THE WITCH.
It was a bright Autumn morning. A dry wind had been blowing all night
through the shocks, and already some of the farmers had begun to carry
to their barns the sheaves which had stood hopelessly dripping the day
before. Ere Richard reached the yard, he saw, over the top of the wall,
the first load of wheat-sheaves from the harvest-field, standing at the
door of the barn, and high-uplifted thereon the figure of Faithful
Stopchase, one of the men, a well-known frequenter of puritan assemblies
all the country round, who was holding forth, and that with much
freedom, in tones that sounded very like vituperation, if not
malediction, against some one invisible. He soon found that the object
of his wrath was a certain Welshwoman, named Rees, by her neighbours
considered objectionable on the ground of witchcraft, against whom this
much could with truth be urged, that she was so far from thinking it
disreputable, that she took no pains to repudiate the imputation of it.
Her dress, had it been judged by eyes of our day, would have been
against her, but it was only old-fashioned, not even antiquated: common
in Queen Elizabeth's time, it lingered still in remote country places--a
gown of dark stuff, made with a long waist and short skirt over a huge
farthingale; a ruff which stuck up and out, high and far, from her
throat; and a conical Welsh hat invading the heavens. Stopchase, having
descried her in the yard, had taken the opportunity of breaking out upon
her in language as far removed from that of conventional politeness as
his puritanical principles would permit. Doubtless he considered it a
rebuking of Satan, but forgot that, although one of the godly, he could
hardly on that ground lay claim to larger privilege in the use of bad
language than the archangel Michael. For the old woman, although too
prudent to reply, she scorned to flee, and stood regarding him fixedly.
Richard sought to interfere and check the torrent of abuse, but it had
already gathered so much head, that the man seemed even unaware of his
attempt. Presently, however, he began to quail in the midst of his
storming. The green eyes of the old woman, fixed upon him, seemed to be
slowly fascinating him. At length, in the very midst of a volley of
scriptural epithets, he fell suddenly silent, turned from her, and, with
the fork on which he had been leaning, began to pitch the sheaves into
the barn. The moment he turned his back, Goody Rees turned hers, and
walked slowly away.
She had scarcely reached the yard gate, however, before the cow-boy, a
delighted spectator and auditor of the affair, had loosed the fierce
watch-dog, which flew after her. Fortunately Richard saw what took
place, but the animal, which was generally chained up, did not heed his
recall, and the poor woman had already felt his teeth, when Richard got
him by the throat. She looked pale and frightened, but kept her
composure wonderfully, and when Richard, who was prejudiced in her
favour from having once heard Dorothy speak friendlily to her, expressed
his great annoyance that she should have been so insulted on his
father's premises, received his apologies with dignity and good faith.
He dragged the dog back, rechained him, and was in the act of
administering sound and righteous chastisement to the cow-boy, when
Stopchase staggered, tumbled off the cart, and falling upon his head,
lay motionless. Richard hurried to him, and finding his neck twisted and
his head bent to one side, concluded he was killed. The woman who had
accompanied him from the field stood for a moment uttering loud cries,
then, suddenly bethinking herself, sped after the witch. Richard was
soon satisfied he could do nothing for him.
Presently the woman came running back, followed at a more leisurely pace
by Goody Rees, whose countenance was grave, and, even to the twitch
about her mouth, inscrutable. She walked up to where the man lay, looked
at him for a moment or two as if considering his case, then sat down on
the ground beside him, and requested Richard to move him so that his
head should lie on her lap. This done, she laid hold of it, with a hand
on each ear, and pulled at his neck, at the same time turning his head
in the right direction. There came a snap, and the neck was straight.
She then began to stroke it with gentle yet firm hand. In a few moments
he began to breathe. As soon as she saw his chest move, she called for a
wisp of hay, and having shaped it a little, drew herself from under his
head, substituting the hay. Then rising without a word she walked from
the yard. Stopchase lay for a while, gradually coming to himself, then
scrambled all at once to his feet, and staggered to his pitchfork, which
lay where it had fallen. 'It is of the mercy of the Lord that I fell not
upon the prongs of the pitchfork,' he said, as he slowly stooped and
lifted it. He had no notion that he had lain more than a few seconds;
and of the return of Goody Rees and her ministrations he knew nothing;
while such an awe of herself and her influences had she left behind her,
that neither the woman nor the cow-boy ventured to allude to her, and
even Richard, influenced partly, no doubt, by late reading, was more
inclined to think than speak about her. For the man himself, little
knowing how close death had come to him, but inwardly reproached because
of his passionate outbreak, he firmly believed that he had had a narrow
escape from the net of the great fowler, whose decoy the old woman was,
commissioned not only to cause his bodily death, but to work in him
first such a frame of mind as should render his soul the lawful prey of
the enemy.