Читать книгу Superstition Corner - Sheila Kaye-Smith - Страница 3

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The road from Vinehall meets the road from Leasan at Superstition Corner. A few yards farther on, the London road runs off westward through Harlot's Wood, while the road to Hastings winds southward down the hill, past Newhouse and Doucegrove, deep into the valley of the River Tillingham.

Long ago, before Newhouse and Doucegrove were built, when Harlot's Wood was Haneholt's Wood, and the Forest of Medyrsham met the Forest of Wogenmarye down by the ford across the Tillingham, Superstition Corner was known as Holly or Holy Horns, because of the long corners of land that ran out into the crossways, and because of the big stone cross that stood facing northward from the edge of Dodyland Shaw. No one knew when the cross was built or who had set it up, but its tradition went back for many hundred years and it had given its name to the farmstead of Holly Crouch Yard, already so old that it was crumbling into decay.

One summer evening a little party of soldiers came riding up from Leasan towards the throws. They carried crowbars and iron-tipped staves, which they had taken from the smithy, and their hearts were gay and childlike with the hope of destruction. It had been a rare piece of luck to hear that there was a fine, tall, superstitious cross standing in the neighbourhood and crying out to be cast down. Riding among the villages, they had found that most survivals of Popery had already disappeared; it seemed a marvel that this one had not been overthrown. Doubtless it was because Kent and Sussex were more ignorant and wild than other parts; perhaps the common folk did not yet know they were Protestants. They might as well learn it to-day, with the smoke of the Hastings beacon fires still drifting with the evening fogs over Odimere Ridge, to tell them that the King of Spain had been harried into Calais harbour and harried out again, and was now scattering his power into the north, routed by the fire-ships of Francis Drake and the sou'-west wind of God.

The cross-roads lay empty. Neither man nor beast trod the hard yellow ruts of the four wentways, and the long, unfenced corners of land, rank with coarse grass and sour with thistles, pastured neither goat nor hog. The only dwelling near was Holly Crouch, and that was hidden away behind Dodyland Shaw. The soldiers were scarcely pleased to have no spectators; the rioting crowds that had tried to protect their idols in the first years of destruction would not be unwelcome now. But even when they smote the monument with their crowbars and shouted at it in their religious zeal, none answered but a faint echo from the shaw, and the sighing rush of the wind whose mainguard on the seas was driving King Philip to the Orkneys.

The cross was soon a headless shaft.

"Sing ho! for Headless Cross! Down there, beneath that tree, My mother cradled me . . ."

sang one of the soldiers sentimentally, while the others smote the shaft into a stump. The stones were old, and cracked and crumbled easily. The soldiers' work was soon done. They were disheartened because no one had tried to stop them.

"This is no-man's land. The idol hath eaten up his worshippers like Bel."

"By Zembletee! Better be off at once and find a lodging. I've had enough of sleeping in ditches."

"And of drinking ditchwater. To-night we'll drink lambswool and sleep in beds—the King of Spain will not land to-night."

"Nor to-morrow night, by Mack! nor any night this year nor any year. We can go back to our wives."

"Hooray!" cried some; "Cuckoo!" cried others, and they all rode off towards Vinehall, singing an old song that soon would die:

"Com'st thou not from Walsingham? That holy land . . ."

§ II

They would no doubt have attracted more attention had the men at Holly Crouch Yard been working as usual in the fields. But as it happened, everyone to-day was busy with the new house that Thomas Harman of Holly Crouch was building for his eldest son Oliver, down at the south-west horn of his land, beside the Hastings road. Young Oliver was to be married at the end of the month, and if everyone did not work hard his house would not be ready for him. There was a clear week now before harvest, and it seemed a good opportunity for the whole farm to set to the building: all except old William Luck, of course, who was past his work, though they still kept him on the farm, since he had worked from childhood for Thomas Harman and his father.

Old William Luck sat under the hedge of Dodyland Shaw, and watched the new house a-building. His master had cut the wood out of the shaw some time ago, and for years had kept it seasoning. He had always meant to build a new house when one of his sons should marry. Old Holly Crouch was falling down, though great beams propped its leaning frontage. It had been built in the same way as the new house, of oak and a plaster mixed of sand and clay, but it was thatched instead of tiled, and its great mossgrown hump of roof had so sagged and slumped over the beams that gable-end and roof-tree were lost in it together, a shapeless mass.

