Sweet Mace: A Sussex Legend of the Iron Times

Blank to Sweet Mace, but no dream, for her cries had been heard by the old woman, as she haunted the ruins by night, picking out little objects of value, and toiling from the first to reach poor forgotten Janet, an object that kept her busy, for she could not rest till that was done. The sixth night had come before she had been able to drag away a sufficiency of the débris to reach the imprisoned girl. She had not dared to summon help from the dread she suffered lest Sir Mark’s men should seize her once again; and when at last she succeeded in dragging the sufferer from her living tomb, and had laid her upon the ground hard by, there was none to see her in the grey of the early morning staggering with her burden to her lonely cottage in the lane.

How Mother Goodhugh missed her Revenge

“Dead, and they’ve buried her!” cried the old woman, as she stood beside the bed, whereon she had lain Mace. “Dead, and they’ve buried her; and Jeremiah Cobbe can feel now what it be to lose one that he loves!”

“Let him feel it,” she snarled, “let him feel it, and gnaw his heart for a time. I’ll tell him naught.”

Then she glanced uneasily at the door, and drew the curtain that screened her bed.

“No one can see her now,” she muttered. “I’ll keep her as long as I can. She be weak and half-childish with what she has gone through. Let her rest; but I’m glad she be not killed.”

A feeling of satisfaction glowed for a time in the old woman’s heart, but it was mingled with annoyance that, after all, Jeremiah Cobbe would know rest, while she could never recall her dead.

As the days glided by, to her surprise Mother Goodhugh found that Mace did not recover. She partook of food mechanically when it was offered to her, but she did not speak, only looked vacantly about her, and seemed to be without even the power to think.

“Why should I lose my revenge?” thought the old woman. “Why should I even let him think that she lives? It will be another to keep until he finds her out, and that may be months first, if she stops as she be now. But I can keep her easily,” she said with a chuckle, “since corn grows on the moonbeams, and meal can be had for all my wants from out the earth.”

A month had gone by, and Mace showed no sign of being roused from her dull, apathetic state. She made no attempt to move, but sat where she was placed, gazing straight before her, and never a word passed her lips. Whether the old woman was by her or she was away on some errand, it was all the same, Mace stayed where she was left, unseen by a soul, for since the explosion at the Pool-house no one had cared to go near Mother Goodhugh, and but for her foresight she might have starved.

But the old woman had a means of keeping body and soul together that people little dreamed of, for one day, while herb-gathering in the woodlands, far away behind the founder’s house, she had kicked against a fragment of iron, which proved to be a portion of a shell; and, passing further in search of more, she came upon a hole in the sandstone rock beside the scarped mass that rose behind the Pool-house.

Such a place had its interest for her; for, by the fragments of iron about and the blackened appearance of the rock, she could tell that it was the work of one of Jeremiah Cobbe’s pieces of ordnance.

Parting the ferns and tangled growth with her stick, and muttering a curse or two upon him and his belongings, the old woman found that there was an opening large enough to pass through; and, investigating further, she could see that the great shell had broken through what was but a thin crust of rock, and that within there was a narrow passage-like opening, worn apparently by the waters of some ancient stream.

Another day she examined further, for the place interested her, and she penetrated some distance and returned.

Another time she came, and brought a lanthorn to search further, for anything bordering on mystery was valuable to her, ending, after winding in and out for some distance, by coming to the conclusion that this was the place of which Abel Churr had spoken – that she had long sought in vain, and that she knew Gil Carr’s secret, having hit upon another entrance to his store.

It was a long and tedious way in, but that mattered little to her; while, ignorant of the fact that he had been the means of breaking a way into his own treasure-house, Gil Carr duly, as he believed, sealed it up and set sail.

Here one night, when the fear was upon her that Mace might be discovered at her cottage, and the malignant fit was stronger than usual, Mother Goodhugh brought the helpless girl. A touch of the hand was sufficient to lead her where her gaoler willed, and, docile as a child, Mace accompanied her to what was hereafter to be her prison, whose dark shadows seemed to accord with her helpless state; and here she would sit and seem to doze away her life.

It was a safe place, only visited by the old woman at night, and she found it easy to feed her prisoner from the ship-stores; but now and then a fit of remorse would seize upon her, and she would, on leaving the place, resolve to restore the poor girl to her home.

