THE FARTHER ROAD
WHAT were Gervaise’s and Lantern’s adventures they would hear when
they reached The Moon. Their own, throughout this day, led them to no
harm. They had been for long in the hand of Ill Fortune; it seemed now
that she slept and her grasp relaxed. The first outward happening came
quickly, ere the sun was an hour high. They were crossing a heath-like,
shelterless expanse, when a sudden _Hilloa!_ halted them. Two men were
rapidly approaching over the heath.
“If we can, we will evade them,” said Aderhold. “If we cannot and they
would keep us by force—?”
“They are not wrestlers nor giants,” answered Joan. “If they have no
weapon, mayhap we can give them as good as they send—”
The two ran up, looked at them suspiciously. “What do you here? Who are
you?”
“Nay, who are _you_?” said Aderhold. “We are lookers for a reward.”
The opposing pairs stood and eyed each other. The newcomers were two
lank and unhealthy-looking, plainly dressed, town-appearing young men.
“Fie!” said one. “We also search, but not for love of lucre and silver
pounds in purses! We would serve God by stamping his foes into dust!”
“Which way have you looked?”
The more garrulous of the two swept his arm around. “Unless the Prince
of the Power of the Air hath held them invisible to the eyes of the
Elect, they are not in that direction nor in that! My companion, Only
Truth Turner, and I were about to seek in the quarter to which I see
you are addressed. Let us, then, seek for a while in company. And what,
friends, may be your names?”
“I am Relative Truth Allen, otherwise known as Giles Allen, and this is
my brother, Be-ye-kind-to-one-Another.—Four together, is it not so?
Three fierce, foreign-looking men, and a short, dark woman.”
“We didn’t,” said Only Truth, “hear them described. But there will
assuredly be some devil’s mark whereby to know them.”
They were now moving together over the heath. Each of the four had a
stout stick, broken at some time in their several journeyings. With
theirs the two townsmen now and again beat some clump of furze or
thorn. Once a hare rushed forth and away, and once a lark spread its
wings and soaring vanished into the blue. “Do you think,” said the
speaker, whose name was Wrath Diverted, “do you think that that hare
and bird might have been—? I understand that in the trial the Hawthorn
witches all avowed that they became bird or beast at will.”
Aderhold followed the lark with his eyes. “I have seen human beings
who reminded me of bird or beast, and I have seen bird and beast who
reminded me of human beings. If that one up yonder is a witch, she hath
strength of wing!”
The lark disappeared; the hare came not back. “Even so,” said Only
Truth, “there would be two left. But I hold that those were natural
creatures.”
They walked through the bright morning, over the high bare world. “We
came out,” said Wrath Diverted, “to see my brother Another-Pays-my-Debt
who dwells at Win-Grace Farm. Yesterday came news of the loosing of
Beelzebub. Whereupon many made themselves into bands and went forth
even as hunters, and at dawn this morning Only Truth and I also.”
“Let us keep our faces seaward,” said Aderhold. “You have looked that
way and we have looked this.”
“Good,” answered Wrath Diverted; “but we should examine that dip in the
earth I see yonder.”
They searched the hollow and found naught to the purpose, which done,
they went briskly on, but kept a constant watch to right and left.
“This heath,” said Wrath Diverted, “will presently fall to tilled lands
with roads and dwellings, byways and hedges. Then there will be places
to search, but here there is naught—Were you at the trial of the
troublers of Israel?”
He spoke to Joan. “No,” she answered. “We heard of it. Everybody heard
of it.”
“For my part,” said Only Truth, “I cannot conceive how a man when he
hath choice of masters should choose so scurvy an one! Here is a King
whom you may serve who, if in this world He seemeth at times neglectful
of his servants and niggardly in comforts and rewards, yet, when you
have come to the next world which is his true city and court, you have
his sign manual for it that you will have honours and titles and riches
without end! Moreover, your body will be happy and comforted, and you
will not again be sorrowful or tried, nor ever have to work, but only
stand and praise.—Not so with that other man, who will not kneel here
nor wear this Master’s livery! Comes King Satan and claps him, ‘You are
mine!’ Then mayhap he is led to a dance of unlawful and honey-sweet
pleasures, or is given a heap of gold, or is dressed in a purple mantle
and given a sceptre to hold, or is made drunk with worthless knowledge!
