She thought she had seen Steve Lingood at his smithy door; but, if so, he
had gone in. Surely
he
was not afraid of her? But here was the letter,
and the pressing business now was to get into the quiet lane and tear it
open. For Jack wrote alternately to Dorrily and his mother, though he sent
each a letter in the package; and this was addressed to Dorrily herself. She
waited till she had passed Murrell’s cottage—for no particular reason,
for he was never visible at this time in the morning—and then broke the
seal. Her aunt’s letter she thrust into her pocket, and sat on a
stile—the stile the villagers had crossed in their pursuit of the blue
light—to read her own.
Hadleigh street was a large part of a mile long, so that when she had left
the post-office she had not perceived Roboshobery Dove in the distance. He
had seen her, however, and his keen sea-eyes had detected the letter in her
hand. He scented war news, and hurried. So it was that just as Dorrily had
mastered the few sentences that were all Jack could find to say. Dove stood
before her, telescope under arm.
“Good noos, my dear?” he asked. “I den’t come up till I see yow’d a-got to
the end. ‘Haps there be nothen in it but what aren’t for me to see, eh?
Hearts an’ darts, an’ love an’—why I rhymes with love myself, sink me,
though I bin a bacheldor all my life! Aren’t the
Phyllis
laid aboard
o’ nothen? Took no prizes?”
Dorrily took the letter with circumspection, and folded some lines back.
“He says he fare well, never better, an’—‘We been playin’ at bonfires
here, at two places nobody can’t spell an’ not many can say; bigger bonfires
than ever they had on Hadleigh common, with ten thousan’ barrels o’ tar at
one place an’ eighteen thousan’ at the other; not as I counted them, but
that’s what the captain says, an’ a midshipman told me. I went ashore with
two hundred others at the first place, an’ it was a flare; we burnt eight new
craft. The people cut off, though we weren’t let to touch them. Now we are to
sail to a place called Sweaborg, where they say the Ruskies have got men of
war in the harbour. An’ so now—’” Dorrily stopped suddenly, doubled the
letter up, and concluded shyly, “An’ that’s all. Master Dove.”
“O,” Roboshobery grunted, “that’s all, is it? Werry good all the same,
though I think I read summat about that bonfirin’ in the
Chronicle
las’ week; ‘special as
I
doan’t remember neither o’ the names too,
same as he. Well, my dear, den’t I say he was arl right? Den’t I say it?
Takin’ his fun like as in a play; and by this time I lay he’ll be a boardin’
o’ they men-o’-war like—like—like a cartload o’ skyrockets!” And
Roboshobery Dove made so vigorous a cut and guard with his telescope that it
shot out to full length, and gave the movement an undesigned
verisimilitude.
Dorrily sighed as she got down from the stile. “Ah,” she said, “‘tis a
long time to wait for him in danger. An’ we in trouble enough,” she added,
half to herself.
The old man looked curiously at her, and then stealthily over his shoulder
in the direction of Murrell’s cottage. “D’ye know,” he said, dropping his
voice as though he feared the cunning man might hear, “d’ ye know what
he
says?”
“Ay, we know it well enough, an’ bitter cruel it be for Cunnin’ Murr’ll to
say it.”
Roboshobery Dove nodded, winked, whistled softly, and rubbed a hand over
his left ear. “An’ yet,” he said, “he be woundly clever, sarten to say.”
They walked a few steps down the lane. “Question are,” Dove went on,
musingly, “who they be. We know there must be three—ollis.”
“Three what?”
“Three witches in Hadleigh—for ever.”
Dorrily curled her lip, “An’ who says that?” she asked, though indeed she
knew.
“Why,” Dove responded, his surprise bringing him half round on the axis of
his wooden leg, “he say so hisself; Cunnin’ Murr’ll; witches in Leigh for a
hunder’ year, three in Hadleigh for ever; an’ nine in Canewdon.”
Dorrily knew the saying well enough; but she said, “Then ‘tis pity Master
Murr’ll can’t find them all out, cunnin’ as they call him, ‘stead o’ puttin’
shame on a good woman.”
Roboshobery Dove walked on a little way, eyeing the girl furtively as he
went. Then he remarked, “But ‘tis sartin he be a woundly clever
man—woundly clever. Why, the way he do with warts fair beat a
man—looks at ‘em, an’ they go. An’ when Susan Jecks’s gown were stole
off t’ hedge he charmed the thief for to bring it back there quick an’
soon—anyhow three mornin’s arter. Yes, ‘tis sarten he be a woundly
clever man.”
