Sweet Mace: A Sussex Legend of the Iron Times

“Confound it all,” he muttered; “I must not trifle with her, or I shall break the poor girl’s heart.”

“These are my simples, Sir Mark,” said the dame, pointing to the various old-fashioned herbs growing beneath the shelter of a sunny wall; lavender, rosemary, rue, and balm; peppermint, spearmint, and lemon-thyme; pennyroyal, basil, and marigold; wall-hyssop; and sweet marjoram, borage, and dill, with a score more, – which she hastened to point out to hide her confusion.

“That is agrimony, Sir Mark, for fevers, and that is the new long snake-rooted glycorice from Spain, a fine thing for colds and burning throats. These are the echeverias for making up when there are scalds and burns, and applying cool to the place.”

“And what is that great long-leaved plant, madame?” said Sir Mark, showing an interest in what he saw.

“The Indian weed – tobacco, sir, and this is a strange new gourd from the same land; and this is a root that grows into curious floury lumps or balls, when underground. But maybe you have heard of them before we simple people in the country. It is the batata.”

“Yes; I have heard of that, and tasted it too,” said Sir Mark.

“Would you like to see my vines, Sir Mark?” said the lady, eagerly. “They are in the shelter of the old walls here, and I ripen my grapes, and make my wine, that you shall taste when we go in.”

“I thank you, madam, and shall be right glad.”

“Here, too, is my woodsage, or germander,” cried Dame Beckley, eagerly. “It is a fine bitter, with which we make our ale. I have tried to get Cobbe at the Pool to use it when he brews, but he is obstinate and headstrong, and will take the strange-smelling hop-nettle, which twines and runs up the stakes. Maybe Sir Mark has seen the plantation there.”

“Ay, that I have,” said Sir Mark, smiling at Anne, while her mother prattled on.

“The founder has a goodly garden, but not like mine,” said the little lady, proudly. “He never grows such apples as these, nor yet such berries or such plums. I have told him much and given him many seeds, but he is a headstrong and a hard man to teach.”

Sir Mark bowed.

“I gave him the graft to place in his stock for the choice Christmas pippins, – the Noel beauty, Sir Mark, – or he would not have had a worthy apple in his garden. Now, I prithee, come and see my bees.”

“Perhaps Sir Mark would not care to see the bees, mother,” said Mistress Anne, demurely; “he might get stung.”

“I should be too pleased to see them,” said Sir Mark, eagerly; and he was led up this long walk, down that, between the closely-cropped yew-trees and the edges of box, all kept in wondrously-regular order, and the beds lush with many-coloured, sweet-scented plants, which grew in clusters luxuriant and strong.

Sir Mark assumed a look of pleasure, and Mistress Anne was innocence itself; her eyes downcast and a trembling, hesitating expression in her countenance, though she plainly saw that Sir Mark was wearied out and longed to go in and rest.

“There is the orchard, that Sir Mark has not yet seen,” cried Dame Beckley, to her daughter’s great delight, as she hung upon the visitor’s arm.

“But, ladies, I must be thinking of my journey back to town.”

“Not without tasting our hospitality, Sir Mark,” exclaimed Dame Beckley, apparently in answer to a signal from her child, and leading the way. So he was amply feasted and petted for the time, until, mounting horse once more, he rode over the bridge, and stopped to wave his hand before the trees hid Mistress Anne and her mother from view, with Sir Thomas in his feather-stuffed breeches and cock-tail hat.

How Sweet Mace asked for a Cup of Water

“Quick, Polly, my hat and cloak!” cried Mistress Anne, running up to her room, where her little handmaiden was seated at work. “Then there is some truth in the old woman’s philtres after all?”

“Yes, mistress, if you mean Mother Goodhugh’s,” cried the girl, who had caught the last words.

“Why? How? What do you know?” cried Mistress Anne.

“Why, mistress, everybody in love goes to her to get her help.”

“And who told thee I was in love, thou saucy slut?” cried Anne angrily.

“My handsome mistress’s beautiful cheeks, that turned red when she knew Sir Mark Leslie was coming, and her red, ripe lips, that spake his name. La, mistress, don’t be angry with little me, for wishing to see thee with a handsome, gallant husband. But I shouldn’t like though for him to be so fond of Sweet Mace down at the forge.”

“And who dare say he is?” cried Mistress Anne, angrily.

“They say he be, mistress, and that he pooked Captain Culverin about her, and the captain was nearly drowned as well.”

