“‘Tis—‘tis—O—‘tisn’t Jack—is’t?” she gasped. “Tell
me—Master Dove—is’t news?”
Dove only stared, pale and helpless. Lingood struggled with something
gripping at his throat, and said: “There—there’s—been some
fightin’.”
The girl could say nothing, but her eyes were wide and her cheeks
pale.
“There’s—been fightin’,” Lingood struggled on, “an’ ‘tis
thote—he may be one o’ the wounded.”
His face betrayed the kindly lie, and Dorrily looked mazedly at Dove.
His
face there was no mistaking. A little murmur came from the girl’s
throat, where something struggled, like a sob. She moved her lips, but there
was no sound, and horror grew over her face. She moved her lips again, and
Lingood, knowing what she would ask, nodded sorrowfully, and bowed his
head.
For a moment she seemed like to fall. None but himself ever knew how
well-nigh irresistible was Lingood’s impulse to catch her in his arms, though
none could less readily have explained the honourable restraint that he put
on himself. He clenched his hands and dropped them by his side, and it was
Roboshobery Dove that took her and passed his great knotted hand gently over
her hair and her cheek. “Poor gal! poor gal!” said Roboshobery Dove. And
tears ran unrestrained over the old man’s face.
But Dorrily’s weakness did not endure; she had duties, and there was no
leisure for swooning. She must go to Jack’s mother. She stood, and put Dove’s
hand quietly back from her face, turned, and walked to the door. She faltered
and stopped at the threshold with the thought of the poor broken mind within,
and with the first glimmering of a sense of the task that lay before her.
Then she lifted the latch and went in.
Dove and Lingood looked at each other, pale and blank. What should they do
now? What else could be done? To stay were useless, or even indecent; to run
away from the women in grief seemed even worse. They would be
sick—fainting—dying perhaps.
“We ote to a-brote a drop o’ brandy,” said Roboshobery Dove.
He looked across the meadow beyond the fence, and saw something that gave
him inspiration. It was a young woman in a print gown and a white sun-bonnet,
carrying a baby. He had seen her of late working in the hayfields, and he had
no doubt that she had come from the meadow beyond to take her mid-day rest
and food alone, and to suckle her child. He had seen her do it before; and he
judged—indeed, he had heard—the reason that made her remove
herself and her child from the notice of her fellow-workers. He saw no
present difficulty in that reason, but rather an opportunity; for this girl,
in some degree cast out herself, might in fellow-feeling be ready to give aid
and comfort to afflicted women whom the rest shunned. Dove went out at the
gate and spoke to her.
“My gal,” he said, “will yow come an’ do a kindness to two women in deadly
trouble?”
Dorcas Brooker looked up at him, nodded toward the cottage, and said:
“There?”
“Ay, there. Their man be lost—killed in the wars; an’ they be
dolourin’ at the news just brote. ‘Twants a woman to tend ‘em. God bless ‘ee,
my gal, if yow go, an’ I’ll see yow doan’t lose wages. Come to me for
‘em—Roboshobery Dove, by the four-wont way.”
She looked at her child, and then at the cottage. “Lost their man, d’ye
say? ‘Tis young Mart’n, as I’ve heard. An’ I know what be said of ‘em.”
“Hev yow never heard ill things said of others than they?”
“Ay, that I hev, Master Dove,” the girl answered sadly. “I ben’t afeared,
an’ if they want my help they shall hev it; though I doubt.”
Dove gave her the newspaper. “The news be in there,” he said, “word for
word. Hide it about ye, an’ let see if yow think well. An’ if anythin’ be
needed send or come to me or Master Lingood here.”
Dorcas Brooker went through the gate, listened for a moment at the door,
and knocked. There was no answer. Irresolute, she looked back at Dove. He
nodded vehemently and motioned her to enter; and she lifted the latch and
went in, as Dorrily had done.
“‘Tis arl to be done,” said Dove; and the two men turned their steps
toward the village. Neither spoke much on the way, but Lingood was immersed
in doubts and perplexities that the other guessed nothing of.
