Familiar Spirits (19 page)

rous evening they had interrupted for his assistance, and then went out himself.

On the way downstairs he encountered the slattern, who had been too drunk to go with the others. She looked up groggily, recognized him, and cursed him. “Witch’s bawd,” she hissed.

Ignoring her, Matthew dashed into the street.

Beset
by fears of fire and concerned for his wife’s safety, Matthew pursued the unruly mob into Chelmsford. The mob moved slowly and noisily, gathering strength as it went. Along the way, householders, awakened by the angry cries of the rioters, the glaring torches, and, presently, the hysterical clamor of the church bell, poked their heads from their windows and doors to ask what all the uproar was about. Told that justice was to be done to the Chelmsford witches, some of the householders hurriedly dressed to join the mob, bringing with them more torches and an array of bills and pitch-forks, swords and cudgels.

The street before the Waite and Crispin houses was filled to overflowing by the time Matthew arrived there. Some of the mob had begun pelting the house with stones wrenched from the street, with turnips, eggs, and trash. Matthew could hear threats and curses hurled at the two families, punctuated by shattering glass and the clatter of missiles aimed at the timbered walls and doors. The size of the crowd and the narrowness of the street prevented him from getting close to the front of the action. From what he could see, it was apparent that the besieged families had not been taken by surprise. The upstairs windows of the Crispin house had been shuttered, the house turned into a fort. Matthew surmised that Margaret Waite and her family had also taken refuge there, a supposition presently confirmed by several of the rioters who burst from the glover’s shop door to complain

that Mother Waite and her wretched brood had got clean away.

Suddenly, in the midst of a din of angry voices, an upstairs window of the Crispin house was thrust open and the tanner’s face could be seen. He looked dark and devilish against the glare of the smoking torches below. For a moment the hurling of objects and shouting stopped as the crowd, many of whom were strangers and did not know the tanner from any other fellow, restrained their fury to see what the man at the window had to say. He had nothing to say, however. He thrust a pistol out the window, aimed it at the crowd, and fired. There was a puff of smoke and a thunderous report; then a shrill cry of pain came from somewhere in the crowd.

The use of a firearm against a mob armed only with pitch-forks and old swords was unexpected and caused the crowd to disperse in terror. There was a mad rush for the side streets and cartways, a bedlam of screams and curses. Another explosion was heard, but whether or not the ball found a victim was impossible to tell for the confusion. Matthew, pushed violently against a wall by the press of fleeing rioters, had the wind knocked from his chest. He dimly saw a wounded man being carried off and up the street, while a half-dressed serving man racing past him shouted out that the tanner’s house was possessed of devils. Still another shot rang out. The street before the houses was now cleared, and Matthew himself would have approached had he not been afraid of being fired on. The tanner had been true to his resolution. He seemed to be firing indiscriminately. Matthew could smell the gunpowder in the cold air.

Then Matthew saw someone sidling along the housefronts in his direction. It was Will Simple.

“I told the parson. He’s rung the bells,” Will gasped, breathing heavily and eyeing the dark fortified house.

“You did well,” said Matthew.

“The parson said he would send word to the magistrate too.”

“Very good.”

At both upper and lower ends of the street, the rioters had

gathered under their blazing torches, and these cast a dim light on the houses of the two besieged families. Matthew could see that the upstairs window had been shuttered again. “Was anyone killed, Mr. Stock?” asked Will.

“Wounded. Dead by now, perhaps. I saw no others fall. Your master knows how to handle his pistol.”

“Aye, he does,” said Will, grinning. “He does for a fact.” “You want to join him?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Go, then, but make your identity known.”

Matthew watched as Will Simple hurried across the street and knocked at the door, calling out his name at the same time. Presently, the door opened, Will was admitted, and the door was shut again.

Down the street the mob was beginning to move toward the house. Matthew could see them. They stopped about twenty paces from the tanner’s door and the shrill voice of Ned Hodge could be heard.

