Uncle Joe's Stories

THE CRONES OF MERSHAM

Things are very dull now-a-days in the country districts of England.

The country gentlemen have got into the habit of going to London a great deal more than they used to do before railroads were made as extensively as has been the case of late years. The farmers, too, move about more than they did in the olden days, and act very differently in many respects from their forefathers.

Nor are the labourers quite the same; they ask more wages, touch their hats to master, squire, and parson less than they did, and discuss matters of politics and the government of the country, which formerly never entered their heads.

I dare say it is all right: it is a wise and good frame of mind to cherish, which teaches one that whatever is, is right, although it is sometimes very difficult to think so.

For instance, when my tooth takes to aching without any obvious cause, and certainly very much against my will, the fact of its doing so is well established, but the existing state of things in my face is not recognised by me – not for one single moment – as right because it is the existing state. And when I have overdrawn my account at my banker's, and the state of things is that he will not let me do so any more, the circumstance that it is so does not reconcile me to the fact in the very slightest degree.

Still, as regards the progress which this country has made, and the condition at which we have now arrived, I am ready to bow my head meekly, and allow that as a general maxim, the general results may be admitted by me to be "all right."

There are the railroads, and (though the carriages are not always comfortable, and the trains generally late) they afford such facilities for the gentryfolk to go to town, that we cannot wonder at their doing so. If it is not right that they should, surely railroads would never have been permitted, cutting up the beautiful country as they do, and sending their screaming engines along through the green fields and thriving plough-lands, where all before was peaceful and quiet.

Then if the farmers are changed, it is also all for the best without doubt. Changed they are, beyond all question. They are a different class of men from the old species of farmer who existed fifty years ago, and who seldom went further than his market town.

Our farmers, now-a-days, have all visited London again and again, and instead of the homely talk over a market dinner which used to take place in old days, they have got "Chambers of Agriculture," in which they evince a remarkable ability in discussing anything which Parliament proposes to do about agricultural matters, and talk nearly as wisely, I am told, as the members of the House of Commons itself!

Still, however, I stick to my text, and say that, being as it is, it must be all right.

Of course it is, and so also with regard to the labourers. When I was a boy they did not know half as much as they do now, but they worked well for all that.

I have lodged in two rooms in this farmhouse in which I write for twenty-seven years come next Michaelmas, and I have often heard farmer Barrett say that his best labourers were generally those who could neither read nor write.

Most of them can do both now, and people used to say that it was a sin and a shame that every labourer should not be able to read his Bible and write his name in it.

"All right," again say I, only unfortunately (as I sometimes venture to think) it is not their Bibles they read, so much as the penny papers, and these sometimes teach them different lessons from the Bible, I fancy. Then there is a lot of cheap – well, trash I was going to say, and I think I must, too – a lot of cheap trash which is sent about all over the country, or which they pick up here and there, and which teaches them lessons altogether mischievous.

Moreover, they have societies, which are curious sort of concerns, I am told, and through which they are taught actually to demand an increase of wages, and various other things which were never thought of in old times.

All these things have made the country districts of England very different places from what they used to be when I first knew them. That is now a long time ago, but I know a great deal that happened before I knew anything from my own eyesight and observation – I mean before I was born.

I am an old man now, and having enough money to live upon and be comfortable, I have all my lifetime indulged my inclination for living in the country.

I used to make it my principal endeavour to avoid railways. I hired lodgings in rustic villages, and lived quietly therein, studying the ways and habits of the people, and picking up old legends, which was always my chief delight. But wherever I went, a railroad was sure to be immediately afterwards projected through that particular district.

The steam fiend seemed to have marked me out as an involuntary pioneer to herald his advance; and, move where I would, he and his myrmidons very shortly appeared in my wake.

This continued for five and twenty years – for I began my system of country-lodging when I was a tolerably young man – barely turned thirty. When I tell you, as I did just now, that I have been in my present abode for twenty-seven years, a little calculation will show you that I shall never again see my eighty-second birthday. You will therefore, I hope, excuse the garrulity of old age, and forgive me if I have somewhat wandered from the tale which in fact I have not yet begun, but which I have been leading up to all this time.

For you must know that the changes of which I have been speaking have had great effect upon other people besides gentry, farmers, and labourers. There are nothing like so many witches, wizards and curious creatures of that kind as there were, in country places, in the good old times.

I do not for one moment say that this is to be regretted. On the contrary, I say again, that being so, I have no doubt it is "all right."

But, right or wrong, it is undoubtedly true that the witches, warlocks and wise women have greatly diminished, if indeed they have not altogether vanished. I hope it will be understood that by "wise women" I do not allude to the ladies who give scientific lectures and talk about a variety of subjects upon which they evidently know much more than an old gentleman like I am could ever know, and, I must say, more than I should like to know about some things.

This is a different kind of wisdom altogether, and there are plenty of persons who possess it, or think they do, which serves their purpose quite as well. I mean "wise," in the sense of possessing an unusual and supernatural insight into things which are commonly hidden from mortal knowledge.

Of these people there are few, if any, left in the present day; or if there are such, they do not come to the front as they once did. There are, indeed, many persons in the world now, who actually disbelieve in witches and all creatures of that sort, and who not only disbelieve in their existence now, but who stoutly maintain that they never did exist.

I don't know how they get over the Witch of Endor, or the various other allusions to witches in the Bible, but I suppose they do somehow or other.

People are much too clever for me, nowadays, and get over any difficulty that comes in their way – or fancy that they do so, and trouble themselves no more about it. I have even heard people disbelieve in fairies, but that of course is sheer nonsense; and no one who wanders – as I have often done, at all seasons and at all hours – through the glorious English woodlands, can doubt the existence of the dear little elves.

