Of course it was only a coincidence; but Graves was quite triumphant about it, and he said to me the evening of the accident, “Well, Mrs. Beckett, what about old Dame Trueman being a witch now?”
Of course, things happening like this, and the things that had happened before, made a great impression on the ignorant people; and even people who weren’t ignorant said it was very odd that everybody who crossed or offended that dreadful old woman came to grief. It was no good arguing against it, because these things were known all over the village, and there is no doubt that the old hag made a lot of money out of her dupes, in consequence of her being held in such dread and looked up to as having supernatural powers.
As I said when I began to write about her, folks who live in London can hardly credit the number of people in villages who still believe in magic and spells and charms and witches. But even in some parts of London there are people who believe the same thing, because every now and then you read about “a wise woman” being brought up at the police-court for swindling young women by telling their fortunes, and selling them charms; and not long ago Harry read a bit out of the paper to me about “a wise woman,” who had got five pounds out of a working man’s wife for a bottle of something which she was to put in his tea to make him die, so that she could marry another man. A nice wife and a nice woman she must have been!
What has made me write so much about old Dame Trueman is this. There was an old gentleman who used to come to our smoke-room pretty regularly of an evening; but not till after Mr. Wilkins had left, and so he might be called a new customer. He was an old gentleman who took a small house in the neighbourhood, and it was said he was a retired builder. He was very nice and quiet, and I should say comfortably off, for his house was nicely furnished, and although there was only himself and his wife, they had two servants, and kept a pony and trap.
Mr. Gwillam—that was the old gentleman’s name—began to use our house of an evening soon after he came, I suppose finding it dull at home, and he always smoked a long clay pipe, and drank hot grog in the good old-fashioned way. He didn’t talk very much, only joining in the conversation now and then; but he was a wonderful listener, and the other customers soon found out that he was very simple-minded, because he took everything he heard for gospel. Some of them, when they found that out, used to start telling the most dreadful stories about what had happened in the place, and it was a sight to see the dear old gentleman open his innocent blue eyes, and to hear him say, “Good gracious!”
Somebody who knew him told us that what made him seem so simple and eccentric at times was that years ago, while superintending some building operations, he had fallen off a ladder on to his head, and it had affected him a little.
We liked him very much, because he was so nice and quiet, and, being an independent and retired person, he was just the sort of customer we liked to get into the smoke-room, as it brings others of the same class, and keeps the wrong sort out, as the wrong sort never feel comfortable where the right sort are.
The first thing that made me think Mr. Gwillam really was a little eccentric was his saying very quietly one evening that according to Revelations the end of the world would be at five-and-twenty minutes past six in the evening the last Friday in August, 1890. I thought it was a very odd thing to say, as nobody was talking about the end of the world, and, in fact, just at the time there was a dead silence.
I didn’t know what to say, so I said, “Indeed!” Then he said, “Oh yes; but it’s nothing to be frightened at, as we shall all be caught up by a whirlwind.”
Graves, the farrier, looked at Mr. Gwillam for a minute, and then he said, “How do you know that, sir?”