“I hope Mrs Mart’n ben’t very bad?”
“Yes, she be,” Dorrily answered sorrowfully, “so bad that she frightens
me.”
“‘Tis pity,” Sim pursued, with elaborate sympathy. “An’ folk ben’t very
kind to her, I hear tell.”
“O they be cruel—bitter cruel,” Dorrily exclaimed passionately.
“They say ill things of her even now.”
“Ay—that she be a witch, I do hear. ‘Tis arl wrong, doubtless, but
they do say’t. Ben’t yow afeard they might hurt her some day—try to
swim her, or what not?”
“I’ve thote it, an’ so has she, but there’s been no offer to do such a
thing yet. ‘Twould be too wicked cruel. Master Cloyse, wouldn’t it? You don’t
think they’d do it, do you?”
Young Sim looked at the cottage roof, with a sidelong peep at the girl’s
urgent face. “I
hev
heared talk o’ such things, down at Leigh,” he
said, “an’ they be a rough lot, some on ‘em. But there—‘haps ‘tis no
more than talk.”
Plainly Dorrily was distressed anew. Young Sim paused thoughtfully for a
moment or two, and then said: “I’m afeared she won’t get no pension.”
“But she ought,” the girl protested, with a sinking at the heart. “We’re
goin’ to ask, an’ she ought to have it.”
He shook his head sagely. “No,” he said, “there aren’t no chance o’ that
now. None ever do, now; too many bein’ killed. They do it in peace time arl
right, so as to ‘tice the men, but when they’ve got ‘em, an’ gettin’ ‘em
killed too quick, they can’t afford it. ‘Twould be a disappointment for you
to build on that, an’ I woo’n’t like yow to be disappointed.”
Dorrily’s distress was aggravated. The chief officer had been doubtful and
more than doubtful, and this disinterested corroboration seemed to settle it.
Truly the prospect was grievous.
Young Sim Cloyse looked again at the cottage roof, meditatively. “‘Tis
gettin’ a very oad place,” he remarked presently, as though to himself. “An’
it don’t pay, that’s sarten.”
Dorrily heard, and looked up.
“Still,” Sim pursued, with the same abstraction, “‘twould seem hard to
pull it down.”
“Pull down the cottage, Master Cloyse?” Dorrily asked. “You don’t think o’
that, do you?”
“O!” ejaculated young Sim, as though suddenly recalled to himself. “I were
onny just a-thinkin’.
I
don’t want to pull ‘t down—no, not me.
But my father, he be that obs’nit with a thing like that, yow can’t think.
”Tis no good to me,’ sez he, ‘at that rent, an’ repairs a-doin’. I could put
up a noo place in brick, and make double on’t!’”
“O, Master Cloyse,” the girl pleaded, “we shouldn’t like to be turned
out!”
“That’s what I said. ”Twould be mighty hard,’ sez I, ‘to turn ‘em out,
with nowhere to go.’ ‘Can’t help that,’ sez my father. ‘They bin there a long
time,’ sez I, ‘an’ got used to it.’ ‘Time they had a change, then,’ sez he.
‘Then,’ sez I, ‘they can’t get no other place so cheap.’ ‘No,’ sez he, ‘they
can’t, an’ that’s proof I ben’t makin’ enough out o’ the place.’ He’s a keen
‘un, is my father. ‘But then,’ sez I,’ they can’t get no other place at arl,
‘cause nobody’ll have ‘em, consekens o’ bein’ carled witches,’ I sez. ‘Haps
not,’ sez he, ‘but that’s oather folks’ fault, not mine.’ An’ ‘twere no
manner o’ use to argufy with him.”
Dorrily broke down altogether. “O, Master Cloyse, ‘tis cruel, cruel to be
so with a poor woman!” And her face went down into her hands again.
Instantly young Sim Cloyse was on the seat beside her. “‘Tis no need to
take on so,” he said, with all the tenderness his voice could summon, putting
a hand on her shoulder. “Yow can make arl right, easy enough.”
There was a murmur between Dorrily’s sobs, and young Sim went on. “‘Tis
arl the easiest thing out. Yow can hev better than fower pensions, an’ any
house you choose in Leigh or Hadleigh, or a noo ‘un built; an’ nobody durst
lay a finger on your aunt, witch or not. T’oather is arl over now, as yow
doan’t need to be told, an’ ‘tis well to look to future.”
Dorrily shrank, and let her hands fall from her tear-stained face.
“Come,” said young Sim Cloyse, “I’ll say’t out. Will yow hev me? Here I
be, ready, willin’ an’ lovin’. Say yow’ll hev me, an’ arl your troubles be
gone—arl Mrs Martin’s troubles wiped away for the rest of her
time.”
