Читать книгу The Ninth Earl - John Jeffery Farnol - Страница 7

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Boys were hooting while dogs barked and leapt fiercely about a wretched old creature who, back to a tree, was striving to defend herself with feeble blows of a quite inadequate staff. For already her poor gown was torn and one bony arm ran blood; over a nearby stile a burly, young fellow lounged to watch and grin as one dog, bigger and fiercer than the others, leapt and seized the thin shawl about the old creature’s age-bowed shoulders—then this worrying ferocity was smitten away by a stick plied with such strength and accuracy that savage dogs and crueller boys fled howling and yelping in unison.

“Young—devils!” panted George who had been running, then espying the man who lounged and grinned, he turned on this fellow in scowling fury:

“Shame on you Tom Ferris, damn you—to see any woman—so misused, especially one so old as Hagah!”

“Eh, a woman, Mast’ Jarge? She be naun but a black witch as ee do know well, same as I do! A brimstone witch she be, as should to the fire or water, ah and ’er would’ave none s’long ago—as ’tis, I spits at ’er.”

“Do!” snarled George. “Do so and I’ll thrash you!” Tom Ferris spat and reeled sideways from the resounding slap of George’s open hand.

“That’s to start!” he nodded, dropping stick and clenching eager fists. “Now come over that stile—no, I’ll come to you.” So saying George vaulted the stile, steadied himself to meet Tom’s rushing onslaught, avoided Tom’s left, ducked swinging right and countered so heavily on Tom’s bristly chin that down he went headlong.

“Come, get up!” cried George; Tom merely blinked. “Up with you and fight—d’ye hear?”

“Ay, I hears!” answered Tom, composing himself comfortably at ease. “But lookee, Mast’ Jarge, I beant agoin’ to stand up for to be knocked back’ards again b’ the likes o’ you, sir, none whatever.”

“So you won’t fight?”

“Ay, right j’yful, but not wi’ the likes of ee, Mast’ Jarge. You fights for the sport of it, me only when I has to.”

“You’re a poor sort of animal, Tom.”

“Mebbe so, sir, but there’s them as thinks different, ’specially some as goes in petticuts!”

“Petticoats!” snarled George. “However, there’s one over yonder now and in it a poor, helpless old soul you watched being savaged. So if you won’t fight you shall beg her pardon instead, ay, and make good her damage out of your pocket, curse you!”

“Not me, Mast’ Jarge!”

“You will, Tom. Ha yes, by Jupiter you shall if I have to kick you to her over the stile. So what about it, do you walk or do I kick?”

Tom looked up at the scowling face above him, down at the powerful foot back-drawn to kick, and rising—walked.

The little, old woman, sharp of nose and peaked of chin crouched thus beneath the tree, seemed indeed the veriest witch at first glance, but her deep-sunken eyes were misted with grief, her thin cheeks streaked with tears, yet she rose to front them, staff upraised to smite, desperate in her weakness, and glaring fiercely to mask her fear, showed thus more witchlike than ever. But George had seen those tears and for these and many other reasons, bared his head to her aged womanhood greeting her like the friend she was:

“Dear old Hagah, here comes Tom to beg your pardon and hope you are not hurt!” And then whispering aside to Ferris: “Speak up, damn you!” And forthwith Tom spoke:

“Gammer Hagah, witch or no, I wishes ee well and axes pardin’ for settin’ they raskell lads and dogs onto ee. And for your tore gownd marm, this yere shillin’——”

“Not enough!” hissed George.

“This yere ’arf a crown——”

“Double it!” growled George.

“This yere five shillin’, marm——”

The frail, old body straightened, the sunken eyes flashed, the pale, shrivelled lips curled bitterly scornful as she replied:

“Keep your money, Tom Ferris; I’ll naun of ’t—you as I helped into the world, same as I did your feyther and his’n afore him! Ah, they didna call me ‘witch’ when trouble or sickness grieved ’em; no, they come pleading help and comfort of Hagah the Wise Woman! Old, very, very old I be, and long past troubling for fools the like of ee or them as do plague me and cry ‘witch’ these days. So go thy ways, Tom, and learn thyself to be a man, ah—and the good Lord above bless ee, my poor child!”

Slowly Tom Ferris turned and took three slow strides away, turned again and made three quick strides back, then, stooping he laid the five shillings at her feet, saying and with look and tone very humble:

“Tak’ ’em or leave ’em.” Having said which he knuckled an eyebrow, vaulted the style and strode away with, for him, uncommon haste.

“I dunnot want the lad’s money!” muttered the old creature, frowning at the coins.

“Yet he meant well,” said George, taking them up, “so here they are!” And he placed them in her unwilling hand. “Also I believe he was sincere, Hagah.”

“Ay, there be good in Tom,” she nodded, “same as in most of us if us do but trouble to find it! Ay, good,” she repeated, “good in all God’s creatures except—the Black Wynters. And now, Master George, I thankee for taking my part so powerful and timely.”

“But your arm bleeds——”

“Lord bless ee ’tes naun but bit of a scrat.”

“However, I’ll bind it up for you.”

“Nay, now never trouble for me, sir——”

“This handkerchief is quite clean—and don’t you ‘sir’ me, my dear, as if we were strangers! Didn’t you save my life when I was no more than a puling infant—ay, by Jupiter, and after the doctors had given me up, eh, my dear old Hagah?