A dozen times over she threw herself in Jeremiah Cobbe’s way to tell him all, but the sight of the founder seemed to raise up gall and bitterness in her heart, and she went away chuckling and laughing.

“Let him suffer a little longer – a little longer,” was her cry. “Some day the girl will recover her senses, then I’ll speak.”

But the time flew by, and sense was as it were dead in Sweet Mace’s brain; while, having gone so far, Mother Goodhugh dreaded at last to bring her back. There were strange rumours afloat about her, and her position was not so safe as it had been of yore. So in utter fear she would fasten up her cottage and take refuge in Gil’s store for days together, dreading lest ill should befall her; but at the end of a week passed in this gloomy abode she would be ready to revile herself for her cowardice, and go back. At these times she was more than ever prepared to own that she could not restore Mace to her father.

“Let him suffer, as I have done,” she would cry again. “She can stay till Gil Carr comes back. Let him take the poor stricken idiot if he will. I’ve had revenge, and a sweet one after all.”

In this spirit Mother Goodhugh would return to her cottage, and the tale of her evil doings grew longer, for there were those who said that she disappeared for days together – none knew where; and that she had always meal in plenty, while the miller swore none ever came from him, and that she was a witch indeed.

How Croftly cut the Hay in the Two-Year Stack

There was a great deal of talk about punishing those who had rescued Mother Goodhugh from the flames; but Sir Mark was away with his wife, and soon after his marriage, being somewhat of a favourite of the British Solomon, he was appointed to a diplomatic post at one of the continental courts, and when Sir Thomas Beckley took his first steps to vindicate the insult offered to the law he received so broad a hint that he might suffer bodily for his interference, that he quietly shut himself up in his old house, surrounded by the carp-haunted moat, and took walks upon its bank to give the gaping, staring fish a model that they might study for their benefit at will.

In fact, the rescue of Mother Goodhugh was half forgotten in the news that was spread by the superstitious that by her subsequent death a spell had been broken, and Sweet Mace had been set free and had returned to life.

For by degrees she was restored, but it was only by long and patient nursing. In the latter part of her imprisonment her faculties had become dulled, and the shock had produced a semi-torpid state that had its effect upon her mental powers, which were slow to recover their tone. Gil was ever by her side, though she did not know him or her father; but, after a month’s prostration, during which she had hardly left her couch, she began to fight her way very slowly back to strength.

Tender nursing prevailed, and, could her health, drunk in flagons of ale, have given it back sooner, Master Peasegood would have insured her the most robust of constitutions months before she was seated in the old garden, an object of curiosity to all who saw her, with the face of twenty and the silvery hair of three-score and ten.

But the ashy pallor gave way to the returning hue of health, and the rigid, fixed features became softened and rounded. It was Sweet Mace’s old face again by the next summer, all but a couple of deeply-marked lines in her forehead – lines of care and thought which still remained.

The founder sighed even in his joy at her return, for still there was something wanting.

“Nay, Gil,” he said, sadly, “thou hast brought me back the body of my darling, but thou hast not brought the spirit. She smiles sadly and gazes at me when I speak, and that is all.”

“Yes, that is all,” groaned Gil; “she knows me no longer.”

“Poor lad, poor lad!” muttered Master Peasegood, who was present; and he drowned his sigh in a flagon of ale.

“Art going to rebuild the old house, now?” said the parson.

“Ay,” said the founder, “and at once. I have my hopes that the sight of the old place, made as near like as can be, even to the trees, may do the poor child good, for she seems at her best when I take her round the garden.”

Gil looked up curiously, for a thought had struck him; but he said nothing; and, on the founder proposing that they should go and see the men digging the foundations out, he walked with them to the old place.

As they walked down to the garden, Gil’s mind ran a good deal upon the thought that had occurred to him, but he said nothing, and waited patiently for his opportunity.

The visit was prolonged till towards evening, when, before returning, the founder walked down the narrow lane by the side of the Pool towards the meadow where Sir Mark had made his first proposal to Mace.

The place was full of memories for Gil, and he sighed as he thought of the bright sweet face he had encountered, and recalled his jealous feelings towards the man who had forced himself into the position of his rival.

But his attention was taken up directly after by the founder, who, with a return of his old business briskness, thrust open the meadow gate, and pointed to the new, sweetly-scented stack of hay just formed.

“What think you of that, Master Peasegood?” he said.

“Truly I am no judge of grass or hay, friend Cobbe, unless it be metaphorically, and for simile’s sake – grown up at noon, cut down at night,” – was the reply. “Ask our gossip, Tom Croftly here.”

“Ay, Tom Croftly is a good judge of grass and stock too, though he is only a founder.”

“I see not why a man may not be a judge of hay as well as iron,” said Master Peasegood, as Croftly drove a horse and rough tumbril through the gate, and along the track to where the old stack of hay stood, with a good quarter of it cut away, waiting the knife.

“Neither do I,” said the founder, smiling as he thought of his own business.

“You hear this, friend Gil Carr,” said Master Peasegood; “why not give up thy roving ways, and settle down to help friend Cobbe. There, lad, the good time is coming: the past forgotten; sweet little Mace will be herself again; and Master Cobbe will be ready to take thee by the hand as son. Faith, and how deftly Tom Croftly handles that great blade, and cuts the hay in squares. Were I a fighting man, methinks that would be a good weapon to have in battle. Heyday! what ails the man? Does he want to break his neck?”

For Tom Croftly suddenly threw up his hands, leaped some eight feet down into the meadow, and came up panting and with his forehead bedewed with sweat. His eyes were staring, and his countenance ghastly, while for a few moments he could not speak.

“Hast seen a ghost, Tom Croftly?” cried Master Peasegood with a hearty laugh.

“Close upon it, master,” gasped Croftly. “Hey, master, but it be terrifying.”

“What is terrifying?” cried the founder.

“That, that,” panted the man. “Lord forgive me; I didn’t know what I did.”

“Speak out, man, speak out,” cried the founder, as the poor fellow began to tremble; and he clutched him by the arm, fearing that some new trouble had befallen his house.

“I can’t, yet, master, it be too terrifying,” gasped Croftly. “The Lord forgive me for doing such a deed!”

“Less of that last, Tom Croftly, and more explanation,” said Master Peasegood, sternly.

“Yes, Mas’ Peasegood, I’ll tell thee,” gasped the poor fellow. “I sharpened up as usual – the big knife, you know – and went to cut the ’lowance for the horse and pony, when I couldn’t have been looking; and he must have got up there to sleep.”

“He? Who? What?” cried the founder.

“It’s not I as can say, master,” stammered the poor fellow; “the knife went down hard, but I thrust the more, and then, taking up the truss of hay, his head rolled down.”

“What?” roared the founder.

“Heaven forgive me, master,” cried Croftly, sinking on his knees, “I’ve cut a man’s head clean from his body.”

The founder and Master Peasegood stared at him aghast, as if believing he was mad, but the poor fellow was sane enough; and, on following him to the little stack, there was the horrible truth; but Croftly was relieved on finding his knife had decapitated the dead, and not some sleeping man.

“Was he dead, then?” he faltered, in answer to a few words spoken by Master Peasegood.

“Dead, man! ay, months ago. Heaven have mercy on us, it’s a horrible thing.”

“You’re right,” said the founder, turning away with a shudder; “the poor wretch must have lain down when we were making the stack, and more hay have been thrown upon him. He must have been smothered.”

“Some gipsy, perhaps,” said Master Peasegood, whose broad face looked white.

“Here be a bottle by him,” said Tom Croftly, lifting one from beside the body, “and here be a strap. Why, master, master!” he cried, rising up with a scrap of clothing in his hand.

“What is it, Tom?” said the founder, shuddering. “Come away, man, come away.”

“Ay, I’ll come away, Mas’ Cobbe, but I’ve found out who it be.”

“You have?” cried Master Peasegood, excitedly, as the man opened and smelt the bottle.

“Ay, I have,” said Croftly. “That be strong waters in this bottle; and him as lay down,” he continued, sagaciously, “I say, him as lay down upon that half-built stack was drunk, and the steam of the moist hay stifled him.”

“But who think you it was?” cried the founder.

“Him as was missed,” cried Croftly, triumphantly.

“Thank God!” cried Master Peasegood; “then Gil was as innocent as the day.”

