The Wise Woman Of Walna

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Title:     The Wise Woman Of Walna
Author: Eden Phillpotts [More Titles by Phillpotts]

I

When farmer Badge died, his widow kept on at Walna, and some people thought the world of her, same as I always did, but some was a bit frightened, because of her great gifts. Charity Badge certainly did know a terrible lot more than every-day folk, which was natural in the daughter of a white witch; but she weren't no witch herself--neither black nor white--and, as she often said to me: "'Tis only my way of putting two and two together that makes the difference between me and the other women round about these parts."

Walna was a poor little bit of a place up the Wallabrook Valley, and when Charity died it all went to pieces, for there was none to take it again. Tramps slept there till the roof fell in, and then the hawks and owls took it over; but fifty years agone she flourished and did pretty well there, one way and another, though 'twas more by the people that visited her for her wisdom than anything she made out of the tumble-down farm. More'n a cow or two she never had no cattle, and the last sheep to Walna went to pay for farmer Badge's coffin.

I was a maiden then and worked for Mrs. Badge, so I comed to see a lot about her and marked her manner of life. Half the things she did was thought to be miracles by the Postbridge people, yet if you saw the workings of 'em from inside, you found that, after all, they was only built on common sense. Still, I'll grant you that common sense itself is a miracle. 'Tis only one in a million ever shows it; and that one's pretty near sure to be a woman.

Charity was a thin, brown creature--birdlike in her ways, with quick movements, quick hands, and quick eyes. She never had no childer, and never wanted none. In fact, she was pretty well alone in the world after her husband died. There was a lot of Badges, of course, and still are; but she never had no use for them, nor them for her.

And now I'll tell the story of Sarah White and Mary Tuckett and Peter Hacker, the master of Bellaford.

Sarah was a lone creature up fifty year old, and she come along to Mrs. Badge one fine day with a proper peck of troubles. She crept down the path to Walna from Merripit Hill, like a snail with a backache, and weren't in no case at all for merriment; yet the first thing she heard as she come in was laughter; and the first thing she seed was pretty Mary Tuckett sitting on Mrs. Badge's kitchen table, swinging her legs, and eating bits of raw rhubarb out of a pie as my mistress was trying to make.

Mary was a beauty, and a bit too fond of No. 1, like most of that sort.

"'Tis too bad," she said to the new-comer, "ban't it too bad, Mrs. White? Here's Charity, well known for the cleverest woman 'pon Dartymoor, won't tell me my fortune or look in her crystal for me, though I be offering her a two-shilling piece to do so."

"You go along," said Charity. "Don't you waste no more of my time, and let your fortune take care of itself. It don't want a wise woman to tell the fortune of such a lazy, good-for-nought as you."

Then Mary went off laughing, and poor Mrs. White began her woes.

"I could have told that woman something as would have changed her laughter to tears," she began. "But time enough for that. Can you list to me for an hour, Charity? I'm in cruel trouble, look where I will, and if there's any way out, I'll be very glad to pay good money to know it."

"Let me put the paste 'pon this here pie, then I'll hear what you've got to grumble at," answers the wise woman; and five minutes later she sat down and folded her hands and shut her eyes and heard what Sarah had got to tell.

"When my husband was alive, he worked for Peter Hacker's father at Bellaford, and lived in a little cottage on a newtake field a mile from Bellaford Farm. Old Hacker often said to my husband that when he'd paid rent for fifty year for the cottage, he'd let him have it for his own. 'Twas common knowledge that he intended to do it. But now, with my husband dead in his grave--and he died just six months after he'd paid his fiftieth year of rent, poor soul!--Peter Hacker have told me that the cottage ban't to be mine at all, and that 'tis all rubbish, and not a contract. I tell him that the ghost of my poor Thomas will turn his hair grey for such wickedness; but you know Peter Hacker. Hard as the nether millstone, and cruel as winter--with women. Very different, though, if a brave man beards him. Now he's dunning me for two years' rent, and even when I told him all that hangs on my keeping the cottage, he won't change or hold to the solemn promise his father made my husband. In fact, he'll turn me out at midsummer."

"And what do hang on your keeping the house?" asked Charity.

Mrs. White sniffed and cooled her tearful eyes with her handkercher.

"Johnny French hangs on it," she said, "We'm keeping it close till next autumn, but he wants for to marry me, and we'm both lonely souls, and we've both lost a good partner; and so it falls out very suent and convenient like that we should wed. But now he hears tell as I ban't to have the cottage, he's off it. He won't hear of marrying if there's no cottage. So the fag end of my life's like to be ruined one way or another."