“Who told thee all this?” cried Anne.

“Janet, who lives there, helped the news to me,” replied the girl; “but Sir Mark would never bemean himself to marry such a creature as that Mistress Mace.”

“Hold thy prating tongue,” cried Mistress Anne; “and if I find thee talking about my affairs, girl, or what thou seest, Sir Thomas shall know.”

Hastily tying on hat and cloak, she started for Mother Goodhugh’s, Polly, her apple-faced little maid, making a grimace as she left the room.

“I shall talk as much as I like,” said the girl, giving her head a toss; “mighty madam, as you be. Tell Sir Thomas, and I’ll tell what I see going on from this window, down in the nut-stubbs. Ha, ha, ha! how my lady did stare.”

Mistress Anne lost no time in making her way across the fields and through the woods, to Mother Goodhugh’s; finding the old woman seated at her door, watching her bees as they flew in and out from the straw-hives in her garden-patch.

“Ah, my dearie,” she exclaimed; “you be come again?”

“Yes, mother,” cried Anne, trying, now to keep calm and cool. “What is this I hear about Captain Carr?”

“Captain Carr be not for thee,” cried the old woman, firing up; “he be a murderer – he has slain my best old friend, and if Sir Thomas, thy father, does not have him hung, he be no true man.”

“Softly,” said Mistress Anne; “softly, mother.”

“Nay, I will go softly no more. But of thine own affairs, dearie, Captain Gil Carr is cursed, with all he does. My words have brought him evil already, and thee good. Sir Mark, the handsome stranger, is to wed my handsome mistress. I sent him thee to-day.”

“You sent him?”

“Ah, child, mock away. I sent him on his way to London. Tell me, if thou darest, that he did not say sweet things to thee? Ay, thy face tells it. Child, he be thine.”

“Nay, mother,” cried Anne, who was thrown off her guard by the old woman’s apparent knowledge; “he is coming back soon, and he will go to the foundry-house, and – and – ”

“Mace Cobbe? Nay, child, nay; the game be thine own now. He and Mace have nothing between them. He be thine if thou wilt have him.”

“How can you tell me that, mother?”

“What!” cried the old woman, “have not I worked upon him night and day, till he and that girl are at odds? I say, child; the game be thine own.”

“Mother,” whispered Anne, after a glance at the door, “I hardly believe in thy spells; but look, here is a golden piece for you. Ten more shall be yours if you can make Mace Cobbe unpleasing in Sir Mark’s eyes when he comes back. He is not half gained yet, but with your help he can be won.”

“Make her unpleasing – her face?” said Mother Goodhugh, with a peculiar look. “Hush! I want to know nothing – I will not know anything, Mother Goodhugh. Only I say make her so that he shall care for her no more.”

“But how, child, how?” said the old woman, with a malicious grin.

“Do you want me to teach you your trade?” cried Anne, sharply. “There, give me back my gold piece, and I’ll go to one who can do my bidding.”

“Nay,” cried the old woman, sharply; “I’ll do it; but if I get into trouble thou must stand by me with Sir Thomas.”

“What if they want to burn thee for a witch!” said Mistress Anne.

“Hush!” cried the old woman, “hush!” and she glanced hastily round, to see that they were not overheard. “Don’t speak like that; the people might hear thee. Hist! some one is coming.”

Mistress Anne started up in alarm, as approaching footsteps were heard; and, obeying the old woman’s pointing finger, she hid behind the blue-checked curtain, which shut off her bed, just as there was a tap on the door, and the innocent object of their machinations entered, basket in hand.

“Why, it be thou, child,” cried the old woman, in an ill-used tone.

“Yes, mother; I’ve brought a few little things for thee.”

“Nay, I want them not, nor none of thy trade,” cried the old woman; “I want them not;” but her glistening eyes told another tale. “There, set them down there,” she continued, pointing to a side-table.

“Suppose you open the basket and take them out yourself, mother,” said Mace, smiling with an ingenuous look that might have disarmed the crone’s resentment; but it seemed to have a reverse action, as she rose muttering and scowling, half-snatched the basket, and carried it beyond the curtain, to empty it of its contents.

As she did so, the old woman’s eyes encountered those of Mistress Anne, and a peculiar meaning look passed from one to the other, as Mace said aloud —

“I am thirsty with my walk, mother; can you give me a cup of water?”

