Said Master Eustace Bettany to Thomas Bettany, his son:

“Idle—thou art idle! Hadst as well be in the new Indies as in my countinghouse! Paper costs—and there thou goest scrawling, scrawling, and never a sum adding nor thinking out market!” He snatched the whitey-brown sheet. “Waste makes want! What are you scribbling there? ‘I saw it in a flash—I saw it in a flash!’ What is it, prithee, that you saw in a flash?”

Thomas Bettany rubbed his eyes. “That the world’s a great merchant, father, selling herself to herself and buying herself from herself.”

The elder glanced suspiciously. “Will you be turning monk?”

“No, though I think there be good monks, good abbots and good priors.”

“Of course there be good monks, good abbots and good priors! God forbid that you go believing witch’s story and mad monk’s tale!”

“What would happen if I did, father?”

“Madman’s whip and bread and water and a chain! Go to, Thomas, what is wrong?” Suspicion sat in his eyes. “That’s a new thought and one I like not! Were you among the reachers for flowers that grew by harlot house? Were you?”

Thomas Bettany shook his head. “I’ve told you I wanted Cecily.” He rose from chair and desk. “Eh, father, also I would like a ship that sails and sails away—with me, and Cecily! Now let me be going, for I told Martin Adamson that I would come myself for his monies.”

“Aye? Then go—and do you remember, Thomas, that you’re all the son I have, and that I have been good to you!”

Thomas Bettany went afoot through Middle Forest. “‘All the son I have, and I have been good to you.’ ‘All the life I have and I would not burn. All the life I have and I would not burn.’ That’s Morgen Fay in prison yonder.”

The day was hot with a cloud drawing over. Hot and still with a green light. Folk in the street looked upward. “Rain coming!” Thomas Bettany meant to go to the house of the debtor. But there was no hurry. It was a long day. Long day and short day. “Prison day must be long day, O Saint John, long day! But short day, seeing that it pulleth and hasteth toward death day—Friday. And now it is Monday.”

Fascination drew him by the town cross. They would not set stake and fagot till Thursday. “How doth it feel when the iron hoop goes round? How doth the heart strive and choke when the torch comes to the straw? I feel it in myself! Doth Somerville feel it in himself? Doth Montjoy?”

Persons spoke to him in the market square. He was young and big and gay and well liked. He answered enough to the point, and went on; and now here was the prison, tall and black among ruinous, ancient, steep-roofed houses, set under the castle hill with tower and wall above, and over these and all that slate sky with greenish light. Deep archway and iron door and men lounging. He went by Morgen Fay alone in the dark, and he knew that what she had told to burgher and lord and churchman was true—he had seen it in a flash—and a terrible and wicked act had she done, meriting hell where she would burn forever! But then, Somerville, but then the Abbot and the Prior?

Thomas Bettany, who had owned a young, clean, gay heart, perceived that the world had taken plague.

He wandered. He would not go home, nor yet to the debtor’s house. Rain held off, but the sky was covered, the light green, the air still and hot. He went down to the river. The bridge,—there were pilgrims upon it, a double line of them, chanting, coming from Saint Leofric. To-morrow they would go to Silver Cross, and Holy Well would heal one at least, maybe two or three.

It made no difference what the monk of Silver Cross had cried nor what Morgen Fay. Was healing then within one’s own mind and heart? Was there the Holy Well?

Thomas Bettany went down the watersteps, found boatmen and their craft and hired a row-boat for an hour. He would row himself. “Storm coming, master!” “Aye.” “If it were Friday now, it might put out fire, and that would be sore pity! Saint Christopher knoweth the boats on this river that have rowed to Morgen Fay’s house! Well, it used to be a fair sight, her window and her garden, and all the time she was witch and devil’s paramour! They do say Montjoy will walk barefoot to Canterbury because in old times he was her fere!”

Bettany rowed away. “She is a human being. Say it, and I think that you say all.”

River, river, and houses standing up, and on the other side willows. “River, I wish you would drown fire. Fire is good where it should be, but at times it acheth to be drowned. And then again water acheth for the fire.”

He rowed with long, slow strokes. Houses went by under the dull sky and they seemed to look with menace. “That only can truly help that hath not been truly harmed. That, too, I see,” said Thomas Bettany, “in a flash.”

A house by an old wall, brooding to it. Small houses and small garden. The garden was turned wilderness. He caught colours that might be flowers, but the weeds were thick and high. A window—and casement slowly turning outward. All the garden trim, but shrouded in mist, the houses shrouded in autumn mist, the river—and Morgen Fay looking out.

Rowing away fast from that he shot up river and then to the other side, and beneath willows shipped oars and sat head on hands, thinking first how all impossible it was, and then, very wretchedly of Somerville.

Sky darkened still further. With a long sigh, he took up his oars and rowed slowly back to the bridge. Going up the water steps he had it now in mind to ride, storm over, to Somerville Hall. It did not need, for in High Street he came upon Somerville on his big bay horse. Somerville saw him and waited until he crossed to bridle. “Aye, Thomas?”

“I was going to ride to the Hall. Where can we speak together?”

“Come to the Maid and Garland. And look more blithe! The Turks have not entered England.”

The Maid and Garland had a parlour for Sir Robert—oh, always! They went into a little panelled room, and Somerville turned upon the younger man, the burgher’s son. “Well?”

“I saw it in a flash.”

“Saw what?”

“Much, Somerville! You held Morgen Fay in your hand there at the ruined farm. Plotters to become as great at least as Saint Leofric could not have gotten at her, she could not have joined with them without your knowing! Oh, and I saw, too, that land that you got at last without trouble, after years and years of trouble!”

“Let me alone!” said Somerville hoarsely. “You young fool!”

“From all that I can hear she has not said your name, not once! It was of her own movement, once Abbey and Priory would promise her safety and London town and gold. ‘Thou monstrous witch! Thou daughter of the Father of Lies!’ crieth Silver Cross and Westforest and Middle Forest; aye, even, I hear now, Saint Leofric. But for all that, Robert—”

“‘Robert’?”

“Sir Robert Somerville. But for all that I know, I think, where most lying lies. Save for the Great Lie that she acted and made, and wicked it was to do it! But if she is the wicked one, who else beside? And though she be made of evil is she to burn without a word, who says no word herself?”

Somerville answered him. “Are you mad? What do you mean? When they stoned her out of town I made it possible for her to hide at the ruined farm. I am badly repaid, and I close my mouth, and if they ask me there I will lie to them, pardie! Put her at the ruined farm, not I! But who asketh? It is enough that she be pure Satan with Satan. Witch found here, why easily found there! Who believes but what they wish to believe? Who can save her from her burning? God, perhaps, if He chose to do it!”

“Then I will go pray,” said Thomas Bettany. “I was not her lover.”

“Psha!” said Somerville. “She was a common lover.”

The young merchant turned red. “Only great fright could make you say that, Somerville!”

“Were you noble,” answered Somerville, “I would take that up. As it is, let us be better strangers.”

“That bargain is made, merchant with ‘Sir’ to your name!”

Somerville opened the parlour door. “Reckoning, host—and a cup of sack!” When the younger man had gone, as he did go immediately, he turned back to the room to sit at table with his wine and wait out the storm which had now come pelting. Dusk was the air and a chill wind came in at crevices. A boy arrived to lay and kindle a fire. The flames reddened the room. Somerville, hand around cup, sat and watched them.

Storm over, he left the Maid and Garland, mounted his big bay and rode out of town.