INSIGNIFICANT to the rest of the world, in Hadleigh this was
the greatest piece of news yet come from the war. Men stayed their work to
consider it, and women talked of it over fences. The feeling in the matter
was diverse. Some were sorry—all professed to be—for Jack Martin,
who was dead and past pity; nobody ventured openly to express sympathy with
his mother but Roboshobery Dove and Steve Lingood—perhaps because in
their cases there was no woman to reproach either of them for it. For it was
a fact that the women were, in general, as bitter as ever, or bitterer. It
may have been partly that a secret and sneaking misgiving as to their
treatment of Mrs Martin and Dorrily Thorn in the past stimulated them now to
keep each other in countenance by a sharper display of severity. Be that as
it might, the women wasted no commiseration on the witches at the black
cottage. Mrs Banham, in fact, did not conceal an exultation that made
Roboshobery Dove shudder. Here was a judgment, she said, on the witch that
had afflicted her children: her own child was taken at a stroke. If more
proof had been needed of Mrs Martin’s guilt, here it was. Would such a blow
have fallen so pat to time on an innocent woman? And the pious women of
Hadleigh could not believe that it would.
Roboshobery Dove viewed this general hostility with dismay. He had not
ventured to intrude on the bereaved women, but he knew that Dorcas Brooker
had been with them, and that she had returned to help in household duties
while Dorrily tended her aunt. So much being provided for, he set himself to
consider what else might be done.
He was unpractised in excogitation, so that it cost him some hours of
thought to arrive at the conclusion that any attempt to influence the feeling
of the village toward Mrs Martin must be made through Cunning Murrell. He was
all unaware that Steve Lingood had already come to the same opinion, and had
failed miserably in an attempt to apply it, or he might have been deterred
from the course he now resolved on; which was to put aside his wonted awe of
the cunning man and make intercession.
Cunning Murrell came over the stile and into the lane in the early dark of
that evening, with an extra large and heavy frail over his back—just
such a frail as the Banhams had seen him carrying the night before. Now, the
reason of his irritation on that occasion, and the reason of his stealth on
this, was that the frail enveloped nothing but a tub of white brandy. It was
a laborious and a gradual task for so puny a man, this bringing up the hill
of forty such tubs, one at a time, with several journeys a night; though, of
course, a strong carrier in the old days was wont to carry two at once. He
had brought up more than thirty already, and stowed them neatly in his
cottage; and his load had never been observed except that once. Forty were
all he designed to bring. For with all his subtlety Cunning Murrell was
resolved to deal strict justice to everybody—except perhaps the Queen,
whom he had never thought of as a party to the transaction. There were a
hundred tubs, and Golden Adams had agreed with Cloyse for half profits, after
expenses had been paid. Now Cloyse wished to take the lot, and had attempted
to bribe Murrell to help him. The preliminary fee he had accepted; why not,
since it was offered unconditionally? The promised fee he feared Cloyse would
never pay, when he discovered what had been done. For, since Cloyse was
reluctant to divide the money, Murrell was dividing the goods. Twenty tubs,
he had decided, should be allowed Cloyse to pay expense; half of the
remaining eighty was forty, and these he had set about bringing away for
Golden Adams’s share—and his own. As the task proceeded and the tale of
tubs disposed about the cottage grew larger, Murrell was conscious of a
certain uneasiness, of an unfamiliar sort; for, with all his secret arts, he
saw no way of escaping gaol if by any accident the hoard should be
discovered. That would mean ruin—the one form of ruin that could
terrify him. Money was useful, but he wanted no more of it than sufficed for
present needs. His fame and dignity were everything. He was known and
deferred to throughout his world—that is to say in all the farms and
cottages of Essex and in many of those of Kent; and his curious distinction
and power had endured a lifetime. Through all he had maintained the form of
despising mere gain, and had put himself wholly above sordid matters of trade
and bargain. And now, to be hustled off to Chelmsford gaol for dealing in
smuggled brandy would be a disgrace beyond conception, and the end of all his
authority. The apprehension oppressed him hourly, and he began to doubt his
wisdom in meddling so far in the affair, and to suspect himself of yielding
to an unworthy temptation. He was soiling his hands with a doubtful business,
he feared, and he even began at last to experience a faint misgiving that
perhaps something was due to the Queen in the matter after all. No doubt all
these embarrassments would vanish once the danger was over and the tubs
converted into money; but now the tubs were in his house, and the danger was
present; and even Cunning Murrell could not always discriminate between the
prickings of conscience and a sense of personal risk. In fine, for once
Cunning Murrell was uneasy and a trifle timid.
