"Quick, Polly, my hat and cloak!" cried Mistress Anne, running up to her
room, where her little handmaiden was seated at work. "Then there is
some truth in the old woman's philtres after all?"
"Yes, mistress, if you mean Mother Goodhugh's," cried the girl, who had
caught the last words.
"Why? How? What do you know?" cried Mistress Anne.
"Why, mistress, everybody in love goes to her to get her help."
"And who told thee I was in love, thou saucy slut?" cried Anne angrily.
"My handsome mistress's beautiful cheeks, that turned red when she knew
Sir Mark Leslie was coming, and her red, ripe lips, that spake his name.
La, mistress, don't be angry with little me, for wishing to see thee
with a handsome, gallant husband. But I shouldn't like though for him
to be so fond of Sweet Mace down at the forge."
"And who dare say he is?" cried Mistress Anne, angrily.
"They say he be, mistress, and that he pooked Captain Culverin about
her, and the captain was nearly drowned as well."
"Who told thee all this?" cried Anne.
"Janet, who lives there, helped the news to me," replied the girl; "but
Sir Mark would never bemean himself to marry such a creature as that
Mistress Mace."
"Hold thy prating tongue," cried Mistress Anne; "and if I find thee
talking about my affairs, girl, or what thou seest, Sir Thomas shall
know."
Hastily tying on hat and cloak, she started for Mother Goodhugh's,
Polly, her apple-faced little maid, making a grimace as she left the
room.
"I shall talk as much as I like," said the girl, giving her head a toss;
"mighty madam, as you be. Tell Sir Thomas, and I'll tell what I see
going on from this window, down in the nut-stubbs. Ha, ha, ha! how my
lady did stare."
Mistress Anne lost no time in making her way across the fields and
through the woods, to Mother Goodhugh's; finding the old woman seated at
her door, watching her bees as they flew in and out from the straw-hives
in her garden-patch.
"Ah, my dearie," she exclaimed; "you be come again?"
"Yes, mother," cried Anne, trying, now to keep calm and cool. "What is
this I hear about Captain Carr?"
"Captain Carr be not for thee," cried the old woman, firing up; "he be a
murderer--he has slain my best old friend, and if Sir Thomas, thy
father, does not have him hung, he be no true man."
"Softly," said Mistress Anne; "softly, mother."
"Nay, I will go softly no more. But of thine own affairs, dearie,
Captain Gil Carr is cursed, with all he does. My words have brought him
evil already, and thee good. Sir Mark, the handsome stranger, is to wed
my handsome mistress. I sent him thee to-day."
"You sent him?"
"Ah, child, mock away. I sent him on his way to London. Tell me, if
thou darest, that he did not say sweet things to thee? Ay, thy face
tells it. Child, he be thine."
"Nay, mother," cried Anne, who was thrown off her guard by the old
woman's apparent knowledge; "he is coming back soon, and he will go to
the foundry-house, and--and--"
"Mace Cobbe? Nay, child, nay; the game be thine own now. He and Mace
have nothing between them. He be thine if thou wilt have him."
"How can you tell me that, mother?"
"What!" cried the old woman, "have not I worked upon him night and day,
till he and that girl are at odds? I say, child; the game be thine
own."
"Mother," whispered Anne, after a glance at the door, "I hardly believe
in thy spells; but look, here is a golden piece for you. Ten more shall
be yours if you can make Mace Cobbe unpleasing in Sir Mark's eyes when
he comes back. He is not half gained yet, but with your help he can be
won."
"Make her unpleasing--her face?" said Mother Goodhugh, with a peculiar
look. "Hush! I want to know nothing--I will not know anything, Mother
Goodhugh. Only I say make her so that he shall care for her no more."
"But how, child, how?" said the old woman, with a malicious grin.
"Do you want me to teach you your trade?" cried Anne, sharply. "There,
give me back my gold piece, and I'll go to one who can do my bidding."
"Nay," cried the old woman, sharply; "I'll do it; but if I get into
trouble thou must stand by me with Sir Thomas."
"What if they want to burn thee for a witch!" said Mistress Anne.
"Hush!" cried the old woman, "hush!" and she glanced hastily round, to
see that they were not overheard. "Don't speak like that; the people
might hear thee. Hist! some one is coming."
Mistress Anne started up in alarm, as approaching footsteps were heard;
and, obeying the old woman's pointing finger, she hid behind the
blue-checked curtain, which shut off her bed, just as there was a tap on
the door, and the innocent object of their machinations entered, basket
in hand.