“Come forth, Thomas Crispin, you sink of inequity! Surrender yourself and your wife and sister too, or we’ll burn down your house and all souls therein!”

Behind him, the unruly crowd cheered and raised their fists threateningly. The upstairs window opened again and Crispin’s head appeared. “I know you, Ned Hodge, and may God help me to place a ball in your black heart if you take another step toward my door.”

“What?” shouted the carpenter, “will you murder us all, then?” Hodge could be seen moving about busily in front of the mob. “Perhaps your wife will bewitch us with one of her spells that you may return to the comfort of your bed.” This remark brought a few derisive laughs from the onlookers, but it was evident that for the majority of them the prospect of Jane Crispin’s curse was more dreadful than amusing.

Matthew thought this as good a time as any to come forward. He walked into the center of the street and approached the carpenter Hodge.

“Go home! All of you! Go to your beds!” Matthew

shouted. “I charge you, in the Queen’s name!” His words were lost in the night. Even to him they sounded powerless, fatuous. He might well have kept silent for all his commands accomplished. The little carpenter had wrought the crowd up well. Their fear was at a fever pitch and knew no help but the destruction of the tanner, upon whom all their wrath was now heaped. The crowd roared, and when the roar subsided, Ned Hodge spoke again in his shrill voice.

“Crispin and that family of his will pay the price, Constable! Fire at us, will he? I’ll be damned in hell but I’ll find cannon of my own to pepper his beard with!”

“The law will answer your complaints,” Matthew said.

“The
law?
The law, say you? Why, the law is a toothless hound with a broken back!” snarled Hodge contemptuously. “It will do nothing but yelp and yelp.” He spat in the street.

Matthew attempted to arrest the carpenter, but as he advanced he found himself surrounded by Hodge’s drinking companions from the Saracen’s Head, made sober now by the chill air and the excitement of the riot. Nor was there help elsewhere in the street. A large part of the crowd, many of them friends and most certainly acquaintances of the constable, were as confused as they were fearful. In their panic they had accepted Hodge as their leader, if only because his loud, strident voice spoke of their own grievances and fears.

The crowd surged forward as one of its number hurled a burning torch at the tanner’s house. Landing short of the walls, it burned itself out on the damp pavement. Matthew’s authority was nullified by the sheer number and force of bodies.

At the same moment, a new alarm was raised. From down the street toward Moulsham a clatter of hooves could be heard, and quickly thereafter a dozen or more horsemen came thundering up, yelling and waving their swords above their heads. Fearful of being trampled, the crowd rushed again for the walls of houses, found refuge in doorways and alleyways. For a few minutes all was terrible confusion. Matthew wedged himself in a doorway to avoid being crushed by the stomping horses. All about him there were screams, cries,

curses, threats. Through the melee Matthew could see that the leader of the band was the magistrate. He was dressed in breastplate and helmet and giving out orders like a seasoned commander. He deployed some of his men in front of the house and sent others to the opposite ends of the street to confront the few rioters who had not found cover. Within minutes the street was empty except for the magistrate’s men on their horses. Matthew came out into the street, and the magistrate advanced to meet him. “How now, Mr. Stock?” the magistrate asked, peering down at Matthew with a glare of obvious disapproval. “I came in good time, I see. Could you not bring order here with your authority?”

“I did what I could—for a man alone, sir,” Matthew said, his heart still pounding from the angry confrontation with the rioters. “I charged them to disperse in the Queen’s name, but none would obey.” He told the magistrate all that had taken place at the Saracen’s Head and since, explaining too how the bellicose little carpenter had become the leader of the rioters, whipping them into a frenzy with his rhetoric, and how Thomas Crispin had fired his pistol in defense of his house.

“Jesus save us all from politicians,” murmured the magistrate when Matthew had concluded his report. “This is a fine mess here. London will surely hear of it and to the advantage of neither of us.” One of the magistrate’s men, on foot, came up to take the reins of his master’s horse while he dismounted. The magistrate pointed to a house across the street and asked Matthew whose house it was.

