The Vengeance of the Witch-Finder Read online

  Bertie shrugged. “I can see—just a little. I can tell light from dark, anyway. And if there was a strong light behind you, and you moved, I could see that. But if you didn’t move, you might be a chair or a shrub or almost anything. Oh, speaking of shrubs, let me show you something really interesting.”

  The two boys crossed the circular drive at the front of the house and went down a gentle slope. Ahead, Lewis saw the great untidy mass of hedges. They walked right up to it. The bushes were more than twice the boys’ height, and their tops were raggedly overgrown. “Let’s find the entrance,” said Bertie.

  “What entrance?” asked Lewis. How in the world did you enter a hedge?

  “I’ll show you,” said Bertie. “Is there a tree off to our left?”

  “Yes,” answered Lewis.

  “Good. Then move right until you find the break in the hedge. I’ll be right behind you.”

  They edged along. Soon Lewis saw that the hedge was not a solid wall. An opening about four feet wide broke the hedge line. Overhead, the bushes had grown almost together again, so the opening was like an arch. “Here it is,” said Lewis.

  “Let’s go in.”

  As soon as they stepped through the break, Lewis whistled. “It’s a maze!” he said, impressed. “Oh boy! I’ve read about these, but I’ve never seen one!”

  “We went in the wrong side, really,” said Bertie. “The idea was that visitors would come from the road side and find their way through to the house side. But Mr. Barnavelt says that it’s silly to lose your guests, so he hasn’t bothered with the maze for years and years. It’s pretty badly grown up, but we can still find our way through it. Only don’t tell my mum. She doesn’t like me playing here.”

  “Let’s go!” said Lewis. They turned left and plunged into a series of twists and turns. Before long, Lewis had no idea of where they were or which way led back out of the maze. On either side, leafy green walls hemmed them in. Originally gravel had covered the paths between the walls. Grass and weeds had sprouted through the gravel. Now the brushy growth was knee high in places, and walking through it was like wading through water. At other places, the hedges overhead had grown so far out of control that the top shoots interlaced. Sometimes it was more like walking through a green tunnel than threading through a maze. Lewis remembered that tunnels and closed-in places were one of the few things that scared his friend Rose Rita. He felt a bit braver than usual, because things like tunnels did not really get to him. Still, after a good many sharp corners and dead ends, he began to feel anxious. “Can we get out of here?” he asked Bertie.

  Bertie, who clomped along behind Lewis, smiled. “Sure,” he said. “Have we passed the stone bench yet?”

  “About a hundred times,” said Lewis.

  “Let’s find it again, and then I’ll get us out.” Bertie sounded so confident that he gave Lewis renewed determination. They wandered about in the labyrinth for a few more minutes.

  “Here’s the bench,” said Lewis. It was a little gray stone bench, streaked black by weather and overgrown with patchy green moss. Its back was against one of the busy walls, and its seat was about wide enough for three grownups or four children to sit on side by side.

  “Show me where it is,” said Bertie, putting his hand out.

  Lewis took Bertie’s wrist and guided his hand to the bench. “Here,” he said. “How does that help us?”

  Bertie ran his hand over one of the mossy arms of the bench. “This is right in the center of the maze,” he explained. “From here I can tell which way we are going. It depends on whether the bench comes up on our left or our right. Since it’s on this side, we can go the rest of the way through and out the front if we keep one hand on the hedges to our right.”

  “Oh,” said Lewis. “Then there’s a trick to it.”

  “It’s a tricky kind of place,” replied Bertie.

  Lewis stuck his right hand out and brushed against the hedge wall. They followed a twisting path, but at last they made a final turn and stepped out onto the overgrown front lawn. Just ahead of them ran the road, and off to their left was the small gatekeeper’s cottage. Lewis noticed now for the first time that an actual gate had once stood at the drive. Two stone pillars remained, but tall shrubs half hid them. The friends walked down to the gateposts, and Lewis saw that the hinge plates had rusted to shapeless blobs of crusty red metal. The gates that had hung here were long gone.

