Читать книгу Sweet Mace: A Sussex Legend of the Iron Times - George Manville Fenn - Страница 12

“Better, Master Cobbe; I am growing stronger,” said Sir Mark, as he returned to the Pool-house with his silent companion, for, after their encounter with Gil and Mistress Anne, Mace had not spoken a word.

“That’s well,” said the bluff founder. “Take a good long walk every day, my lad, and that will soon give you strength.”

“I will, Master Cobbe, and relieve you of so untoward a visitor as quickly as I can.”

“See here, my brave lad,” said the founder, hastily; “no more of that. I am a hot-tempered, hasty man, ready to strike with staff or sword, but I am no niggard. You are my guest—a honoured, welcome guest—and when you go from the shelter of my roof it will be at your own wish, not mine. For look here, Sir Mark, I am a rough man, but pretty well to do.”

“But I impose upon you, Master Cobbe.”

“My dear lad, go on then, impose away. Tut, tut, what folly! Did you eat and drink at my table for ten years, I should never know or feel the cost. Come along with me, and see in my shed here we are going to cast a big culverin. The furnace is ready Mr tapping. You, being a man of war, will like to see.”

Sir Mark gave his assent, and, being to all appearances still very weak, he leaned heavily upon his stick, and they together crossed the interval between them and the large stone shed, from out of whose unglazed windows a vivid glow of light made itself plain, even in the afternoon sun.

“Ah, Mother Goodhugh, you here?” said the founder, quietly, as the owner of the name came along using a crutch-stick in good old witch-like fashion; and, thumping it down upon the ground, she stood leaning upon it with both hands, or raising it and pointing with it viciously as she began gesticulating and talking vehemently.

“Yes,” she cried, “I be here; and I keep coming, and watching, and waiting for the day when the curse shall work. It is planted and growing, for I water it with my widow’s tears, and, in due time, it will blossom and shower down seed upon you and your accursed house. Ha! ha! ha! You think to escape it,” she cried, with her voice increasing in shrillness, to attract the attention of the workpeople; “but mark my words—mark it all of you at the windows there—the great curse will overshadow him and his, and he will feel it sore, though he hopes to escape it all.”

“Nay, good mother,” said the founder mildly, and speaking in a sad, pitying voice, to the surprise of Sir Mark, who expected to see him burst into a passion. “Nay, nay, I think to ’scape no share of my troubles, such as the good Lord shall put upon me and mine.”

“The good Lord!” cried Mother Goodhugh, shrilly; “the good devil you mean, who watches over thee and thy Satanic plots and plans.”

“Well, there, there, mother,” said the founder, “go your way. I have company here to-day. You can come another time when I am alone, and curse me till you are hoarse,” he added, with a twinkle of the eye.

“Nay, but I’ll curse thee now,” said the old woman excitedly, as her eyes glistened, her wrinkled cheeks flushed, and her grey hair seemed to stand right away from her temples. “Let him hear me curse thee for an ungodly man with all his trade, a maker of devilish engines, and hellish thunder and lightning in barrels, in which he shall some day pass away in a storm of fire and smoke and brimstone fumes.”

“Is she mad?” whispered Sir Mark, plucking the founder by the sleeve.

“No,” said the founder sadly. “Poor soul; but she has had troubles enough to make her.”

“How dare you pity me, wretch, demon, hellhound?” cried the old woman. “Murderer that you are, you shall yet suffer for your crimes.”

“Let us walk on,” whispered Sir Mark, as a group of smoke-begrimed workmen came out and gathered at the windows to listen.

“Nay, I’ll let her say her say,” replied the founder, grimly. “If I go, she will follow me, and cast cinders at me, like a she Shimei, and I’ve got a big founding to make, my lad, which might come out badly if she stood in the window cursing me all in heaps.”

