Master Clement, the papers in his hand, retraced his steps until he came to a bench set in the shadow of a yew that knotted the minister’s house and garden to the churchyard. He sat down and spread the three out upon the wood beside him. It was the last-found scrap upon which, naturally, he concentrated attention. ASK JOAN HERON WHO GAVE HER THE RUE THAT’S PLANTED IN HER GARDEN. He sat with knitted brow and pursed lips, searching for a meaning. One was not there at first sight. He weighed the words. JOAN HERON—The daughter of old Heron that had died of the plague. He brought her before his mind’s eye—a tall, grey-eyed girl sitting quietly in church. Save for that image she did not come into his mind with any force; he had, after all, no great knowledge of her. They were outlying people, the Herons, and then they had been away from Hawthorn. He was a man of the study and the pulpit and of crisises in the parish, rather than of any minute, loving, daily intercourse and knowledge; theologian rather than pastor. JOAN HERON. He would, however, presently think together any impressions or memories. Now little occurred further than that she had been away with her father for years, living under the walls of the castle that was prelatical. In addition, he remembered that neither old Roger Heron nor this girl had ever brought to him spiritual problems to be solved. Many did bring them—cold, creeping doubts as to whether God really meant to save them or not. But the Herons had never done so. The fact, called to mind, just faintly darkened for him the name beneath his hand. He would make enquiries.—WHO GAVE HER THE RUE THAT’S PLANTED IN HER GARDEN.
Master Clement frowned. He had little taste for riddles and uncertainties and haunting suspensions of thought. Make a line distinct; colour matters plainly; if a thing were black, paint it in black! The words on the paper carried no meaning, or a foolish one. RUE.... Not long before he had been reading an account, set forth in a book, of a number of Satan’s machinations, and of the devices, likings, and small personal habits of his sworn servants. A bit of this text suddenly sprang out before him, sitting there beneath the yew tree. “For plants—hemlock, poppy, and mandrake, and, especially, the witches love, handle, and give to such as show inclination to become of their company, rue—”
Master Clement slowly folded the three pieces of paper together, took out his pocketbook, and laid them in it. Grace Maybank was yet strongly in his mind, but now on the wall beside her name he put another name.
A little later, hatted and cloaked, he stepped into Hawthorn street. As he did so he looked northward and, seeing Squire Carthew riding in from Carthew House, stood and waited. The squire approached, gave good-morning, and dismounted. He nodded his head; ponderously energetic he had put already his engines into motion. The constable with helpers was gone at sunrise to take into custody Mother Spuraway, have her into the village, and thrust her into the room beneath the sexton’s house that did for village gaol. To-morrow, after examination, and if proof of her evil-doing were forthcoming, she should be sent to town and quartered in the prison with the leech. Orders likewise had been given to the North-End Farm folk to bring into Hawthorn the afflicted boy. To confront the injurer with the injured, that was the best and approved way—
“How is Harry Carthew this morning?”
“Very fevered still. He talks strangely and paganly—about gods and goddesses and Love and the Furies and I know not what trash.”
“Ah!” said Master Clement. “Were it devil or Gilbert Aderhold who struck him that night, be sure from the dagger would have run Satan’s own venom, empoisoning the mind, bringing growth of nettles and darnel into the soul! The godly young man! I will pray—I will wrestle with God in prayer for Harry Carthew—”
From beyond the church there burst a small riot of sound. “They’ve got Mother Spuraway—”