But it is all a show and turneth to gall and wormwood. For incontinent
he dieth. Nay, oftenest there is not in his hire the honey-sweet nor
the gold and purple! For the other King’s servant even here triumpheth,
and Satan’s man dieth a lazar and poor, even if he be not hanged, torn
asunder, broken on the wheel, or burned. Then goeth the wicked wretch
to his Master’s capital and court, even as the good man goeth to his.
But the one servant lifteth his feet in haste from burning marl and
findeth no cool floor to set them on. He swalloweth smoke and flames
and findeth no water in all hell. His flesh blackeneth to a crisp, but
is never burned senseless. A million years pass, and not one second but
he hath felt first pain and terror. Eternity, eternity! and never will
his anguish lessen. He looketh about him and seeth those for whom he
had affection—for like liketh like—burning with him, and about their
feet, creeping and wailing, the unbaptized babes. He looketh up, and he
seeth across the gulf the other King’s court, and the Happy Servant.
And the Happy Servant looketh down and seeth him, and his own bliss
waxeth great. Wherefore—”
Wrath Diverted took the word. “Nay! You err, Brother Only Truth, in
using the word ‘choice.’ There is no choice, none!—that is, none on
our part. Attribute no merit to us who attain Salvation! Attain it, do
I say? Nay, we attain it not, we are _lifted_ into it. Another pays my
debt!”
“Nay, I meant it in that wise,” said Only Truth. “A babe in the faith
knoweth that all are rightly lost and damned. Lost, lost! all are lost.
Five thousand and more years ago it happened! One day, nay, one hour,
one minute—and all was done and over! Then all souls sank to hell, and
all put on Satan’s livery. In hell are folk who have burned and howled
five thousand years! Lost, lost, all are lost! But the King, because of
the Prince’s intercession, holds out his sceptre to those among us whom
he chooses out. But we have no goodness or merit of our own! Miserable
sinners are we all, and the due of perdition!”
“Precisely so,” said Wrath Diverted. “In Adam’s fall, we sinned all.
Wherefore they in hell, whether they be pagan or heathen or ignorant
or babes, have no reason to complain. But while all are guilty there
be some who have added rebellion to rebellion, and sewed the web of
disobedience with the needle of blasphemy! They be those who refuse to
worship! They be those who will not admire the Plan of Salvation!”
“Aye,” said Only Truth. “Apostates, Sadducees, atheists, miscreants,
infidels, unbelievers, witches, warlocks, wizards, magicians, and
sorcerers! Damned and lost! They howl in the hottest cauldron and burn
in a furnace seven times heated!”
So discoursing they came insensibly into a strip of country, green and
pleasant with late summer. Before them was a hillside with a parcel of
children at play, a dozen or more, and among them a big boy or two.
These now gathered into a knot and stared down at the pedestrians.
“Four—coming across Blackman’s Heath!”
There arose a buzzing sound, half from fright, half from a sense of
exciting adventure. One bolder than his fellows called down. “Be you
the witches?”
“Witches!—witches—!”
“They be all men—”
“Ho! Satan could make them all seem men! They pray to Satan and he lets
them turn what they will. Bats and red mice and ravens and horses—”
“So he could! Witches!”
“They be four, and they come running over Blackman’s Heath—”
A stone leaped down the hillside. Another followed, and struck Only
Truth, who grew red and angry and brandished his stick. The assailants
shouted, half in fear, half in glee, and gave somewhat back; then
seeing that they were safe, well above the assailed and with the open
hill behind them, stopped and threw more stones. Only Truth would have
made after them, up the hillside, but Aderhold checked him. “Do not
fight bees and children—”
They were presently out of stoneshot. But the children might carry news
and set others on their path. “Those escaped are four,” said Aderhold
to Wrath Diverted, “and we are four. It will not be convenient to be
stopped and questioned on that ground.”
“I believe that you are right,” answered Wrath Diverted. “Moreover,
you and your brother are evidently country-bred, and walk more swiftly
than is comfortable for us who dwell in towns. Let us part, therefore
in amity. I see yonder a road which should furnish easier walking than
this growth and unevenness beneath our feet.”
“Then,” said Aderhold, “we, being as you say, country-bred, will keep
on seaward over these fields and downs.”