She was at the end of the seat now, pale of face and wild of eye. “O,
Master Cloyse!” she cried, “how can ‘ee? To talk o’ such things now! Ha’ ye
no mercy?”
“Mercy?” young Sim repeated, with astonishment—for, indeed, he had
used his finest tact. “Mercy? Why, ‘tis arl mercy, an’ affection’s offerin’,
an’ sich! Just think! Yow can save your aunt from starvin’ an’ bein’ turned
out o’ doors without a roof, an’ bein’ swum for a witch—an’ ‘haps
drownded if she ben’t one—an’ make a lady o’ yourself for life, just by
sayin’ ‘yes’ to me, as is so woundly fond o’ ye. Why ‘tis arl mercy! ‘Tis yow
that would hev no mercy on her if yow
den’t
say ‘yes.’ But that ye
will o’ course—yow be too good a gal to sarve her bad, I know. Come
now, the sooner yow say’t the sooner the troubles be done with.”
“O, Master Cloyse, I can’t say it! I can’t say’t! I can’t—not now,
at any rate.” Her face was hidden again, almost at her knees. “O, let me
think, Master Cloyse—let me think of it alone! I be in such cruel
trouble, Master Cloyse—such deadly cruel trouble! An’ my head be so
bad! Leave me alone, Master Cloyse, do ‘ee—onny to think, Master
Cloyse, for a day or two!”
To young Sim Cloyse this seemed useless delay, since the issue was so
simple, and since there remained but one reasonable course for any girl not a
fool. Still he supposed that some allowance must be made for the natural
eccentricity of women, and so, since he was prepared with no more
blandishments, he presently sheered off, with a promise to return in a day or
two. It was but the delay of womanish vanity, he assured himself, and the
desire not to make her consent seem too cheap. It was unbusiness-like,
perhaps, but he could afford to overlook that, since the result was so
certain. And so young Sim Cloyse went over the foot-hills and marshes in the
wake of the vanished chief officer, whistling aloud, and now and again
winking and grinning self-congratulation on his uncommon cleverness and
knowledge of human nature.
As for Dorrily, she was face to face with a means of ending her troubles
that affrighted her more than the troubles themselves; and her affliction was
the greater inasmuch as it seemed that her duty and gratitude to Jack’s
mother demanded the sacrifice. Her detestation of young Sim Cloyse she could
never overcome; but it were a selfishness to let her inclinations govern her.
For herself alone it would be better far to die; but there in the cottage was
the poor broken-witted woman who had reared her—Jack’s mother; and for
her sake was there an alternative? Ere long tears failed Dorrily wholly, and
a blank, almost calm, anguish filled her soul and dulled her faculties. Soon
after midday a perfunctory boy dawdled and divagated down the lane from the
post-office, and at last climbed the bank and left a letter. It was Jack’s
last writing, finished three days before he went ashore for the last
time.
THAT night Dorrily slept, in the sheer stupor of weariness;
how long she could not guess. In the black of the night she was awakened by
her aunt, who had crept close to her side, talking fast, and again chuckling
horribly.
“Be a witch, Dorry, like me!” she was saying. “‘Tis a fine thing—a
dogged fine thing to be a witch, I tell ‘ee!”
She held the girl fiercely, and her vehemence was dreadful.
“Get to sleep, auntie dear,” Dorrily said, “you be dreamin’!”
“No, Dorry gal, ‘tis no dreamin’. ‘Tis real an’ fine. I be a witch, I tell
‘ee!”
“There—there—rest you, deary, do,” Dorrily pleaded. “You be a
good woman, sad put on an’ afflicted, but nothen wicked, I know!”
“I tell ‘ee I be a witch, Dorry Thorn! Else why do I see ‘em every night?
See ‘em an’ talk to ‘em every night, John Martin an’ Reuben Thorn your
father? Ay, an’ my boy John, too, that they tell me be dead!”
Dorrily trembled as she fondled the fevered head, and kissed the hot
cheek.
“I see my man that I’ve lost for years, an’ he kisses me an’ lies at my
side! He be just gone while I’m talkin’—but he’ll come back, an’ soon!
An’, Dorry, I hev letters—letters at daytime. There was one to-day,
from my boy John at the wars. ‘Tis double joy—the joy o’ letters from
the absent by day, an’ by night they be absent no more. Be a witch like me,
Dorry, an’ see ‘em! Death an’ life mean nothen if you be a witch! My boy John
be at the wars, fightin’ as a man should, an’ here at night to kiss his
mother! Be a witch, Dorry, an’ John’ll kiss ‘ee! Be a witch like me, with
Queen’s men to guard ye from the folk! Come! Come you to Castle Hill, where
arl the witches be at night!”