“Innocent – as the day?” cried the founder, in a puzzled voice, as he looked from one to the other. “Poor creature, how do you know? But I don’t understand. Some one who was missed? Good God!” he cried, as a light flashed upon him, and he took a step or two up the short ladder by the stack, and then leaped down. “’Tis Abel Churr!”

How Gil Carr lit the Lamps of Love

Another year slipped by and Gil’s ship had made a couple more voyages with Wat Kilby at the helm, for Culverin Carr had stayed at home, the helper and adviser of Jeremiah Cobbe. The Pool-house had risen again from its ashes, stone for stone, beam for beam, in spite of the bitter curse fulminated against those who should restore it. The aspect of age could not be given to the place, but it was a labour of love on the founder’s part to consult with Gil how they should get that clump of roses, that high cluster of clematis, and those bright flowers to grow beneath the window as of old.

Wealthy as he was, the founder could replace many things destroyed by the calamity that befel his house, and with so zealous a treatment it was wonderful how nearly they brought the new house in furniture and surroundings to resemble the old.

At last they paused, feeling that there was nothing more to do, and the two strong men sat at the table in the big parlour, gazing the one into the other’s face, as if to ask for hope and friendly assurance of success. For on the next day Mace was to be brought to the new house, and they both felt that, if her mind were to be restored, they must see some symptoms in the change.

The founder begged Gil to help him bring his child home once more, but he bluntly refused.

“Nay,” he said; “I will not come. Take her thyself. Thou art her father, and God speed thee in the task.”

It was a glorious summer day at the end of July, when the flowers were blooming, and the whole air was redolent with Nature’s sweetest scents. The Pool was pure as crystal, and amidst the broad green leaves the silver chalices of the water-lilies swam upon the surface, where the herons waded, and the gorgeous kingfisher darted across the glassy mirror.

In the old garden the flowers drooped their heads in the heat which quivered over the grassy meads, while the forest-trees were silent in the glowing sunshine. No leaf moved, no zephyr played in the dark shades, but lizard and glistening beetle darted here and there, where the sandstone peered out amidst the heaths and ferns.

Mace suffered herself to be led by her father from the cottage they had made their home; but she heeded not the faces at the window and door, nor heard the pitying words spoken concerning her by the workpeople who had eaten her father’s bread for years.

They watched her as the grey-headed founder led her across the bridge, and opened the garden gate; but she did not look. He spoke to her and pointed out her favourite trees, and then groaned in the anguish of his heart, for she made no reply. Her soft, sweet eyes might have been blind; her tongue have never spoken; and her soft, pinky, shell-like ears have never heard a sound, for all the sign she gave; and the founder’s heart sank low as he felt that his task of love had been labour in vain.

And yet he would not despair; but, leading her in, he gently placed her in the recess by the open window with her work spread around as of old, and her roses nodding and flinging their odours into the pleasant room.

No word, no look, no sign; and at last, in despair, the founder left her with her maid, and, bent of head and weary, trudged up to Master Peasegood’s cot to tell of his disappointment over a friendly pipe.

“Yes,” he said, at last; “it is all over, and I am going to try to be resigned.”

“Nay,” said the parson, “why say that? Be resigned, man, come to you what may; but, after all this preparation, why give it up?”

“Because it is useless, Master Peasegood. Her mind is dead.”

Master Peasegood refilled a pipe, and lit it to smoke for awhile in silence, while the founder gazed before him through the open window at the setting sun.

“I could preach thee a long, long sermon on the subject of hope, Master Cobbe,” said the parson at last; “but I will refrain. Look here, man, and recollect what thou hast done. Only to-day thou did’st take our sweet smitten flower back to the bed where it blossomed and grew so fair. It had been away in desert soil that had blighted it, and where it had grown wild and strange; and, lo! thou saidst ‘I will plant it back in the old sweet soil, and there shall be a miracle; it shall blossom in an instant as of old – in the twinkling of an eye.’”

“Yes, yes, I did – I did,” cried the founder, sadly.

“And it did not blossom a bit,” said Master Peasegood bluntly. “Jeremiah Cobbe, that is all.”

“All!” cried the founder, blankly.