"Let's see," says Charity, in her slow, quiet way. "Firstly, Peter Hacker's dunning you for two years' rent and will turn you out if you don't pay it; and secondly, he refuses to be bound by what his father promised your Thomas long years afore you married; and thirdly, you'm tokened to old Johnny French; but he won't take you if you're not to have the cottage free gratis and for ever."

"That's how 'tis; and, as if all this misfortune wasn't enough I've just heard of the death of my only brother, Nathan Coaker, in Ireland."

"That terrible handsome man, as had all the girls by the ears in Postbridge afore he went off?"

"Yes--only thirty-five--killed steeple-chasing. He was a huntsman, you know, and a great breaker of hosses. And now one's broke him. Dead and buried, and nought for me but his watch and chain and a bill from his undertaker. It happened in Ireland three weeks ago; and I've only heard tell to-day; and I thought if Mary Tuckett knowed, 'twould soon have turned her laughter into tears, for she was cruel fond of him, and wept an ocean when he went. In fact, they was tokened on the quiet unknown to her father, and Nathan hoped to marry her some day and little knew she'd forgot all about her solemn promise."

"I'm very sorry for you. I'll think about this. It don't look hopeful, for Peter Hacker's very hard all through where women are concerned. There's no milk of human kindness in him, and he don't like me. He thinks--poor fool--that I overlooked his prize bullock, that died three days afore 'twas to start to the cattle show."

"He might be tenderer, for he's only human, after all," said Mrs. White. "He's courting that very girl that was here a minute agone. In fact, they be plighted, I believe. It do make me bitter when I think upon it, for my poor Nathan's sake. She had sworn to marry my brother, remember, for Nathan told me so, and, no doubt, he counted upon it to the end of his days. But out of sight out of mind with her sort. Peter's riches have made her forget Nathan's beautiful face. And now he's in his grave."

"Stop!" says Charity. "You'm running on too fast. Let me think a minute. There's a lot here wants sifting. Let's come to business, my dear, and stick to the point. You want your cottage and you want Johnny French. What will you give me if I get your cottage for 'e out of Peter?"

Mrs. White was known to have saved a little bit, or, rather, her late husband had for her. He was a lot older than her, and had thought the world of her.

"I'll give 'e a five-pound note," she said at last.

"And what if I get Johnny French up to the scratch also?"

"If you do one, you'll do t'other," said Sarah. "He depends on the cottage, and won't take me without it, but be very willing to have both together. Still, I'll meet you gladly if there's anything you can do, and the day I'm wed I'll give you another five-pound note, Charity. And well you'll have earned it, I'm sure."

"So much for that then. And now, what like was your brother? Let's talk of him," said Mrs. Badge. "I'm awful sorry for you--'tis a great loss and a great shock. Horsemanship do often end that way."

Sarah was a thought surprised that t'other should shift the conversation so sudden; but she felt pretty full of her dead brother and was very well content to talk about him.

"A flaxen, curly man, with a terrible straight back, and a fighting nose and blue eyes. He hunted the North Dartmoor Hounds and every girl in these parts--good-looking and otherwise--was daft about him. They ran after him like sheep. There was a terrible dashing style to him, and he knowed the way to get round a female so well as you do the way to get round a corner. They worshipped him. Just a thought bowed in the legs along of living on hosses. A wonder on hossback, and very clever over any country. Great at steeple-chasing also, but too heavy for the flat--else he'd been a jockey and nothing else. And he would have married Mary Tuckett years ago if her father had let him. But old Tuckett hated Nathan worse than sin and dared Mary to speak with him or lift her eyes to him if they met. So away he went to Ireland; but not before that girl promised to wait for ever, if need be."

They talked a bit longer; then Mrs. Badge said a deep thing.

"Look here: don't tell nobody that your brother be dead for the minute. Keep it close, and if you must tell about it, come up here and tell me. I'll listen. But not a word to anybody else until I give the word."

"Mayn't I tell Johnny French?"

"Not even him," declared Mrs. Badge. "Not a single soul. I've got a reason for what I say. And now be off, Sarah, and let me think a bit."

With that Mrs. White started; but she hadn't reached the tumble-down gate of Walna--in fact, 'twas the head of an old iron bedstead stuck there and not a gate at all--when Charity called after her.

"Go brisk and catch up that girl Mary Tuckett," she said. "Tell her, on second thoughts--for her good and not for mine--that I'll do what she wants. Go clever and brisk, and you'll over-get her afore she's home again."

