Uncle Joe's Stories

So she did the honours of the house, whilst her sister and Billy sat still and listened. Mrs. Long was, as you may suppose, not exactly in the best of humours, nor was her dress in precisely that condition in which ladies like their dresses to be when they go out visiting. You cannot be overturned into a ditch, scratched, pinched, hustled, and pushed, without some little disarrangement of your attire, and Mrs. Long's dress consequently required a good deal of "putting tidy," in which Mary Gower assisted her to the best of her ability. Whilst doing so, she listened to the account of all that had occurred since the day upon which she and Billy had left the kitten at the farm, and, upon being questioned by Mrs. Long as to the possible cause of its behaviour, she told her of their having met the two crones as I have described.

The farmer's wife then said that, had she known the circumstances, she would have had nothing to do with the kitten; but that she did not blame Mary for not having told her, as of course she had not suspected that there was anything wrong with the animal. As she spoke, in came John Gower from his work, and to him the whole story was soon told.

John expressed his great regret at what had happened, and went so far as to offer the farmer's wife another kitten, but, under the circumstances, she deemed it better to decline the offer; and, presently afterwards departed, taking good care to avoid the road by which she had come, and turning up instead by the road, at the corner of which the "Good Intent" public-house now stands; by which means she kept to the north of the big woods, and got safely home. Her adventure, however, made no little talk in the neighbourhood, and people shook their heads, gravely and wisely, whenever the matter was mentioned. Mrs. Long herself was so angry at the disrespectful manner in which she had been treated, and the unjust suspicion that had been raised in the clergyman's breast, that she could by no means be satisfied to rest quiet.

Before taking any steps, however, to get matters set right, she determined to make an expedition to Brabourne, where lived a wise woman named Goody Flaskett, from whom she obtained sundry charms against witchcraft, with which she decorated herself, in order that she might be able to speak and act against witches with impunity. Thus armed, she never lost an opportunity of doing both the one and the other; and I suppose the charms must have had a certain power, because Farmer Barrett declared that the good woman, when she had them on, never felt any of those strange scratches from invisible hands which she had experienced when speaking against witches on the occasion already mentioned.

Still, say and do what she would, the power of the Mersham crones did not seem to be diminished. They seldom appeared all three together, but might be said, generally, to "hunt in couples," although sometimes they were met singly, but hardly ever without a great black cat.

The kitten was never again seen by its former owners, but in all probability had been taken by the crones to form one of the guardian cats by which they were thus attended.

Petty thefts abounded in the neighbourhood, and no one suffered from them more than Farmer Long, although his farm was at a considerable distance from the cottage of the crones.

At last things got so bad that the farmer really thought he could stand it no longer. So one day, after the disappearance of a fine lamb from one of his fields, when the crone Humpy had shortly before been seen in the immediate proximity of the flock, and one man went so far as to say he had seen her driving a lamb before her in the road, the farmer boldly applied to the nearest justice of the peace for a warrant to search the cottage.

There was some little difficulty in the matter, owing to the circumstance that old Finn, the Mersham constable, positively declined for some time to go near the place, but upon being encouraged by the parish constable of Smeeth, bold Joe Worrell, who offered to go with him, they proceeded to perform their duty, accompanied by the farmer.

Mrs. Long had gone to Dymchurch that day for a breath of sea air, so that he knew she would not be uneasy about him, and deemed it but right to back up the officers of justice, whom he met by appointment at the foot of Collier's Hill in Mersham, and they advanced together. But the road appeared to be endless, for although it could not be much more than two miles, if so much, to the cottage, it seemed as if they would never get there.

Then, although the weather had been fine, there came on a hailstorm which nearly blinded them, and, notwithstanding that Finn had been born in the parish and the others knew it well, they actually lost their way, and found themselves close to Kingsnorth Church, which everybody knows to be in quite an opposite direction. They hastily retraced their steps, but then it suddenly became dark. Finn and the farmer both had their hats plucked off their heads by invisible hands, and although Worrell was untouched (it being well-known that no witch dare lay hands on a Smeeth man) yet he felt far from comfortable. Determined, however, to do their duty, the men made another attempt, and going round towards Aldington, were about to try and approach that side, when, all darkness having cleared away, they saw at a distance a light in the sky which betokened a fire, and from the direction, it appeared to be burning somewhere very near to Farmer Long's house. This put out of his head altogether the business upon which he was out, and he immediately retraced his steps as fast as possible, accompanied by the constables. When he got near home the flames seemed to have died away, but a heavy smoke hung over the place, and as he approached still nearer a sad sight indeed met his eyes. His stables were utterly burned to the ground, and three valuable horses destroyed, despite every effort to save them. Farmer Long rushed hastily to the spot, but all he found was his poor half-witted son sitting calmly on the grass contemplating the smouldering embers with a vacant expression of countenance.

