_For mine enemies have constrained me, as a bird,
without cause._
THE APOCRYPHA.
It happened one day Granny had been longer than usual, and the
children sat waiting her return. When she entered the cottage it was
with a hurried step and her hood drawn over her countenance. She
stood listening with a scared face by the closed door, and had no
word for the children. But gradually as the afternoon wore on, and
she sat at her herb-bundles, she became quieter, and more at rest.
“Folk’ll come to me fast enough when they’re ailing,” she said to
Martin. “‘Have you got anything to cure the dizziness?’ they’ll say.
‘So soon as ever I do go to stoop down to reach anything, I come up
all over the hot blooms,’ they’ll say.
“And I always give them something to take for it, but they won’t
willingly come into my cottage for all that.
“‘What do you fear?’ I say to them. ‘Come inside, now, and sit down.’
“But they’re off. Though they stop till they get their medicine. Ah,
I sometimes think if ever I were overtaken by the persecutors, how
many of those I’ve doctored, would stand by me in my need?”
“Who do you mean by the persecutors?” asked the children.
“Why, the folk who hunt the witches, my dears, those who, having evil
in their own hearts, see it in others. Folk who read the Scriptures
only to chastise their fellows by the twisted Word.”
She turned to stir the smouldering wood, and as she turned the
children heard a distant sound. It was a sound that grew and
gathered, and was composed of many cries. Granny Gather-Stick faced
the children.
“They are here, even as we speak of them--Lord, Lord, be Thou my
Friend.”
A sense of fear seized the children as the confused sounds grew
louder.
Have you ever heard an angry mob? It is a dreadful thing. There is
malignant strength in the sound, confusion, and alarm.
Nearer and nearer it came, and the old Granny turned to the
children, her eyes like coals in her white face.
“They’re upon me this time; they can’t miss me, for the smoke is
rising. I ventured it, and lit my fire, though I knew they had been
seeking me. And now they are here.”
She stood erect in her little hut, her hands clasped upon her bosom,
the dark hood fallen from her grey hair.
“To the horse-pond with the hell-cat, to the horse-pond! Drown her!
drown her! Out upon her for her sorcery! Sink or swim--sink or swim!”
The boughs cracked and rustled as the crowd pushed on, surrounding
her hiding-place, and the wood was filled with cries. Suddenly,
with a crash the little dwelling was shattered round her, and in an
instant she was seized by rude hands. For a moment the children saw
her borne high among the crowd, dragged, wrenched, torn, hustled,
from one grasp to another, till they could no longer bear the sight.
“O Martin!” cried Faith, as the crowd that had at first swept them
with it, passed beyond them and left them by themselves. “How can we
save her?”
They stood staring at one another, their eyes wide with the anguish
of their hearts.
“They mustn’t kill her, we must save her. Quick, to the house of
Master Coverdale.”
No sooner said than done. They started running swiftly through the
forest. The dry twigs snapped beneath them as they ran. They knew of
Granny’s danger, they also knew of the one man to whom they could go
for help. If only they might not be too late--that was the fear that
winged their footsteps.
Through the greener open spaces they went, now threading their
way through the more closely growing trees, now creeping through
the undergrowth and brushwood. Bending back the tough boughs that
laced themselves before them, and skirting the impenetrable brakes.
Sometimes the roots of ribbed oak trees would catch their steps,
or the brambles take their garments, but they did not stop to
disentangle, or to rub their bruises. On they ran, forcing their way
impetuously, where in a cooler moment they might have hesitated to
pass.
And at last they reached the open, and saw the gables of the
Manor-house, where dwelt the man they sought.
It stood, away in the green fields by the river, the gables showing
grey through the foliage of the trees.