One Snowy Night Part 32

"I have never had it. He loves Brichtiva, on the other side of the wood, and he will not look on me. I hate her. I want to beguile his heart away from her."

"What has she done to you?"

"Done!" cried the girl, with a flash of her eyes. "Done! She is fair and sweet, and she has won Wigan's love. That is what she has done to me."

"And you love Wigan?"

"I care nothing for Wigan. I hate Brichtiva. I want to be revenged on her."

"I can do nothing for you," answered Haldane severely. "Revenge is the business of the black witch, not the Wise Woman who deals in honest simples and harmless charms. Go home and say thy prayers, Maiden, and squeeze the black drop out of thine heart, that thou fall not into the power of the Evil One. Depart!"

This interview quite satisfied Ermine that Haldane was no genuine witch of the black order. However dubious her principles might be in some respects, she had evidently distinct notions of right and wrong, and would not do what she held wicked for gain.

Other applicants came at intervals through the day. There were many with burns, scalds, sprains, or bruises, nearly all of which Haldane treated with herbal poultices, or lotions; some with inward pain, to whom she gave bottles of herbal drinks. Some wanted charms for all manner of purposes--to make a horse go, induce plants to grow, take off a spell, or keep a lover true. A few asked to have their fortunes told, and wonderful adventures were devised for them. After all the rest, when it began to grow dusk, came a man m.u.f.fled up about the face, and evidently desirous to remain unknown.

The White Witch rested her hands on the staff which she kept by her, partly for state and partly for support, and peered intently at the half-visible face of the new-comer.

"Have you a charm that will keep away evil dreams?" was the question that was asked in a harsh voice.

"It is needful," replied Haldane in that hollow voice, which seemed to be her professional tone, "that I should know what has caused them."

"You a witch, and ask that?" was the sneering answer.

"I ask it for your own sake," said Haldane coldly. "Confession of sin is good for the soul."

"When I lack shriving, I will go to a priest. Have you any such charm?"

"Answer my question, and you shall have an answer to yours."

The visitor hesitated. He was evidently unwilling to confess.

"You need not seek to hide from me," resumed Haldane, "that the wrong you hold back from confessing is a deed of blood. The only hope for you is to speak openly."

The Silence continued unbroken for a moment, during which the man seemed to be pa.s.sing through a mental conflict. At length he said, in a hoa.r.s.e whisper--

"I never cared for such things before. I have done it many a time,--not just this, but things that were quite as--well, bad, if you will. They never haunted me as this does. But they were men, and these--Get rid of the faces for me! I must get rid of those terrible faces."

"If your confession is to be of any avail to you, it must be complete,"

said Haldane gravely. "Of whose faces do you wish to be rid?"

"It's a woman and a child," said the man, his voice sinking lower every time he spoke, yet it had a kind of angry ring in it, as if he appealed indignantly against some injustice. "There were several more, and why should these torment me? Nay, why should they haunt _me_ at all? I only did my duty. There be other folks they should go to--them that make such deeds duty. I'm not to blame--but I can't get rid of those faces! Take them away, and I'll give you silver--gold--only take them away!"

The probable solution of the puzzle struck Haldane as she sat there, looking earnestly into the agitated features of her visitor.

"You must confess all," she said, "the names and every thing you know.

I go to mix a potion which may help you. Bethink you, till I come again, of all the details of your sin, that you may speak honestly and openly thereof."

And she pa.s.sed behind the screen. One glance at the white face of the girl lying there told Haldane that her guess was true. She knelt down, and set her lips close to Ermine's ear.

"You know the voice," she whispered shortly. "Who is he?"

"The Bishop's sumner, who arrested us."

"And helped to thrust you forth at the gate?"

Ermine bowed her head. Haldane rose, and quickly mixing in a cup a little of two strong decoctions of bitter herbs, she returned to her visitor.

"Drink that," she said, holding out the cup, and as he swallowed the bitter mixture, she muttered--

"Evil eye be stricken blind!

Cords about thy heart unwind!

Tell the truth, and shame the fiend!"

The sumner set down the cup with a wry face.

"Mother, I will confess all save the names, which I know not. I am sumner of my Lord of Lincoln, and I took these German heretics four months gone, and bound them, and cast them into my Lord's prison. And on Sunday, when they were tried, I guarded them through the town, and thrust them out of the East Gate. Did I do any more than my duty?

There were women and little children among them, and they went to perish. They must all be dead by now, methinks, for no man would dare to have compa.s.sion on them, and the bitter cold would soon kill men so weak already with hunger. Yet they were heretics, accursed of G.o.d and men: but their faces were like the faces of the angels that are in Heaven. Two of those faces--a mother and a little child--will never away from me. I know not why nor how, but they made me think of another winter night, when there was no room for our Lady and her holy Child among men on earth. Oh take away those faces! I can bear no more."

"Did they look angrily at thee?"

"Angry! I tell you they were like the angels. I was pushing them out at the gate--I never thought of any thing but getting rid of heretics-- when she turned, and the child looked up on me--such a look! I shall behold it till I die, if you cannot rid me of it."

"My power extends not to angels," replied Haldane.

"Can you do nought for me, then?" he asked in hopeless accents. "Must I feel for ever as Herod the King felt, when he had destroyed the holy innocents? I am not worse than others--why should they torture me?"

"Punishment must always follow sin."

"Sin! Is it any sin to punish a heretic? Father Dolfin saith it is a shining merit, because they are G.o.d's enemies, and destroy men's souls.

I have not sinned. It must be Satan that torments me thus; it can only be he, since he is the father of heretics, and they go straight to him.

Can't you buy him off? I 'll give you any gold to get rid of those faces! Save me from them if you can!"

"I cannot. I have no power in such a case as thine. Get thee to the priest and shrive thee, thou miserable sinner, for thy help must come from Heaven and not from earth."

"The priest! _Shrive_ me for obeying the Bishop, and bringing doom upon the heretics! Nay, witch!--art thou so far gone down the black road that thou reckonest such good works to be sins?"

And the sumner laughed bitterly.

"It is thy confession of sin wherewith I deal," answered Haldane sternly. "It is thy conscience, not mine, whereon it lieth heavy. Who is it that goeth down the black road--the man that cannot rest for the haunting of dead faces, or the poor, harmless, old woman, that bade him seek peace from the Church of G.o.d?"

"The Church would never set that matter right," said the sumner, half sullenly, as he rose to depart.

"Then there is but one other hope for thee," said a clear low voice from some unseen place: "get thee to Him who is the very Head of the Church of G.o.d, and who died for thee and for all Christian men."

The sumner crossed himself several times over, not waiting for the end of one performance before he began another.

"Dame Mary, have mercy on us!" he cried; "was that an angel that spake?"