"Why, it be thou, child," cried the old woman, in an ill-used tone.
"Yes, mother; I've brought a few little things for thee."
"Nay, I want them not, nor none of thy trade," cried the old woman; "I
want them not;" but her glistening eyes told another tale. "There, set
them down there," she continued, pointing to a side-table.
"Suppose you open the basket and take them out yourself, mother," said
Mace, smiling with an ingenuous look that might have disarmed the
crone's resentment; but it seemed to have a reverse action, as she rose
muttering and scowling, half-snatched the basket, and carried it beyond
the curtain, to empty it of its contents.
As she did so, the old woman's eyes encountered those of Mistress Anne,
and a peculiar meaning look passed from one to the other, as Mace said
aloud--
"I am thirsty with my walk, mother; can you give me a cup of water?"
"Yes, child, yes," cried the old woman, hastily; and one of her hands
stole towards a shelf over Mistress Anne's head, as she made believe to
go on emptying the basket by making its lid creak loudly.
Mistress Anne's eyes followed the old woman's hand, and she saw the
skinny fingers close upon a phial, which she hastily hid in her breast,
and then once more the eyes of the pair behind the curtain met in a
meaning way, and the face of the hiding girl grew ghastly pale.
"Wait a moment, child," grumbled Mother Goodhugh, "and I'll get thee a
cup of water from the spring. There be thy basket, but bring no more
such things to me; I hate them."
"We'll see, mother," said Mace, smiling, as taking a cup from a shelf
the old woman hurried out of the cottage to where, out in the road by
the side of the lane, a dipping-place for the clear, cool
iron-impregnated water had been made.
Stooping down, after glancing right and left, she dipped the cup full of
the clear water; and then, removing the cork from the little phial, she
poured half its contents beneath the hand that covered the cup, recorked
and hid the bottle, and then with an ugly smile about her lips returned
to her visitor.
"Here, child," she said; "it be cool, and sweet, and pure. There be no
curse in that;" and as she spoke she glanced involuntarily at the
curtain, behind which Anne Beckley was listening, and, though no breeze
penetrated the cottage, the hangings visibly shook as Mace took the cup.
Poison, a decoction of some imaginary power, or merely the juice of a
plant full of tannin, the effect was the same. Mother Goodhugh was too
deeply intent on watching her last visitor and the curtain to pay any
heed to the contents of the cup. She had dipped it full of the
iron-impregnated water, and seen that it was clear as crystal before
holding it in her left hand, with the fingers extended round the rim and
her palm acting as a cover. The pouring in of the liquid of the phial,
too, had been done in a hasty way, without more than a glance at what
she was doing.
To her surprise, then, as she handed the cup to her visitor, Mace passed
it back.
"I asked you for a cup of cold water, mother," she said quietly, "and
you gave me this!"
Mother Goodhugh looked down at the cup to see that the limpid crystal
water she had dipped had turned of a livid black; and, startled and
convicted by the change, she gazed at it, then at the girl, and then
back at the cup.
"What did you put in it, mother?" said Mace, quietly.
"I--I--put anything in?" said the old woman, humbly; "what should I put
in?"
"Some one or another of your silly mixtures," said Mace, sternly. "Why
do you attempt to try them upon me?"
"Silly mixtures!" Such a term applied to her philtres in the presence
of one whom she wished for her own reasons to impress fully with her
potency! A moment before the old woman was shivering and cowed; now her
visitor's words roused up the spirit of opposition within her, and, with
her eyes flaming defiance, she called upon her powers of well-matured
dissimulation as she half shrieked:--
"I put in mixtures! Go to, white witch that thou art. Did I not see
thee cast an evil eye on the drinking water, and turn it black? Look
here," she cried, seizing the cup, throwing out its contents, running to
the spring, and returning with it full of clear fluid, "the water be
bright and sweet. Nay, nay; thou shalt not touch it," she cried, as
Mace stretched out her hand to take the cup--"I will have no more of thy
juggling tricks here. Out upon thee, witch--witch, who triest to win
decent maidens' lovers to thy side. When the time comes that justice
overtakes thee for thy wicked enchantments, my voice shall be raised to
tell of all I know. Go!--Away with thee!--Witch, witch!"
She stood waving her hands and stick at her who had brought her help,
and a malignant look of spite and suppressed glee overspread her face,
as she laughingly hugged herself upon the clever way in which she had
turned the tables upon her accuser. The girl's lips parted to speak;
but finding her adversary become more voluble and ready, Mace shrank
away, staggered by the words of the old woman, who followed her to the
door, and stood menacing her and shrieking threats as she hurried away
with the words "witch, witch," ringing in her ears.