An hour later the two lay in a pit dug long since for some purpose
and now half filled with old dead brush, while a formidable chase
went by. These were mounted men, officers of the law, armed with an
accurate description, among them, indeed, a sheriff’s man who knew the
escaped by sight. They came trampling by; they looked down into the
pit as they passed, and thought they saw true bottom and naught there
but a litter of dead leaves and twigs; they checked their horses not
many yards from the opening and stood conferring. Their voices came
down in an indistinguishable hoarse murmur like the sea against the
strand. They shook their bridles and rode away.... The two, who had
lain half-stifled, covered by the bed of brush, stirred, heaved the
stuff away, rose gasping to their knees. Silence and the blue sky. They
crouched, eye above the rim of the pit, until sight gave reassurance,
then climbed forth and brushed from each other dead leaf and ancient
dust.
“That was like a grave,” said Joan.
Aderhold stood gazing, his hand above his eyes. “Far off yonder—that
is ocean.”
“Where?”
They stood in silence. About them was sunny stillness; far off lay the
sapphire streak. Tension—action—the mind held to an arduous matter in
hand—in the moments between, exhaustion, concern only with rest—so
had passed the time since they had crept from the gaol into the black
gaol alley. Now suddenly there came a sense of relaxation, then of
poise, then of time before them. Years—there might be years.... Even
that set amount and partition dissolved like a mist. They were going to
be together, and their minds placed no term.
They were, the two of them, sincere and powerful natures. Now they
ceased to look at the ocean which their bodies would sail, and turned
and met each other’s eyes.... Another division melted from between
them. He had been to her a learned man, of a station higher than her
own. She had said “Sir,” and “Master Aderhold.” He was still, through
circumstance, more learned than she, with a wider range of knowledge
and suffering, with a subtler command of peace and mind’s joy. But she
had power to learn and to suffer and to weave joy; there was no natural
inequality. The other inequality, the unevenness in station, now melted
into air. Given substance only by long convention, it now faded like a
dream and left a man and woman moulded of one stuff, peers, unity in
twain.
“The ocean!” said Joan: “to sail upon the ocean! What things happen
that once you thought were dreams!”
“Aye,” said Aderhold. “Long to the height—imagine to the height—build
in the ether....”
They moved toward the sea. The country was not populous. Avoiding
as they did all beaten ways, taking cover where they might of wood
or hillside, they seemed to have come into a realm of security.
They were faint with hunger. Before them rose a solitary cottage
bowered in trees. After weighing it this way and that, they went
forward soft-footed, and peered from behind a stout hedge of thorn. A
blue feather curled from the chimney, the door stood open, and on a
sunny-space of grass three young women were spreading linen to bleach.
They hummed and chattered as they worked; they were rosy and comely,
and looked kind.
Aderhold spoke with his hands on the top of the gate. “Maidens, will
you give two hungry folk a bite and a sup? We can pay a penny for it.”
The three looked up and stood in doubt; then one ran to the cottage
door. An elderly woman, tall and comely, appeared, hearkened to her
daughter, then stepped across the bit of green to the gate. “Be you
vagrants and masterless men?”
“No,” answered Aderhold. “We are honest folk seeking work, which we
look to find in the port. We are not far from it, good mistress?”
“Less than three miles by the path, the lane, and the road,” said the
woman. “You can see the roofs and towers and, if you listen, hear the
church bells.”
They were, indeed, ringing, a faint, silver sound. Aderhold listened;
then, “We are very hungry. If we might buy a loaf of you we would eat
it as we walked—”
“Nay, I’ll give you bread,” said the woman. “I or mine might be hungry,
too, sometime—and what odds if we never were!” She spoke to one of
the three standing amid the bleaching linen. “Alice! get the new-baked
loaf—”
Alice turned toward the cottage. The two others came nearer to the
gate. The church bells were still ringing, fine and far and faint. They
seemed to bring something to the woman’s mind. “They say they’ve taken
the Hawthorn folk who ran from prison.”
“Where—”
“Two men came by and told us. A miller and his men and dogs took
them last night. They fought with fire and Satan was seen above the
mill-wheel. But they took them all, the two men said, and gave them
to the nearest constable, and so now the countryside can rest.” She
stood with her capable air of strength and good nature, looking over
the green earth to the distant town. “There must be witches because
God wrote the Bible and it cannot be mistaken. Otherwise, of course,
there are a lot of things.... I used to know Hawthorn when I was a
girl. And Roger Heron. More years than one I danced with him about the
maypole—for then we had maypoles.”