Dorrily stopped and turned. “Why, Master Dove,” she said, “you don’t tell
me that
you
believe it, too?”
The surprise and pain in her face and voice afflicted the old sailor with
some confusion and a touch of shame. “Lord bless ye,” he answered, hastily!
“den’t say that. No, no. But it’s like that Master Murr’ll, so deadly clever
as he be, hev got hisself that mixed up with the devil that he doan’t ollis
know how he do stand. There aren’t never been no little thing—no little
ill-wishin’, nor nothin’ as might—as might—”
“Nothing at all, Master Dove,” Dorrily interrupted, “nothing but that
we’re lone women, an’ our man be away on the seas fightin’ an’ offerin’ his
life for such as mistrust us.”
Roboshobery stared for a moment, and then burst out, “Good gal! good gal!”
with three slaps of great weight on Dorrily’s shoulder. “Good gal! So he be,
an’ yow be a good mate for him. Don’t yow give two thotes to none of ‘em,
damn ‘em! I den’t mean more than make an inquiration. Why I fit the French
myself—so high! So high!”
For by Roboshobery’s system of ratiocination any misgiving as to Mrs
Martin was quieted by the reflection that her son was fighting his country’s
enemies; was set altogether at rest by the consideration that he himself had
once done the same thing; and was swept wholly out of existence by the fact
of his inferior stature at the time. So he stumped off cheerfully to take his
station at the castle loop-hole, and Dorrily made for home.
Her aunt was nowhere in the cottage nor in the garden, nor could Dorrily
see signs of her in any place visible therefrom, till she descended into the
small hoppit across the lane, beyond which lay the castle barn; and then she
saw that the door of the crazy old shed stood open.
In a flash she remembered the day when neighbours had found her aunt
there, when she was newly a widow. Dorrily hurried across the hoppit, and
there indeed stood her aunt in the barn, with her face turned upward,
steadily regarding the beam from which the man had hanged himself forty years
back.
“Aunt, here is a letter—from Jack.”
The woman made no sign till the words were repeated, and then she merely
turned dull eyes on her niece and said: “‘Twere here that Masterman hanged
himself, after leavin’ the black cottage an’ sayin’ he’d be back soon. D’you
ever hear him now?…I wonder if ‘tis arl peace with such?”
“Come away, aunt,” the girl cried, catching her by the arm. “See? This is
a letter from Jack. Come away and read it.”
Mrs Martin drew her hand down over forehead and eyes, and said: “A letter?
O ay, from my boy Jack, at the wars. ‘Twould seem he be still livin’,
then.”
She followed Dorrily quietly, and presently was spelling out her letter
with placid interest.
LEIGH STRAND—which was the older and more proper name
of the High Street—was an amazing lesson in mediaeval domestic
architecture. Its southern side was built on the seashore, and high water set
the back yards and outhouses awash. The conformation of the shore settled,
roughly, the contour of the street on this side, with violent modifications
occasioned by the fact that no two houses were of the same size, nor had a
common line of frontage; the contour of the north side was settled on the
principle of complete disagreement with that of the south. The houses pushed
their gables in every possible direction, an irresolute crowd; some interiors
were attained by perilous ascent of brick steps, worn and broken, others by a
precipitous flounder through a low doorway and down a doubtful stair. There
was no brick house from end to end, and rain-leaks, in roofs and elsewhere,
were stopped with daubings of pitch, patches of which diversified every red
roof in sight; for it would seem to be a principle that everything in Leigh,
no matter what, must be repaired, when repair was needed, exactly as if it
were a boat. The floor of the street was mere dirt—usually
mud—and the upper storeys overshadowed it all day. It was here, near
the little square where boats were beached, and where linen fluttered all day
from lines stretched over the water, that old Sim Cloyse’s house stood, with
a narrow alley at its side and a view of a tumbledown shed standing black
against the shining sea that lay beyond. It was a larger house than most
thereabout, heavily framed and quaintly gabled, and it was one of those the
entrance whereof involved descent.
The door opened briskly, and Cunning Murrell appeared in the opening, back
foremost. Old Sim Cloyse was showing him out with no waste of ceremony.
“Then you’ll make no terms, nor say nothen?” the little man asked.
“Nothen at arl,” Cloyse answered stolidly. He was a broad-faced,
small-eyed man, with an expression, if it could be called one, of wooden
passivity. He stood in his shirt sleeves, stout and clumsy, with one hand in
a trousers pocket and the other on the door-handle. “Nothen at arl. An’ as
for terms, there aren’t nothen to make terms about.”
Murrell retreated up one step, and said: “Your Sheppy pardner—”
“Pardner in Sheppy?”
“Ay, in Sheppy, though Essex born—”
“Got no pardner nowhere.” The door came a little closer.
“Your pardner,” Murrell shrilled on persistently, “hev left it with me to
deal by way o’ lawful spell an’ conjuration with arl that use him ill, or do
make unfair use of common property, hid or not; an’ arl do know my powers for
heal or for hurt, whether by—”
“Dunno what yow mean.” And the door was shut in Cunning Murrell’s
face.
He stood for a second, dumbfounded; and then turned up the street, with an
angry frown on his face.
He was defied and set at naught. To him it was amazing. In all his world
his word was gospel, and people trembled before him. Not a thief in Essex who
had stolen linen from a hedge or a watch from a drunken man’s pocket but
would hasten to restore his plunder at the threat of Murrell’s subtle
sciences; not a man or woman with a bewitched or bedevilled child, or cow, or
churn, or horse, but was certain of delivery at the hands of Cunning Murrell.
His own belief in his miraculous powers was sincere enough, despite the
tricks and dodges wherewith he sustained his credit. He was seventh son of a
seventh son, which was a sufficient foundation for his confidence, though the
acquiescence of his neighbours and the deference they gave him would have
been enough to generate it, with no other foundation whatever. In all his
previous meddlings among the affairs of the people about him he had never
known his threats of thaumaturgic punishment to fail. And now he was stolidly
set at naught, put aside, disregarded. His keenest hints, his astutest
questions fell helpless before the blockish impenetrability of old Sim
Cloyse. It was a new experience for Murrell, and an exasperating.
Nevertheless he might have felt in some degree comforted if he could have
seen Cloyse’s face the instant the door had closed between them. For it burst
into a figure of extreme and rather ludicrous alarm, though the emotion was
not in the least of a superstitious character.
As Cunning Murrell, however, spite of his subtle learning, was unable to
see through the door behind him, he went his way in moody anger, and emerged
from Leigh at the Strand end, where a path led up among the rank grasses of
the hills toward Hadleigh.
It was early indeed for Murrell to be abroad, and the day was not
propitious. He reached home with his temper no whit softened, and he found
his belated dinner of bacon and potatoes, cold, greasy, and uninviting. “Ann
Pett!” he called—for he always signalised bad temper by giving his
daughter her full name by marriage—“Ann Pett! I will not hev this
dinner. Rumball hev killed a sheep; go get me a sweetbread.”
Ann Pett came in from the back, wiping soapy hands on her apron. Then she
held out one, with the remark, “I han’t got but a ha’penny.”
Murrell’s jaw fell. “Nothen but a ha’penny!” he repeated. “Yow den’t tell
me ‘twere runnin’ so low.” His hand went by instinct to his pocket, though he
knew already that nothing was there. Then he flung his hat on the table, and
sat down before the greasy bacon. “Get about your washin’, woman,” he
commanded.
Ann Pett vanished, and her father set about his dinner with what appetite
he might. He was exposed to such pecuniary surprises by his habit of
disregarding money matters, for he was so much of an artist as to love his
trade for itself, and for the power and consideration it won him; so that he
would rather meddle and mystify for nothing than not meddle at all. Else he
might have been a man of some affluence, as affluence went in Hadleigh. But
now it was plain that a little money must be raised somehow, and Cunning
Murrell pushed aside his plate at last with a sigh for the philosopher’s
stone that was beyond the reach of his arts, and a hope for an early
client.
He pulled open a drawer, crammed with papers, every one crowded with his
tiny crabbed writing, many with straggling figures—horoscopes, sigils,
and figures of geomancy; for indeed he worked by all the rules of art as much
as by his native acuteness, and here and in his great chest of books and
notes was represented the outcome of many years of conscientious study. On
some of those papers which were illuminated by no figures, conjurations and
prayers were written, all conceived in the most devout spirit of white magic,
and all calling down divine wrath on the devil and his agents and all their
doings, downsittings and uprisings; and on others were recorded all and any
the most commonplace particulars wherewith he might have become acquainted,
of the circumstances, family relations, and matters of private life of every
sort, of anybody whatsoever. For all these things there was no order, no
index—nothing but their native confusion. Nevertheless it was a matter
of habit or instinct with Murrell to put his hand on the note he needed with
scarce a second’s groping, whether in the great chest or in any of the
brimming boxes and drawers in the place.