The Witch. Mary Johnston
well-built house. “Carthew House,” said Carthew, “where I live. But I think that I will ride on with you to the Oak Grange.”
Presently, leaving the highway, they took a rough and narrow road that led, first through fields and then through uncultivated country, toward the great wood that had been for some time visible. “Hawthorn Forest,” said Carthew. They rode a mile in silence, the wood growing darker and taller until it reared itself immediately before them. To the right, at some little distance from the road and almost upon the edge of the forest, stood a thatch-roofed cottage with a dooryard where, later, flowers would bloom, and under the eaves a row of beehives. “Heron’s cottage,” said Carthew. “Old Heron lives there, who in the old times was clerk to the steward of the castle.”
They entered the wood. It was dark and old, parts of it not having been cut since Saxon times. Their road, which was now hardly more than a cart track, crossed but an angle, the Oak Grange lying beyond in open country. But for some minutes they were sunk in a wilderness of old trees, with a spongy, leaf-thickened earth beneath the horses’ hoofs. The sunshine fell shattered through an interlacing of boughs just beginning to take on a hue of spring. Every vista closed in a vaporous blue.
A woman was gathering faggots in the wood. As they came nearer she straightened herself and stood, watching them. She was young and tall, grey-eyed, and with braided hair the colour of ripe wheat. “Heron’s daughter,” said Carthew when they had passed. “She should cover her hair like other women with a cap. It is not seemly to wear it so, in braids that shine.”
They were presently forth from the forest; before them a stretch of fields no longer well husbanded, a stream murmuring among stones, a bit of orchard, and an old, dilapidated dwelling, better than a farm house, less than a manor house, all crusted with lichen and bunched with ivy. A little removed stood the huge old granary that had given the place its name, but it, too, looked forlorn, ruinous, and empty. “The Oak Grange,” said Carthew. “People say that once it was a great haunt of elves and fairies, and that they are yet seen of moonlight nights, dancing around yonder oak. They dance—but every seven years they pay a tithe of their company to hell.”
CHAPTER VI
THE MAN WITH THE HAWK
Aderhold saw no fairies, though sometimes of moonlight nights he pleased his fancy by bringing them in his mind’s eye in a ring around the oak. Hours—days—weeks passed, and still he abode at the Oak Grange.
Together he and Master Hardwick had gone over an ancient record. There was the Aderhold line, intertwining with the Hardwick. The blood-tie was not close, but it was there. Back in the reign of the sixth Henry they found a common ancestor in one Gilbertus Aderhold, slain on Bosworth Field. The blood-warmth was between them. Moreover, the old man had turned with a strong liking to this present Aderhold, and besides all there was his fear of illness and death. How well to have a leech always at hand! At last it came to “Will you live here for your roof and keep? I could not give you money—no, no! I have no money to give.”
Refuge—security—here in this silent place, behind the great screen of Hawthorn Wood.... Aderhold stayed and was glad to stay, and served the old man well for his keep. The region grew to know that here was old Master Hardwick’s kinsman, brought with him when he came back from London, to live with him and doubtless become his heir. He was a leech. Goodman Cole, living by the forest, fell ill of a racking cough and a burning fever, sent for the doctor at the Grange, was swiftly better, and sang the leech’s praises. As time wore on he began to be sent for here and there, chiefly to poor people’s houses. Eventually he doctored many of such people, now in the village, now in the country roundabout. Few of the well-to-do employed him; they sent to the town for a physician of name. He asked little money for his services; he did not press the poor for payment, and often as not remitted the whole. He earned enough to keep him clad, now and then to purchase him a book.
He soon came to the conclusion that whatever store of gold Master Hardwick might once have had, it was now a dwindling store. In whatever secret place in his gaunt, bare room the old man kept his wealth, he was, Aderhold thought, nearing the bottom layer. There was a rueful truth in the anxiety with which he regarded even the smallest piece of either metal he must produce and part with. And if, at the Oak Grange, there was little of outgo, there was still less of income. The land which went with the Grange was poor and poorly tilled. There was a cot or two with tenants, dulled labourers, dully labouring. Mostly they paid their rent in kind. He heard it said that in his middle life Master Hardwick had ventured with some voyage or other to the Indies, and had received in increase twenty times his venture. If so, he thought that his venture must have been but small.
Master Hardwick kept but the one man, Will the smith’s son, who did not sleep at the Grange, but came each morning and cared for the horse and the cow and the garden. Within doors there was old Dorothy, who cooked and cleaned, and, now in and now out, there strayed a lank, shy, tousle-headed boy, her nephew. The old house was dim and still, as out of the world as a house may be. Master Hardwick rarely stirred abroad. There was in truth a lack of health. The physician thought that the old man had not many years to live. Aderhold set himself with a steady kindness to doing what could be done, to giving sympathy and understanding, and when the old man wished it, companionship. Sitting in the dim house with him, facing him at table over their scant and simple fare, listening to his brief talk, the physician came to find, beneath a hard and repellent exterior, something sound enough, an honesty and plain-dealing. And Master Hardwick, with a hidden need both to feel and receive affection, turned and clung to the younger man.
Visitors of any nature rarely came to the Oak Grange. The place was as retired as though fernseed had been sprinkled about and the world really could not see it. Once, during this early summer, Harry Carthew came, riding across the stream upon his great roan. But this day Aderhold was away, one of the tenants breaking a leg and a small child being sent wailing with the news to the Grange. And Master Thomas Clement came, alike afresh to reason with the miser and to view this new parishioner.
Aderhold saw him cross the stream by the footbridge and come on beneath the fairy oak. He knew who it was, and he had time to map his course. He had made up his mind—he was worn and weary and buffeted, he was now for peace and quiet living. He tied a millstone around the neck of the Gilbert Aderhold of Paris and sank him deep, deep! The minister stayed no great while and directed most of his discourse toward Master Hardwick. When he turned to Aderhold, the latter said little, listened much, answered circumspectly, and endued himself with an agreeing inclination of the head and an air of grave respect. When the minister was gone, he went and lay beneath the fairy oak, in the spangly twilight, his head buried in his arms.
The next Sunday he went to church and sat with a still face, watching the sands run from the pulpit glass. There were facts about the region which he had gathered. The town a few miles away with the earl’s seat above it was prelatical and all for “superstitious usages.” The country between town and village might be called debatable ground. But Hawthorn Village and the region to the north of it might have been approved by Calvin or by Knox.
Sitting far back, in the bare, whitewashed church, he remarked men and women truly happy in their religion, men and women who showed zeal if not happiness, men and women who wore zeal because it was the fashionable garment, men and women, born followers, who trooped behind zeal in others, and uttered war-cries in a language not their own. In the pulpit there was flaming zeal. The sermon dealt with miracles and prodigies, with the localities of heaven and hell, with Death and the Judgement—Death that entered the world five thousand and six hundred and odd years ago. “For before that time, my hearers, neither man nor animal nor flower nor herb died!”
Aderhold walked that summer far and wide, learning the countryside. Now he wandered in deep woods, now he climbed the hills and looked upon the fair landscape shining away, now he entered leafy, hidden vales, or traced some stream upward to its source, or downward to the murmur of wider waters. Several times he walked to the town. Here was a bookshop, where, if he could not buy, he could yet stand awhile and read.... He loved the view of this town with the winding