Part 21
She ascended the throne under the happiest auspices: the good-will of her people filled her heart with happiness and strengthened the stability of her throne, whilst her great talents secured for her kingdom the blessings of good government, her many virtues afforded a bright example to all her subjects, and her reign was throughout, that which it promised at the first to become, an era of unmixed happiness and prosperity to Pigmyland.
THE CRONES OF MERSHAM.
Things are very dull now-a-days in the country districts of England.
The country gentlemen have got into the habit of going to London a great deal more than they used to do before railroads were made as extensively as has been the case of late years. The farmers, too, move about more than they did in the olden days, and act very differently in many respects from their forefathers.
Nor are the labourers quite the same; they ask more wages, touch their hats to master, squire, and parson less than they did, and discuss matters of politics and the government of the country, which formerly never entered their heads.
I dare say it is all right: it is a wise and good frame of mind to cherish, which teaches one that whatever _is_, is right, although it is sometimes very difficult to think so.
For instance, when my tooth takes to aching without any obvious cause, and certainly very much against my will, the fact of its doing so is well established, but the existing state of things in my face is not recognised by me--not for one single moment--as right because it _is_ the existing state. And when I have overdrawn my account at my banker's, and the state of things is that he will not let me do so any more, the circumstance that it is so does not reconcile me to the fact in the very slightest degree.
Still, as regards the progress which this country has made, and the condition at which we have now arrived, I am ready to bow my head meekly, and allow that as a general maxim, the general results may be admitted by me to be "all right."
There _are_ the railroads, and (though the carriages are not always comfortable, and the trains generally late) they afford such facilities for the gentryfolk to go to town, that we cannot wonder at their doing so. If it is not right that they should, surely railroads would never have been permitted, cutting up the beautiful country as they do, and sending their screaming engines along through the green fields and thriving plough-lands, where all before was peaceful and quiet.
Then if the farmers are changed, it is also all for the best without doubt. Changed they are, beyond all question. They are a different class of men from the old species of farmer who existed fifty years ago, and who seldom went further than his market town.
Our farmers, now-a-days, have all visited London again and again, and instead of the homely talk over a market dinner which used to take place in old days, they have got "Chambers of Agriculture," in which they evince a remarkable ability in discussing anything which Parliament proposes to do about agricultural matters, and talk nearly as wisely, I am told, as the members of the House of Commons itself!
Still, however, I stick to my text, and say that, being as it is, it must be all right.
Of course it is, and so also with regard to the labourers. When I was a boy they did not know half as much as they do now, but they worked well for all that.
I have lodged in two rooms in this farmhouse in which I write for twenty-seven years come next Michaelmas, and I have often heard farmer Barrett say that his best labourers were generally those who could neither read nor write.
Most of them can do both now, and people used to say that it was a sin and a shame that every labourer should not be able to read his Bible and write his name in it.
"All right," again say I, only unfortunately (as I sometimes venture to think) it is not their Bibles they read, so much as the penny papers, and these sometimes teach them different lessons from the Bible, I fancy. Then there is a lot of cheap--well, trash I was going to say, and I think I must, too--a lot of cheap trash which is sent about all over the country, or which they pick up here and there, and which teaches them lessons altogether mischievous.
Moreover, they have societies, which are curious sort of concerns, I am told, and through which they are taught actually to demand an increase of wages, and various other things which were never thought of in old times.
All these things have made the country districts of England very different places from what they used to be when I first knew them. That is now a long time ago, but I know a great deal that happened before I knew anything from my own eyesight and observation--I mean before I was born.
I am an old man now, and having enough money to live upon and be comfortable, I have all my lifetime indulged my inclination for living in the country.
I used to make it my principal endeavour to avoid railways. I hired lodgings in rustic villages, and lived quietly therein, studying the ways and habits of the people, and picking up old legends, which was always my chief delight. But wherever I went, a railroad was sure to be immediately afterwards projected through that particular district.
The steam fiend seemed to have marked me out as an involuntary pioneer to herald his advance; and, move where I would, he and his myrmidons very shortly appeared in my wake.
This continued for five and twenty years--for I began my system of country-lodging when I was a tolerably young man--barely turned thirty. When I tell you, as I did just now, that I have been in my present abode for twenty-seven years, a little calculation will show you that I shall never again see my eighty-second birthday. You will therefore, I hope, excuse the garrulity of old age, and forgive me if I have somewhat wandered from the tale which in fact I have not yet begun, but which I have been leading up to all this time.