“What!” cried Mother Goodhugh, turning on Sir Mark. “You, do you think me mad? Nay, though I might have been, through his sins. Hear, young man, and judge between us. I was a prosperous, happy woman, with a loving husband and a dear son, who led a peaceful life till yon demon deluded both into coming and helping him in his devilish trade. I knew how it would be and prophesied to them that ill would come; but he fought against me, and gained them over. First my poor boy was brought home to me stiff and cold—stiff and cold, alas!—drowned in the Pool, and swept beneath yon devil’s engine of a wheel. A year later, and, with a rush and a whirlwind of fire, the great powder-barn was swept into the air with a roar of thunder. I heard it, and came running, for I knew ill had come, and I was in time to fall on my knees by the blackened corpse of my dead husband—scarred, torn, shocking to behold; and in my widowed agony I raised my hands to Heaven to call down vengeance, and cursed his destroyer as I curse him now.”

“Shame on you, Mother Goodhugh, shame!” cried a voice; and pale, and with eyes red with recent weeping, Mace Cobbe ran forward to throw one arm across her father’s breast, and stand between him and the old woman, as if to shield him from her anger, as, advancing with upraised stick and her eyes flashing with excitement, she seemed no inapt representative of a modern sibyl.

“Ah, you here, young Jezebel?” cried the woman, beside herself now, as she worked herself into a fierce rage. “Listen, good people; listen once more, as I tell you that the day will come when Jeremiah Cobbe shall curse the hour when he was born, when he shall gaze down upon the blackened corpse of this his miserable spawn, even as I gazed upon the burned and fire-scarred body of my dear; and I tell you that the day shall come when in his misery and God-forgotten despair he shall hurl himself into yonder Pool, and be swept down beneath his devilish wheel to be taken out dead—dead, do you hear?—as they drew out my boy.”

“Oh, shame, Mother Goodhugh, shame!” cried Mace again. “Come away, father, come away.”

“Nay, child,” he said, calmly. “I’ll face the storm like a man. It will be the sooner over.”

“Never!” cried the old woman, with the foam gathering on her dry lips, as she rolled her red and bloodshot eyes. “I’ll pursue you to your death. Curse you! curse you!”

“Oh, shame, old woman,” said Sir Mark, angrily. “Think of your own end, and how curses come home to roost.”

“Ah, yes,” cried the old woman, turning upon him. “I had forgotten you, poor showy dunghill Tom, in your feathers and spurs. You are to be caught, I suppose, for a husband for Miss Jezebel there. But keep away; go while your life is safe. There be death and destruction and misery there. Flee from the wrath to come, for in wedding that dressed-up-doll you tie yourself to the cursed, and may die as well. Hear me, good people, and judge between us; mark me that it will all come true.”

“Shame on you, Mother Goodhugh,” cried Mace, with her pale cheeks flushing; “and judge between them, all of you,” she said, addressing the little crowd of workmen and their wives who had gradually gathered round. “You all know how it was an accident when poor Luke Goodhugh fell into the Pool, when fishing against my dear father’s orders, and was drowned.”

“Yes, yes, that be a true word, mistress,” rose in chorus.

“And how my dear father grieved when that sad explosion came which killed poor Goodhugh, our best workman, through the folly of one who would smoke.”

“That be true enough. Yes, it be true, Mother Goodhugh.”

“You know all that,” cried Mace, with her handsome young face lighting up more and more, ignorant the while of Sir Mark’s admiring gaze. “You know all that,” she repeated, “but you don’t know that ever since that luckless day—”

“There, there, child, enough said,” cried the founder, as Mother Goodhugh stood muttering and mouthing in impotent malice at the speaker, who had robbed her of her audience for the time.

“Nay, father, dear, but they shall hear now,” cried Mace, speaking with energy, and her face flushing up with pride. “Judge between them all of you, when I tell you that from that dreadful day my father’s hand has always been open to this woman; his is the hand that has fed and clothed and sheltered her, when otherwise she must have gone forth a wanderer and a beggar upon the face of the earth.”

“Tut, tut, child!” cried the founder; “be silent.”

“Not yet, dear father,” cried Mace. “And for this,” she continued, “while he has fed her with bread, and had his heart sore with pity for her solitary fate, she has never ceased to shower down curses on his head.”