“Simon Markham, pewter-maker,” said Matthew.

“We’ll use it for our headquarters while I decide what to do next,” the magistrate said. The two men walked toward the house, knocked until there was an answer. The pewter-maker looked out. He was a small, bald-headed man with a smooth-shaven face. He had been very frightened by the uproar and was still trembling.

“I’ll ask for your hospitality, Mr. Markham, if you’ll give it. For me and my men this next hour,” said the magistrate, crossing the threshold before the man had time to answer.

Intimidated by his important visitors and abashed at being found in his nightclothes—although it was well on to midnight—Markham ran to fetch a lamp. Four of the magistrate’s men came in and stood quietly watching as Markham, having returned, lighted the lamp. Then the magistrate told the pewter-maker to find work for himself elsewhere, and Markham, correctly interpreting the magistrate to mean that he wanted the little room in which they stood for himself, went upstairs, wishing all the gentlemen a very good night in a voice quavering with terror.

The magistrate now began to vent his fury against the rioters. “Besotted knaves and traitors!” he exclaimed. “They are more ready to fear the abomination of witches than the wickedness of their own incontinence. Has the Queen’s name no authority here, then?”

“They’re frightened beyond reason,” Matthew said, feeling some obligation to make excuse for his fellow citizens.

The magistrate was about to respond when Moreau, the bailiff, came stamping in, much out of breath from the ride. He too was vested in armor but, lacking the stature or martial bearing of the magistrate, the Frenchman cut a somewhat ridiculous figure, and his heavy-lidded eyes showed more anxiety than courage.

“Here’s our bailiff,” said the magistrate, “Come, Mr. Moreau, let us have your counsel. We’ve a riot in the town, as you can see, and half the men we require to quell it.”

“Why, arrest the lot of them, sir,” said Moreau. “And hang the leaders.”

“That would expedite matters,” remarked the magistrate ironically as he sat down on a stool. “But in the meantime the rout will in its own defense set the town afire. You saw the torches as you rode up, doubtlessly. Already the flames lick at the housetops. I’m a practical man who likes practical means. We may all shout ourselves hoarse, as good Constable Stock has done, yet if there are no ears to hear ...”

“I recommend that we parley with the tanner,” said Matthew, advancing into the lamplight.

“To what end, Mr. Stock? He’s probably gone to bed by now. Would that his neighbors would do likewise.”

“To secure his surrender, sir,” said Matthew. “With him and the women in custody, the mob will have no further reason to complain, for the burden of their dislike at the moment is that the tanner’s wife and her sister are at large, despite the outcry against them.”

“I see,” said the magistrate thoughtfully. “But
will
he surrender? You say the house is fortified?”

“Crispin’s a reasonable man, sir—and an honest one. If he is made to understand the situation—the fact that he is in no less peril as he is, than as he might be, protected by your authority. If he sees that peace is as much to his advantage as it is ours and that the only resolution to his difficulties is a full hearing in court. If he understands all this, and I think he does—well, then, sir, I believe surely that it is worth an effort.”

The magistrate mulled this over, then said, “Your patience runs somewhat counter to my own inclination, which is to send the mob cackling home by force of arms. The trouble is I don’t have the men I need for such a campaign—or won’t have until morning. By that time God only knows what damage may be done to property and yes, to lives too. The mob will regroup presently. They scattered because we had the advantage of surprise and they were in the open. Concealed in houses and alleys or climbed up on rooftops, they will wreak havoc enough. Let us parley, then, with this tanner and see if he will surrender with the women At the same time we’ll make sure this carpenter— What’s his name?”

“Ned Hodge, sir,” said Matthew.

“Yes, this Hodge—curse him—knows of our intent. It may hold him at bay for the moment—at least out of curiosity to see the outcome. We’ll give him what he and the mob wants if we can, and when the town is quiet again and he has no maddened citizenry at his back, we’ll make him pay for his sedition.”