“Ah, well, I do,” answered Roscius. “I went to her when our cow was fairy-led, twelve years gone; and after that for my sister, when she had been eating chervil, and couldn’t see straight before her. Ay, she was a wise woman, and helped a many folks. No, she’s not alive now.”
“You mean more than you say, Roscius,” said Stephen, with a sudden sinking of heart. What had happened to Haldane?
“Well, you see, they ducked her for a witch.”
“And killed her?” Stephen’s voice was hard.
“Ay—she did not live many minutes after. She sank, though—she was no witch: though it’s true, her cat was never seen afterwards, and some folks would have it he’d gone back to Sathanas.”
“Then it must have been that night!” said Stephen to himself. “Did she know, that she sent us off in haste? Was that the secret she would not tell?” Aloud, he said,—“And who were ‘they’ that wrought that ill deed?”
“Oh, there was a great crowd at the doing of it—all the idle loons in Bensington and Dorchester: but there were two that hounded them on to the work—the Bishop’s sumner Malger, and a woman: I reckon they had a grudge against her of some sort. Wigan the charcoal-burner told me of it—he brought her out, and loosed the cord that bound her.”
“God pardon them as He may!” exclaimed Stephen. “She was no more a witch than you are. A gentle, harmless old woman, that healed folks with herbs and such—shame on the men that dared to harm her!”
“Ay, I don’t believe there was aught bad in her. But, saints bless you!—lads are up to anything,” said Roscius. “They’d drown you, or burn me, any day, just for the sake of a grand show and a flare-up.”
“They’re ill brought up, then,” said Stephen. “I’ll take good care my lads don’t.”