CHAPTER XVII
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.