Mag
Banham had been at the churn all yesterday afternoon and part of the evening,
and failed to make a single speck of butter.

Murrell nodded gravely, looked at the cow, and shook his head. No doubt it
was a “sending”; an imp had tormented the horse, and probably had begun by
biting it under the eye, driving it mad with terror, and causing all the
trouble.

At this, young Dick, with a scandalous irrelevance, a youthful presumption
and an impudent levity that shocked everybody, ventured to attribute the
swelling to a possible wasp or hornet, lying “dummel” in the hay; even
pretending that he had heard of such a case somewhere else. But his
effrontery met its punishment, and he sidled off abashed and discomfited by
the wise man’s condign rebuke. And, indeed, as any one might know, even if
the thing were a wasp or a hornet, there was no more common form for any
witch’s imp to assume than that, except, perhaps, a spider.

So for the present Cunning Murrell washed and bound the cut, and made
plasters of steeped herbs for the bruises and the eye; promising to call
again, and in the meantime not only to send a drench for the cow, but to
consider the matter of any amulet or conjuration that might seem needful in
case the cures were delayed. But indeed, Murrell’s fame as a cattle-doctor
was merited, and Banham’s horse was soon comforted by the plasters.

But Murrell was no sooner gone than more disasters of the night were
revealed; for in another shed the old sow was found routing among the whole
remaining store of mangels, which lay scattered about her, each with a large
gnaw in its side; for merely to eat a few mangels and have done with the
mischief was not in that sow’s nature; she must take a bit out of every one,
and so do as much ruin as possible.

Banham was a mild man in general, but now he snatched a hoe, and so plied
the handle that the old sow went at a bolt, and overset a large part of the
family on the mixen. And when the damage was seen and lamented it grew plain
to Mrs Banham that here was proof, if more were needed, of the unholy source
of all the other troubles; for it was remembered that this same sow had twice
eaten her own pigs, and once had gobbled up a whole brood of chicks. It was
perceived on examination that some time in the night, instigated by the
devil, the brute had capsized the trough against the gate of the run; the
hinges, cut from the uppers of an aged boot, had fetched away and let the
gate—itself a medley of rotten boards and barrel staves—fall
flat, so that the whole yard was open to the offender. How she got into the
shed where the mangels lay was not so clear, though it was certainly by
infernal aid of some sort, since nobody would admit having left the door
open.

Here was a pretty state of things to begin the day with; and as the day
went, so things went more awry, Banham had to stay at home, of course; and
although it might seem that so unassuming an addition to the family numbers
would make little difference, nevertheless his wife protested that he
hindered everything, and brought about a most distracting state of muddle:
which he himself never ventured to doubt. Mag laboured again at the churn,
for nothing; and Mrs Banham took a clamorous turn herself, with as little
result. But to tell half the tale of that day’s failures and troubles, and
spillings, and breakings, and squabblings, and lamentations, would be too
much. Let it suffice to say that in the afternoon the biggest dish fell from
the topmost shelf of the dresser on a pile of unwashed crockery beneath, and
Jimmy was convicted of ringworm.

Now for some time it had been observed with alarm that Em was “going
comical” again; and when the big dish fell with a great crash, she flung back
in her seat and laughed and laughed, and would not stop. And presently the
laughs turned to shrieks, and her legs stuck out stiff before her, and she
slid off the chair on her back; her arms jerked like a string-jack’s, the
shrieks wore away hoarsely, and when Mag and her mother went to lift her she
bit at them like a dog.

If it were possible to suppose a doubt that all their troubles were caused
by witchcraft this would have removed it. It was plain, as soon as there was
time for consideration, that here must be the work of a confederation of
witches; unless, indeed, Cunning Murrell’s burst bottle had been ineffectual
against Mrs Martin—which it most manifestly had not been. It was long
known that there were, and always would be, three witches in Hadleigh, for
Murrell had himself proclaimed it. But of late years their identity had been
doubtful, till Mrs Martin had been proved to be one of them. Now, her own
power over the Banhams having been weakened by Murrell’s triumphant
operation, she had doubtless called in the aid of others, her niece, Dorrily
Thorn, being one of them without a doubt. For was she not actually seen with
her aunt, conspicuous in the forefront of a satanic orgy at night on Castle
Hill, by Jarge Crick, as honest a man as any in these parts? And Mag was even
more positive, for she had spent the night awake and weeping because this
same Dorrily Thorn had put a spell on young Sim Cloyse, drawing him away,
changing his temper and feelings, and attracting him to herself: a thing that
nothing but witchcraft could explain. She had seen the thing with her own
eyes, looking down the hill; and it was doubly cruel, too, for had not
Dorrily Thorn her cousin. Jack Martin? And at the thought poor Mag grew as
bitter as her mother—perhaps bitterer.

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