“Yes, child, yes,” cried the old woman, hastily; and one of her hands stole towards a shelf over Mistress Anne’s head, as she made believe to go on emptying the basket by making its lid creak loudly.

Mistress Anne’s eyes followed the old woman’s hand, and she saw the skinny fingers close upon a phial, which she hastily hid in her breast, and then once more the eyes of the pair behind the curtain met in a meaning way, and the face of the hiding girl grew ghastly pale.

“Wait a moment, child,” grumbled Mother Goodhugh, “and I’ll get thee a cup of water from the spring. There be thy basket, but bring no more such things to me; I hate them.”

“We’ll see, mother,” said Mace, smiling, as taking a cup from a shelf the old woman hurried out of the cottage to where, out in the road by the side of the lane, a dipping-place for the clear, cool iron-impregnated water had been made.

Stooping down, after glancing right and left, she dipped the cup full of the clear water; and then, removing the cork from the little phial, she poured half its contents beneath the hand that covered the cup, recorked and hid the bottle, and then with an ugly smile about her lips returned to her visitor.

“Here, child,” she said; “it be cool, and sweet, and pure. There be no curse in that;” and as she spoke she glanced involuntarily at the curtain, behind which Anne Beckley was listening, and, though no breeze penetrated the cottage, the hangings visibly shook as Mace took the cup.

Poison, a decoction of some imaginary power, or merely the juice of a plant full of tannin, the effect was the same. Mother Goodhugh was too deeply intent on watching her last visitor and the curtain to pay any heed to the contents of the cup. She had dipped it full of the iron-impregnated water, and seen that it was clear as crystal before holding it in her left hand, with the fingers extended round the rim and her palm acting as a cover. The pouring in of the liquid of the phial, too, had been done in a hasty way, without more than a glance at what she was doing.

To her surprise, then, as she handed the cup to her visitor, Mace passed it back.

“I asked you for a cup of cold water, mother,” she said quietly, “and you gave me this!”

Mother Goodhugh looked down at the cup to see that the limpid crystal water she had dipped had turned of a livid black; and, startled and convicted by the change, she gazed at it, then at the girl, and then back at the cup.

“What did you put in it, mother?” said Mace, quietly.

“I – I – put anything in?” said the old woman, humbly; “what should I put in?”

“Some one or another of your silly mixtures,” said Mace, sternly. “Why do you attempt to try them upon me?”

“Silly mixtures!” Such a term applied to her philtres in the presence of one whom she wished for her own reasons to impress fully with her potency! A moment before the old woman was shivering and cowed; now her visitor’s words roused up the spirit of opposition within her, and, with her eyes flaming defiance, she called upon her powers of well-matured dissimulation as she half shrieked: —

“I put in mixtures! Go to, white witch that thou art. Did I not see thee cast an evil eye on the drinking water, and turn it black? Look here,” she cried, seizing the cup, throwing out its contents, running to the spring, and returning with it full of clear fluid, “the water be bright and sweet. Nay, nay; thou shalt not touch it,” she cried, as Mace stretched out her hand to take the cup – “I will have no more of thy juggling tricks here. Out upon thee, witch – witch, who triest to win decent maidens’ lovers to thy side. When the time comes that justice overtakes thee for thy wicked enchantments, my voice shall be raised to tell of all I know. Go! – Away with thee! – Witch, witch!”

She stood waving her hands and stick at her who had brought her help, and a malignant look of spite and suppressed glee overspread her face, as she laughingly hugged herself upon the clever way in which she had turned the tables upon her accuser. The girl’s lips parted to speak; but finding her adversary become more voluble and ready, Mace shrank away, staggered by the words of the old woman, who followed her to the door, and stood menacing her and shrieking threats as she hurried away with the words “witch, witch,” ringing in her ears.

There was no lack of common-sense in the founder’s daughter, but for the moment she was startled by Mother Goodhugh’s words. No more superstitious than the educated people of her days, a faint belief in the sin of witchcraft lingered in her mind; and she knew by rumour of the terrible fate that had been reserved for women accused of such dealings. For, from time to time, account of fiery executions had reached the remote hamlet, and she shuddered as these memories came back.

To be accused of witchcraft by some malignant enemy meant placing the accused in a position wherein nothing she said would be believed; and, as she hurried homewards, Mace’s face was pale with anxiety and dread.

This soon passed off, though, and she laughed at her childish terrors.

“Poor old thing, she is half mad,” thought Mace; and even then she began to think about the cup; coming rapidly to the right conclusion that Mother Goodhugh had placed some one or another of her decoctions in the water.