For you must know that the changes of which I have been speaking have had great effect upon other people besides gentry, farmers, and labourers. There are nothing like so many witches, wizards and curious creatures of that kind as there were, in country places, in the good old times.
I do not for one moment say that this is to be regretted. On the contrary, I say again, that being so, I have no doubt it is "all right."
But, right or wrong, it is undoubtedly true that the witches, warlocks and wise women have greatly diminished, if indeed they have not altogether vanished. I hope it will be understood that by "wise women" I do not allude to the ladies who give scientific lectures and talk about a variety of subjects upon which they evidently know much more than an old gentleman like I am could ever know, and, I must say, more than I should like to know about some things.
This is a different kind of wisdom altogether, and there are plenty of persons who possess it, or think they do, which serves their purpose quite as well. I mean "wise," in the sense of possessing an unusual and supernatural insight into things which are commonly hidden from mortal knowledge.
Of these people there are few, if any, left in the present day; or if there are such, they do not come to the front as they once did. There are, indeed, many persons in the world now, who actually disbelieve in witches and all creatures of that sort, and who not only disbelieve in their existence now, but who stoutly maintain that they never _did_ exist.
I don't know how they get over the Witch of Endor, or the various other allusions to witches in the Bible, but I suppose they _do_ somehow or other.
People are much too clever for me, nowadays, and get over any difficulty that comes in their way--or fancy that they do so, and trouble themselves no more about it. I have even heard people disbelieve in fairies, but that of course is sheer nonsense; and no one who wanders--as I have often done, at all seasons and at all hours--through the glorious English woodlands, can doubt the existence of the dear little elves.
Doubt their existence! I should as soon think of doubting my own! How do the fairy-rings come, I should like to know? Whence comes the name of "the Fairy Well"--not uncommon by any means? Oh, no! I do not believe that anybody disbelieves that fairies exist, though I know that there is a dreadful amount of unbelief in the world regarding warlocks and witches.
I am glad to say that good Farmer Barrett was never one of the unbelievers. He was near upon seventy when I first came to lodge under his roof, so that if he had lived till now he would have been ninety-seven. As he didn't, however, it is no use making the remark. He died some twelve years ago, when about eighty-five; cut off, as one may say, in the prime of life.
Ah, me! how our friends, young and old, fall around us, like grass. My godson, Jack Barrett, here remarks, with less of reverence than I could have wished, in speaking of his grandfather, that a man taken away at eighty-five would be better compared to hay than grass. Well, well, Jack is young; barely forty, and boys _must_ have their jokes, as we all know.
I was going to say that good Farmer Barrett's death affected me very much. He was a very great comfort to me, was Farmer Barrett. It was not only that we agreed upon most points, and thought alike in a manner most satisfactory to both of us. _That_ was a great comfort, living as we did under the same roof, and sitting together, either in his kitchen or my parlour, almost every evening, to enjoy a quiet gossip. But there were other comforts too, and the chief one--that which I may fairly consider the principal advantage which I reaped from the society of Farmer Barrett--was derived from his extraordinary knowledge of the legends and traditions of his native county concerning witches and wizards.
Many and many an evening have we sat talking upon such matters, till I have really felt quite nervous about going to bed. Not that I am a nervous man: not by any means; but I own that more than once, after discussing witches and their cats to a late hour, I have felt a curious sensation when the house cat came rubbing herself against my shins, and have looked with a species of creepy feeling over my left shoulder as I went upstairs to bed, almost thinking I should see something "uncanny" close behind me.
I never knew any man with such a collection of stories and legends as old Barrett. He had tales without end of the "Warlock of Coombe," the "Wizard of Bockhanger," and the "Witch of Brook Hollow." He could tell of the dark doings of the "Hag of Hothfield," and the fearful creature who so long inhabited the regions of Charing, and darkened the woods of Longbeach with her awesome shadow.
I do not believe that any witch or wizard ever existed in Kent whose story was not well known to Barrett. Of his own knowledge he could tell something. Once there happened a curious thing in his stables.
His two teams of horses, fed alike, housed equally well, and treated with precisely the same care, strangely varied in their appearance and condition. One team were always sleek and slim, "fat and well-liking," like Pharaoh's fat kine, and the admiration of all beholders. The other team were just the reverse. Nothing they took seemed to agree with them, they fell away, their bones started through their skins, and their appearance was a disgrace to the farm. This state of things greatly puzzled and annoyed the farmer and his men.
Barrett himself laid the blame upon the waggoner and his mate, and threatened to discharge both of them if things went on so, as he felt sure they petted one team of horses at the expense of the other. The men earnestly denied the charge, and were evidently much vexed at its having been made.
