Cunning Murrell (3 page)

“Ow!” he cried. “Ow! Bobby shoved me downstaers!” And with that Mrs Banham
left jug and smelling-bottle, and seizing Jimmy by a leg and an arm, drove
back the column in panic, and shut the stair-foot door.

“Good t’ye arl,” said Murrell, in his small, sharp voice. “I see smoke
from your bake-hus, Mrs Banham. Be the fire well rastled?”

“Ees, an’ I’ll war’nt that’s hot. I’ve arl that yow spoke of, Master
Murr’ll, in the ketchen.”

Murrell took the iron bottle from the frail, and followed Mrs Banham into
the room behind. There was a sound as of something poured, and a low
conversation.

Banham looked helplessly about him, and began again: “‘Tare rare fanteegs
we’re in, Steve, sarten to say, an’ it do dunt me arltogither. But the
missis, she—”

“An’ they be toe as well as finger nails complete?” came Murrell’s quick
voice, as the two returned.

“Ees, that’s arl as yow told me, Master Murr’ll, an’ here be pins an’
needles.”

Murrell shovelled them from his palm into the bottle, and dived again into
the frail. Thence he brought dried leaves of four sorts, and these were
stuffed in after the pins; and last went a little heap of horse-nails.

“Do you screw it hard, Stephen Lingood,” said Murrell, “with your strong
fingers.”

Lingood took the bottle and screwed the stopper down as far as it would
go.

“Now ‘tis ready, neighbours,” Murrell squeaked, “an’ you give aer to what
I tell. We go arl to the bake-hus—an’ come you, too, Stephen Lingood,
for true witness. An’ mind you arl,” he went on with gusto, for he enjoyed
the authority his trade gave him, “once the bake-hus door shuts on us, not a
word mus’ one speak. What I hev prepared will putt sore pain an’ anguish on
the hainish witch that hev laid the ill tongue on this house. ‘Tis a strong
an’ powerful spell, an’ ‘haps the witch may be druv to appear before us,
bein’ drawed to the sput in anguish; ‘haps not; ‘tis like that’s a dogged
powerful witch, an’ will stay an’ suffer, an’ not be drawed. But come or
stay, not one word mus’ be spoke, or the spell makes nothen. If come she do,
she’ll speak, with a good axcuse, that’s sarten, that some here may be drawed
to answer, an’ break the spell; or may make count to meddle with the oven; so
heed not her words, nor make one sound. But ‘haps she won’t come.”

Banham shuffled uneasily, and looked at his wife. But she stooped to Em
and took her arm.

“Come,” she said, “we’re goin’ in the bake-hus, Em, to cure ye.”

The girl had ceased to rock herself, and now stared sullenly at the floor.
“I’m afeard,” she said; “feard o’ the witch.”

“There’s no call to be feared,” the mother answered; “us be with ye, an’
Master Murr’ll, with proper deadly power over arl witches. So come now.” She
took her firmly, and presently the girl rose and went.

Banham took the rushlight, and, shading it with his hand, went last of the
group into the yard. The nearest of the outbuildings was the bakehouse,
scarce three yards from the kitchen door. From its chimney white smoke rose,
and when the door was opened the smell of wood fire was sharp in the
nostrils. Murrell turned and took the rushlight from Banham, shaking his
forefinger and tapping his lips as he did so, to remind the company of his
orders. When all were within he shut the door, and lifted the latch of the
brick oven. The fire was over high for baking, and the white ash had scarce
begun to settle over it; even the bricks glowered a murky red, and cracked as
Murrell raked the embers with a hook. A cut faggot lay on the hearth, and of
this he flung in a good half, so that the fire burst into a clamour of
crackles and a hum of flame. When it seemed at its highest he pitched the
iron bottle into the midst, and all crouched and waited.

Lingood began to hope that the bottle was not altogether steam-tight after
all, and by signs induced the others to keep as far as possible from the
oven. The patient was calmer now, and quiet, viewing the proceedings with a
dull curiosity, her head against her mother’s shoulder. Lingood stood by the
wall, and sucked a little nervously at his pipe. He feared an accident, but
it would never do to spoil the arrangements now, or at any time to set in
question anything done by Murrell, who, as everybody knew, was the most
learned man in Essex. As for Mag and her father, both sat and stared,
open-mouthed, much as Jimmy and Bobby would have done had they been admitted
to the bakehouse.