So Mrs. White trotted off, and very soon found Mary looking over a hedge and helping a young man to waste his time, according to her usual custom when there was a coat about.

But Sarah gave her message, and fifteen minutes later Mary was back along with Mrs. Badge.

II

"I've changed my mind about 'e, Mary," said the wise woman. "I'm terrible unwilling to tell young people concerning the future as a rule--for why? Because the future of most people be cruel miserable, and it knocks the heart out of the young to hear of what's coming; but you'm a sensible girl, and don't want to go through life blind. And another thing is this: 'tis half the battle to be fore-warned; and a brave man or woman can often beat the cards themselves, and alter their own fate--if they only know it in time."

After all this rigmarole Charity Badge bade Mary take a seat at the table. Then she drawed the blind, and lighted a lamp; and then she fetched out a pack of cards and her seeing-crystal. 'Twas all done awful solemn, and Mary Tuckett without a doubt felt terrible skeered even afore t'other began. Then Mrs. Badge poured a drop of ink into her crystal--some said 'twas only the broken bottom of an old drinking glass; but I don't know nothing about that. Next she dealt out the cards, and fastened on the Jack o' hearts and the Jack o' oaks,[1] and made great play with 'em. And, after that, she sat and gazed upon the crystal with all her might, and didn't take her eyes off of it for full five minutes.

[1] Oaks--Clubs.

"Now list to me, Mary Tuckett," she says, "and try to put a bold face on what be coming, for there's trouble brewing for 'e--how much only you yourself can tell."

With that she read out the fortune.

"There's a dark, rich man after you, Mary. He's fierce as a tiger, and the folk don't like him, but he's good at bottom, and he'll make you a proper husband. But there's another chap who have more right to you according to the cards, and I see him in the crystal very plain. He's flaxen curled with a straight back and a fighting nose, and blue eyes. Very great at horsemanship seemingly, and he'll have you for a wife, so sure as death, unless something happens to prevent it. He's on the way to you this minute. He's the Jack o' hearts; and t'other man's Jack o' oaks. Now hold your breath a bit while I look in the crystal and see what happens.

"Good powers!" cried the girl, creaming with terror down her spine. "'Tis Nathan Coaker as you be seeing! I thought he'd forgot me a year agone!"

"Hush! Don't be talking. No, he ain't forgot you by the looks of it. Quite the contrary."

Mary went white as curds, and sat with her hands forced over her heart to hear what the wise woman would see next.

"Them men will meet!" she said, presently. "There! They crash together and fight like dragons! There'll be murder done, but which beats t'other I can't tell yet. The picture's all ruffled with waves. That means the future's to be hid--even from me. But one thing is only too clear; there'll be a gashly upstore and blood spilled when Jack o' oaks meets Jack o' hearts; and the end of it so far as you be concerned is that you'll have no husband at all, I'm afeared--poor girl."

So that was the end of the fortune-telling, and Mary wept buckets, and Mrs. Badge reminded her of the florin but wouldn't take it.

"No," she said, "money like that be nought in such a fix as you find yourself. The thing is to help you if I can. I don't want to know no names. 'Tis better I should not; but 'tis clear there's a fair, poor man coming here to marry you; and there's a dark, rich man also wants to do so. Now maybe I can help. Which of 'em is it you want to take? Don't tell me no names. Just say dark or pale."

"The d-d-d-dark one," sobs out Mary. "I thought 'twas all off with the pale one years ago, and I wouldn't marry him for anything n-n-n-now--specially if he's so poor as when he went."

"And what'll you do for me if I can save you from him? I don't say I can, for 'tis a pretty stiff job; but I might do so if I took a cruel lot of trouble."

"I'll give you everything I've got, Charity--everything!" cries the girl.

"I'm afraid that ban't enough, my dear. Will you give me ten pound the day you'm married to the dark one? That's a fair offer; and if I don't succeed, I'll ax for nothing."

The girl jumped at that, and said she thankfully would do so; and Mrs. Badge bade her keep her mouth close shut--knowing she would not--and let her go. Poor Mary went off expecting to meet Nathan Coaker at every step o' the road, and little knowing that the poor blid was sleeping his last sleep in a grave in foreign parts to Ireland.

The very same evening she met Peter Hacker himself; and though he was a chap without much use for religion, yet, like a good few other godless men, he believed in a good bit more than he could understand, and hated to spill salt, or see a single pie, and wouldn't have cut his nails on a Friday for a king's ransom.