There was no lack of common-sense in the founder's daughter, but for the
moment she was startled by Mother Goodhugh's words. No more
superstitious than the educated people of her days, a faint belief in
the sin of witchcraft lingered in her mind; and she knew by rumour of
the terrible fate that had been reserved for women accused of such
dealings. For, from time to time, account of fiery executions had
reached the remote hamlet, and she shuddered as these memories came
back.
To be accused of witchcraft by some malignant enemy meant placing the
accused in a position wherein nothing she said would be believed; and,
as she hurried homewards, Mace's face was pale with anxiety and dread.
This soon passed off, though, and she laughed at her childish terrors.
"Poor old thing, she is half mad," thought Mace; and even then she began
to think about the cup; coming rapidly to the right conclusion that
Mother Goodhugh had placed some one or another of her decoctions in the
water.
"I'll go there no more," she said; "the old woman is dangerous, and to
try to ward off her wishes by kindly acts seems to make things worse."
She was, in spite of the encounter, light-hearted and glad; for though
the accusation against Gil troubled her, still she knew that he was
innocent, and had hoped by propitiating Mother Goodhugh to get her in
time to withdraw her words. That adventure had failed; but there was a
change at home that made her heart leap. Sir Mark had gone, and an
incubus seemed to have been removed from her heart as she felt that the
old happy days would come again; and, laughing off the scene with Mother
Goodhugh, she hastened on through the pleasant, sunlit glade, where the
birds hardly fled at her approach.
"There will be no spells here," she said, laughingly, as she turned
aside; and, parting the bushes, climbed down amongst the ferny stones to
where the water dropped into a natural basin, from which, with a cup
improvised with a broad burdock leaf, she sipped the pure sparkling
fluid and quenched her thirst, seating herself afterwards to rest upon
one of the mossy stones, and gazing dreamily down the ravine, through
which the water flowed beneath a canopy of luxuriant ferns. As she
gazed, a kingfisher, till then motionless upon a twig, suddenly darted
down into a pool, rose with something silvery in its beak, and fled
along the narrow valley like a streak of azure drawn across the verdure
by a spirit-hand, while soon after the white coverts of a blue
bar-winged jay were seen as the shy bird peered at her with corvine
curiosity and then uttered an excited "Tchah--tchah!" and fled.
Mace thought not of kingfisher, jay, or the velvet-coated blackbird that
came and perched so near to watch her intently, for she was considering
whether Sir Mark would come back, and, if so, whether he would renew his
suit. She was troubled, too, about her father, and his want of faith in
Gil. It had seemed as if in his heart he did not dislike the attentions
paid to her by Sir Mark; and at last, with a sigh, she rose and
continued her little journey.
"Time smooths away a good many difficulties," she said, half-laughing;
"and, if it does not, I must fain follow the example of the Virgin
Queen."
To her surprise, before she was out of the wood she met her father, who
rarely left the precincts of his own grounds, unless it was to visit
ironstone pit, quarry, or the colliers busy charcoal-burning. He seemed
to be examining her curiously as she came up to him, and laid her hand
upon his arm.
"Where have you been, Tit?" he asked.
"To take Mother Goodhugh a chicken and a few little niceties, poor
soul!"
"For cursing thy father so bitterly?"
"Nay, father; to try and make the poor half-crazed soul more sensible."
"And to pay her for muttering nonsense to please a silly girl. Tit, I
thought better of thee," he said.
Mace looked at him half-wounded, half-amused.
"When did you know me guilty of such follies, father?" she asked.
"Never till now, when thy head was filled with love-nonsense by that
scoundrel, Gil."
"Father, you hurt me when you speak thus of Gil," she cried sadly; "and
when you doubt my truth."
"Thou hast been to Mother Goodhugh, like some silly wench, to ask her
for love-charms; worse still, thou hast, the moment Sir Mark has gone,
run off to keep tryst with a man I forbid thee to see."
The pained look grew deeper in Mace's eyes as she laid both her hands
upon the broad chest of the founder, and gazed full in his eyes.
"Father, dear," she said, simply, "why should I go to bid a foolish old
woman mutter silly spells, when I know that Gil loves me with all his
heart."
"Out upon his love. As he loves Anno Beckley, and every woman he meets.
Shame on thee, girl--for shame!"
She smiled sadly as she still gazed up in his face.
"You don't mean this, father, dear," she said. "You don't think I
should be so silly as to go to Mother Goodhugh for what you say?"