“Yes, all at present. Wait, man; wait, and be reasonable. Such a thing as thou askest of Heaven must be the result of time, or some stronger power than thine. We have miracles enough now-a-days, for every work of God is miraculous; but we have no sacred conjuring tricks in common life. Heaven forgive me if I am irreverent. I mean we have no such sudden changes as you expected here. Tut, man, wait awhile and have some faith. I’d have more faith in a tender kiss and a loving word from Gil, than in all that thou canst do. Wait, mail, wait. Maybe he is already working at that which proved a sorry failure in thy fatherly hands.”

“He refused to come,” said the founder, sadly.

“Ay, with thee; but maybe he has stolen to her side now thou art here.”

“Dost think so?”

“Nay, I know not; but fill thy pipe, man, and wait. I have faith that our darling was not restored to us for such a life in death as this. I’ faith, friend Cobbe, I pray nightly that I may see some merry little prattlers with the faces of Gil and Mace, softened and sweet, playing round our chairs as we grow more wrinkled and more old. Heaven bless us! There’s time enough yet. See here, man,” he cried, rising and taking a curious flask and glasses from a corner cupboard, “here is some strange liquor sent me by Father Brisdone, a great man, now, in sunny France. He bids me wish him well when I drink thereof, and I do, and pray for his health and life. There,” he continued as he filled the glasses, “here’s Father Brisdone, and now here’s Culverin Carr and his dear wife and children, bless them all.”

“All,” said the founder, fervently, as he drained his glass of the potent liquor; and then, as the evening crept on apace and the stars came blinking out, the two friends sat and smoked, with the founder’s heart growing cheery from the words and liquor of his firm old friend.

It was as dark as a summer night knows how to be, when, after a final pipe, the founder rose to go.

“Nay, but I’ll see thee home,” said Master Peasegood; “and what is more, as it is early yet, I’ll drink a flagon of ale and ask a blessing in the dear old – new – old – well, the to-be happy home;” and rising he strolled down the lane with his friend and across the bridge.

The founder opened the gate and let his companion through with a strange sensation at his breast, and he was about to lead the way round to the door when Master Peasegood’s hand was laid upon his shoulder, and with a hoarse sob he sank upon his knees, and buried his face in his hands, weeping like a child.

It was almost dark when Gil Carr, who had seen the founder go, strolled slowly down towards the Pool-house. He was heartsick and weary, and the soft, balmy, night-air seemed filled with depressing influences. Another disappointment and another, and hope more distant still.

The night mists were rising, and he smiled sadly as he glanced at the dark and dewy banks, and thought of the long-ago, when, with a love of the hidden and secret, he and Mace had held stolen meetings, till she chided him and bade him come no more.

“Hah, but they were happy days,” he sighed, as he walked on and on till he stood beside the wide-spreading Pool, and thought of his narrow escape from death therein. Then a few steps further, and he was by the rushing outlet where the water dashed under the little bridge and onward to the dripping wheel.

“Where are Sir Mark and his fair wife now?” he muttered, as with a faint smile he thought of the knight’s plunge in the rushing stream, and his own to fish him out.

Again a few steps and he was across the bridge, leaning on the garden gate, and gazing sadly at the new casement that had replaced the old.

Yes, it was well done, and he thought of his many meetings, of his waiting that night to carry his love away; then of the fight, the explosion, and his scorching ordeal as he clambered in and bore out her whom he believed to be poor Mace.

Sad thoughts – sweet thoughts – thoughts that almost unmanned him, so that when the moon rose, and he gazed still at the casement, he believed he was deceived, and that it was not Mace there, but some trick of the imagination.

There was the figure at the open window, and he was about to speak, but he checked himself, and stole away.

Hastily recrossing the bridge, he hurried along the lane, stooping gently here and there, and returning in a few minutes to bend over the tall bank facing the broad casement of the Pool-house.

In a moment after, diamond-wise, there shone forth from the dark grass four glowworms’ lamps, the old love-signal of the past, and with beating heart – he knew not why – Gil retraced his steps, crossed the bridge, entered the garden, and, with his hands trembling, made his way towards where he could dimly make out the pale, sweet face in the halo of silver hair.

There was a rough, short ladder hard by, where Tom Croftly had helped to nail up the blossoming roses, close round Sweet Mace’s panes; and Gil seized these rough garden steps as he stopped beneath, gazing with all his soul at the face of her he loved.