“Ay, maybe I did! And seems but yesterday these hands o’ yours a baby’s, small and pink and now so big and strong and—gentle——”

“What was my ailment—chickenpox or measles?”

“Neether; ’twere a fever as I cured by a herbal potion, though folks said ’twere black witchcraft, all ’cept Miss Belle. Ah, she were a lovely lady then.”

“So she is now.”

“Ay, so she be, sure-ly!”

“Then why do you never visit us at Sparklebrook these days, Hagah? You know there is always a hearty welcome for you there.”

“So I do, Master Georgie, but I be too very old; my visiting days be over.”

“Nonsense; you’re spry as ever you were, or as long as I remember you, which is all my life.”

“Ay, nature and our Good Lord has given me wonderful health——”

“And wisdom, Hagah. There, so much for your hurt arm! And now what?”

“I’ll be getting along home.”

“Yes,” said George, as they went on together, “you’re a wonderful person, Hagah, for you never seem to change or get any older! Today you are as I remember you twenty-odd years ago. I have often wondered exactly how old you are. And, egad, Aunt Isabel says the same—that today you seem just as she remembers you, as long as she can remember! So, dear old Hagah, tell me just how old you really are.”

“Ah, Master Georgie,” she answered mournfully and speaking now like an educated person, “I am too old, so old indeed, that those I most loved are all dead long and long ago! Yes, my world died around me and today I am a very lonely wretch waiting to die, too, and by God’s sweet mercy find my world again ... faces of those I so loved and have never forgotten, hear their dear voices glad again—ah, but with a better life ... faces and voices that come to me only in dreams nowadays....” Old Hagah’s breath began to labour, for the road now led uphill; and George, heeding this and how her steps faltered, drew her hand within his arm, and, thus linked, they achieved the ascent, and here he insisted she must rest a while. So down they sat together like the age-old friends they were.

Below them lay the village bowered in trees and sheltered by the green slope of the gentle downs, beyond which they could glimpse the open sea. But George’s musing gaze was fixed upon the tall, grim tower of Ravenhurst Castle that, even from this eminence, seemed to dominate all. And thus intent, he enquired suddenly:

“Being so very old, Hagah, you must remember Philip, the seventh Earl—you do, don’t you?”

And after brief silence she answered and in the country idiom:

“Ay, sure-ly!”

“Well, what was he like?”

“A right lovesome babby!”

“I mean—as a man.”

“A right noble and kindly young gentleman, him being one of the good Vane-Wynters, them as be born to suffer.”

“And did he suffer?”

“Ay, he did so, right bitterly, no question!”

“Well now, Hagah, I want you to tell me all you remember concerning him—everything!”

“That’ll be nothing!” she replied, shaking that indomitable old head of heirs. “Least said soonest mended, Mast’ Jarge.”

“My dear,” said he, patting the thin old arm that was still linked with his own, “why talk so, when you can speak as good or better English than I?”

“Happen because when I be along o’ them as I do love I forget as I be only poor old Hagah as they names ‘witch’.”

“Then, if you love me, forget it now, and pray tell me what you mean by saying he was ‘born to suffer’?”

“Because he was of the red, good Vane-Wynters, and, according to the old legend, ‘red must suffer that black may triumph?’ Ah, but—beyond the grave, suffering shall be changed to abiding joy, and triumph to everlasting shame and grief. There’s a verse that says so, graven deep in the stone of the old tower yonder!” And scowling, she pointed thither with bony finger. “So today he’s back there again!”

“If you mean the Earl, he certainly is, and with a host of servants—all Londoners!”

“Ah well,” sighed she, rising suddenly, though with an effort, “I’ll be on my way.”

“But, Hagah, you haven’t told me how Earl Philip suffered so long ago.”

“Master Georgie, ‘a wise head keeps a still tongue’. So all I’ll tell is this—his poor, young heart broke when the lady he would have wed ran away with another man.”

“Who was this man?”

Old Hagah merely frowned, shook her head, then, turning to be gone, paused and demanded sharply:

“What for are ye so curious about him?”

“Because,” answered George, glancing at the distant tower again, “in the Castle yonder, not long ago, were found the remains of a man long dead and ... we believe this unfortunate man was Philip, seven—— Good lord! What is it?” cried George, reaching out supporting arms, for old Hagah seemed convulsed by some dreadful spasm, her eyes glared wildly, her pallid lips rounded to a black O of horror, and yet she was dumb.

“Hagah ... my dear soul, what ails you——?”

With sudden and unexpected strength, she broke from him, gasping:

“Lemme go! Don’t ee tech me ... I must think! Oh, dear God, help me ... to think! Oh, merciful Lord, show me what I must do ... the black and the red ... ah, no more blood, not again ... ah, not again——” With such wildly uttered, wholly unintelligible words, she turned and began to hobble downhill towards the peaceful village, and when he would have followed she wailed and smote at him with her staff.

So George, startled and amazed, stood to watch her go; thus when at last he took his way townwards, the fearful horror he had seen in old Hagah’s wide eyes haunted and troubled him with a strange dread, a vague premonition of coming evil.