"I do," he cried, harshly.
"And you don't in your heart think that I have been to see Gil."
"I tell thee, I do," he cried.
"And what is more, you don't think your little girl would play you
false."
"What?" he cried, "has not Gil been at thy window?"
"Yes, father," she said; "as he has scores of times when we were boy and
girl together; but I have bidden him come no more. I never thought harm
of it--only that it was pleasant folly," she added, dreamily.
"Out upon such folly!" he cried.
"Gil will not come again, and I shall try to see him no more, dear, till
you bid us meet; and you do not believe that I should ever deceive you."
"You turn me round your finger, child," he cried, catching her to his
breast, and kissing her passionately. "No, no, no; I don't believe you
went to that old woman for such trash, nor to meet Gil Carr. I know you
couldn't deceive me, my darling; and if I am harsh to thee it is for thy
good. Ah! Tit, Tit, what a little witch thou art!"
"Don't, father!" she cried, starting from him with a cry of pain.
"What is it, my bird? What have I done?"
"You called me a witch," she said, with a slight shudder, but trying to
laugh it off.
"Well! an' if I did?" he said, laughing.
"It was foolish to mind," she said; "but Mother Goodhugh just now was
angry with me, and called me witch, and uttered threats."
"Against thee?" cried the founder, angrily. "I say, then, let her
curses return upon her own head, witch that she is herself. She shall
go from Roehurst before this time to-morrow."
"Nay, nay, father," cried Mace, hastily; "don't visit her mad ravings
upon her. Let her rest. Poor thing! she's crazed with grief. Let her
be--for my sake, let her be."
"What, and let her some day bring evil upon us by her witcheries?"
"What, and is my stout, brave father going to have faith in what yon
silly woman says!" cried Mace, laughing. "Come, father, promise me you
will not have her touched."
"I'll promise thee anything, child," he said, smoothing her soft hair,
and bending down to kiss her cheek.
"Anything, father?" she cried.
"Not quite, Mace," he said with a sigh; "but anything that is for thy
good;" and they walked on through the wood together, the old man smiling
and loitering as his companion kept stooping to pick some bright flower,
for it put him in mind of her childhood, when sweet Mace and the wild
flowers seemed each to belong to each. Now it was the bright yellow
meadow vetchling, now the brilliant orange-tinted lotus, and then long
sprays of the purple-blossomed tufted vetch.
Further on they came to a sunny opening where the trees had been felled,
and here was quite a forest garden, where Mace paused, with the care
that had shaded her face for days gone to leave it bright and childlike
once more; while the founder smiled as he stood and watched her run from
patch to patch, picking hastily and talking the while.
"I won't be long, dear. Oh, how beautiful the heath is; what lovely
sprays!"
Then she ran to where the orange ragwort threw up its tufts of sun-like
florets, picked golden-rod and Saint John's wort; ran a few steps to
where the wood betony raised a clump of purple-waving heads. These,
with delicate grasses, pink robins, lavender scabious, and soft-foliaged
golden-disked flea-bane, and hawkweed, made up a goodly nosegay. But
still, there was more and more to add, for as she walked on it was by a
clump of golden genista, each plant a bouquet in itself; bright pink
starred centaury; and then farther along by a hollow, where the water
lay in a dark pool, the quaint stars of the branch bur-reed, with
abundance of forget-me-not, seemed to ask the picking.
"Oh, father!" she cried merrily, as she stopped at last, with a bunch of
flowers as large as her fingers could grasp, "what a shame that I should
keep thee thus!"
"Nay, nay, my child," he said, smiling, as he stroked one of her soft
flushed cheeks; "it seems to do me good to see thee young again. It is
like a rest on life's journey, and a pleasant halt where one can forget
one's hurry and toil. Mace, my pet," he said, seating himself among the
heath upon a sandy bank, "I think I could give up everything, except my
garden and my pipe and ale, if you and I could go on together always
like this."
"Then let us go on like this, father," she cried, seating herself at his
feet and resting her head against his knee. "Why should we let trouble
come between?"
"Because we can't help it, girl," he replied, laughing. "He's let in by
that little mischief imp who comes unasked and holds open the door for
t'other, and then the sorrows come. You know the boy I mean, Tit; his
name is Love, and I s'pose it has always been the same."
There came a curiously pained look in Mace's eyes as she turned them
quickly up to her father, then the woodland nosegay she had picked fell
at her feet, and her head drooped down upon his knee.
Volume 2, Chapter VII.