William Luck was sorry that the new house was to be roofed with tiles. Slab-castles, they were called, those little tiled houses that folk were building now, and sensible men made mock of them. Tiles were all very well for the gentry, for the Squire at Conster Manor or even for the Squire at Fuggesbroke, but they weighed down the beams of small houses, making walls bulge and rafters sag—and no one could say that tiles were snug, warm in winter and cool in summer, like thatch; nor were they so easily come by as thatch, which grows in the fields as part of the gift of corn.

He was sorry that his master would not walk in the old ways his father had trodden. They were good, the old ways, and the new ways were bad, and he would always say so. In the good old days when he was a boy, folk lived quiet and contented, and when they died there was the priest to bury them. There were no priests now—they had all turned into preachers, and he did not hold with preachers any more than he held with tiles. Many and many years it was since he had seen the holy pyx hanging like a dove from the roof of Leasan Church, or heard the good words uttered; and none of the young folk could say a Paternoster—there was no use telling him Our Father was the same, because he knew different. And now they'd brought the King of Spain over and had had a hard to-do to get him away; they never had any trouble with the King of Spain in good King Harry's time.

"Whoo-oop!"

The crashing of twigs and branches in the shaw suddenly reached his deaf ears. At the same instant came a shout, and then a whirlwind passed over him, his heavens darkened with a horse's belly and his earth rocked with a horse's hoofs. "Oh, Maria! Oh, Neptune!" he cried as he sank into the ditch.

Then, as the stinging-nettles told him he was alive, fear turned to rage. Who had come charging over him like this, galloping through the shaw and leaping the hedge without looking to see if there was a Christian man behind it? Indeed, he might have guessed—that was mistress Catherine Alard galloping her horse as if the devil and all his imps rode at her crupper. He watched her go down the heathery slope towards the farmstead, rolling in the saddle like a boy. She was a wild piece, and no man would marry her. Folk said that she must be twenty-eight—an old maid turning sour; yet she seemed more man than maid, with her loud whooping voice and her galloping ways. Folk said that she was wild for the old religion and would go crazy for the want of it: folk said she was sorry that the King of Spain's ships had been driven away.

§ III

But this was unjust to Catherine Alard, who felt as thankful as anyone that the Grand Armada had been defeated. Indeed, she had just ridden over to Staple Hill to see if the bonfire there was still burning: last night they had missed its red glow in the sky. She had ridden a roundabout way, and it was not till her journey home that she saw what had happened at Holly Horns. Suddenly lifting her eyes to greet the loved, familiar landmark and lifting her hand to make the sign of it on her breast, she had seen a gap and a desolation. On the slope outside the shaw lay strewn the broken stones that told their tale. Someone had thrown down the cross.

She must find out who had done it, though she knew that sacrilege was not a crime that could be punished in the land to-day. So she went charging recklessly through the shaw, set only on coming the quickest way to Holly Crouch, leaping the fence, unaware of the commotion in the ditch. The farmstead seemed deserted, but she could see a crowd of men and lads at work on the new house beside the road.

Ned Harman saw her coming. Being the youngest, he had been given the plaster to mix—beating up the fine calf's hair, mixing the sand and clay, and then when it was all set, breaking it up to powder and mixing it again.

"Look, Father! Here comes galloping Kate."

That was how they called her among themselves in the country round Holly Horns, for she always seemed to be on horseback, madding about the lanes and commons, instead of sitting in the privée parlour at Conster Manor with her needle or her lute, or riding out hawking or hunting with her father the Squire. Some said it was all for want of being married at the right time and of there being no nunnery left to put her in with others like her.

Thomas Harman came forward and greeted her respectfully, for she was the Manor's daughter, though she looked as wild as Queen Mab. But she seemed hardly to notice his greeting.

"Have you seen? The cross is broken down."

"Which cross?"

"Up at the Horns. 'Tis all thrown down in pieces."

There was a general exclamation of dismay from those standing by. It was many years since the cross had meant anything to them, and to the young people it was no more than a landmark. But as a landmark they held it in affection, old and young; all their lives they had seen it standing there at Holly Horns, and knew that it had stood for countless lives before them. No one had any right to throw it down, for it stood on Holly Crouch land and was part of its yeoman pride.

"Who can have done it?" cried Harman. "It 'ud need strength to break up that cross, and cold iron, too."

"Surelye, we should have heard the noise of un," said a labourer.

