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When the moon was full, Sir William Notley went down to Ballote Wood and found on the edge of it the cottage of Mother Cloke. This was small, of but two rooms, and close to it were three young oak trees which stood like sentinels on the edge of the battalions of the woods. The place was very lonely and set on the edge of a hill, which appeared rather to be a cliff, as if in the old days the water had come right inland (as it did indeed now, sometimes in the winter or after great storms of rain) along the flat marshes below.

In the daylight these marshes could be seen dotted with white sheep and the little silver lines of small canals, half choked with feathering grasses and bulrushes; in the distance shone the shimmer of the blue sea. In the spring there would be another whiteness, that of blackthorn and hawthorn and daisies, and in the autumn the red and gold of berries.

But none of this could be seen now, only the moon mist that was over everything and the dark shape of the wood.

Sir William Notley knocked at Mother Cloke’s door. She opened it in an instant and stood there ready with the bunch of red archangel or dead nettle, which she put into the hand of the young man. As she did so she murmured some words in a hocus-pocus language. He took these to be charms and asked her, laughing, if they would protect him against any possible evil in the haunted woods, but her answer surprised him considerably:

‘No, it is to protect me against you.’

‘To protect yourself against me, Goody Cloke.’ He was curious. ‘Now what do you fear in me?’

‘Something which you do not yet know exists in yourself.’

‘Evil?’ he asked.

‘There has been blood on your hands and might be again.’

The young man was startled and affronted. The adventure began to take too realistic a turn. His mind was turned back to places where it would not journey willingly.

‘Don’t frown at me, Sir William,’ said the old woman, calmly, ‘I shall neither help nor hinder you on your way. There’s others more powerful than I will do that. I have said I will show you a pretty sight tonight. Think of that, young sir, and of nothing else.’

He followed her sullenly along a sloping path which led directly to the woods.

The moonlight was very brilliant. Sir William never remembered to have noticed such a powerful radiance at night before. It cast a blur over everything; the shapes of the trees seemed intangible and a glimpse of marshland below the hill shimmered like a sea of light. The wood was very dark by contrast, and at first he was blinded, and could with difficulty follow the old woman.

‘In such a shade as this I should see nobody if she were to appear.’

‘Have patience, good Sir William, and follow me. Speak no doubt nor profanity, whether you believe it or no, there is magic abroad.’

Then again he wished that it might be so, for he was weary of almost every delight that common joys and ordinary day could provide. So after awhile they came out on to a space where the trees were sparse and in the middle of this was a pool, deep set and overhung by slender boughs of willow saplings, and the frail, tall spikes of loosestrife, their purple blossoms showing like a faint tinge of blood in that silver glow.

Mother Cloke drew the young man behind an oak tree, which stood on the height above this pool, and bade him look down and presently he should see the strange creature, nymph, or goddess, or witch, or she knew not what, who would come and bathe in the pool under the moonlight.

‘Goody Cloke,’ whispered the young man, ‘if this comes to pass and there be no trick or imposture about it, I will fill up your herb basket with gold pieces.’

‘And they would be of little use to me,’ she whispered back, ‘and I should have to travel very far to be able to spend them. But if your honour can spare, say, half a dozen good bottles of wine from the cellar of Holcot Grange, they would tide me through the winter when I am much troubled with the old cough.’

‘That you shall have,’ said he, ‘the best that can be found. Show me now your goddess.’

‘Look now, Sir William, and speak no more. Keep your eyes and your mind on the pool.’

So the young man looked down, and even without the goddess for whom he waited, the scene was fair enough to snatch him from all bad and evil thoughts.