THE DOVECOTE
In a wide stretch of pasture, in the middle of a lonely field, with its back to the bleak north blast which swept over the shuddering grasses, making them hum and sing like complaining voices, stood a Dovecote. The solid masonry of its walls, in the crevices of which tufts of stone-crop and shepherd’s purse had sown themselves, and the irregular outlines of the crow-steps which ran up either side of its slanting roof had been familiar to the sight of so many generations that, as it had remained unused within the memory of the oldest, no one thought more of it than if it had been a stone-heap in the road, nor noticed the curious fact of its never falling into disrepair. At each end of the roof, above the crow-steps, two large stone balls stood out against the sky, and on these the rooks, going home in the red sunsets to a neighbouring rookery, perched from year’s end to year’s end, and no one but themselves, or a few inquisitive sheep, who might rub their woolly heads against the walls, seemed to remember the existence of the solitary building. At some little distance behind it the land rose in a steep slope, rolling upwards to where a fringe of fir-trees looked down upon the Dovecote, the fields, and the scattered habitations below.
Anyone standing beside them might see over a vast area of land. Looking to the west, the hills rose in bold relief, and towards them ran a white road which lost itself now and then, only to reappear in patches till it faded into the distance; looking eastward, there lay spread a long stretch of wooded country, over which the lights and shadows floated and the clouds sailed before the west wind on their way to the sea, which could be seen on a sunny day lying like a blue sapphire upon the horizon. Looking straight southward towards the pastures, the sloping ground at the foot of the trees was all one fertile cornfield, as yet uncut, and, half way up it, where the hill was steepest, stood three elms, growing close together and making a dark spot of shade in the middle of the yellow grain. These were called “Maddy Norey’s trees.” What Maddy Norey’s history had been no one alive knew, but tradition said that she had lived in a small cottage under the shadow of the elms, and men ploughing the field in the late November days had run their ploughshares against deeply-embedded stones at their roots, and told each other that they had struck the foundations of Maddy Norey’s house. They did not know that the witch, Maddy Norey, was alive still, and living hardly out of the sound of their voices in the Dovecote.
But in spite of the lonely quiet of the old place, and the peace which seemed to brood over the standing corn, there was war and strife in the land. The young King, with his Queen, had been forced to fly from his palace, a fugitive and wanderer, not knowing where to seek shelter for his head; his step-brother, a wicked and unscrupulous man, having, with his plots and cunning and his smooth, lying tongue, stirred up the people in revolt against their sovereign. Through the treachery of some of the soldiery the palace gates had been broken down, the King’s capital was in the hands of the mob, and he and the Queen had made their escape, trying to reach the distant sea-board, and from it to take ship across the Northern Sea to a neighbouring land ruled by one of their closest allies.
Under cover of night they fled through the streets of the capital, passing unnoticed in the confusion, and slipping through the city gates deserted by the treacherous guards. Once in the open country, they hid themselves in the woods by day, and travelled forward on foot by night, hoping against hope to elude the pursuers sent out after their flight had become known, and to reach the nearest point of coast from which they might set sail for the friendly land opposite.