"It was there this morning," said Ned. "I saw it on my way to Colespore."

"It an't there now," cried Catherine Alard.

She still sat her horse—astride, for she had not yet learned the new way of riding side-saddle. Her heavy skirts spread on the horse's flank, gathered thickly at her firm young waist. Above the waist her figure was almost as spare as a boy's, though there was a feminine fullness about the throat, rising sunburned above her snow-white partlet. She carried her head high, and as she wore no hat the sun had bronzed her face to the colour of dark honey. There was another contrast of white in her teeth; she had a large mouth, and showed them grandly. Her eyes were large too, and slightly prominent, giving her rather a wild look. Her hair should have been the same colour as her eyes, nut brown; but the sun had bleached it to a shade slightly fairer than her face.

"Poor girl! she hath no breasts," thought Maria Douce, strolling up on her lover's arm. She and Oliver Harman had been the only idle couple in the yard, sitting side by side on the trunk of a felled tree and watching their house go up. Now he had brought her to greet Mistress Catherine, of whom he had often spoken, but whom she had never seen.

Oliver presented her:

"Mistress Catherine, here's Maria Douce. Her father hath left her with us while he's at Conster with Squire Alard."

"Aye, my father's mad and hath made up his mind to starve us all by blowing a furnace." Then she smiled kindly at Maria. "I'm uncommon glad to see you, for I've been told that you're as beautiful as the Queen."

Maria looked pleased. Strictly speaking, she was not beautiful, and being French she knew it; but she also knew she had a grace these hulking, shapeless Englishwomen lacked, and she was glad to have it seen. Oliver looked pleased too, and grinned all over his broad face.

"Noll," said Harman, "Mistress Catherine tells us that the cross at the Horns is broken down."

"Broken down! Who'd have dared? . . ."

"Aye, that's what we all would know. I wonder we never heard its being done."

"'Tis a rascal shame," cried Oliver, and clenched his hand on Maria's little fist till she squealed. "Forgive me, coney bird, but that cross hath stood as long as Holly Crouch."

Catherine was pleased to see him so angry.

"If we'd but known, we could have saved it. Here we all are like a troop, with spades and staves . . . even now maybe we could fall in with the rogues if we went after 'em."

But Thomas Harman was not inclined for that.

"We'd only get a pike through our belly or be carried off to Lob's pound. . . . No, no, Madam Kate. I'm grieved the cross is gone, but as 'tis gone I'm glad we knew nothing of it till it was too late to meddle."

"Shame on you!" cried Catherine.

"No shame at all. If we'd meddled we should all have been marked as Pope's men."

"And where's the harm of that?"

Old Thomas Harman waved his arm towards Odimere Ridge, still smoky with beacon fires.

"The harm is on the sea—driving north'ard, praise God!"

"But the Pope never sent the King of Spain."

"Never sent him! Why, folk say that he's himself on board," cried Oliver.

"Nay, the Pope would never leave Rome."

"If he's left Rome," said young Ned, "he'll parbreak valiantly before he's home again."

They all laughed, except Catherine. She did not believe that the Pope had sailed with the Armada, but she could not prove it to anyone. Maria Douce looked at her unkindly and whispered something in her sweetheart's ear.

"Hush, child," he answered and led her away.

§ IV

Catherine looked after them.

"She's an uncommon pretty piece," she said, her voice lagging, as if heavy with a thought beyond her words.

"Aye, and she brings a fortune. Her father 'ull give her five hundred pounds."

"Then it an't true, this tale he tells of being ruined by the Catholics in France?"

"Reckon 'tis true enough, but he hath prospered in our country, like most of his kind. He's master of the Furnace at Panyngridge, and 'tis said he hath gotten bags of gold out of Sir Philip Sidney."

"And most like he'll get more out of my father."

"Most like. They can ask anything, I believe, these Frenchmen, for teaching their ways to the ironmasters. I know little about iron, but I understand that the French have a new way of smelting it, and a man who can teach that is paid all he asks."

"I'm sorry for it. I hate to see a pack of superstitious foreigners coming over here to teach heresy and pouch our money: they say the Huguenots 'ull end by having all the woollen trade at Rye, and the townsfolk are crying out to have 'em stopped."

"Surelye, I've heard the same. 'Tis a mercy they don't take to farming, since everything they do is done better than by other folk."

"I reckon if they all settle here and build houses our country 'ull be petty France. A pox on 'em! . . . But I won't stay talking of such things. I mun get home to my supper."