"What has happened, Stephen lad? Where's Tom? How did all this begin? Who has done it?" were the eager questions of the excited man; but to all of them the youth replied with the stolid indifference of idiocy, "Steenie not know."

Subsequent inquiries proved that two (as usual) of the crones had been seen in the vicinity of the farm that day. As a public road ran very near, this may perhaps be deemed by some to have been slight and inconclusive evidence of their guilt; but it was universally accepted at the time as beyond all doubt connecting them with the affair.

Some few there were who insinuated that the idiot boy had set the stables on fire for amusement, unconscious of the mischief he was doing; but these of course were some of those foolish and obstinate people who always like to differ from the rest of the world, and put forward their own views against those of everybody else. Of course it was the Mersham crones who had done the thing, else why should it have occurred at the very time when Farmer Long was engaged on an expedition, the object of which was to search their cottage? At all events, so entirely convinced upon the subject was the whole neighbourhood, that it was resolved that the matter could not rest there, but must be taken up seriously.

The question was, how to do it? Inquiry before the magistrates appeared useless, for if two constables, and one of them a Smeeth man, too, could not even approach the crones' dwelling, of what avail was it to invoke the authority of the law? The church might be tried, but the rector of Mersham was known to have steadily set his face against any belief in witches, and it was more than probable that no other clergyman would like to interfere in his parish without his knowledge and consent.

Long consultations were held, and wise heads laid together about the business, and at last it was determined to rouse the honest people of the neighbourhood round, most of whom had suffered more or less from the pilfering habits of the crones, and, covered with as many charms and magic tokens as they could obtain from old Goody Flaskett and one or two other wise women who lived near the place, to advance in great numbers against the enemy, in order to try what ducking in a horsepond would do for them. So on one fine afternoon, a great concourse of people, meeting in several parties, bore down from different quarters upon the cottage of the crones.

It was a mellow day in autumn, and hopping was just over at the time when this proceeding took place. John Gower had come home that day to dinner, and a memorable day it was in his family. Mary, Jane, and Billy were all at home and they had just sat down to their homely meal when a low, hurried knocking was heard at the door. At this very moment it so happened that the horse-shoe which was usually nailed over that door had fallen down, owing to one of the nails which supported it having given way, and consequently it lay on the grass near the door instead of hanging in its usual place. Farmer Barrett was always particular in mentioning this circumstance, else, he said, people might think that a horseshoe is not a real protection against witches, whereas it is the best and surest safeguard, only it must be nailed up against a wall or over a door. John bade his son open the door, and as soon as he had done so, they perceived a good-looking young woman leading two others, apparently older than herself, but perfectly blind, whilst on her arm each carried a basket. They were quite strangers to John and his family, and appeared to have walked some way.

"Might we ask to rest awhile in your cottage, good friend?" asked the young woman. "I and my two blind sisters have walked all the way from Ashford to-day, and are bound to Romney."

"Sartainly, ma'am," said John in reply. "But surely this be a long walk for such as ye?"

"Ah!" replied the other, "we should have thought so once, but a cruel landlord has turned us out of our house, these poor afflicted creatures and me, and having relations at Romney we are going there in the only way the poor can travel – on our feet, and we have nothing with us but our tame rabbits, poor creatures, which we always carry in our baskets. We should be very thankful if we might come in for a couple of hours or so."

"By all means," said worthy John, whose simple heart was at once touched by this tale. "Come in, come in by all means," and stepping forward, he helped one of the blind girls over the threshold and they all entered the cottage.

The moment they were inside, Mary's favourite cat, who had been seated by the fireside, intently watching the proceeding, jumped up and sprang through the open window without saying a word to anybody, which indeed, as a respectable but ordinary cat, she was not likely to have done under any circumstances. Mary observed this, and wondered at the animal being so shy of strangers; but nobody made any remark upon the incident, and seats being found for the new comers, they not only sat down, but condescended to share the family dinner, and that with such appetites, that the children of the house themselves came off but second best. John Gower asked several questions which were satisfactorily answered, but he always said afterwards that he never felt quite at home with his visitors, which he put down to their being better educated and of a position apparently somewhat above his own. As they sat and ate and talked, a distant shout was heard, and then another.

"Father, what's that?" asked Billy.

"Oh!" replied Gower, "I expect it's the people out after the crones. I forgot all about it, not being a busy man in such matters, or I ought to have helped my neighbours, perhaps, for those old women are no better than they should be – ah! oh! oh, dear!" and whilst the words were still in his mouth, John Gower jumped up and began to hop about the room upon one leg, having been suddenly seized, he said, with a violent fit of cramp therein.

"What are they going to do with the crones, father?" asked Billy.

"Duck 'em, I expect, boy," replied he; upon which the lad rejoined, —

"Oh, what fun! how I should like to see it!" and almost immediately afterwards burst out crying, saying that he had such a bad pain come in his inside.

Meanwhile more shouting was heard, and not very far off, and presently the door was thrown open, and in came a neighbour, James Firminger by name, and a noted enemy to witches, besides being so worthy and well-thought-of a man that he had more than once been spoken of as fit to be parish churchwarden.

"Neighbour Gower!" he shouted, as he came in, "why ar't not out with the rest of us after the crones? 'Twill be a grand day for Mersham if we get quit of them. But you've got company, I see – bless us, what a smell of sulphur!"

As he spoke, he turned his eyes on the young woman and her two blind companions, and started as he did so. Firminger never went about without some potent witch-charm upon him, which at once protected him from the malice of such creatures, and enabled him to detect them when disguised, and upon this occasion he had nothing less than a relic of the great Kentish saint, Thomas à Becket, being a small piece of the hair-shirt of that holy man, cut off shortly after his death by one of the monks of Canterbury, who happened to be a Firminger, and religiously preserved in the Firminger family ever afterwards.

Naturally, as Farmer Barrett observed, no witch could stand against that, and Firminger was a lucky man to possess it. It was doubtless in consequence, and by virtue of this relic, that as soon as the good man was well inside the cottage, he not only smelt the sulphur which had not been smelt by the family, but saw what was the real character of John Gower's visitors. He took no second look, but shouted aloud, "The crones! the crones!" and seizing the little case in which was his relic in his hands, displayed it openly before them.

The effect was instantaneous. All beauty disappeared from the face of the young woman, her form changed, her countenance shrivelled, and she stood confessed before the party as Humpy, the youngest of the three Crones of Mersham.

No less sudden and complete was the alteration in her two companions, who recovered their sight at once, but together therewith resumed the unpleasant forms and features of Skinny and Bony, the two other sisters of this disreputable family. There was a visible agitation at the same moment in the baskets which the sisters had carried upon their arms, and which they had deposited on the floor upon taking their seats.

The lids shook, the baskets quivered, and in another instant overturned, when out sprang three enormous black cats upon the floor of the room.

With a yell, which seemed to burst simultaneously from the throats of all the crones and all the cats, they rushed out at the door; flying from the charm which James Firminger kept earnestly shaking before their eyes. Out of the door, over the green space in front of the cottage, into the road, and as far and fast as they could get away from the object of their terror.

John Gower and his children sat stupified with mingled surprise and awe for some seconds; and then, jumping from their seats, they all rushed through the door after Firminger; who, having done so, stood still outside, eagerly gazing after the retreating crones. He knew well enough that, if nought had prevented them, the honest people who were out after the witches, would by this time have attacked and harried their home. Whither, then, would they fly?

If they had quitted their cottage ignorant of the coming of their enemies, and only bent on paying John Gower a visit – doubtless intending to do him some mischief or other; it might be that they would hurry home, and encounter the angry mob of people, in which case there would be wild work one way or the other. If, however, as was more probable (and as was generally believed to be the case when the matter was considered afterwards), the three crones had been well aware of the projected attack upon them, and had purposely left home – hoping that they might lie safely hid in the abode of so honest and quiet a man as Gower until the danger was over, then it became a serious question as to what other refuge they would seek, now that they had been so manfully driven from their intended place of safety. The doubts of the lookers-on, however, were soon solved.

A strange thing happened, which would never have been believed in those days, but that Firminger and Gower both solemnly declared it, and which perhaps actually will not be believed in these days of doubt and want of faith, but which I must nevertheless relate as Farmer Barrett told it to me. As soon as they were well on the other side of the road, each crone jumped upon her cat, and the animals, lightly springing over the hedge into the next field, set off full gallop in an easterly direction – or, in other words, heading as straight as a line to Aldington Knoll, well-known in those good old days as the great fortress of witches. That was their point, no doubt, and it looked very much as if they were going to give up Mersham as a bad job, and betake themselves to other and safer quarters.

As soon as Firminger saw the line which the crones took, he turned to Gower and said in a hasty tone, "Come on, mate, this must be seen to at once. Let us join the chaps who are gone to the old cottage as fast as we can, and tell them what we have seen, and all that has happened."

John Gower was too wise a man to hesitate. Had he done so, he knew well enough that he would be suspected of having knowingly harboured the crones, and of being in league with them, a suspicion which would have ruined him for ever in his native parish, and probably driven him from the county.

So he bade Mary mind the house, and keep Jane and Billy at home, and then he set off at best pace with Firminger down the road in the direction of the cottage of the crones. They very soon reached it, and found it surrounded by a number of people, who were engaged in demolishing the premises altogether. They had not found much, probably because there was not much to find; and the owners of the place, as we know, had taken themselves off before the arrival of their unwelcome visitors. But they broke everything they could find, tore down the thatched roof to search for magic charms, none of which they found, but only a number of mice, and a great deal of dust. They pulled to pieces the wooden part of the cottage, and knocked down a great part of the stone corner, counting everything as fair game, as witches' property, and striving their utmost to destroy as much as they possibly could.

