The Witch

by Mary Johnston

“No—she is here—she is everywhere.... Well, let us go bravely.”

Giles and Ellice Herne went aboard the Eagle. Before sunset she had clapped on all sail and was moving swiftly from that island. It faded, faded. They lost the clump of palm trees marking the place of their hut, lost the outline of the tiny harbour, lost in the dusk the gleam of the beach and the white crests of the incoming tide. The Eagle was a good ship and a swift sailer. Back she came into her course. The bird that was her figurehead looked east, looked north, between it and its homing the grey and rolling Atlantic. Now she had bad weather and now she had good, but the good predominated.

The ship was not crowded, as had been, six years before, the Silver Queen. Moreover, those aboard were preoccupied, the dissatisfied with their dissatisfaction, the hardier, more patient or farseeing sort, returning to England only to return thence to their new world, with their papers of representation, their arguments, and busy schemes. At first there was curiosity as to the castaways and how they had preserved life, alone, on that morsel of land. That satisfied, attention turned in each on board to his own matters, or to matters that seemed cognate. The rescued were quiet folk who kept to themselves; doubtless they were dazed by long privation and loneliness, and by this unexpected salvation....

Aboard were several women, the captain’s wife, and one or two others of the bolder sort who would go with their husbands to whatever new worlds might be discovered. These helped Joan to fitter clothing than any she possessed. She came back to Aderhold in a linsey kirtle and bodice, a small white cap, and with a kerchief folded across her bosom. “Hawthorn again,” she said with a sob in her throat. He, too, had been given clothing. He was dressed plainly, like a clerk. No one was by, the soft dusk closing in. They stood for a moment and within them rose the vivid shape of the past. They smelled again the fern and mould of Hawthorn Forest; they heard again the drone of the bees, the singing of the stream past the fairy oak; they heard again the distant church bells. Rose the great image, grave and golden, of the six years past, rose the vision of the child, rose old memories, tendernesses, fears, rose forebodings, prophecies, realizations. It was dusk, the wind making a low, sustained music. They came to each other’s arms, they embraced closely, straining each to each with passion. They kissed, the tears stood in the eyes, fell upon the cheeks of each. It was like a farewell, and it was like a meeting....

Upon the ship was a man neither young nor old, who had come out to Virginia the year before, sent by the Company upon some investigation. Now, the work done, he was returning. He had a strong, determined face, steady eyes and a close-shutting mouth. On the day of their coming aboard, he with others had approached Giles and Ellice Herne and asked them questions. They had been true questions; he was interested in knowing how they got upon that island, but preferred the detail of how they had managed to live while there. After that, with some frequency he sought them out and fell into talk. The rest upon the ship were preoccupied with the struggles and miseries and triumphs of the Colony. To them it was growing to be home. But the Company’s agent, his errand done, was returning to England like Antæus to Mother Earth. He must talk, and guided by some subtle principle of choice, he talked to these people who also must be homesick for England.

The two strove to be guarded, spoke little themselves, passed well enough for a quiet clerk or scrivener or teacher and his wife whom the whimsical fortunes of the time had made colonists, and wind and wave and ill chance castaways on that islet. Wisdom made them not too silent, not to seem morosely so—nor too guarded, not to make it evident that they were watching from behind barricades. It was chiefly to Aderhold that he talked, Joan sitting by, her hands clasped in her lap, her eyes upon the sea, narrowing between them and England. He talked, it seemed to Aderhold, with boldness, but then the castaway gathered that upon the issues that interested this man, men in England, in six years’ time, had grown bolder.

News from England! News of England when the agent left England last year was the already two-years-old news that the king meant to rule without Parliaments. Perhaps when they landed in London they might find newer news—perhaps the king, wanting money very badly, had wanted it enough at last to summon a Parliament. If that were so, the agent of the Company hoped that certain men had seats. He mentioned among others John Pym. News! There was the news that the Bishops were in the saddle. Episcopacy had been established in Scotland. Timid and recreant ministers had gone over, the patriotic were in hiding,—proscribed. The people were at the mercy of the wolves—the Crown’s wolves. In England just as bad—though with a difference. The Established Church rode high and kissed the hand of the king. “Passive obedience!” It had got its shibboleth. “No power in the people and disordered multitude.”—God’s own hand having touched the forehead of kings! “Did I not tell ye?” says the king; and with one hand puts down the civil courts and with the other lifts the ecclesiastical.

News! The news from England was Despotism that barked like Cerberus out of three mouths—King, Bishops, and Favourites! The agent’s face turned red and the veins in his forehead stood out, so in earnest and angry was he. “News of England!” he said, “is that slaves will be slaves and free men will be free men! News of England is that if things better not there will be battles!” He swung round upon Aderhold. “I speak more plainly than I should! But if I can read men, your passion, too, is for freedom!”

“Aye,” said Aderhold, “I would be free.”