Harman looked round him quickly. Ned and the farm-men had gone back to their work, and he and Catherine were alone together at the corner of the house.

"May I turn another word on you, Madam Kate?"

"Surelye. What is it?"

"I'd would know when next there's to be Mass at Squire Tuktone's."

Catherine stiffened in her saddle and looked at him uneasily.

"And how think you I could tell that?"

"You go there, Mistress—that's well known in all this country."

"I go there! . . . so, maybe I do. But why should you go there? You conform."

"Aye, I conform, not having a pocket for recusancy; but my heart's where it ever was."

"And how long is it since your feet went with your heart?"

"Not since Master Pecksall said Mass in Leasan Church I dunnamany years ago. I wouldn't go to Fuggesbroke . . . those Mission priests hold their lives cheaper than what I hold mine."

"Then why would you hear Mass at Fuggesbroke?"

"Because I'm growing old—sixty-nine at Christmas—and for these last months I've had a pain in my umbles that waxes with the moon. I'd fain hear Holy Mass again before I die, and go to heaven when I'm dead. I'm scared of dying in this new religion, for I'm persuaded there an't no heaven in it. Maybe when I was younger I grew careless, and so long as I went to church cared not much what was done there; but when you grow old, Mistress Catherine, the shadows fall and you begin to want to see beyond them."

Catherine nodded gravely.

"Aye, and before you grow old. Those shadows at whiles trouble me too, Master, and I would that we had more light. Even in the faith there's darkness, seeing that we get our religion scarce more than once a twelvemonth. 'Tis a full twelvemonth now since Mass was said at Fuggesbroke."

"Then I reckon 'tis time that a priest came again."

"Maybe one 'ull come soon. But Mistress Tuktone will make a fine coil about his reconciling you. She's scared when folks come from without. When old goody Brown came last year from Piramannys Garden she was half out of her wits, making sure the goody was a spy and would sell us all like Judas."

"Mistress Tuktone knows I an't no spy, and if she don't, the Squire knows it, and he will speak for me."

"I'll speak for you too. I'll ride over to Fuggesbroke to-morrow and tell 'em you wish to be reconciled. They may know when a priest is to come again . . . But not a word of it here—not even to your good wife."

"No, I shan't tell a soul till 'tis all done. My young folk are hot against the Pope's religion, all the more since this affair with Spain. But you mun speak for me, Mistress Kate, and tell 'em I've always been a Catholic at heart, and 'ud sooner die according to my heart than according to Master Pecksall's new book. But I pray that priest don't tarry much longer or maybe I shan't be allowed to wait for him."

"You look hale for a sick man."

"My cheeks look red because my hairs are white, and anyway you may keep rotten goods in a sound box. My outside's brave enough, but my inside's full of bots and poisons, combustions and cockolorums; sometimes I can scarce sleep at night for all the rousabout there is, and tur'ble pains getting me in the lunary parts."

"Have you taken nothing for it—nor seen a physician?"

"Aye, but all our physicians now are set on blood instead of broths. They pour out of us instead of pouring into us, and I'm scared to lose my blood. So I send for goody Lumsden and she makes me broths of poke-root and moonwort. But 'tis all to no purpose. Reckon 'tis in my stars that I mun die, and at my age I wouldn't mutter if I was sure of two things—that I'd die without pain and with a priest."

"I'll see that you die with a priest, Master Harman. All you have to do is to keep alive till I find one."

Her face darkened with an anxious thought. Then suddenly it grew light.

"So, Master—what if some fine day my brother came here and said Mass for us?"

"That would he indeed a fine day, Mistress, for me and for you. I an't so sure if it would be a fine day for him."

"'Tis five years since he went to Rome. He mun soon be coming back."

"Don't you never hear from him?"

She shook her head.

"He daren't write: It wouldn't be safe, and I've begged him not to try it. It was a Father Polydore Plasden brought news of him last year—I heard it at Fuggesbroke. He was in good heart and near the end of his studies."

"Then depend on it you'll see him soon."

"I shall be glad—more glad than I can tell."

Her face lit up with a smile which was different from her usual boyish grin. Harman watched her pityingly: Poor lady! she will suffer in her brother's heart as much as in her own. Then he said aloud: "I mun go to my men and see what mischief they're up to on the work. Good night, Mistress Catherine, and keep me in mind."

"Trust me for that, friend. Good night."