Page:Once a Week, Series 1, Volume II Dec 1859 to June 1860.pdf/455

442 look came over his face, and he muttered something about Tom.

‘It’s not his fault, Jack!’ says I.

‘No,’ says he, ‘not his fault—not hers—it can’t be helped—Good-bye, mother!’

‘Jack!’ I said, ‘for God’s sake, stop! speak to Ellen only one word.’

“He went out of the cottage. I was almost wild. ‘Ellen! Ellen!’ I called out; I rushed over; I shook her; I pointed to Jack in the distance, going farther and farther away; but I couldn’t rouse her, she was quite gone. I watched him go over the hill, without once looking back; and we’ve never seen him since.”

“And Ellen?” I asked.

“Oh, sir! when she came to, she seemed quite mad. She said she’d go after him, and take the child with her. I couldn’t quiet her at all. Then she was very ill for a long time, without any sense, talking about Jack all day and night. The doctor said it was fever, and maybe it was; but we knew who brought it on, though we didn’t tell him. She got better at last, but her eyes looked so large and strange they often frightened me. She just got up one morning, looked about the room, took Jack’s picture, hung it up there with his cap and coat, and told me never to move them till he came back.

‘Mother,’ says she, ‘I’ve been a wicked girl not to be a better wife to him, and it serves me right. I was too fond of teasing him by talking to Tom. I must tell him all when he comes back.’

“I saw she didn’t know the real reason of his going. It seemed she’d forgotten all about the witch, and didn’t know that if he came back she’d do just the same again. But she thought he’d surely come, and she used to sit for hours in the evening looking over the hill for him; but months passed and he was still away. At last she took to her bed, and never rose again. That’s the way they all do, sir. She laid there for days quite quiet, and the little one nearly always with her. The doctor said it was “consoomshon;” and when I told him about the witch, he shook his head. She was often asleep, but when the cough woke her—for she had a bad cough—she’d be sure to ask directly if Jack had come. Sometimes she’d think he was sitting by her, and she’d talk to him, and tell him how sorry she was about it all, and how she never cared for Tom, and how happy they were going to be now. And then she’d think they were walking in the fields, as they used to do on Sunday evenings, and she’d say how sweet the church bells sounded, and how pretty the little one was growing, and how happy we all four were living in those two little cottages. Then when she got sensible, she’d lie for hours never speaking of him. At last, even I began to watch for him. I thought if he would only come, just to see her once before she went. I used to put the little one up at the window, and tell her to keep on looking over the hill, and p’raps she’d see her father coming, but my heart misgave me all the time—and I was right—he never came, he never came.’came.” [sic]

She stayed her story weeping; then turning to the bed:

“She looks happy enough without him now, doesn’t she, sir?”

She drew aside the covering: I gazed long upon the face, so child-like in its sweet simplicity. It wore a look of perfect rest. The slight shade of anxiety I had noticed the day before had passed away, giving place to an expression of calm content like that of a tired child asleep. Hearing no sound, the little one crept up noiselessly, and getting on the bed nestled closely to her mother, the large living eyes bright with a mixed expression of pity, love, and wonder, the little hand stroking the dead face with a fond caressing movement inexpressibly touching. They looked strangely alike, and yet how fearfully different; their long hair mingling lovingly, stirred by the child’s deep breath. I watched reverently, silently, till wearied with her grief, the young one fell into a light slumber. I left them lying there—both asleep—a strange solemn picture of Love and Death, full of the deepest poetry and beauty.

Two days after, poor Ellen was buried, and it was not long before I left the place. Jack had not then returned, and the little one was once more playing noisily with her doll, with no fear now of waking the child-mother at rest for ever. As I passed the cottage for the last time, the bird was singing loudly, as though it had never left off. She told me it was father’s bird: she fed it every morning against he came home: she wondered when that would be: and I, wondering the same—wondering when the erring heart, bursting from the trammels of ignorance and superstition, would return to find its utter desolation—passed on, and left the spot, probably for ever.

This narrative is strictly true—no solitary instance—hundreds of the same kind are continually occurring. The belief in witchcraft is prevalent in most parts of England; nearly every village and hamlet has its “witch.” No malice is expressed, simply a dread of offending her, even unintentionally. The unfortunate beings supposed to have fallen under her evil influence, are considered marked and doomed; their friends still fearing to speak a word against the reputed author of the calamity. In many instances the “bewitched ones” leave their homes never to return, to avoid the misery resulting from a solitary life, so many of their own class, even their old companions, disliking to associate with them. I have been in a village in the south of England, where the second son, a lad of thirteen, had left his home, and gone to seek his fortune, for “hadn’t he had an evil eye cast on him, and couldn’t get on at all?” The poor mother, while mourning for the missing one, never doubting the truth of the matter, but considering it “mighty unlucky.” This belief not only exists among the very poor and the more intelligent labourers, but even many of the better class of farmers, and occasionally thoroughly educated members of the higher ranks of society are infected with it. The latter, however, invariably admit that “cases,” as they term them, have never been known to occur in their particular community. In some instances the belief appears hereditary—a plague spot that can never be washed away.