St. George and St. Michael

  CHAPTER III.

  THE WITCH.

  It was a bright Autumn morning. A dry wind had been blowing all nightthrough the shocks, and already some of the farmers had begun to carryto their barns the sheaves which had stood hopelessly dripping the daybefore. Ere Richard reached the yard, he saw, over the top of the wall,the first load of wheat-sheaves from the harvest-field, standing at thedoor of the barn, and high-uplifted thereon the figure of FaithfulStopchase, one of the men, a well-known frequenter of puritan assembliesall the country round, who was holding forth, and that with muchfreedom, in tones that sounded very like vituperation, if notmalediction, against some one invisible. He soon found that the objectof his wrath was a certain Welshwoman, named Rees, by her neighboursconsidered objectionable on the ground of witchcraft, against whom thismuch could with truth be urged, that she was so far from thinking itdisreputable, that she took no pains to repudiate the imputation of it.Her dress, had it been judged by eyes of our day, would have beenagainst her, but it was only old-fashioned, not even antiquated: commonin Queen Elizabeth's time, it lingered still in remote country places--agown of dark stuff, made with a long waist and short skirt over a hugefarthingale; a ruff which stuck up and out, high and far, from herthroat; and a conical Welsh hat invading the heavens. Stopchase, havingdescried her in the yard, had taken the opportunity of breaking out uponher in language as far removed from that of conventional politeness ashis puritanical principles would permit. Doubtless he considered it arebuking of Satan, but forgot that, although one of the godly, he couldhardly on that ground lay claim to larger privilege in the use of badlanguage than the archangel Michael. For the old woman, although tooprudent to reply, she scorned to flee, and stood regarding him fixedly.Richard sought to interfere and check the torrent of abuse, but it hadalready gathered so much head, that the man seemed even unaware of hisattempt. Presently, however, he began to quail in the midst of hisstorming. The green eyes of the old woman, fixed upon him, seemed to beslowly fascinating him. At length, in the very midst of a volley ofscriptural epithets, he fell suddenly silent, turned from her, and, withthe fork on which he had been leaning, began to pitch the sheaves intothe barn. The moment he turned his back, Goody Rees turned hers, andwalked slowly away.

  She had scarcely reached the yard gate, however, before the cow-boy, adelighted spectator and auditor of the affair, had loosed the fiercewatch-dog, which flew after her. Fortunately Richard saw what tookplace, but the animal, which was generally chained up, did not heed hisrecall, and the poor woman had already felt his teeth, when Richard gothim by the throat. She looked pale and frightened, but kept hercomposure wonderfully, and when Richard, who was prejudiced in herfavour from having once heard Dorothy speak friendlily to her, expressedhis great annoyance that she should have been so insulted on hisfather's premises, received his apologies with dignity and good faith.He dragged the dog back, rechained him, and was in the act ofadministering sound and righteous chastisement to the cow-boy, whenStopchase staggered, tumbled off the cart, and falling upon his head,lay motionless. Richard hurried to him, and finding his neck twisted andhis head bent to one side, concluded he was killed. The woman who hadaccompanied him from the field stood for a moment uttering loud cries,then, suddenly bethinking herself, sped after the witch. Richard wassoon satisfied he could do nothing for him.

  Presently the woman came running back, followed at a more leisurely paceby Goody Rees, whose countenance was grave, and, even to the twitchabout her mouth, inscrutable. She walked up to where the man lay, lookedat him for a moment or two as if considering his case, then sat down onthe ground beside him, and requested Richard to move him so that hishead should lie on her lap. This done, she laid hold of it, with a handon each ear, and pulled at his neck, at the same time turning his headin the right direction. There came a snap, and the neck was straight.She then began to stroke it with gentle yet firm hand. In a few momentshe began to breathe. As soon as she saw his chest move, she called for awisp of hay, and having shaped it a little, drew herself from under hishead, substituting the hay. Then rising without a word she walked fromthe yard. Stopchase lay for a while, gradually coming to himself, thenscrambled all at once to his feet, and staggered to his pitchfork, whichlay where it had fallen. 'It is of the mercy of the Lord that I fell notupon the prongs of the pitchfork,' he said, as he slowly stooped andlifted it. He had no notion that he had lain more than a few seconds;and of the return of Goody Rees and her ministrations he knew nothing;while such an awe of herself and her influences had she left behind her,that neither the woman nor the cow-boy ventured to allude to her, andeven Richard, influenced partly, no doubt, by late reading, was moreinclined to think than speak about her. For the man himself, littleknowing how close death had come to him, but inwardly reproached becauseof his passionate outbreak, he firmly believed that he had had a narrowescape from the net of the great fowler, whose decoy the old woman was,commissioned not only to cause his bodily death, but to work in himfirst such a frame of mind as should render his soul the lawful prey ofthe enemy.