Presently a slight sound was heard from within the oven, and Lingood knew
that the steam had found a tiny vent at the screw-stopper. But it was tiny
indeed, and it was only because of the perfect stillness that the faint hiss
could be heard at all. Even the rushlight was noisier.

And then, as all listened, there was a sharp sound without. It widened
every mouth and eye, for it was the click of the gate in the outer fence.
There was a louder clap as the gate slammed to, and then the sound of
footfalls nearing the bakehouse. Only Lingood, because of his position, could
see through the window, or would have dared to look. He saw but a dark
figure, and, as it passed the window, a white face. And with that the door
opened.

The women shrank together, and Murrell turned, stooping still, to face the
entrance. On the threshold an old woman stood—a pale old woman in rusty
black. With a skin clear almost beyond nature, she had a firm, perhaps a hard
mouth, and overhanging brows, thick and grey and meeting in the middle.
Howbeit her expression was rather one of fortitude than of harshness.

She looked about the bakehouse as in some sort discomposed by the
gathering, and then said, nodding toward the oven, “I could see you were
hottin’ your oven this late, Mrs Banham, an’ I thote ‘haps you might let me
put in a bit o’ breadstuff ‘long o’ yours.” She faltered and looked
doubtfully at the silent company. “If that be no ill-convenience,” she added
apologetically, and produced a full white cloth from under her shawl.

There was no answer, though every eye was on her. It was plain that she
was uneasy. “My niece Dorrily hev made a gooseberry pie,” she pursued, “but
with that we den’t want to trouble ye, thinkin’ that Mrs Cheadle were
a-bakin’, though it seem she a’n’t.”

Still nobody spoke. Em clung to her mother, shaking and staring, and all
the nearer choking for the hand Mrs Banham laid across her mouth to keep her
quiet. Murrell raised his finger to maintain the silence, and gazed keenly in
the old woman’s face. Banham’s jaw had dropped till it could drop no farther.
There was a still pause.

“I wouldn’t ask,” the old woman went on, ill at ease and perplexed, “but
the bricks be fallen out o’ my oad oven, an’ that Dan Fisk that was to mend
it, he den’t come.”

Still not a word. There was something hostile, and more than hostile, in
the general gaze, and the old woman, bewildered still, now spoke with some
acerbity. “If you woan’t,” she said, “there’s no harm done, though a civil
answer ‘ud cost ye nothen.’ Haps the oven’s full o’ some oather thing, but
leave that as may be, the least you give a beggar’s an answer, neighbours.
‘Taren’t your habit to keep a shut mouth, Mrs Banham.”

Mrs Banham gave no reply but a glare of hate. There was sign of a sob
breaking through the hand that was over Em’s mouth, and then—

The oven door shot through the window, and the place was full of flying
embers and stinking steam. Blinded and half-stunned, everybody scrambled at
random, and the first distinct sound after the deafening bang was the shrill
voice of Murrell from the midst of the rout. “‘Tis done, and done well! So go
arl ev’l sparrits from out o’ this household, an’ so be the witch hurt an’
tormented an’ overthrowed!”

Overthrown the old woman was, in truth. The oven sill was something near
four feet from the ground, so that their crouching position had saved the
cunning man and his clients, who, save for a fright and a few burns, were
little the worse. Lingood, too, in his corner, had no more to lament than a
hole or two scorched in his clothes, but the old woman lay still, with a cut
in her cheek, for she had been standing almost in the path of the explosion.
When the rushlight had been found and relighted Murrell pointed. “See,” he
said, “‘tis done, an’ done double. Blood drawed above the breath!”

And, indeed, it was plain that the shock had wrought a change in Em, for
she was laughing quietly. It was not the unpleasant, noisy laughter, full of
hiccups, that had signalised the sole change in her gloom in the last few
days, and she spoke cheerfully. “To think ‘twere Mrs Mart’n! But there, I
knowed it arl along. ‘Tis done now arltogether an’t it, mother? I’m a-well
now, Mag. But I knowed it were Mrs Mart’n arl along, den’t I, mother? Ha, ha!
Ees, sarten to say!”

Lingood lifted the old woman’s shoulders, and made to loosen her bodice
about the neck.

“Fling her out, Steve Lingood, fling her out!” cried Mrs Banham. “Let her
gownd choke her if ‘twill, an’ let the devil hev his own!”

But Lingood stolidly rested the woman against his knee, and began a clumsy
attempt at restoring her. “You’ve had your will,” he said, “an’ now ‘haps
you’ll give her a cup o’ watter.”

