Whilst these events were passing, I turn back to the publican, who was left a full mile in the rear to guard the baggage and keep up the fire,—a post, as he described it, of no small danger.
It was with a mistrusting conscience, as to the propriety of his separation from his companions, that Garret, when he had leisure for reflection, set himself to scanning his deportment at this juncture. His chief scruple had reference to the point of view in which Dauntrees and Arnold de la Grange would hereafter represent this incident: would they set it down, as Weasel hoped they might, to the account of a proper and soldier-like disposition of the forces, which required a detachment to defend a weak point? or would they not attribute his hanging back to a want of courage, which his conscience whispered was not altogether so wide of the truth, but which he had hoped to conceal by his martial tone of bravado? There are many brave men, he reflected, who have a constitutional objection to fighting in the dark, and he was rather inclined to rank himself in that class. "In the dark," said he, as he sat down by the fire, with his hands locked across his knees, which were drawn up before him in grasshopper angles, and looked steadily at the blazing brushwood; "in the dark a man cannot see—that stands to reason. And it makes a great difference, let me tell you, masters, when you can't see your enemy. A brave man, by nature, requires light. And, besides, what sort of an enemy do we fight? Hobgoblins—not mortal men—for I would stand up to any mortal man in Christendom; ay, and with odds against me. I have done it before now. But these whirring and whizzing ghosts and their cronies, that fly about one's ears like cats, and purr and mew like bats—what am I saying? no, fly like bats and mew like cats—one may cut and carve at them with his blade with no more wound than a boy's wooden truncheon makes upon a south wind. Besides, the Captain, who is all in all in his command, hath set me here to watch, which, as it were, was a forbidding of me to go onward. He must be obeyed: a good soldier disputes no order, although it go against his stomach. It was the Captain's wish that I should keep strict watch and ward here on the skirt of the wood; otherwise, I should have followed him—and with stout heart and step, I warrant you! But the Captain hath a soldierly sagacity in his cautions; holding this spot, as he wisely hath done, to be an open point of danger, an inlet, as it were, to circumvent his march, and therefore straightly to be looked to. Well, let the world wag, and the upshot be what it may, here are comforts at hand, and I will not stint to use them."
Saying this the self-satisfied martialist opened the basket and solaced his appetite with a slice of pasty and a draught of wine.
"I will now perform a turn of duty," he continued, after his refreshment; and accordingly drawing his hanger, he set forth to make a short circuit into the open field. He proceeded with becoming caution on this perilous venture, looking slyly at every weed or bush which lay in his route, shuddering with a chilly fear at the sound of his own footsteps, and especially scanning, with a disturbed glance, the vibrations of his long and lean shadow which was sharply cast by the fire across the level ground. He had wandered some fifty paces into the field, on this valorous outlook, when he bethought him that he had ventured far enough, and might now return, deeming it more safe to be near the fire and the horses than out upon a lonesome plain, which he believed to be infested by witches and their kindred broods. He had scarcely set his face towards his original post when an apparition came upon his sight that filled him with horror, and caused his hair to rise like bristles. This was the real bodily form and proportions of such a spectre as might be supposed to prefer such a spot—an old woman in a loose and ragged robe, who was seen gliding up to the burning fagots with a billet of pine in her hand, which she lighted at the fire and then waved above her head as she advanced into the field towards the innkeeper. Weasel's tongue clave to the roof of his mouth, and his teeth chattered audibly against each other, his knees smote together, and his eyes glanced steadfastly upon the phantom. For a moment he lost the power of utterance or motion, and when these began to return, as the hag drew nearer, his impulse was to fly; but his bewildered reflection came to his aid and suggested greater perils in advance: he therefore stood stock-still.
"Heaven have mercy upon me!—the Lord have mercy upon me, a sinner!" he ejaculated; "I am alone, and the enemy has come upon me."
"Watcher of the night," said a voice, in a shrill note, "draw nigh. What do you seek on the wold?"
"Tetra grammaton, Ahaseel—in the name of the Holy Evangels, spare me!" muttered the innkeeper, fruitlessly ransacking his memory for some charm against witches, and stammering out an incoherent jargon. "Abracadabra—spare me, excellent and worthy dame! I seek no hurt to thee. I am old, mother, too old and with too many sins of my own to account for, to wish harm to any one, much less to the good woman of this wold. Oh Lord, oh Lord! why was I seduced upon this fool's errand?"
"Come nigh, old man, when I speak to you. Why do you loiter there?" shouted the witch, as she stood erect some twenty paces in front of the publican and beckoned him with her blazing fagot. "What dost thou mutter?"
"I but sported with my shadow, mother," replied Weasel, with a tremulous attempt at a laugh, as he approached the questioner, in an ill assumed effort at composure and cheerfulness. "I was fain to divert myself with an antic, till some friends of mine, who left me but a moment since, returned. How goes the night with you dame?"
"Merrily," replied the hag, as she set up a shrill laugh which more resembled a scream, "merrily; I cannot but laugh to find the henpecked vintner of St. Mary's at this time of night within the sound of the tide at the Black Chapel. I know your errand, old chapman of cheap liquors, and why you have brought your cronies. You pretend to be a liegeman of his Lordship, and you travel all night to cheat him of five shillings. You will lie on the morrow with as sad a face as there is in the hundred. I know you."