“Pet Salt, are you sure all this is so? I wouldn’t wed with him if I
could help it.”
Anny spoke anxiously, her little face white with apprehension.
She and Pet Salt were alone together on the deck of Ben’s old boat. The
tide was well up and the waves leaped against the stern with a gurgling
sound.
It was late in the evening, the wind was rising, and the sun was setting
over the Island in a blaze of red and green light.
On board the _Pet_ there was the customary muddle: empty kegs, rotting
sail-cloth, torn fishing nets, and derelict baskets lay strewn about the
decaying deck in endless confusion.
Pet was leaning against the stump of the main-mast, her red arms akimbo
and her tousled gray head cocked on one side, while Anny stood looking
on to the darkening water with her back to the old woman.
“Sure? Why, girl, certain I’m sure. As sure as this boat’s a vile hell,
Master Black’erchief Dick will have you one way or another--wed or
unwed. Which way lies with you?”
Pet’s harsh voice broke the warm quietness of the summer evening
unpleasantly.
Anny caught her breath, and shrugging her shoulders turned toward the
old woman. Then she laughed.
“Lord! you must be mad, Pet Salt, how could Master Dick carry me off
from the Ship, the whole village there to stay him?” she said,
brightening.
Pet laughed unpleasantly.
“You think too much of yourself, lass,” she said. “To stay him? And why
should any one stay him?”
Anny’s eyes grew big with surprise and fear.
“What do you mean?” she said as slowly as she could. “Why, Gilbot----”
Pet began to laugh.
“You, lass, have less wit than most girls, if you think any one would
turn away a moneyed captain because of a little serving slut,” she said.
Anny looked round her helplessly.
“Did you see Mother Nan yesterday?” she asked suddenly.
Pet began to swear.
“I did,” she said viciously. “The old ronyon! Come prowling around here
for a look at your grandsire, like an old hen clucking for its chick.”
“Did--did she not speak with you of me?” Anny’s voice trembled.
Pet laughed again.
“Lord, girl! the whole Island don’t spend its time thinking and talking
o’ you,” she said. “I heard naught of you from her----”
Anny looked round her hopelessly, the tears welling into her eyes. The
sun had sunk out of sight behind the belt of oaks on the Island and
everything around had grown gray and cool.
Suddenly she turned and threw herself before the old woman.
“Grandam, what will I do? What will I do?” she sobbed.
Pet kicked her away hastily and spat on the deck.
“Get up and behave yerself, Anny Farran,” she said sharply. “What should
ye do but marry the handsome Spaniard and sail off with him? Such a
chance don’t come to every dirty serving-maid.”
Anny sprang to her feet.
“I’ll not wed him,” she said, her voice clear and loud. “I’ll not if he
kills me.”
Pet Salt’s smile vanished and a crafty, anxious light crept into her
watery eyes. She crossed over to the girl with a peculiar smooth
movement and stood very close to her, her villainous face very near to
the young girl’s frightened one.
“Anny Farran,” she said, her harsh, high voice growing more and more
uncanny, “there be some as say Pet Salt is a witch.”
Anny started involuntarily. The light was fading, and faint shadows were
creeping fast all round the boat.
Away over the fields a corn-crake called plaintively once or twice and
then, quite near, an owl screamed loudly.
Pet’s face grew distorted in the shade.
Anny shuddered; she shared in all the superstitions of the day, and
witches and the evil eye were well known to her.
“Ay, they do!” she faltered, “but what say you?”
“I say--naught!”
Pet came a little nearer and her voice sank to a whisper.
Anny shrieked and started back.
“Holy Mother of God, defend me!” she muttered.
Pet laughed weirdly.
“Prayers don’t frighten Pet Salt,” she whispered, coming still nearer to
the terrified Anny, who clung to the gunwale.
“What will you do?” The girl’s voice was so low that Pet could hardly
hear it.
“Nay! What will you do, ronyon? Shall the handsome captain lie by you or
no?”
Anny clenched her little brown hands so that the nails cut into her
palms. The vision of Hal’s hurt and angry face kept rising up before
her.
“And if I do not wed him what will you do?” she said at last.
“Bewitch you, girl, so that even your young slave, Hal, may loathe you,”
Pet began in a slow sing-song voice. “So that your beautiful black hair
may fall off on the sand like seaweed, leaving you old and hairless--so
that your eyes may burn up and grow dim and the sight of the sea never
more be seen in them--so that your teeth may grow black and ache with
the pain of ten thousand devils tearing at their roots--so that your
nails may drop off and lie on the floor like shells, and your fingers
wither and grow black, and their knuckles decay and the joints drop off,
and----”
Anny covered her eyes.
“Oh, peace--peace, I pray you,” she screamed. “I will do anything. Oh,
peace----”
Pet began to laugh.
“Have a care, Anny, how you tell this,” she said, “or I will bewitch
thee certainly.”
Anny looked at the woman curiously.
“Yet I will not wed,” she announced suddenly. “I mind me when you vowed
that Master Pattern should have a blister grow on his skin to the size
of an egg, and I mind me that he had no such thing at all.”
Pet began to swear heartily.
“The hell-kite went to the priest at West,” she explained.
Anny’s eyes lighted.
“Then so will I,” she said promptly.
“That you shall not.” Pet laughed raucously. “Look you, Ann Farran,” she
said, “if you do so there’s other things that Pet can do. Send Hal Grame
and you to Colchester to the Castle to rot your lives out in the foul
dungeons they have there.”
This was the last. Anny, who was by this time thoroughly frightened, had
been brought up along with the other Island children to fear Colchester
Castle worse than death, and, indeed, the stories of the dungeons
current at that time were very terrible, the civil war being only just
over. She began to cry.
“I will wed with him,” she said.
“Secretly on this boat to-morrow night?”
Anny gasped. Nevertheless, she shrugged her shoulders and nodded.
“Yes.”
“Good! The Captain comes to-night to hear of it; will you wait to see
him?”
“Nay.” The word broke from her lips like a sob, and she ran over to the
rope ladder.
“If you fail----” Pet’s voice grew threatening.
Anny’s voice trembled.
“I will not fail,” she said, and then added beneath her breath, “Oh,
Hal, what will I say to you?”
As she ran back to the Ship across the fast-darkening saltings Anny
began to realize the situation a little more clearly. She had bound
herself to marry Dick on the morrow; that was terrible enough in itself,
but after she was married, what then? The girl stopped in her stride to
think on it.
“After I am wed I can go back to the Ship,” she said, half aloud, “but
why be wed first? Oh! whatever will I do?”
Two weeks ago she would have gone to Hal naturally. Now she swallowed
uneasily in her throat.
Hal had hardly spoken to her of late; he had grown strangely sullen and
taciturn, and spent all his spare time in a fishing-boat with Joe
Pullen. She knew that they took the fish they caught up the Colne and
sold it in the little inland villages. She had tried to speak to him
several times, but he had always looked at her so fiercely that she had
abandoned the attempt.
Alone on the wild, wind-swept marshes, the girl sank down on her knees
on the damp spiky grass and covered her face with her hands. She
remained quite still for several seconds and then sprang up with a
little cry. Hastily she passed her hands over her shining plaits as
though to make sure that they were still there, and examined her nails
anxiously. Then she sighed with relief and with one fearful backward
glance at the _Pet_, set off to the Ship, her skirts flying out behind
her as she ran.