Banham, whose meek vacuity not even an explosion could destroy, after a
gaping pause to assimilate Lingood’s meaning, took a step toward the door,
but stopped at his wife’s command.

“Yow stay where yow be, Joe Banham!” she cried furiously. “Let me see yow
bring bit or sup for that darty witch that hev put the ill tongue on your own
flesh an’ blood darter! An’ if ‘tis watter yow want for her, Steve Lingood,
there’s a foison o’ watter in t’hosspond for sich faggits! Taake an’ swim
her!”

“She ote to be drownded,” said Mag, “if drownd she ‘ool.”

And Murrell added his rebuke. “That queer me, Stephen Lingood,” he said
gravely, “to see you aidin’ and comfortin’ so wicked a witch. Since you’ve
touched her, take her out an’ leave her to God’s will.”

Lingood, fumbling awkwardly and looking for help in vain, was aware of a
quick step in the yard, and with it an urgent voice. “Mrs Banham, Mrs Banham!
is’t an accident? Is my aunt here?”

The voice was at the door, and in another moment a girl in a print gown
was within, kneeling by the old woman—the girl who had asked news of
the war that evening of Roboshobery Dove. “O, what is’t?” she cried. “Mrs
Banham, be she hurt?”

The answering torrent of abuse stupefied the girl, but in its midst the
old woman opened her eyes and made a move to rise. The girl began to wipe the
blood from her cheek, but Lingood nodded sharply toward the door and lifted
her by the shoulders.

“Yes—come; come out,” the old woman said faintly, as the smith aided
her steps. But the girl stood in amaze. She, too, was clear-skinned and pale,
with long black hair; and her firm black eyebrows exhibited, though in a less
degree, the family peculiarity of a join at the meeting. She faced the storm
with little understanding, though she heard her aunt called a witch again and
again.

Presently she found speech to exclaim: “She’s no witch! Master Murr’ll,
what ha’ you been at?”

But her aunt pulled her by the skirt and commanded: “Come! Come yow away,
Dorrily!”

And so they went with Lingood into the lane.

THE cottage overlooking the castle lane was in more than one
sense a habitation apart from Hadleigh, and it had been so for long. For the
Martins were “foreigners”—that is to say, they came from fifty or sixty
miles off along the coast, and what was of much more serious importance, they
were connected with the coastguard. In 1831 great changes were made in the
revenue service, and it was then that John Martin and his wife came to the
Leigh station. Now in those days the revenue service was not popular in this
part of the coast—nor, indeed, in any other part. Smuggling was a great
trade—not quite so great here as it was in parts of Kent, perhaps, but
a large enough trade considering the thinness of the population, and a paying
trade. Indeed, it was carried on with something more of impunity than in the
famous smuggling districts on the south coast, where both smugglers and
King’s men were more numerous and more active. The nearest guard station
after Leigh was at Shoeburyness, almost seven miles along the coast, and the
men were few. More, they were familiar and native to the district, and apt to
be very luke-warm friends of the King, it was hinted; and certainly they were
no very bitter enemies of the smugglers. As for the old riding officer that
trotted harmlessly between, usually along the main road behind the
cliff-ridge, and safely out of sight, he was regarded less as a terror than
as an object of pleasant entertainment and a runner of fool’s errands for the
amusement of the idle humourist. It is possible that this was not the only
part of the coast where similar conditions existed; but under King William
great changes came. Men were moved into strange districts, were forbidden to
marry among their new neighbours, and were made to live as much apart as was
possible. So, in the general shifting of the pieces in the game, John Martin
and his wife, humble and inconsiderable pawns, were put down in the midst of
the enemy at Leigh, Mrs Martin’s brother, Reuben Thorn, going with them, and
taking his wife too.

The force of repulsion between the revenue men and their neighbours came
not alone from the King’s side, in shape of regulations. For if the service
men were loth, as in duty bound, to associate with those about them, these
latter on their side regarded with a natural suspicion and dislike the
strangers who were come among them to overset the pleasant course of life to
which they were accustomed; not only to cut off the easy supply of good
liquor and good tobacco which was felt to be every man’s elementary right,
but also to cut off the source of much prosperity to freighters and
venturers, and of liberal and easy wages for every man who could carry two
tubs on a dark night. There was a jealous watch, too, for informers and
babblers (though, in truth, they were rare enough), so that, for their own
sakes, few displayed an ambition to contract relations of any sort with the
coastguard, and there was a great difficulty in finding lodging for the men
and their families.