“Yes,” cried the old woman, breaking in again, “gives me bread to smother my curses,” and she shook her stick menacingly, “and I curse again. Give me back my boy—give me back my dear. When he does that, I will take back my curses and ill-wishings to myself, and bury them beneath the earth. Till then they will cling to him; and mark me, all, ill will come to this roof. It is builded on the sandrock,” she cried, pointing to how the house stood in a niche of the scarped rock, which ran right behind the building, towering up with the broom and gorse and purple heather, dotting the open spaces where the pine and hornbeam ceased to grow, a pleasant-timbered gabled house, where it seemed, with its climbing roses and blushing flowers, that sorrow could never come—“it is builded on the sandrock, but it shall be rent asunder, and dissolve in flame, and smoke, and ruin, and destruction, and then—then”—she cried hoarsely.

“Why then, Mother Goodhugh,” said the founder, “we’ll build it up afresh, for there’s stone and timber enough about for a dozen such houses, and close at hand.”

“Nay,” cried the old woman, “nay,” she croaked, for her voice had gone, and she spoke now in a hoarse whisper; “listen, all of you: the very stones of the ruins will be cursed, and all the trade, and no man shall lay hands upon them to build again, lest he be accursed himself.”

In spite of her brave true heart, Mace felt a chill strike through her as the old woman walked hurriedly away, thumping her crutch-stick on the ground, and stopping to turn and shake it threateningly at the Pool-house—even stopping by the gate to spit towards the door before she went on muttering and gesticulating, with her grey hood thrown back on her shoulders, her linen cap in her hand, and her hair streaming in the soft summer breeze, which came to the little crowd standing gazing after her as she went.

“Poor old girl!” cried the founder, with his face lighting up once more. “Come, lads, the storm’s over; back to work.”

The men looked at one another, and walked away with shaking head and pursed-up lip, while the women stole off in silence, to gather together at one of the cottages and talk over the wise woman’s words.

“Poor souls!” cried the founder, cheerily; “they believe her to the bottom of their hearts. Why, hey, here’s Master Peasegood, to bear me out. I say, Master Peasegood, that if an old and ugly woman chooses to set up for a witch, and only curses hard enough, she’ll find plenty to believe in her.”

“Ay, and as you say, Master Cobbe, if she only curse hard enough, and only prophesy, like David danced, with all his might, some of the stones are sure to hit the mark. Your servant, sir; Mace, my pretty flower, how is it with you? Bless you, my child, bless you!”

This in a thick unctuous voice, as the speaker, an enormously fat, heavy man, in rather shabby clerical habiliments, rolled up to the group, and, taking Mace in his arms, kissed her roundly on both her cheeks, while, to Sir Mark’s hot indignation and surprise, the maiden laid her hands upon the parson’s broad breast, and kissed him in return.

“I was coming to pay my respects to you—Sir Mark Leslie, I believe.”

The knight bowed stiffly, with his countenance full of displeasure.

“Sir Thomas Beckley told me of your illness, and begged me to call,” continued Master Peasegood, whose heavy cheeks wabbled as he spoke. “Aha, that’s one of the privileges of being an old, an ugly, and a horribly fat man. I may kiss my pretty little Mace here when and where I will. Master Cobbe,” he continued, as he held and patted the maiden’s soft white little hand, “if you do not place the key in these fingers, and bid our little blossom go fetch me a tankard of the coolest, brownest, beadiest ale in that rock-hewn cellar of thine, this man-mountain will lie down in the shade and faint. Zooks, gentlemen, but the sun is hot.”

He took off his broad-brimmed soft hat, and wiped his brow as he looked at both in turn, while Mace went off for the ale.

“Ay, it is hot, Master Peasegood; but it will be hotter in yonder directly. Come and see the casting.”

“Not I,” said the new-comer: “I’ll go and sit in the shady room, and hold discourse with fair little Mace, and the ale. I shall stay to the next meal, so you need not hurry,” he added, to Sir Mark’s disgust.

“You’re welcome,” said the founder. “How is the holy father? Why didn’t you bring him?”

“Out on the malignant! I’ve done with him,” cried Master Peasegood, with much severity. “He’s all purgatory and absolution and curse. Ah, talk about cursing! So Mother Goodhugh has been at work again.”

“Ay, with all her might.”

“Hah! I like being cursed,” said the parson, drawing a long breath. “I’ve been cursed more than any man living, sir,” he continued, turning to Sir Mark. “Ha, ha, ha, ha! see how I flourish upon it. I like being cursed.”