She told him that her old sweetheart, Nathan Coaker, was coming back, and that blood would be spilled, and that the wise woman didn't know for certain whether 'twas his blood or Nathan's. She wept a lot, and told him about Coaker, and what a strong, hard chap he was, and how he had the trick to ride over a woman's heart and win 'em even against their wills. And altogether she worked upon the mind of Peter Hacker so terrible, that he got into a proper sweat of fear and anger--but chiefly fear. And the next day--unknown to Mary--he rode up along to Walna, and had a tell with Charity Badge on his own account.

Peter began in his usual way with women. He blustered a lot, and talked very loud and stamped his foot and beat his leg with his riding-whip.

"What's all this here tomfoolery you've been telling my girl?" he says. "I wonder at you, Mrs. Badge, a lowering yourself for to do it--frightening an innocent female into fits. You ought to know better."

Of course Charity did know better, and she knowed Peter and his character inside out as well.

She looked at him, calm as calm, and smiled.

"I wish 'twas tomfoolery, Mr. Hacker. I wish from my heart that the things I see didn't happen; but they always do, if the parties ban't warned in time; though now and again, when a sensible creature comes to me and hears what's going to overtake 'em, they can often escape it--as we can escape a storm if we look up in the sky and know the signs of thunder and lightning soon enough."

"'Tis all stuff and rubbish, I tell you," he said, "and I won't have it! Fortune-telling be forbidden by law, and if I hear any more about you and your cards and your crystal, I'll inform against you."

"You'd better be quick and do it, then, master," she answers him, still mild and gentle, "for I'm very sorry to say there's that be going to happen to you, as will spoil your usefulness for a month of Sundays or longer; and that afore a fortnight's out. Of course, if you don't believe what I know too well to be the truth, then you'll go your rash way and meet it; but so sure as Christmas Day be Quarter Day, I'm right, and you'll do far wiser to look after your own affairs than to trouble about mine. And now I'll wish you good evening."

She made to go in, for Hacker was sitting on his horse at her very door; but that weren't enough for him. His cowardly heart was shaking a'ready.

"Don't you go," he said. "I'll onlight and hear more of this."

He dismounted and came in the house; and Charity Badge bade me go out of the kitchen, where I was to work, and leave 'em together, but I catched what came after through the keyhole.

"Now," he said. "It lies in a nutshell. My Mary was tokened in a sort of childish way to a man called Nathan Coaker--a horse-stealer or little better, and a devil of a rogue, anyway. But it seems you looked in your bit of glass and pretended to see--"

"Stop!" cried Charity, putting on her grand manner and making her eyes flash like forked lightning at the man. "How do you dare to talk about 'pretending' to me? Begone, you wretched creature! I'll neither list to you, nor help you now. Go to your death--and a good riddance. You to talk about 'pretending' to me!"

He caved in at that, and grumbled and growled, but she'd hear nought more from him till he'd said he was sorry, and that so humbly as he knowed how.

"Now you can go on again," she said, "but be civil, or I'll not lift a finger to aid you."

"'Tis like this," he went on. "It do look as if that man, Nathan Coaker, was coming back."

"That's so. I never seed the fellow myself, but his name certainly was Nathan Coaker, and Mary called him home in a minute from my picture in the crystal. They was certainly tokened, and if she's forgot it, he haven't; and such is the report I hear of him, that 'tis sure he'll overmaster such a man as you by force of arms. No woman can resist him. I guess he's made his fortune and be coming in triumph to marry her."

"She's going to marry me, however."

"So you think."

The man began to grow more and more cowed afore her cold, steady eyes, and the scorn in her voice.

"The strongest will win," he said.

"Yes," she answered him, "that's true without a doubt--so the cards showed."

"And what's stronger than money?" he axed.

"A man in a righteous rage," she replied; "and a charge of heavy shot with gunpowder behind 'em."

"Lord save us! You don't mean he'd lie in a hedge for me?"

"He'd do anything where his own promised woman was concerned," she said. "But 'tis more likely, from what I hear, that he'd meet you face to face in the open street, and hammer you to death for coming between him and her."

"She's my side."

"Now she may be, but wait till she sets eyes on him again. He's well knowed to be so handsome as Apollyon."

Peter Hacker got singing smaller and smaller then.

"'Tis a thousand pities the wretched fellow can't be kept away."

"For your sake it is, without a doubt--a thousand pities," admitted Charity. "She loves you very well, and a good wife she'll make--and a thrifty--but she won't trust herself if that man's curly hair and blue eyes turn up here again."

"Is it to be done--can we keep him off--pay him off--bribe him--anything?"

"Now you talk sense. There's very few things can't be done in this world, Mr. Hacker, if you get a determined man and a determined woman pulling the same way. Man's strength and woman's wit together--what's ever been known to stand against 'em?"

"Help me, then," he said.

"Me! You want me to help--with my 'tomfoolery'?"

She roasted him proper for a bit, then came to business.

"I can't work for nought, and since 'tis the whole of your future life that depends upon it, I reckon you'll be generous. If I succeed I shall look to you for thirty pound, Peter Hacker; if I fail, I'll ax for nothing. Still, I do believe I may be able to get you out of this, though 'twill call for oceans of trouble."

He tried to haggle, but she'd none of that--wouldn't bate her offer by a shilling. So he came to it.

"Thirty pound I must have the day you marry Mary," she said. "And now tell me all you know about this rash, savage man, Nathan Coaker. The more I understand the better chance shall I have of keeping him off your throat."

With that Peter explained how t'other fellow was the young brother of Mrs. Sarah White; and he went on to say that Sarah was one of his tenants; but he didn't mention the row about Sarah's cottage.

Mrs. Badge then took up the story, and made it look as clear as daylight.

"My gracious!" she said, "why now you can see how the crash be coming! 'Tis a terrible poor look-out for you every way. Sarah's writ to him, of course, to say as you won't let her have the cottage your father faithfully promised to her husband, and Coaker's coming over with threatenings and slaughters about that job. And then, as if that weren't enough, he'll find what a crow he's got to pluck with you on his own account about Mary."

"The more comes out, the more it looks as if he'd better be kept away," said Mr. Hacker.

"And the harder it looks to do it," added Charity. "You lie low, anyway. The next step is for me. I'll see Sarah and tell her that you've changed your mind about the cottage--to call it a cottage, for 'tis no better than a pig's lew house. You'll give it her, of course, for her life and the life of that man French, as she wants to marry. That's the first step."

"Why should I?"

"What a fool you are! Why, for two reasons I should think. Firstly, because your father promised her husband; secondly, because 'tis half the way to keeping Nathan Coaker in Ireland. If she lets him know as you be going to do the rightful thing, he'll have no more quarrel with you, since he don't know about you and Mary. Then, what you've got to do is to hurry on the match with her; and when you'm once married, 'tis all safe. Very like you'll not have to offer the man a penny after all."

"You'd best see Mrs. White to-morrow then," said Peter.

"I'll see her this very night," answered the wise woman. "In kicklish matters of this kind an hour may make all the difference for good or evil. To-night I'll tell her that the house is hers on condition that her brother Nathan don't come from Ireland this side o' Christmas; and she'll bless your name and do her best to keep him away altogether. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if she succeeded, and it might even happen that when he comes to know of your marriage and hears that 'tis over and done, that he'll give up the thought of coming at all, and you'll get out of it with credit and a whole skin."

Peter thanked her a lot, and she was as good as her word, and went to see Widow White that very same evening.

She didn't put it to Sarah quite like she'd promised; but she explained that Mr. Hacker was quite a reasonable man in some ways, even where females were concerned, and that he had undertaken to let Sarah keep her house so long as she and Mr. French should live. Which, of course, was all that Mrs. White or her Johnny cared about.

"Hacker naturally thinks that your brother is still living," explained Charity. "And mind you take mighty good care not to tell him 'tisn't so. The longer he supposes that Nathan is alive, the better for us all. And what you've got to say presently be this--that so soon as you told Nathan 'twas all right about the cottage, he changed his mind about coming to Postbridge for the present."

"'Twill be a lie," said Mrs. White.

"'Twill be a white lie, however," answered Charity; "and 'twill help a good many people out of a hobble and do harm to none; so I advise you to tell it."

And Sarah did tell it--with wonderful, far-reaching results, I'm sure; for it meant that she had her cottage for life; and that she had Johnny French for life also; and it meant that Mary married Peter Hacker afore the next Christmas and went honeymooning to London town for a week with the man; and it meant that, unbeknownst each to t'others, Sarah and Mary and Peter gived my mistress the money they promised her. So Charity Badge came out of the maze with flying colours, you might say, not to mention fifty golden pounds, all made out of her own head.

And many such like things she did, though never did they fetch such a dollop of money again.

[The end]
Eden Phillpotts's short story: Wise Woman Of Walna

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