  “Hey,” said Bertie, “I’ve thought of something else you ought to see. Would you like to find out more about your ancestor Martin Barnavelt and his withcraft trial?”

  “Sure,” said Lewis.

  “There’s a book in the study that tells all about it. Let’s ask Mr. Barnavelt if you may read it.”

  They made their way back to the house. Cousin Pelly was showing Jonathan a collection of butterflies that Pelly had captured years ago when he was a student at Oxford. He readily agreed to let Lewis see the book in question, but said he would have to find it for him. Meanwhile, Lewis and Bertie went outside to explore the grounds a little more. To Lewis’s delight, Bertie knew the Sherlock Holmes stories very well. His mother read them to him. Lewis also discovered that since Bertie could not go to a regular school, his mother tutored him. She had once been a governess, and Lewis got the idea that she was a strict teacher. Bertie was very smart.

  That evening after dinner Cousin Pelly said repeatedly how disappointed he was that Lewis and Jonathan would be leaving the next day. “I hardly get any visitors anymore,” said Pelly. “You can’t think how lively you’ve made the old house feel.”

  “Well,” said Jonathan, “perhaps we might stop by again before we return to America. We have some time at the end of our trip that isn’t planned yet.”

  “Oh, do!” cried Cousin Pelly. “We’ve so much catching up to do.” And so it was more or less arranged. Just before Lewis started upstairs to bed, Pelly said, “Oh, yes. I almost forgot. Lewis, here is the book you asked for. Be careful with it, please.”

  As soon as Lewis got to bed, he propped himself up and examined the volume. It was a fairly large book, bound in brown leather with clasps of brass. The brass had turned green with age, and the leather was flaky and soft. A sweetish, spicy scent rose from it, a little like bay rum and a little like cinnamon and ginger. That pleased Lewis, who maintained that truly interesting volumes always smelled interesting. The title of the book had once been stamped in gold on the cover. Only a few flecks and traces of the gold remained, but Lewis could still read the sunken lettering: A History of the Barnavelt Family and the Rebellion Against King Charles I. He opened the book carefully and began to read the old print.

  The book had been privately printed in 1721. Its author was James Barnavelt, “son of Martin.” Much of it was dull. The book included long lists of fathers and sons and uncles and cousins. Chapters covered this and that: family crests, land holdings, and where the Barnavelts went to college. One chapter, though, looked promising. Its title was “Of the Witch-Finder, and the Troubles He Brought.” Lewis settled in to read that one.

  “Malachiah Pruitt,” the chapter began, “was a most disagreeable, grasping, and self-righteous Fellow. His Styling himself a Witch-Finder prov’d indeed a dark Day for the Barnavelt Family.” The book went on to explain that the Puritans believed strongly in witches and witchcraft. Some of them—the chapter mentioned a Matthew Hopkins “of evil Memory”—set themselves up as witch-finders. These men went from place to place and professed to expose men and women who practiced evil sorcery. The local governments paid them for their “work.” The victims often were hanged or burned at the stake. Malachiah Pruitt had originally been a “Yeoman Farmer” from Sussex. However, he had fought on the side of the Roundheads and “assisted at the Capture and cruel Execution of His Majesty, Charles I, for which his Friends did richly reward him.”

  In 1649, after the King’s death, Pruitt came to Sussex as a witch-finder. “He did lay Claim to Barnavelt Manor,” Lewis read. “Pruitt and his Helpers mov’
d into the Manor house, and they forc’d poor Martin Barnavelt and all his Kin to dwell in the meaner Out-Buildings.” Pruitt supposedly refashioned a wine cellar as a “Chamber of Tortures.” There accused witches were put to what the book ominously called “all the Tests of Suff’ring.” Lewis read that the accused witches could save their lives in only one way: “If the poor Souls confess’d their Witchery, and nam’d Others as their fellow Witches, then the Court of this accursed Malachiah Pruitt contented itself with merely taking their Purses. If they did not confess, then Pruitt and his Helpers took their very Lives.”