Doubt their existence! I should as soon think of doubting my own! How do the fairy-rings come, I should like to know? Whence comes the name of "the Fairy Well" – not uncommon by any means? Oh, no! I do not believe that anybody disbelieves that fairies exist, though I know that there is a dreadful amount of unbelief in the world regarding warlocks and witches.

I am glad to say that good Farmer Barrett was never one of the unbelievers. He was near upon seventy when I first came to lodge under his roof, so that if he had lived till now he would have been ninety-seven. As he didn't, however, it is no use making the remark. He died some twelve years ago, when about eighty-five; cut off, as one may say, in the prime of life.

Ah, me! how our friends, young and old, fall around us, like grass. My godson, Jack Barrett, here remarks, with less of reverence than I could have wished, in speaking of his grandfather, that a man taken away at eighty-five would be better compared to hay than grass. Well, well, Jack is young; barely forty, and boys must have their jokes, as we all know.

I was going to say that good Farmer Barrett's death affected me very much. He was a very great comfort to me, was Farmer Barrett. It was not only that we agreed upon most points, and thought alike in a manner most satisfactory to both of us. That was a great comfort, living as we did under the same roof, and sitting together, either in his kitchen or my parlour, almost every evening, to enjoy a quiet gossip. But there were other comforts too, and the chief one – that which I may fairly consider the principal advantage which I reaped from the society of Farmer Barrett – was derived from his extraordinary knowledge of the legends and traditions of his native county concerning witches and wizards.

Many and many an evening have we sat talking upon such matters, till I have really felt quite nervous about going to bed. Not that I am a nervous man: not by any means; but I own that more than once, after discussing witches and their cats to a late hour, I have felt a curious sensation when the house cat came rubbing herself against my shins, and have looked with a species of creepy feeling over my left shoulder as I went upstairs to bed, almost thinking I should see something "uncanny" close behind me.

I never knew any man with such a collection of stories and legends as old Barrett. He had tales without end of the "Warlock of Coombe," the "Wizard of Bockhanger," and the "Witch of Brook Hollow." He could tell of the dark doings of the "Hag of Hothfield," and the fearful creature who so long inhabited the regions of Charing, and darkened the woods of Longbeach with her awesome shadow.

I do not believe that any witch or wizard ever existed in Kent whose story was not well known to Barrett. Of his own knowledge he could tell something. Once there happened a curious thing in his stables.

His two teams of horses, fed alike, housed equally well, and treated with precisely the same care, strangely varied in their appearance and condition. One team were always sleek and slim, "fat and well-liking," like Pharaoh's fat kine, and the admiration of all beholders. The other team were just the reverse. Nothing they took seemed to agree with them, they fell away, their bones started through their skins, and their appearance was a disgrace to the farm. This state of things greatly puzzled and annoyed the farmer and his men.

Barrett himself laid the blame upon the waggoner and his mate, and threatened to discharge both of them if things went on so, as he felt sure they petted one team of horses at the expense of the other. The men earnestly denied the charge, and were evidently much vexed at its having been made.

Things went on the same until at last the waggoner, who was a clever and withal a courageous man, determined to sit up all night and watch. He did so, being carefully hidden in the corner of the stable. The horses fed well, and lay down as usual. All was quiet until twelve o'clock struck. At that moment several little men, about a foot high, leaped down from the loft above the stables, and going to the favoured team, began to brush and comb them with great care and energy, rubbing them well all over and uttering no words to anybody as they did so, save to each other as they worked, as if to encourage themselves to greater exertions.

"I work – you work, I work – you work," they kept saying, and the coats of the horses rapidly became more smooth and glossy, until, when the little men had finished, they were perfect models of what horses should be.

They merely looked at the other team with funny faces, and then hastened up again to their loft. All this the waggoner duly told his master next morning, and, of course, with the natural incredulity of man, he at first refused to believe it.

But when, upon the man again and again assuring him of its truth, he determined to put the matter to the proof by hiding himself that same night, he saw precisely the same thing, and was of course convinced.

I forget how the story ended, but I know that, somehow or other, he managed to get some "wise" person in the neighbourhood to speak up for the poor, thin team, and prevent the little elves, or whatever they were, from "spiting" them any more.

Then the farmer had a tale which had been told him by a groom he had once in his service, who came from the hill above Charing. Up over the hill there was a reputed witch, Mrs. Dorland.

I questioned the groom about this woman myself, so I may as well give the story in his own words.

"She were a noted witch, she were," he said.

"How do you know?" I asked, not because I myself doubted for a moment, but because I wanted to glean all the particulars I possibly could.

"Bless ye, sir," replied the youth, "I knows all about it because o' my grandfather. She wouldn't never let him alone. I expect he'd affronted her, one time or other. I recollect when I was a-staying along with him once, and the door locked and all – he looked over the stairs and there, sure enough, was old Dame Dorland on the mat at the bottom, and her eyes! oh they glounded in her head, they did!"

"But how did she get in?" I asked.

"That's just what I want to know," answered the boy. "The door was shut and fast locked; but there she was, anyhow. Another time my grandfather had to drive some bullocks down to Ashford market, and he overtook Dame Dorland. She had a basket on her arm, and she asked my grandfather to carry it for her. He wouldn't. I expect he didn't know what bad game might be up. Well, do you think he could keep his bullocks in the road, after that? Not he: they was over the hedge, first one side and then another, and then they was for running back. He couldn't do nothing with them, so he turns back and offers to carry the old girl's basket. Then the bullocks was all right directly, and he hadn't no trouble in getting them along all the way to Ashford."

Since Farmer Barrett had lived all his life in a county where such people as Dame Dorland were to be found, there can hardly be much surprise felt at his entire and implicit belief in witchcraft.