There were more than a couple of hundred people, all told, Farmer Barrett believed, and he gave me a great many names, but I forget most of them. There was Bully Robus, of the "Farriers' Arms," I know, and little Dick Broadfoot, the tailor, of Mersham Street, and Bill Parsons, all the way from Warehorne Green. There were Gowers, and Farrances, Sillibournes and Swaflers, Swinerds and Finns – in short, not a family in that or any of the other parishes which was not represented, and they all seemed to vie with each other, which should do the most mischief, and be foremost in pulling down and destroying that evil place.

It was several minutes before James Firminger and John Gower could command the attention of people so eagerly occupied about their business as these witch-seekers, and it would have been still longer, but for the position and character of Firminger, and his known hatred of all that pertained to witchcraft. He presently succeeded in making them listen to the wonders he had to relate, and when they knew for certain what had happened and the direction which the crones had taken, the whole current of their thoughts was turned into one eager desire to follow, and, if possible, to make an end of the inmates of that awful cottage as well as of the abode itself.

They lost no time, therefore, in finishing the work on which they were then engaged, and immediately afterwards the whole party swarmed up the road in the direction of Aldington Knoll, keeping up each other's courage by many brave words, and shouting uncomplimentary epithets with regard to the three crones. So they pushed on until they came to the spot where four roads met; one, that which our party had traversed in walking from the cottage, another bearing back to Bilsington and Ruckinge, a third to Newchurch and the Marsh, and the fourth to Aldington Knoll.

Down this last road the people turned, and then, immediately before them they had the mass of wood upon the side of the hill, which then, as now, encompassed the knoll itself upon the north, west, and south, the ground to the east being somewhat less woody. The knoll – apparently a grass hill, only that the grass being a good deal worn away, showed the bare rock at several places – peered over the woods, and the road to it lay right through the latter for some distance, until by turning into a gate upon your right hand, you entered the field out of which the knoll rose, and from the higher points of which were magnificent views over the Marsh and all the country east, west, and south, the hills behind shutting out the view to the north.

The people were now some three-quarters of a mile from this gate, and, if the truth could be known, I have no doubt whatever that some of them would very gladly have been a great deal further off.

The power of the crones themselves was so well known, and the reputation of Aldington Knoll was so bad, that no one felt sure that some terrible misfortune might not result from braving the one and attacking the other.

They had all heard strange tales of people bewitched, changed into animals, losing their senses, and all kinds of other disagreeable things, and of course such tales would recur to them at such a moment. But there were brave hearts – then as now – among the men of Kent, and although fears and doubts may have been there, they did not operate so as to turn any man back from the work he had undertaken. The people moved down the road towards Aldington, and reached the point at which the woods began. At that moment a loud clap of thunder pealed through the air, and vivid lightning flashed across the sky.

A shudder passed through many a stout frame, but the men pushed boldly on. Then came a severe hailstorm – so severe that the people took shelter beneath the trees, and waited until its violence seemed to be passed.

But none turned back. Then came a bitter, chilling wind, though it had been a lovely, soft, mellow day: the wind cut through the trees with a moaning sound, and pierced the people like a mid-winter blast.

Still they pressed on, knowing that witchcraft was at work, and that retreat would be ruin. They were half-way between the point at which the road entered the woods and the gate before mentioned, when a loud and terrible roaring was heard upon the right, from the woods which stretched up close to the knoll itself. So strange and so dreadful was this sound, that it made the blood of those who heard it run cold, and for a moment the foremost men of the throng paused.

But three men there were in that crowd who neither quailed nor paused for a moment, so resolutely determined were they to carry out the work they had commenced that day. These men were James Firminger, Farmer Long, and old David Finn, the parish clerk of Mersham. The last named knew but little of crones or witches, but tradition said that there always must be a Finn for parish clerk, and that Mersham would not be Mersham without one. This being the case, the old man felt it to be his duty to take such prominent part in an affair like the present as became one of an ancient family, filling an hereditary office.

Therefore, although he knew that the rector would most likely have disapproved of the step he was taking, he had started early that day, and in company with Bully Robus and sundry other notables of the parish, had taken an active part in the proceedings from the beginning.

These three men, then, were not deterred by the roaring, though it much resembled that of wild and savage beasts desiring their prey, and seeing it before their eyes. And when no beasts appeared, and it seemed to be nothing but sound, the rest of the people regained their courage, and all continued to push on towards the gate into the knoll-field. About a hundred yards before they reached it, however, they found that they had to encounter an unexpected obstacle in the shape of several enormous elms which lay stretched across the road in such a manner as to most effectually bar any further progress.