The Peace of Mowsle Barton

by H.H. Munro (SAKI)

　　Crefton Lockyer sat at his ease, an ease alike of body and soul,in the little patch of ground, half-orchard and half-garden, thatabutted on the farmyard at Mowsle Barton. After the stress andnoise of long years of city life, the repose and peace of thehill-begirt homestead struck on his senses with an almost dramaticintensity. Time and space seemed to lose their meaning and theirabruptness; the minutes slid away into hours, and the meadows andfallows sloped away into middle distance, softly andimperceptibly. Wild weeds of the hedgerow straggled into theflower-garden, and wallflowers and garden bushes made counter-raids into farmyard and lane. Sleepy-looking hens and solemnpreoccupied ducks were equally at home in yard, orchard, orroadway; nothing seemed to belong definitely to anywhere; even thegates were not necessarily to be found on their hinges. And overthe whole scene brooded the sense of a peace that had almost aquality of magic in it. In the afternoon you felt that it hadalways been afternoon, and must always remain afternoon; in thetwilight you knew that it could never have been anything else buttwilight. Crefton Lockyer sat at his ease in the rustic seatbeneath an old medlar tree, and decided that here was the life-anchorage that his mind had so fondly pictured and that latterlyhis tired and jarred senses had so often pined for. He would makea permanent lodging-place among these simple friendly people,gradually increasing the modest comforts with which he would liketo surround himself, but falling in as much as possible with theirmanner of living.As he slowly matured this resolution in his mind an elderly womancame hobbling with uncertain gait through the orchard. Herecognized her as a member of the farm household, the mother orpossibly the mother-in-law of Mrs. Spurfield, his presentlandlady, and hastily formulated some pleasant remark to make toher. She forestalled him."There's a bit of writing chalked up on the door over yonder.What is it?"She spoke in a dull impersonal manner, as though the question hadbeen on her lips for years and had best be got rid of. Her eyes,however, looked impatiently over Crefton's head at the door of asmall barn which formed the outpost of a straggling line of farmbuildings."Martha Pillamon is an old witch " was the announcement that metCrefton's inquiring scrutiny, and he hesitated a moment beforegiving the statement wider publicity. For all he knew to thecontrary, it might be Martha herself to whom he was speaking. Itwas possible that Mrs. Spurfield's maiden name had been Pillamon.And the gaunt, withered old dame at his side might certainlyfulfil local conditions as to the outward aspect of a witch."It's something about some one called Martha Pillamon," heexplained cautiously."What does it say?""It's very disrespectful," said Crefton; "it says she's a witch.Such things ought not to be written up.""It's true, every word of it," said his listener with considerablesatisfaction, adding as a special descriptive note of her own,"the old toad."And as she hobbled away through the farmyard she shrilled out inher cracked voice, "Martha Pillamon is an old witch!""Did you hear what she said?" mumbled a weak, angry voicesomewhere behind Crefton's shoulder. Turning hastily, he beheldanother old crone, thin and yellow and wrinkled, and evidently ina high state of displeasure. Obviously this was Martha Pillamonin person. The orchard seemed to be a favourite promenade for theaged women of the neighbourhood."'Tis lies, 'tis sinful lies," the weak voice went on. "'TisBetsy Croot is the old witch. She an' her daughter, the dirtyrat. I'll put a spell on 'em, the old nuisances."As she limped slowly away her eye caught the chalk inscription onthe barn door."What's written up there?" she demanded, wheeling round onCrefton."Vote for Soarker," he responded, with the craven boldness of thepractised peacemaker.The old woman grunted, and her mutterings and her faded red shawllost themselves gradually among the tree-trunks. Crefton rosepresently and made his way towards the farm-house. Somehow a gooddeal of the peace seemed to have slipped out of the atmosphere.The cheery bustle of tea-time in the old farm kitchen, whichCrefton had found so agreeable on previous afternoons, seemed tohave soured to-day into a certain uneasy melancholy. There was adull, dragging silence around the board, and the tea itself, whenCrefton came to taste it, was a flat, lukewarm concoction thatwould have driven the spirit of revelry out of a carnival."It's no use complaining of the tea," said Mrs. Spurfield hastily,as her guest stared with an air of polite inquiry at his cup."The kettle won't boil, that's the truth of it."Crefton turned to the hearth, where an unusually fierce fire wasbanked up under a big black kettle, which sent a thin wreath ofsteam from its spout, but seemed otherwise to ignore the action ofthe roaring blaze beneath it."It's been there more than an hour, an' boil it won't," said Mrs.Spurfield, adding, by way of complete explanation, "we'rebewitched.""It's Martha Pillamon as has done it," chimed in the old mother;"I'll be even with the old toad. I'll put a spell on her.""It must boil in time," protested Crefton, ignoring thesuggestions of foul influences. "Perhaps the coal is damp.""It won't boil in time for supper, nor for breakfast to-morrowmorning, not if you was to keep the fire a-going all night forit," said Mrs. Spurfield. And it didn't. The household subsistedon fried and baked dishes, and a neighbour obligingly brewed teaand sent it across in a moderately warm condition."I suppose you'll be leaving us, now that things has turned upuncomfortable," Mrs. Spurfield observed at breakfast; "there arefolks as deserts one as soon as trouble comes."Crefton hurriedly disclaimed any immediate change of plans; heobserved, however, to himself that the earlier heartiness ofmanner had in a large measure deserted the household. Suspiciouslooks, sulky silences, or sharp speeches had become the order ofthe day. As for the old mother, she sat about the kitchen or thegarden all day, murmuring threats and spells against MarthaPillamon. There was something alike terrifying and piteous in thespectacle of these frail old morsels of humanity consecratingtheir last flickering energies to the task of making each otherwretched. Hatred seemed to be the one faculty which had survivedin undiminished vigour and intensity where all else was droppinginto ordered and symmetrical decay. And the uncanny part of itwas that some horrid unwholesome power seemed to be distilled fromtheir spite and their cursings. No amount of scepticalexplanation could remove the undoubted fact that neither kettlenor saucepan would come to boiling-point over the hottest fire.Crefton clung as long as possible to the theory of some defect inthe coals, but a wood fire gave the same result, and when a smallspirit-lamp kettle, which he ordered out by carrier, showed thesame obstinate refusal to allow its contents to boil he felt thathe had come suddenly into contact with some unguessed-at and veryevil aspect of hidden forces. Miles away, down through an openingin the hills, he could catch glimpses of a road where motor-carssometimes passed, and yet here, so little removed from thearteries of the latest civilization, was a bat-haunted oldhomestead, where something unmistakably like witchcraft seemed tohold a very practical sway.Passing out through the farm garden on his way to the lanesbeyond, where he hoped to recapture the comfortable sense ofpeacefulness that was so lacking around house and hearth--especially hearth--Crefton came across the old mother, sittingmumbling to herself in the seat beneath the medlar tree. "Let unsink as swims, let un sink as swims," she was, repeating over andover again, as a child repeats a half-learned lesson. And now andthen she would break off into a shrill laugh, with a note ofmalice in it that was not pleasant to hear. Crefton was glad whenhe found himself out of earshot, in the quiet and seclusion of thedeep overgrown lanes that seemed to lead away to nowhere; one,narrower and deeper than the rest, attracted his footsteps, and hewas almost annoyed when he found that it really did act as aminiature roadway to a human dwelling. A forlorn-looking cottagewith a scrap of ill-tended cabbage garden and a few aged appletrees stood at an angle where a swift flowing stream widened outfor a space into a decent sized pond before hurrying away againthrough the willows that had checked its course. Crefton leanedagainst a tree-trunk and looked across the swirling eddies of thepond at the humble little homestead opposite him; the only sign oflife came from a small procession of dingy-looking ducks thatmarched in single file down to the water's edge. There is alwayssomething rather taking in the way a duck changes itself in aninstant from a slow, clumsy waddler of the earth to a graceful,buoyant swimmer of the waters, and Crefton waited with a certainarrested attention to watch the leader of the file launch itselfon to the surface of the pond. He was aware at the same time of acurious warning instinct that something strange and unpleasant wasabout to happen. The duck flung itself confidently forward intothe water, and rolled immediately under the surface. Its headappeared for a moment and went under again, leaving a train ofbubbles in its wake, while wings and legs churned the water in ahelpless swirl of flapping and kicking. The bird was obviouslydrowning. Crefton thought at first that it had caught itself insome weeds, or was being attacked from below by a pike or water-rat. But no blood floated to the surface, and the wildly bobbingbody made the circuit of the pond current without hindrance fromany entanglement. A second duck had by this time launched