"Dead, and they've buried her!" cried the old woman, as she stood beside
the bed, whereon she had lain Mace. "Dead, and they've buried her; and
Jeremiah Cobbe can feel now what it be to lose one that he loves!"
"Let him feel it," she snarled, "let him feel it, and gnaw his heart for
a time. I'll tell him naught."
Then she glanced uneasily at the door, and drew the curtain that
screened her bed.
"No one can see her now," she muttered. "I'll keep her as long as I
can. She be weak and half-childish with what she has gone through. Let
her rest; but I'm glad she be not killed."
A feeling of satisfaction glowed for a time in the old woman's heart,
but it was mingled with annoyance that, after all, Jeremiah Cobbe would
know rest, while she could never recall her dead.
As the days glided by, to her surprise Mother Goodhugh found that Mace
did not recover. She partook of food mechanically when it was offered
to her, but she did not speak, only looked vacantly about her, and
seemed to be without even the power to think.
"Why should I lose my revenge?" thought the old woman. "Why should I
even let him think that she lives? It will be another to keep until he
finds her out, and that may be months first, if she stops as she be now.
But I can keep her easily," she said with a chuckle, "since corn grows
on the moonbeams, and meal can be had for all my wants from out the
earth."
A month had gone by, and Mace showed no sign of being roused from her
dull, apathetic state. She made no attempt to move, but sat where she
was placed, gazing straight before her, and never a word passed her
lips. Whether the old woman was by her or she was away on some errand,
it was all the same, Mace stayed where she was left, unseen by a soul,
for since the explosion at the Pool-house no one had cared to go near
Mother Goodhugh, and but for her foresight she might have starved.
But the old woman had a means of keeping body and soul together that
people little dreamed of, for one day, while herb-gathering in the
woodlands, far away behind the founder's house, she had kicked against a
fragment of iron, which proved to be a portion of a shell; and, passing
further in search of more, she came upon a hole in the sandstone rock
beside the scarped mass that rose behind the Pool-house.
Such a place had its interest for her; for, by the fragments of iron
about and the blackened appearance of the rock, she could tell that it
was the work of one of Jeremiah Cobbe's pieces of ordnance.
Parting the ferns and tangled growth with her stick, and muttering a
curse or two upon him and his belongings, the old woman found that there
was an opening large enough to pass through; and, investigating further,
she could see that the great shell had broken through what was but a
thin crust of rock, and that within there was a narrow passage-like
opening, worn apparently by the waters of some ancient stream.
Another day she examined further, for the place interested her, and she
penetrated some distance and returned.
Another time she came, and brought a lanthorn to search further, for
anything bordering on mystery was valuable to her, ending, after winding
in and out for some distance, by coming to the conclusion that this was
the place of which Abel Churr had spoken--that she had long sought in
vain, and that she knew Gil Carr's secret, having hit upon another
entrance to his store.
It was a long and tedious way in, but that mattered little to her;
while, ignorant of the fact that he had been the means of breaking a way
into his own treasure-house, Gil Carr duly, as he believed, sealed it up
and set sail.
Here one night, when the fear was upon her that Mace might be discovered
at her cottage, and the malignant fit was stronger than usual, Mother
Goodhugh brought the helpless girl. A touch of the hand was sufficient
to lead her where her gaoler willed, and, docile as a child, Mace
accompanied her to what was hereafter to be her prison, whose dark
shadows seemed to accord with her helpless state; and here she would sit
and seem to doze away her life.
It was a safe place, only visited by the old woman at night, and she
found it easy to feed her prisoner from the ship-stores; but now and
then a fit of remorse would seize upon her, and she would, on leaving
the place, resolve to restore the poor girl to her home.
A dozen times over she threw herself in Jeremiah Cobbe's way to tell him
all, but the sight of the founder seemed to raise up gall and bitterness
in her heart, and she went away chuckling and laughing.
"Let him suffer a little longer--a little longer," was her cry. "Some
day the girl will recover her senses, then I'll speak."
But the time flew by, and sense was as it were dead in Sweet Mace's
brain; while, having gone so far, Mother Goodhugh dreaded at last to
bring her back. There were strange rumours afloat about her, and her
position was not so safe as it had been of yore. So in utter fear she
would fasten up her cottage and take refuge in Gil's store for days
together, dreading lest ill should befall her; but at the end of a week
passed in this gloomy abode she would be ready to revile herself for her
cowardice, and go back. At these times she was more than ever prepared
to own that she could not restore Mace to her father.
"Let him suffer, as I have done," she would cry again. "She can stay
till Gil Carr comes back. Let him take the poor stricken idiot if he
will. I've had revenge, and a sweet one after all."
In this spirit Mother Goodhugh would return to her cottage, and the tale
of her evil doings grew longer, for there were those who said that she
disappeared for days together--none knew where; and that she had always
meal in plenty, while the miller swore none ever came from him, and that
she was a witch indeed.
Volume 3, Chapter XVIII.