"But how did she get in?" I asked.
"That's just what I want to know," answered the boy. "The door was shut and fast locked; but there she was, anyhow. Another time my grandfather had to drive some bullocks down to Ashford market, and he overtook Dame Dorland. She had a basket on her arm, and she asked my grandfather to carry it for her. He wouldn't. I expect he didn't know what bad game might be up. Well, do you think he could keep his bullocks in the road, after that? Not he: they was over the hedge, first one side and then another, and then they was for running back. He couldn't do nothing with them, so he turns back and offers to carry the old girl's basket. Then the bullocks was all right directly, and he hadn't no trouble in getting them along all the way to Ashford."
Since Farmer Barrett had lived all his life in a county where such people as Dame Dorland were to be found, there can hardly be much surprise felt at his entire and implicit belief in witchcraft.
But the most wonderful tale that he ever told me was that which not only concerned the county, but the very district in which he dwelt. It is a story to which I listened with intense interest when first I heard it, and my interest was never lessened by its repetition.
Again and again I asked the old farmer to go over it once more, and I cross-examined him upon all the particulars of his tale in a manner which would really have offended some people of my acquaintance. He, however, was not only not offended, but pleased at the perseverance with which I questioned him.
He told me the story, in fact, so often, that I got to know it nearly by heart; and I think it is one which I ought to relate for the benefit of a world, in which, as far as I can see, belief of any kind, and certainly belief in witches and the like, will shortly be extinct.
The parish of Mersham has long been known as a favourite resort of queer people of the kind of whom I am speaking. It is a very long, narrow parish: much narrower, of course, at some parts than others.
Its north end runs into and beyond the park of Mersham Hatch—that is, the west side of the park, the east side being in the parishes of Brabourne and Smeeth. The south part of the parish joins Bilsington and Aldington, and on the south west you are very close upon the Ruckinge and Orlestone big woods—so close that I am not sure whether a portion of that vast tract of woodland does not actually lie within the boundaries of the parish of Mersham. Be that as it may, it is a wild part of the world, and just the very sort of place in which you would fancy witches and their confederates to abound. Whether you fancy it or not, however, beyond all doubt such was the case, in the good old times of which I speak.
No one ever dreamed of being out at night in those parts if he could possibly help it. The roads were wretchedly bad, full of deep ruts and big stones, with ditches inconveniently exposed on either side, and bushes jutting out from the adjoining woods in the most awkward manner for the traveller.
But it was not the badness of the roads which deterred people from moving about at night, or towards evening, but something much worse, namely the strange and terrible beings who frequented the locality.