“I’ll go there no more,” she said; “the old woman is dangerous, and to try to ward off her wishes by kindly acts seems to make things worse.”

She was, in spite of the encounter, light-hearted and glad; for though the accusation against Gil troubled her, still she knew that he was innocent, and had hoped by propitiating Mother Goodhugh to get her in time to withdraw her words. That adventure had failed; but there was a change at home that made her heart leap. Sir Mark had gone, and an incubus seemed to have been removed from her heart as she felt that the old happy days would come again; and, laughing off the scene with Mother Goodhugh, she hastened on through the pleasant, sunlit glade, where the birds hardly fled at her approach.

“There will be no spells here,” she said, laughingly, as she turned aside; and, parting the bushes, climbed down amongst the ferny stones to where the water dropped into a natural basin, from which, with a cup improvised with a broad burdock leaf, she sipped the pure sparkling fluid and quenched her thirst, seating herself afterwards to rest upon one of the mossy stones, and gazing dreamily down the ravine, through which the water flowed beneath a canopy of luxuriant ferns. As she gazed, a kingfisher, till then motionless upon a twig, suddenly darted down into a pool, rose with something silvery in its beak, and fled along the narrow valley like a streak of azure drawn across the verdure by a spirit-hand, while soon after the white coverts of a blue bar-winged jay were seen as the shy bird peered at her with corvine curiosity and then uttered an excited “Tchah – tchah!” and fled.

Mace thought not of kingfisher, jay, or the velvet-coated blackbird that came and perched so near to watch her intently, for she was considering whether Sir Mark would come back, and, if so, whether he would renew his suit. She was troubled, too, about her father, and his want of faith in Gil. It had seemed as if in his heart he did not dislike the attentions paid to her by Sir Mark; and at last, with a sigh, she rose and continued her little journey.

“Time smooths away a good many difficulties,” she said, half-laughing; “and, if it does not, I must fain follow the example of the Virgin Queen.”

To her surprise, before she was out of the wood she met her father, who rarely left the precincts of his own grounds, unless it was to visit ironstone pit, quarry, or the colliers busy charcoal-burning. He seemed to be examining her curiously as she came up to him, and laid her hand upon his arm.

“Where have you been, Tit?” he asked.

“To take Mother Goodhugh a chicken and a few little niceties, poor soul!”

“For cursing thy father so bitterly?”

“Nay, father; to try and make the poor half-crazed soul more sensible.”

“And to pay her for muttering nonsense to please a silly girl. Tit, I thought better of thee,” he said.

Mace looked at him half-wounded, half-amused.

“When did you know me guilty of such follies, father?” she asked.

“Never till now, when thy head was filled with love-nonsense by that scoundrel, Gil.”

“Father, you hurt me when you speak thus of Gil,” she cried sadly; “and when you doubt my truth.”

“Thou hast been to Mother Goodhugh, like some silly wench, to ask her for love-charms; worse still, thou hast, the moment Sir Mark has gone, run off to keep tryst with a man I forbid thee to see.”

The pained look grew deeper in Mace’s eyes as she laid both her hands upon the broad chest of the founder, and gazed full in his eyes.

“Father, dear,” she said, simply, “why should I go to bid a foolish old woman mutter silly spells, when I know that Gil loves me with all his heart.”

“Out upon his love. As he loves Anno Beckley, and every woman he meets. Shame on thee, girl – for shame!”

She smiled sadly as she still gazed up in his face.

“You don’t mean this, father, dear,” she said. “You don’t think I should be so silly as to go to Mother Goodhugh for what you say?”

“I do,” he cried, harshly.

“And you don’t in your heart think that I have been to see Gil.”

“I tell thee, I do,” he cried.

“And what is more, you don’t think your little girl would play you false.”

“What?” he cried, “has not Gil been at thy window?”

“Yes, father,” she said; “as he has scores of times when we were boy and girl together; but I have bidden him come no more. I never thought harm of it – only that it was pleasant folly,” she added, dreamily.

“Out upon such folly!” he cried.

“Gil will not come again, and I shall try to see him no more, dear, till you bid us meet; and you do not believe that I should ever deceive you.”

“You turn me round your finger, child,” he cried, catching her to his breast, and kissing her passionately. “No, no, no; I don’t believe you went to that old woman for such trash, nor to meet Gil Carr. I know you couldn’t deceive me, my darling; and if I am harsh to thee it is for thy good. Ah! Tit, Tit, what a little witch thou art!”

