Cunning Murrell Read Free

on a June evening such as this.
    “Do you forge, Stephen Lingood,” he said, with a voice as of one taking
command, “an’ I will blow this stubborn fire.”
    He seized the lever and tugged, and with the blast the glow arose and
spread wide among the cinders. The smith lifted from the floor a clumsy piece
of iron, partly worked into the rough semblance of a bottle, and dropped it
on the fire.
    “Here stand I, an’ blow the fire,” said Murrell, as one announcing himself
to invisible powers; “an’ let no witch nor ev’l sparrit meddle.”
    Lingood said nothing, but turned the iron in the fire. Slowly it reddened,
and then more quickly grew pale and fierce, while Murrell tugged at the
bellows. He muttered vehemently as he tugged, and presently grew more and
more distinct, till the smith could distinguish his words, howsoever few of
them he understood.
    “…creepin’ things, an’ man on the Sixth Day…Power over all
creatures…An’ by the name of the Angels servin’ in the Third Host before
Hagiel a Great Angel an’ strong an’ powerful Prince, an’ by the name of his
star which is Venus, and by his seal which is holy;…I conjure upon thee
Angel who art the chief ruler of this day that you labour for me!”
    Neither surprised nor impressed by this invocation, Lingood seized a
hammer, carried the radiant iron to the anvil, and hammered quickly. The mass
lapped about the anvil’s horn, met, and joined; and without more words the
job was finished. With another heating an end was closed, and with one more
the mouth was beaten close about a heavy nut. Then the thing fell into the
tank with an explosive hiss and a burst of steam, and the neck was shrunk on
the nut, and the work done.
    “Well, it’s a nation curious thing,” Lingood said at length, screwing a
short bolt, by way of stopper, into the nut that made the bottle’s mouth;
“it’s a nation curious thing that iron ‘oodn’t work proper before. Might
a’most ha’ thote it was filin’s or summat chucked on the fire. But nobody ‘ud
do that, an’ there’s no filin’s about.”
    Murrell shook his head. “Stephen Lingood,” he squeaked, “them as bewitched
your fire agin my lawful conjurations needed use no mortal hands. Den’t you
feel, Stephen Lingood, as you forged and I blowed, with words o’ power an’
might, den’t you feel the ev’l sparrits o’ darkness about you a-checkin’ an’
a-holdin’ you, hammer an’ arm?”
    “No,” answered the smith stolidly, taking his pipe in his mouth and
groping in his pocket for tobacco. “No, I den’t.”
    “No,” Murrell pursued, without hesitation, though with a quick glance;
“you did not. Sich was the power an’ might o’ my words, Stephen Lingood.”
    The smith lit his pipe at the lantern, and for answer gave a grunt between
two puffs. Then he said: “I’ve a mind to go an’ see how Banham’s gal is
myself. D’ ye go there now, Master Murr’ll?”
    It was not Cunning Murrell’s way to cultivate any closer personal
acquaintance than he could help with anybody. Detachment and mystery were
instruments of his trade. “No,” he said, “I go first home for things I
need.”
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II. — THE DISCOVERY OF WITCHCRAFT
    LINGOOD closed the smithy and came into the street. It was
such a night as June brings, warm and clear and starry. Half Hadleigh was
abed, and from the black stalls and booths that stood about at random in the
street, waiting for to-morrow’s fair, there came neither sound nor streak of
light. The smith walked along the middle of the street among these, and at
last turned into a narrow passage by the side of the Castle Inn. Once clear
of the house-walls, he traversed a path among small gardens distinguished by
a great array of shadowy scarlet runners, and the mingled scents of bean and
wallflower; and so came on a disorderly litter of sheds about a yard, with a
large cottage, or small house, standing chief among them.