“Roger Heron!” It was Joan who spoke.
“Aye. I was thinking.... He’s dead of the plague. And his daughter’s
Joan Heron, the main witch. Life’s a strange thing.”
Her daughter brought the loaf of bread and also a pitcher of milk and
two earthenware cups. The other girls left the white, strewn linen and
drew near. The cottage was a lonely one, and few passed, and by nature
all were kind-hearted and social. Alice gave a cup to each of the
wanderers, and then, tilting the pitcher, filled the cups with milk.
Giles and John Allen thanked her and, hungry and thirsty to exhaustion,
drank and were refreshed.
But Joan, when she had put down the cup, moved nearer to the mother of
the three. “Did you ever see—the witch?”
The woman, who had been listening to the church bells, turned her
strong and kindly face. “Roger Heron brought her here once when she was
a child. There was no ill in her then—or I saw it not. Roger Heron
should not have had an evil child. There was little evil in him.”
The middle daughter was more prim of countenance than the others. She
now put on a shocked look. “But, mother! That is to deny Original Sin
and Universal Guilt!”
The elder woman made a gesture with her hand. It had in it a slight
impatience. “I do not mean,” she said, “that we haven’t all of
everything in us. But Roger Heron was a good man.”
“Ah!” said the youngest daughter, “how any one can be a witch and hurt
and harm, and be lost for aye, and leave a vile name—”
“Aye,” said the second; “to know that your name was Joan Heron, and
that it would be a byword for a hundred years!”
“I am glad that Roger Heron died of the plague and waited not for a
broken heart,” said the mother, and took the pitcher from the grass.
“How far have you walked to-day?”
Aderhold answered. Presently, the loaf of bread in hand, he said that
they must go on if they would reach the port before night, and that
they gave warm thanks for kindness.... They left the friendly cottage
with the sunny spread of grass and the bleaching linen and the kindly
women. A dip of the land, a turn of the path, and all vanished as if
they had sunk into earth. Before them, fraying the horizon, they saw
the distant town.
Aderhold spoke. “You were there when you were a child. Do you remember
it?”
She answered. “I remembered at last—not at first: not plainly. I
remember the sea.”
Her voice was broken. He looked and saw that she was weeping.
He had not seen her so since the last time he had come to Heron’s
cottage, and she had wept for her father’s death. There had been no
weeping in prison, nor in that Judgement Hall, nor since. He knew
without telling that though she felt grief, she controlled grief. But
now, startled by a tide she had not looked for, control was beaten
down. All about them was a solitariness, a green and silent, sunny
world. She struggled for a moment, then with a gesture of wild sorrow,
sank upon a wayside rise of earth and hid her face. “Weep it out,” said
Aderhold in a shaken voice; “it will do you good.”
He stood near her, but did not watch her or touch her. Instead he
broke the loaf of bread into portions and kept a lookout north and
south and east and west. No human being came into range of vision. The
slow minutes went by, then came Joan’s voice, broken yet, but steadying
with every word. “All that is over now—I’ll not do that again.”
She came up to him and took a piece of the bread. “Let us go on. We can
eat it as we go.”
They walked on.
“It was Gervaise and Lantern,” said Aderhold, “who told her that tale
of a capture at the mill. They are ahead.... I have seen brave men and
women, but I have seen none braver than you, Joan.... Life is very
great. There are in it threads of all colours and every tone that is,
and if happiness is not stable, neither is misery. You are brave—be
brave enough to be happy!”
The sun declined, the town ahead grew larger against a soft and vivid
sky. Now they could see the harbour and that there were ships at
anchor. They now met, overtook, or were passed by people. Some spoke,
some went on preoccupied, but none stopped and questioned them. They
entered the town by a travelled way, slipping in with a crowd of carts
and hucksters. Within, and standing for a moment looking back, they saw
coming with dust and jingling the party that had passed them lying in
the pit.
They turned, struck into a narrow way that led downward to the sea, and
came upon the waterside in the red sunset light. A fishwife crossed
their path. “The Moon Tavern? Yonder, beyond the nets.” They came to
it in the dusk, its sign a great, full moon with a man, a dog, and a
thornbush on the golden ground. As it loomed before them, Gervaise
stepped from the shadow of a heap of timber. “Greeting, Giles and John!
George Dragon and I have been here this hour.—And yonder lies the
Silver Queen.”