Things went on the same until at last the waggoner, who was a clever and withal a courageous man, determined to sit up all night and watch. He did so, being carefully hidden in the corner of the stable. The horses fed well, and lay down as usual. All was quiet until twelve o'clock struck. At that moment several little men, about a foot high, leaped down from the loft above the stables, and going to the favoured team, began to brush and comb them with great care and energy, rubbing them well all over and uttering no words to anybody as they did so, save to each other as they worked, as if to encourage themselves to greater exertions.
"I work--you work, I work--you work," they kept saying, and the coats of the horses rapidly became more smooth and glossy, until, when the little men had finished, they were perfect models of what horses should be.
They merely looked at the other team with funny faces, and then hastened up again to their loft. All this the waggoner duly told his master next morning, and, of course, with the natural incredulity of man, he at first refused to believe it.
But when, upon the man again and again assuring him of its truth, he determined to put the matter to the proof by hiding himself that same night, he saw precisely the same thing, and was of course convinced.
I forget how the story ended, but I know that, somehow or other, he managed to get some "wise" person in the neighbourhood to speak up for the poor, thin team, and prevent the little elves, or whatever they were, from "spiting" them any more.
Then the farmer had a tale which had been told him by a groom he had once in his service, who came from the hill above Charing. Up over the hill there was a reputed witch, Mrs. Dorland.
I questioned the groom about this woman myself, so I may as well give the story in his own words.
"She were a noted witch, she were," he said.
"How do you know?" I asked, not because I myself doubted for a moment, but because I wanted to glean all the particulars I possibly could.
"Bless ye, sir," replied the youth, "I knows all about it because o' my grandfather. She wouldn't never let him alone. I expect he'd affronted her, one time or other. I recollect when I was a-staying along with him once, and the door locked and all--he looked over the stairs and there, sure enough, was old Dame Dorland on the mat at the bottom, and her eyes! oh they _glounded_ in her head, they did!"
"But how did she get in?" I asked.
"That's just what I want to know," answered the boy. "The door was shut and fast locked; but there she was, anyhow. Another time my grandfather had to drive some bullocks down to Ashford market, and he overtook Dame Dorland. She had a basket on her arm, and she asked my grandfather to carry it for her. He wouldn't. I expect he didn't know what bad game might be up. Well, do you think he could keep his bullocks in the road, after that? Not he: they was over the hedge, first one side and then another, and then they was for running back. He couldn't do nothing with them, so he turns back and offers to carry the old girl's basket. Then the bullocks was all right directly, and he hadn't no trouble in getting them along all the way to Ashford."
Since Farmer Barrett had lived all his life in a county where such people as Dame Dorland were to be found, there can hardly be much surprise felt at his entire and implicit belief in witchcraft.
But the most wonderful tale that he ever told me was that which not only concerned the county, but the very district in which he dwelt. It is a story to which I listened with intense interest when first I heard it, and my interest was never lessened by its repetition.
Again and again I asked the old farmer to go over it once more, and I cross-examined him upon all the particulars of his tale in a manner which would really have offended some people of my acquaintance. He, however, was not only not offended, but pleased at the perseverance with which I questioned him.
He told me the story, in fact, so often, that I got to know it nearly by heart; and I think it is one which I ought to relate for the benefit of a world, in which, as far as I can see, belief of any kind, and certainly belief in witches and the like, will shortly be extinct.
The parish of Mersham has long been known as a favourite resort of queer people of the kind of whom I am speaking. It is a very long, narrow parish: much narrower, of course, at some parts than others.
Its north end runs into and beyond the park of Mersham Hatch--that is, the west side of the park, the east side being in the parishes of Brabourne and Smeeth. The south part of the parish joins Bilsington and Aldington, and on the south west you are very close upon the Ruckinge and Orlestone big woods--so close that I am not sure whether a portion of that vast tract of woodland does not actually lie within the boundaries of the parish of Mersham. Be that as it may, it is a wild part of the world, and just the very sort of place in which you would fancy witches and their confederates to abound. Whether you fancy it or not, however, beyond all doubt such was the case, in the good old times of which I speak.
No one ever dreamed of being out at night in those parts if he could possibly help it. The roads were wretchedly bad, full of deep ruts and big stones, with ditches inconveniently exposed on either side, and bushes jutting out from the adjoining woods in the most awkward manner for the traveller.
But it was not the badness of the roads which deterred people from moving about at night, or towards evening, but something much worse, namely the strange and terrible beings who frequented the locality.