  Lewis shivered a little. Somewhere in this very house, three hundred years earlier, sour old Malachiah Pruitt had proclaimed the death sentence on men and women. Somewhere was a room that had been a “Chamber of Tortures,” with a rack, and thumbscrews, and other devices of torment. It was spooky just to think about. No wonder the house had looked so terrible!

  The book said that eventually Pruitt claimed that Martin Barnavelt was a witch. His son had written, “My dear Father was innocent of any such Charge. In my Opinion, the Malefactor Pruitt had heard Whispers that my Father remain’d faithful to the True Church. For this faithfulness, the Apostate Pruitt did loathe and despise Martin Barnavelt. Howsoever be it, ‘tis certain that Pruitt did determine to try Martin Barnavelt on a Charge of Sorcery about the Middle of 1651.”

  The trial had gone badly for Martin Barnavelt, up to a point. Just when Pruitt was about to force a judgment of “guilty,” the witch-finder collapsed. “He had been taken with a sudden strong Fit of Illness,” the book said. “The others, not being as firm in their evil Purpose as their Chief, at Length dismiss’d the Charges. So Martin Barnavelt went free, though he had not yet recover’d his House or his Holdings.” Pruitt lived another two years, although the weird disease took its toll on him. “From that Day, he never again spake a Word,” the book said. “He wither’d with wondrous Speed into a seeming ancient Age. He grew ill and feeble, and so died at last in 1653, his true Age about seven-and-forty.”

  And even then, Martin Barnavelt’s troubles were not over. The Puritans held on to Barnavelt Manor until the Restoration in 1660. Then the new King, Charles II, suspected unfairly that Martin had been sympathetic to the Puritans. As a result, poor Martin did not win the title to Barnavelt Manor back for eight more years. When at length he did, the book said, “My Father was heartily disgusted with both Royalists and Roundheads, and vow’d he would never give either Side Advantage in any way.”

  Lewis yawned. The evening had grown late. He started to close the book. As he did so, the back endpaper suddenly flicked itself loose from the binding, and a square of yellowed paper fluttered out. Lewis blinked. He could see now that the endpaper was a false one. It was only a flyleaf that had been pasted around the edges to the real endpaper of the book. The paste had given way with age. Lewis picked up the little sheet that had fallen from its hiding place. Scribed faintly in faded black ink on the paper was a strange device made up of straight lines. It looks just like a maze, thought Lewis. Sleepily, he traced the path:

  Then he sat up in bed, his eyes wide with excitement. He recognized this! He was looking at a map of the hedge maze!

  But the map clearly showed a secret space that he and Bertie had overlooked.

  Something waited to be discovered at the very heart of the labyrinth!

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Lewis lay in the dark. He could not sleep. Whenever he closed his eyes, he saw before him the drawing on the paper. He imagined himself hovering in the air above the hedge maze and looking straight down. Except that now Lewis knew something about the maze that he had not known before. Perhaps something that no one had known for hundreds of years. He thought about the map, which he had carefully replaced in the book. Maybe Martin Barnavelt’s son had drawn it himself, leaving a chart for future members of the family to find. Something told Lewis it was a kind of treasure map. Someone had hidden something valuable away at the center of the maze. And maybe no one had found it in three hundred years!

  The thing to do, he told himself, is to wait until tomorrow morning and let Cousin Pelly know all about it. That would be the sensible course.

  Still—what would Sherlock Holmes do? Why, he would rise, dress, take his dark lantern, and rouse Watson. “The game’s afoot!” he would whisper. Then the two of them would set out on a new adventure. They would solve the mystery themselves. And at breakfast, Holmes would dramatically present Cousin Pelly with the solution to the puzzle. Lewis remembered how Holmes had made a big production out of returning the stolen papers in “The Adventure of the Naval Treaty.” The detective had served the papers up at breakfast, hidden in a covered dish that was supposed to contain eggs. Lewis smiled at the memory of the happy uproar that had caused. If only he could do something like that!