“But you don’t like cursing,” said the founder.

“Nay, not at all,” said the parson. “Well, I’ll in to my draught of ale. Go and get you dope, and come and join me,” and, saluting Sir Mark, he, to that gentleman’s great relief, rolled slowly towards the porch, while the founder led his guest through the low arched doorway into the furnace-house, whose interior was now aglow.

Mace awaited her stout visitor in the cool, shady parlour, with the silver flagon in her hands, then lifted the lid, and held it out to him with a smile.

He took it, sniffed the aromatic scent, and raised it to his lips, with his eyes on Mace, but set the vessel down again, and took the maiden’s hands.

“Give me another kiss, child, before I defile my lips with strong liquor. Hah,” he added, after the salute, “that was as fresh as the touch of a dewy blossom at early morn. God’s blessing be on the man who wins thy love, my child, and may he make thee a very, very happy wife. Nay, nay, don’t blush, child,” he continued, patting the hand he still retained. “I am a confirmed old bachelor, and shall never wed; but I hold, as opposed to Father Brisdone—the devil take him!—that there is no purer and no holier thing in life than the love of a good man for a sweet, pure woman, unless it be the love of the woman for the man.”

“You do not drink your ale, Master Peasegood;” said Mace, blushing, and looking pained.

“Nay, my child, that can rest, for now we are on this topic of love I want to talk to thee. Come, come, look not so angered with me. You’ve grown a beautiful woman, Mace: but I seem always to be looking at my pretty, prattling babe, who brought me flowers every Sabbath day. Ah! my child, time flies apace—tempus edax rerum, as Father Brisdone would say. But hearken to me, child, I am no father confessor, but if my little Maybud did not open her sweet young heart to me ’twould grieve me sore.”

“Oh, Master Peasegood,” cried Mace, enlacing her hands, and resting them on his shoulder, as he seated himself on a chair, which groaned beneath his weight, “I have not a thought that I would keep from thee.”

“I know thou hast not,” he said. “So tell me—this courtly spark, has he said words of love?”

“Nay, Master Peasegood, but he sighs and gazes at me pensively, and lingers here as if he wished me to believe he was in love.”

“And you? What of this little heart? What think you of his gay clothes and courtly ways, and smooth manners and gentle words?”

“I think him a good-looking, pleasant-spoken gentleman enough,” said Mace.

“Ah! that will do,” cried the parson, smiling, as he gazed into the maiden’s clear, bright eyes. “That will do, my rosebud; not a quiver of the eyelids; not a blush; not a trembling of the lips. Faith, child, you’ve set my heart at ease. There, keep thine own fast locked till the good, true man shall come and knock, and ask for entrance. Then, child, open it wide, and shut it, and lock him in, never to set him free.”

Mace nodded and smiled.

“That’s only part of my errand, child; the other is about Culverin Carr, our bold captain. What of him? Aha! does that prick?”

He held the girl’s hand tightly, for she turned half away, with a pained look in her face, and the tears rose to her eyes.

“Well, and ill,” cried Master Peasegood, shaking his head. “What does it mean, child? You care for him, I think?”

“I hardly know,” sighed Mace.

“Then you do,” said Master Peasegood, nodding his big head. “There’s no doubt about such matters, child. But tell me all—you may trust me—does he know you like him?”

“Oh, yes,” cried Mace, “and my father has forbidden him to come to the house.”

“Then he has good reason for it. Jeremiah Cobbe is hot, passionate, and excited enough to carry him to perdition, but he is just. Now, look here, Mace, do you think Captain Gil is the true, good man who should be locked up in your little heart?”

“Have—have you ill news of him?” faltered Mace, who a few hours before would have scornfully rebutted any charge against the choice of her heart.

“I am no tale-bearer, child,” said the parson, sternly. “My mission is to make peace, not war. Tell me, have you doubted friend Gil’s truth?”

For answer Mace sank upon her knees, and covered her face with her hands.

“Poor child, poor child!” muttered the parson, as he laid his hand upon her glossy hair. The next instant she had started with him to her feet, for there was a sharp crash as of some explosion, and, after a moment’s pause, a bellowing, rumbling roar, which shook the building to its foundations, and then seemed to roll into the distance and die away.