"The ease it is to my mind that they are gone, nobody knows. No more foreign mounseers and madams for the White Hart. Good English meat they wouldn't have; but she makes a mess with eggs and scraps—pudding you couldn't call it. And he gathers dandelion and dock-cress and goosefoot, and the like o' that, which she cooks 'em, or he mixes 'em wi' oil, and eats 'em raw. It turned my stomach to see it. And their manners wasn't English. Too civil by half. 'If you please,' and 'May I trouble you?' and 'Would you be so good?' whenever she wanted anything. Didn't grumble or make a fuss about the reckoning—that I will say for her. Then their jabber-jabber between themselves! It give me the creeps to hear 'em. Such a clat as he made wi' dirt, and stones, and weeds, and rubbish, which schoolmaster says wizards and witches always do; and he had a big book full of gipsy-marks, which young madam called his brewing Bible; and, believe me or believe me not, he read it back'ards way, as 'tis well beknown witches do read the Lord's Prayer so, when they want to raise the devil. Schoolmaster he says they are both deep in witchcraft, and young madam worse than the old mounseer, for all her prettiness and her smooth-spoken ways. And certain sure it is that she gave Mat something to drink that cured him of the ague quicker than ever he was cured afore."
As soon as Dame Hind paused for breath, Mr. Butharwick reproved her. Doctor Goel, he assured her, was a man of great learning, of perfect integrity, and the intimate friend of the best and greatest man in the world.
I broke in, hotly indignant that Mistress Goel should be accused of so foul a crime. We might have spared our breath, for the hostess replied by shaking her head sorrowfully, and declaring her assurance that we were both bewitched. So saying, she swung out of the room, and left us to our wine. I had tried to remove the suspicion of the woman, gross and ignorant though she was, fearing that her tongue might work mischief, and now began to pluck some comfort out of the removal of my lady to Castle Mulgrave, where she would be in safety from the fury of folk always ruthless against one believed to be guilty of witchcraft.
It is no wonder that the people should be fierce against those who ally themselves with the enemy of mankind, but their terror often blinds them to evident tokens of innocence, and I cannot but be afraid that many persons have suffered torture and death who were falsely accused of the monstrous wickedness. Perhaps I have been led to think so only because the crime was laid to the charge of one so pure and kind as Mistress Goel.
Before the day of my coming of age the Isle was in great commotion, for a large fleet had sailed up the Don, bringing an army of Walloons and Dutchmen with stores of timber, and tools, and weapons, and machines unknown to us Islonians. The invaders had their headquarters at Sandtoft, where Vermuijden set about the building of houses and the erection of fortifications, keeping relays of workmen busy day and night. How to reconcile these doings with the letter received from my father I could not in the least understand, but I took credit to myself for keeping silence concerning the decision of the court in my father's favour. That was far from being my father's opinion, when he arrived on the Friday evening, and learned that Vermuijden had already begun his operations.
"Thou foolish lad!" he broke out. "Should'st have ridden through the whole Isle, and set every hamlet aglow with bonfires and shouting for joy. And would'st have done it but for scraping acquaintance with that old rascal and his daughter at the White Hart. Hast lost thy five wits? What devil possessed thee to miss the otter-hunt, and to annoy our neighbours and shame thy father? Befriending the refugee, conspirator, assassin, when should'st have been heartening our people! And that dotard Butharwick with thee! He shall pack out of my house."
This explosion astounded me, for my father, though of warm temper in private (in public no man had more self-control), did not often use such fiery language to me; but I answered sulkily—
"I am sorry to have angered you, sir, by what I supposed was discretion."
"Discretion!" he almost shouted. "Would that you had the smallest tincture of the quality! Is it discreet, think you, to parley with the enemy of your father and your country, betraying God only knows what to the sly old Dutchman?"
"A most inoffensive old gentleman," I answered. "A simple scholar, who has been duped by Vermuijden."