itselfinto the pond, and a second struggling body rolled and twistedunder the surface. There was something peculiarly piteous in thesight of the gasping beaks that showed now and again above thewater, as though in terrified protest at this treachery of atrusted and familiar element. Crefton gazed with something likehorror as a third duck poised itself on the bank and splashed in,to share the fate of the other two. He felt almost relieved whenthe remainder of the flock, taking tardy alarm from the commotionof the slowly drowning bodies, drew themselves up with tenseoutstretched necks, and sidled away from the scene of danger,quacking a deep note of disquietude as they went. At the samemoment Crefton became aware that he was not the only human witnessof the scene; a bent and withered old woman, whom he recognized atonce as Martha Pillamon, of sinister reputation, had limped downthe cottage path to the water's edge, and was gazing fixedly atthe gruesome whirligig of dying birds that went in horribleprocession round the pool. Presently her voice rang out in ashrill note of quavering rage:"'Tis Betsy Croot adone it, the old rat I'll put a spell on her,see if I don't."Crefton slipped quietly away, uncertain whether or no the oldwoman had noticed his presence. Even before she had proclaimedthe guiltiness of Betsy Croot, the latter's muttered incantation"Let un sink as swims " had flashed uncomfortably across his mind.But it was the final threat of a retaliatory spell which crowdedhis mind with misgiving to the exclusion of all other thoughts orfancies. His reasoning powers could no longer afford to dismissthese old-wives' threats as empty bickerings. The household atMowsle Barton lay under the displeasure of a vindictive old womanwho seemed able to materialize her personal spites in a verypractical fashion, and there was no saying what form her revengefor three drowned ducks might not take. As a member of thehousehold Crefton might find himself involved in some general andhighly disagreeable visitation of Martha Pillamon's wrath. Ofcourse he knew that he was giving way to absurd fancies, but thebehaviour of the spirit-lamp kettle and the subsequent scene atthe pond had considerably unnerved him. And the vagueness of hisalarm added to its terrors; when once you have taken theImpossible into your calculations its possibilities becomepractically limitless.Crefton rose at his usual early hour the next morning, after oneof the least restful nights he had spent at the farm. Hissharpened senses quickly detected that subtle atmosphere ofthings-being-not-altogether well that hangs over a strickenhousehold. The cows had been milked, but they stood huddled aboutin the yard, waiting impatiently to be driven out afield, and thepoultry kept up an importunate querulous reminder of deferredfeeding-time; the yard pump, which usually made discordant musicat frequent intervals during the early morning, was to-dayominously silent. In the house itself there was a coming andgoing of scuttering footsteps, a rushing and dying away of hurriedvoices, and long, uneasy stillnesses. Crefton finished hisdressing and made his way to the head of a narrow staircase. Hecould hear a dull, complaining voice, a voice into which an awedhush had crept, and recognized the speaker as Mrs. Spurfield."He'll go away, for sure," the voice was saying; "there are thoseas runs away from one as soon as real misfortune shows itself."Crefton felt that he probably was one of "those," and that therewere moments when it was advisable to be true to type.He crept back to his room, collected and packed his fewbelongings, placed the money due for his lodgings on a table, andmade his way out by a back door into the yard. A mob of poultrysurged expectantly towards him; shaking off their interestedattentions he hurried along under cover of cowstall, piggery, andhayricks till he reached the lane at the back of the farm. A fewminutes' walk, which only the burden of his portmanteauxrestrained from developing into an undisguised run, brought him toa main road, where the early carrier soon overtook him and spedhim onward to the neighbouring town. At a bend of the road hecaught a last glimpse of the farm; the old gabled roofs andthatched barns, the straggling orchard, and the medlar tree, withits wooden seat, stood out with an almost spectral clearness inthe early morning light, and over it all brooded that air of magicpossession which Crefton had once mistaken for peace.The bustle and roar of Paddington Station smote on his ears with awelcome protective greeting."Very bad for our nerves, all this rush and hurry," said a fellow-traveller; "give me the peace and quiet of the country."Crefton mentally surrendered his share of the desired commodity.A crowded, brilliantly over-lighted music-hall, where an exuberantrendering of "1812" was being given by a strenuous orchestra, camenearest to his ideal of a nerve sedative.