“Don’t, father!” she cried, starting from him with a cry of pain.

“What is it, my bird? What have I done?”

“You called me a witch,” she said, with a slight shudder, but trying to laugh it off.

“Well! an’ if I did?” he said, laughing.

“It was foolish to mind,” she said; “but Mother Goodhugh just now was angry with me, and called me witch, and uttered threats.”

“Against thee?” cried the founder, angrily. “I say, then, let her curses return upon her own head, witch that she is herself. She shall go from Roehurst before this time to-morrow.”

“Nay, nay, father,” cried Mace, hastily; “don’t visit her mad ravings upon her. Let her rest. Poor thing! she’s crazed with grief. Let her be – for my sake, let her be.”

“What, and let her some day bring evil upon us by her witcheries?”

“What, and is my stout, brave father going to have faith in what yon silly woman says!” cried Mace, laughing. “Come, father, promise me you will not have her touched.”

“I’ll promise thee anything, child,” he said, smoothing her soft hair, and bending down to kiss her cheek.

“Anything, father?” she cried.

“Not quite, Mace,” he said with a sigh; “but anything that is for thy good;” and they walked on through the wood together, the old man smiling and loitering as his companion kept stooping to pick some bright flower, for it put him in mind of her childhood, when sweet Mace and the wild flowers seemed each to belong to each. Now it was the bright yellow meadow vetchling, now the brilliant orange-tinted lotus, and then long sprays of the purple-blossomed tufted vetch.

Further on they came to a sunny opening where the trees had been felled, and here was quite a forest garden, where Mace paused, with the care that had shaded her face for days gone to leave it bright and childlike once more; while the founder smiled as he stood and watched her run from patch to patch, picking hastily and talking the while.

“I won’t be long, dear. Oh, how beautiful the heath is; what lovely sprays!”

Then she ran to where the orange ragwort threw up its tufts of sun-like florets, picked golden-rod and Saint John’s wort; ran a few steps to where the wood betony raised a clump of purple-waving heads. These, with delicate grasses, pink robins, lavender scabious, and soft-foliaged golden-disked flea-bane, and hawkweed, made up a goodly nosegay. But still, there was more and more to add, for as she walked on it was by a clump of golden genista, each plant a bouquet in itself; bright pink starred centaury; and then farther along by a hollow, where the water lay in a dark pool, the quaint stars of the branch bur-reed, with abundance of forget-me-not, seemed to ask the picking.

“Oh, father!” she cried merrily, as she stopped at last, with a bunch of flowers as large as her fingers could grasp, “what a shame that I should keep thee thus!”

“Nay, nay, my child,” he said, smiling, as he stroked one of her soft flushed cheeks; “it seems to do me good to see thee young again. It is like a rest on life’s journey, and a pleasant halt where one can forget one’s hurry and toil. Mace, my pet,” he said, seating himself among the heath upon a sandy bank, “I think I could give up everything, except my garden and my pipe and ale, if you and I could go on together always like this.”

“Then let us go on like this, father,” she cried, seating herself at his feet and resting her head against his knee. “Why should we let trouble come between?”

“Because we can’t help it, girl,” he replied, laughing. “He’s let in by that little mischief imp who comes unasked and holds open the door for t’other, and then the sorrows come. You know the boy I mean, Tit; his name is Love, and I s’pose it has always been the same.”

There came a curiously pained look in Mace’s eyes as she turned them quickly up to her father, then the woodland nosegay she had picked fell at her feet, and her head drooped down upon his knee.

How the Big Howitzer was Fired

Time glided on, and Gil’s ship was fast getting ready for sea. It was to be a good trip this season; and, as she approached completion, her freight was gradually accumulated, for, as in a quiet matter-of-fact way, the captain let the relations between him and Mace stand in abeyance, the founder made some slight advances, and business arrangements were resumed.

It would have been a serious matter for both if they had stood out, for Gil formed almost the only channel through which Jeremiah Cobbe’s productions were sold, and upon him depended the supply of two of the principal ingredients with which one of the founder’s branches of industry was carried on.

So gunpowder was made and ground. Gil – though never asked to the house, nor making any attempt to see Mace, and at their casual encounters meeting her quite as a friend – spent much of his time at the founder’s works, superintending a casting, watching the purification of some batch of nitre that he had brought home, and, above all, helping at the trial of a newly-finished howitzer or culverin.