He came over the stile, and was come some few yards up the lane when he
was conscious, first, of the slow thump of Roboshobery Dove’s wooden leg, and
then of the man himself, scarce twenty yards away, and almost at Murrell’s
own door. Murrell hesitated, but the old sailor had seen him, and came toward
him with much respect and pulling of the forelock.
“Good evenin’, Master Murr’ll, sir—good evenin’,” said Roboshobery
deferentially; for he was resolved that if politeness would conciliate the
wise man he should have it. Wherefore also he swung round on his peg and made
a snatch at the load on Murrell’s back. “‘Tis summat heavy yow hev there,
Master Murr’ll, sir,” he said. “Let me take a lift of it.”
Murrell turned and swung it away with such suddenness as almost to lose
his balance. “No, no,” he said hastily, “‘tis right as it be, Master
Dove.”
But Roboshobery Dove was bent on civility.
“Do ‘ee, Master Murr’ll,” he said, “do ‘ee let me take a lift
o’t—yow be tired.” And he followed the bulging frail with outstretched
arms, while Murrell, mightily alarmed, turned and turned, so that they
gyrated one about the other.
“Let be, I tell ‘ee!” cried Murrell, now angry as well as frightened; for
Dove had touched the burden once, and might have felt the tub. “I’m nigh home
now, an’ I want no help.”
Dove dropped his arms, fearing he had offended. “I beg your pardon, Master
Murrell,” he said humbly. “I den’t guess yow wanted it kep’ private. Though I
should ha’ guessed, yow bein’ true keeper o’ so many folks’ secrets.”
“‘Tis arl right, an’ no secret,” Murrell replied, not greatly reassured by
the terms the other used. “‘Tis but something I be feared o’ breakin’.” And
he hastened to his door, Dove following, all unconscious of the agitation he
was causing.
For Murrell remembered the old sailor’s frequentings of the castle ruins
with the telescope, and, apprehensive already, began to wonder if he had
discovered anything. At the door he turned at bay, and asked, sharply:
“Anything yow’re wantin’ o’ me. Master Dove?”
“Well, yes,” Dove answered. “I was thinkin’ o’ gettin’ yow to ‘tend to a
little thing; for the good o’ the village, so to putt it.”
“Stay there then a minute.” Murrell went in at the door and shut it behind
him. Presently he opened it again, and let Dove in.
Roboshobery had never been in the room before, and now he stared about him
mightily. Murrell glanced hastily round, fearful that some tub—for
there were a dozen in that very room—might not be effectually
concealed; and then, with something of his common authority, he said: “Sit
yow down, Master Dove, an’ open your business.”
“‘Tis well knowed, Master Murr’ll, sir,” Roboshobery began, when the shiny
hat was put away under his chair; “‘tis well knowed as there be three witches
in Hadleigh—ollis.”
Cunning Murrell was relieved; it seemed that Dove was not come to persist
in sly jokes about those tubs, after all. So he answered, “Ay, ‘tis so.”
“Yow hev said so yourself, Master Murr’ll.”
“Yes, I hev.”
“An’ ‘tis no doubt they do ill in the village.”
“No doubt at arl.”
“There be a many evil things they do, doubtless,” Roboshobery went on; for
he had resolved to be very artful. “Doubtless many a thing as yow’d know,
Master Murr’ll, sir, an’ even oathers ‘ud know, but as I wouldn’t hear of
myself; ‘cause when I’m not in my garden, I stay much up at the Castle
pickin’ up little bits o’ noos of a different sort.” And he winked and nodded
genially, for he felt that he was establishing friendly and confidential
terms with the wise man.
Now what did
that
mean? Was it a hint? Murrell’s doubts
revived.
“Consekence it do seem to me that summat should be done,” Roboshobery went
on. “An’ there can be no doubt but what yow be the onny man in this warld
equal to the job. Lord, Master Murr’ll, how the devil must tremble afore
yow!”
There was a cautious complacence in Murrell’s face, but he said
nothing.
“An’ I hoad a wager he do get to arl sort o’ tricks to spile your charms
and oather business performances. Ay, that I lay.”
“I be the devil’s master, Master Dove,” said Murrell, “an’ tricks of his
go for nothen with me.”
“Ay, sarten to say. ‘Tis a mighty poor chance he stand with yow, Master
Murr’ll, as be well knowed. But he do delude oathers, I count.”