In one of the valleys of the forest of Pevensel lay the hamlet of the forest-folk, some half-dozen cottages of unhewn stone, their flagged roofs covered with moss and lichen. There were gardens about the scattered cottages, an orchard or two, and a few strips of cultivated land where trees had been grubbed up, and whin and heather routed. On the west the ground fell abruptly to the banks of a stream that flashed and glittered under the pine-boughs.
These forest-folk mingled but little with the hinds of the neighboring villages. They were all of Grimshaw stock, sprung from the loins of Isaac Grimshaw and his brother. There were Dan and David, sons to Isaac; old Ursula their aunt, and Bess, her foster-child; also Solomon, Isaac’s brother, who had caused ten youngsters to be brought into the world. Isaac, a white-haired septuagenarian with a lame leg and a pair of unfathomable gray eyes, gave law and order to the clan like a patriarch of old. Dan, Black Dan, as the others called him, upheld his father’s word with the brute strength of his untamed body.
Rude and unlettered as were these woodlanders, they came of finer stock than the oafs who toiled on the Sussex farms. The Grimshaws never seemed to lack for money, for Dan would drive his wagon into Rookhurst or Lewes thrice a year, and spend sums that a squire might have disbursed with pride. They were considered notorious smugglers, these men of Pevensel, though the burning of charcoal and the smelting of iron were the crafts they practised in pretence of an honest living. They had good stuff, solid furniture, broad beds, pewter, and fine crockery in their cottages. The men wore the best cloth, were well-armed, and never lacked for spirits and tobacco. The squalor and poverty of an average village contrasted with the clean comfort of the hamlet of Pevensel.
How did the Grimshaws come by their money? That was the question the country-folk asked of one another over their pipes and ale, a question also that the revenue gentlemen had attempted to solve in vain. No one knew save Isaac, old Ursula, and Dan, of the chest buried in the deeps of the forest, stuffed with guineas, jewels, and ingots of gold. No one knew that Bess, old Ursula’s foster-child, was a strangeling in Pevensel from over the sea. Twenty years had passed since the Richmond Lass had been scuttled in a fog off Beachy Head, after her captain had been murdered and certain of the crew. An English officer and his wife had shared the same fate, paying with their lives for the treasure they carried with them. Four sailors—two Irishmen, a Hollander, and a Portuguese—had come ashore by night in the jolly-boat with a heavy chest and the dead officer’s daughter, a child of three. They had scuttled the jolly-boat, after filling her with stones, and, striking cross-country, had disappeared with the child into the forest of Pevensel. Only Isaac and Ursula knew the end of the tale, and John, Isaac’s eldest son, who had died five years later. The four sailors had lodged at the Grimshaws, bargained with Isaac, and, after drinking heavily, had been murdered in their sleep. The treasure-chest hidden in the forest, four skeletons buried under an old oak, the girl Bess, were all that recalled that tragedy of the sea.
It was St. Agnes’s Eve, and snow had fallen heavily for a night and a day. The sky had cleared towards sunset, showing the west red above the white hills and the snow-capped trees. The moon was full that night, and her splendor turned Pevensel into a wilderness of witchcraft and white magic, an endless maze of tall, silent trees struck mute betwixt the moonlight and the snow.
Old Ursula Grimshaw, Isaac’s sister, lived alone with Bess in the cottage nearest to the woods. Pine-boughs overhung the roof, and the allies of the forest ran black and solemn from the very walls. Whin, whortleberry, heather, and the blown wind-rack of the trees had conquered one-half of the little garden. Bess and old Ursula were the pair whom Richard Jeffray had passed the day before, tending hogs in the beechwood by the road.
It was St. Agnes’s Eve, and Bess sat before the wood-fire in the kitchen, her chin in her palms, her elbows on her knees. Old Ursula had gone to bed, leaving Bess to watch the flickering embers. The room was paved with stone, a warm, snug chamber despite the deep snow gleaming under the moon without. Herbs, bundles of onions, flitches of bacon, a gun, sheaves of feathers, hung from the great beams. There was much polished pewter on the shelves; a great linen-press behind the door; several oak chairs ranged about the walls; brass candlesticks, an hour-glass and a Dutch clock stood on the mantle-shelf, and on an iron hook above the fire a kettle still hissed peacefully.
Bess had loosed her black hair about her shoulders so that it rippled and shone about her face. Her bare feet were on the hearth-stone, her gray stockings and buckled shoes lying near to dry before the fire. Bess’s eyes were building pictures amid the embers stacked behind the iron bars. It was St. Agnes’s Eve, and the girl’s head was packed full of old Ursula’s superstitious lore. She was bent on trying a dream that night. She had kissed neither man, woman, nor child all day, had fasted since noon, and whispered a charm up the great chimney. Now that old Ursula’s black cat had lapped up some milk, and was dozing before the fire, Bess rose up to put herself to bed.
The girl’s room lay on the upper floor at the back of the cottage, its single window looking out over the valley. Bess, after raking out the fire and seeing that the door was fast, lighted her candle, and climbed the wooden stairs to her room under the roof. A clean shift was laid out on the bed, and the sheets had been put on fresh that morning, for St. Agnes, it was said, loved to find a wench in spotless gear. There were fresh pulled bays strewn upon the pillow, a couple of red apples, and a new shoe.
The room being cold, and Bess propitiously sleepy, she disrobed briskly, drew on the clean shift, laid the bay sprigs, apples, and shoe on the chair by the bed, and slipped in between the sheets. Lying straight and on her back, after old Ursula’s orders, she put her right hand beneath her head, saying: