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By Mary Johnston


 HAGAR.

 THE LONG ROLL. The first of two books dealing with the war between the
 States. With Illustrations in color by N. C. WYETH.

 CEASE FIRING. The second of two books dealing with the war between the
 States. With Illustrations in color by N. C. WYETH.

 LEWIS RAND. With Illustrations in color by F. C. YOHN.

 AUDREY. With Illustrations in color by F. C. YOHN.

 PRISONERS OF HOPE. With Frontispiece.

 TO HAVE AND TO HOLD. With 8 Illustrations by HOWARD PYLE, E. B.
 THOMPSON, A. W. BETTS, and EMLEN MCCONNELL.

 THE GODDESS OF REASON. _A Drama._


HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY

BOSTON AND NEW YORK

[Illustration:
  (p. 154)
“GOOD-BYE, MISTRESS FRIENDLY-SOUL!”]




                               THE WITCH

                                  BY

                             MARY JOHNSTON

[Illustration: LOGO]

                          BOSTON AND NEW YORK

                       HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY

                     The Riverside Press Cambridge

                                 1914




                   COPYRIGHT, 1914, BY MARY JOHNSTON

                          ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

                       _Published October 1914_




                               CONTENTS


                I. THE QUEEN’S CHAMBER                    1

               II. THE CAP AND BELLS                     10

              III. THE TWO PHYSICIANS                    24

               IV. THE ROSE TAVERN                       37

                V. THE ROAD TO HAWTHORN                  54

               VI. THE MAN WITH THE HAWK                 69

              VII. JOAN                                  82

             VIII. THE SQUIRE’S BROTHER                  97

               IX. THE OAK GRANGE                       109

                X. IN HAWTHORN FOREST                   124

               XI. THE PLAGUE                           136

              XII. HERON’S COTTAGE                      151

             XIII. HAWTHORN CHURCH                      165

              XIV. NIGHT                                176

               XV. NEXT DAY                             188

              XVI. MASTER THOMAS CLEMENT                204

             XVII. MOTHER SPURAWAY                      218

            XVIII. THE GAOL                             235

              XIX. ADERHOLD AND CARTHEW                 246

               XX. THE WITCH JUDGE                      260

              XXI. THE WITCH                            272

             XXII. ESCAPE                               281

            XXIII. THE ROAD TO THE PORT                 298

             XXIV. THE FARTHER ROAD                     312

              XXV. THE SILVER QUEEN                     327

             XXVI. THE OPEN BOAT                        342

            XXVII. THE ISLAND                           351

           XXVIII. FOUR YEARS                           362

             XXIX. THE SPANIARDS                        376

              XXX. THE ISLET                            387

             XXXI. THE HOUR-GLASS                       404

            XXXII. A JOURNEY                            420




                               THE WITCH




                               THE WITCH




CHAPTER I

THE QUEEN’S CHAMBER


IT was said that the Queen was dying. She lay at Richmond, in the
palace looking out upon the wintry, wooded, March-shaken park, but
London, a few miles away, had daily news of how she did. There was
much talk about her--the old Queen—much telling of stories and
harking back. She had had a long reign—“Not far from fifty years, my
masters!”—and in it many important things had happened. The crowd in
the streets, the barge and wherry folk upon the wind-ruffled river,
the roisterers in the taverns drinking ale or sack, merchants and
citizens in general talking of the times in the intervals of business,
old soldiers and seamen ashore, all manner of folk, indeed, agreed
upon the one most important thing. The most important thing had been
the scattering of the Armada fifteen years before. That disposed of,
opinions differed as to the next most important. The old soldiers were
for all fighting wherever it had occurred. The seamen and returned
adventurers threw for the voyages of Drake and Frobisher and Gilbert
and Raleigh. With these were inclined to agree the great merchants
and guild-masters who were venturing in the East India and other
joint-stock companies. The little merchant and guild fellows agreed
with the great. A very large number of all classes claimed for the
overthrow of Popery the first place. On the other hand, a considerable
number either a little hurriedly slurred this, or else somewhat too
anxiously and earnestly supported the assertion. One circle, all
churchmen, lauded the Act of Uniformity, and the pains and penalties
provided alike for Popish recusant and non-conforming Protestant.
Another circle, men of a serious cast of countenance and of a growing
simplicity in dress, left the Act of Uniformity in obscurity, and
after the deliverance from the Pope, made the important happening the
support given the Protestant principle in France and the Netherlands.
A few extreme loyalists put in a claim for the number of conspiracies
unearthed and trampled into nothingness—Scottish conspiracies, Irish
conspiracies, Spanish conspiracies, Westmoreland and Northumberland
conspiracies, Throgmorton conspiracies—the death of the Queen of
Scots, the death, two years ago, of Essex.

All agreed that the Queen had had a stirring reign—all but the latter
end of it. The last few years—despite Irish affairs—had been dull and
settled, a kind of ditch-water stagnation, a kind of going downhill.
Fifty years, almost, was a long time for one person to reign....

On a time the Queen had been an idol and a cynosure—for years
the love of a people had been warm about her. It had been a people
struggling to become a nation, beset with foreign foes and inner
dissensions, battling for a part in new worlds and realms. She had led
the people well, ruled well, come out with them into the Promised Land.
And now there was a very human dissatisfaction with the Promised Land,
for the streams did not run milk and honey nor were the sands golden.
As humanly, the dissatisfaction involved the old Queen. She could not
have been, after all, the Queen that they had thought her.... After
crying for so many years “Long live Queen Elizabeth!” there would come
creeping into mind a desire for novelty. _King James,—King James!_ The
words sounded well, and promised, perhaps, the true Golden Age. But
they were said, of course, under breath. The Queen was not dead yet.

They told strange stories of her—the old Queen; usually in small,
select companies where there were none but safe men. As March roared
on, there was more and more of this story-telling, straws that showed
the way the tide was setting. They were rarely now stories of her
youth, of her courage and fire, of her learning, of the danger in which
she lived when she was only “Madam Elizabeth,” of her imprisonment
in the Tower—nor were they stories of her coronation, and of the
way, through so many long years, she had queened it, of her “mere
Englishness,” her steady courage,