All kinds of rumours were current with respect to witch meetings, and gatherings held by wicked creatures, upon which, if a mortal man of ordinary mould happened to come, he ran a terrible risk of some dreadful misfortune happening to him and his, shortly afterwards.
Cottages were few and far between: there was scarce a public house to be found in the neighbourhood, save one or two which had an evil reputation as the haunt of smugglers and outlawed men.
No gentleman's house was near, and Bilsington Priory had passed away with all its holy train of priests, and nothing was to be seen of their former glory, and no vestige of themselves either, unless it was true that a monk walked occasionally round the walls with ghostly tread, and moaned, deeply and sadly, as he compared the past with the present. In short, it was a wild, weird country, and wild, weird people dwelt there.
From Aldington Knoll, right away down to the other side of Ham-street, the thick woods contained a class of beings who, if they lived there nowadays, would be a horror to all Christian men, and an intolerable nuisance to the Kent County Constabulary. There were, however, honest men there, as everywhere else; and, although for the most part such people preferred to dwell nearer Mersham-street or immediately below the church, yet the scattered cottages further south were not altogether without inmates, who, having nowhere else to live, lived there.
John Gower was one of these, a respectable middle-aged man, who won his bread by the sweat of his brow, and was proud of the name of a Kentish labourer.
John had married early in life, lost his wife after the birth of their fourth child, and remained a widower ever since. Although he could neither read nor write, he was blessed with good common sense, and was able to give his children plain and sensible advice, which might serve them, he said, in as good stead as book-learning, if they would only lay it to heart and act upon it.
His eldest girl, Mary, was as good a girl as you would meet in a day's journey. She had her good looks (as most Mersham girls have), but she had that which is even better than good looks, an even temper and a good disposition. She was about seventeen when our story begins; her brother Jack, between fifteen and sixteen, was away at work "down in the sheers" (shires), as the neighbours called all other counties but their own; and two little ones, Jane, under fourteen, and Billy, just twelve, were at home, the former helping her sister as well as she could, and the latter doing such odd jobs as could be found for him, and doing no more mischief than a boy of his age could help.
The cottage in which they lived was very near the big woods--too near to be pleasant for anyone who feared witches or wizards--and it must be confessed that John Gower was not without his fears.
He had various horse-shoes nailed up about his premises to keep the evil creatures off, and he carefully barred his doors and windows every night, not knowing what might happen if any of them were left open. He could tell of strange cries heard in the woods at night, and if you suggested that they might proceed from owls, he shook his head sadly and gravely, as one who knew better, and grieved over your doubting spirit.
But in spite of his fears and precautions, and the strange locality in which he lived, Gower could not be called otherwise than a cheerful man. He worked all day, got home as soon as he could, was pleasant and happy with his children (of whom he was very fond), and was certainly of a contented disposition, and one who made the best of the world and took things as he found them.
Such was he and such was his family at the time that the occurrences took place which I am about to relate.
Some years before the date at which our story commences, there had lived at the extreme south of the parish of Mersham a woman of the name of Betty Bartlet. She was not only a reputed witch, but the fact of her being so was testified to by a great number of credible witnesses who had either suffered in their own persons from her evil power, or had seen and heard things which could not have been had she been an ordinary and Christian woman.
She lived to a very great age--nobody knew exactly how old she was when she died; and, although the rumours respecting her career caused the clergyman of the Parish to entertain serious doubts as to the course he should pursue, she was eventually carried to Mersham churchyard to be therein interred.
But if I am correctly informed--and I obtained my information from highly respectable people--there were strange and terrible doings at her funeral.
She was carried on a waggon, from the cottage in which she had breathed her last, as far as the bridge over the river Stour, which flows, as all the world knows, a few hundred yards south of the church. There, from some unknown cause, the horses would not cross the bridge; and it was told me that they seemed quite exhausted with the short journey--little over three miles--which they had performed.
So the people unharnessed them from the waggon, placed all that remained of old Betty on the shoulders of eight stout bearers, and marched forward towards the churchyard. But not only was their burden wondrously heavy, but it seemed to grow heavier as they went on, and they had the greatest difficulty in making their way up the short hill, and so round to the right towards the churchyard. And just before they got to the gate, why or wherefore nobody could tell, one of the bearers stumbled, and in doing so tripped up another, and down came the whole concern with a great crash upon the ground. Everything connected with their burden suddenly disappeared: a vast cloud of black dust arose and blew all over the place, and out of the dust flew a great black bird, with a strange and awful croak, with which it terribly frightened the bystanders and bearers, as it flew off directly in the contrary direction to the churchyard.