She sprang up and pulled at Dorrily’s arm, and so, raving and urging, made
to leave the cottage. So she struggled and chattered for a while, till of a
sudden she fell exhausted, and suffered herself to be put quietly into bed
again, where she slept soundly. And in the morning she was quiet still, and,
it would seem, even placidly happy. Dorrily left her to rest the early hours
in bed, and rose, hollow-eyed, to face the day.
Would young Sim Cloyse come again to-day? She half expected it. Weary and
distraught, she was wholly incapable of giving his offer anything like
definite consideration; but unconsciously at the back of her mind the resolve
was growing up to entreat a little respite, to pray at least for a little
more time, if only in regard to common decency and the memory of the dead;
with a feeling that at the end of all there could be nothing but the piteous,
inevitable surrender, the sacrifice she must make for the sake of Jack’s
mother.
But that day young Sim Cloyse was made suddenly busy with other things.
For in the night a note, in Cunning Murrell’s crabbed little writing, had
been pushed under old Sim Cloyse’s door. It told that respectable tradesman
that his “property” lay now wholly at his disposal, and might be removed
where he pleased and when he chose; with a hint that the next would be the
last wholly moonless night of the month. So that the morning found both young
Sim and old Sim busy and ambulant in the villages a little way in from the
shore, enlisting and giving appointment to a gang of men who were willing to
sacrifice a night’s rest, carry tubs without unnecessary noise, and hold
their tongues about it, for very excellent pay and plenty of drink at the end
of the job. And Dorrily was left unmolested.
Roboshobery Dove was much exercised in mind, being very willing, and
indeed anxious, to find how they fared at the black cottage, but being in
just as much restrained by a reluctance to intrude, a reluctance he would
never have felt in the case of any male friend whom he might have helped.
Lingood, too, was under a similar constraint, with an added element which
gave his position a delicacy only palpable to his instinct, and never clear
or tangible in his thoughts. Though he began to feel that plain duty demanded
an inquiry or approach of some sort. Dorcas Brooker had done what she could,
and Dorrily had been grateful to her; but she would not keep her long. So
this morning Roboshobery Dove made fidgety reconnaisances about the cottage,
lurking behind fences and hedges and in ditches—a wooden leg is an
embarrassment in all lurkings about ditches—and looking from afar
through his telescope. At last, as he took one such peep, Dorrily came out,
and turned her face full toward him. It was so pale, so drawn, so black and
haggard about the eyes, so piteously broken-spirited in expression, that the
old man’s arms dropped to his sides, and he recoiled as if from a blow
between the eyes. For a moment he stood, staring at the distant cottage, in
whose garden he could see now only a patch of print gown where Dorrily stood,
and then he shut the telescope and hurried off to Lingood’s forge.
A change in the girl he had looked for, naturally; but this was so great
that it seemed to him beyond what could be occasioned by the grief of
bereavement, however sharp. He could make no better guess than to suppose
some sort of privation. “Steve,” he said, “she be wasted to a ghost. ‘Tis
like as not they’re starvin’.”
Steve Lingood spent no more time in fancies. He dropped his hammer and
washed himself, and in ten minutes he was climbing the bank to the cottage,
alone; while Roboshobery awaited him afar off.
Dorrily Thorn, put in fear by the sound of a man’s footstep, first looked
from the window, and then met Lingood at the door. He, too, was shocked to
see the girl so careworn; but he went abruptly to the business in hand.
“If I could ha’ sent a woman,” he said, “I would. But I couldn’t, an’ ‘tis
no time for standin’ off. You be in sad trouble—‘haps worse than I
guess—an’ I’m here to help ‘ee, to my last kick, or my last penny, as’t
may be. Now I know you’re in some oather trouble, beside what I know of. Tell
me.”
He spoke sharply, in the manner of a man who commands and insists, and the
fact gave Dorrily a curious relief, such as no gentle expressions of
condolence could have caused; for the mere sound of command seemed to lift a
little the weight of doubt and responsibility that was beyond her strength.
She felt less embarrassment in telling her troubles to Lingood than might be
supposed, because she had always looked on him as something of an elderly
man. True, he was but twenty-eight, and she was twenty; but her habit of mind
dated from the time when she was thirteen and he was twenty-one, big and
tall, and, in her childish eyes, a man within view of middle age.
“Tell me,” demanded Steve Lingood.
She closed the door behind her and came out into the garden, in a part
removed from the open bedroom window. “She’s upstairs,” she explained, “and
talking near may disturb her.”
“Tell me,” the smith repeated. “Is’t money?”