  Unfortunately, Lewis was timid. As he thought about venturing into the maze, he could picture all kinds of disasters that might happen. He could get lost. He could fall into a deep pit in the center of the maze and starve to death there. He could catch pneumonia from the damp evening air. Lewis sighed. This was the curse of having a strong, active imagination. He always used it to look on the dark side. It was a part of himself that he did not like very much. Well, maybe this was an opportunity to do something about it. Slowly, he felt himself gathering all his courage. If Rose Rita were here, he thought, she would be out there in the maze right now. Rose Rita wasn’t afraid of anything.

  Then he remembered that Rose Rita was afraid of a few things. Things like tunnels, for instance. That made him feel a little braver, because he could take tunnels. For a long time Lewis lay there debating with himself. He heard a clock somewhere in the house strike twelve. The witching hour. Except that brave people like Sherlock Holmes wouldn’t believe in witching hours. Lying there in the darkness, Lewis made his mind up. Just this once he would be brave. And maybe if he could be brave just this once, then the next time it would be easier. He slipped out of bed.

  Before they had left for their trip, Uncle Jonathan had supervised planning and packing. Jonathan had traveled enough to know that strange bedrooms bothered him. If he had to get up in the dark, he could never get his bearings and would flounder around knocking over furniture and running into walls. Once in Detroit he had broken a hotel window because he was trying to find his way to the bathroom in the dark. To prevent similar accidents, Jonathan had bought two small, chrome-plated flashlights, one for himself and one for Lewis. And he had advised Lewis always to put the flashlight under his pillow, which was where it was right now.

  Lewis took it out and turned it on for the first time. The batteries and bulb were fairly fresh, and the flashlight shot out a bright beam of light. It wasn’t exactly a dark lantern, like the one Sherlock Holmes carried, but it was close enough. Lewis set the flashlight on end, with the beam pointing up at the ceiling. That gave the room a dim illumination. It was bright enough for Lewis to slip out of bed and dress himelf. Then he dug through his suitcase until he found the writing pad he planned to use to write letters to Rose Rita. He opened the book and pulled the map out. He used his mechanical pencil to copy the maze. Then he replaced the original, closed the book, and tore the copy out of his writing pad. Lewis took a very deep breath. He pulled the Sherlock Holmes deerstalker hat onto his head for added courage. He picked up his flashlight and tiptoed out into the hall. Now the game really was afoot!

  Lewis got downstairs all right, but there the hall looked different in the beam of his flashlight. He took a wrong turn and had to backtrack. He tripped on a loose corner of carpeting. Finally, though, Lewis found his way outside. The night air was cool but clear. The stars shone brightly overhead. Crickets and frogs trilled and croaked. Lewis resolutely started forward, toward the hedge maze.

  He crossed the drive and felt a sudden chill of fear. He swallowed hard and hesitated. Sherlock Holmes wouldn’t turn back! Well, neither would he. Lewis stepped into the unmown grass, now wet with dew, and walked on toward the maze. The l
egs of his corduroy trousers made whip-whip sounds that Lewis found surprisingly loud.

  Then something swished in the grass behind him.

  Lewis froze. He felt cold all over. The hair on his neck prickled. His heart thudded.

  Rustle. Snap. There it was again! Something was coming after him!

  Lewis shrieked and ran. Behind him footsteps began to pound. He turned to head back for the safety of the house, and found himself in a grove of trees. He was going in the wrong direction! And something was gaining on him, fast!

  “Lewis! Is that you?”

  “Yes!” he shouted. “Help!”

  “I’m coming!” It was Bertie’s voice. Bertie would save Lewis from the pursuer. He would—

  Lewis suddenly realized that all the noise came from Bertie. “Oh, brother,” he gasped. A second later, Bertie came blundering up, his face ghostly in the glow of the flashlight.

  “Hullo, what’s up?” asked Bertie.

  “You almost scared me to death,” Lewis panted. His voice was shaking with fear, but he tried to make it sound angry instead: “Why did you sneak up on me like that?”

  Bertie’s face fell. “I’m frightfully sorry. I heard you walking about in the hallway, and I got dressed and followed you.”

  “You knew it was me?” asked Lewis. “How?”

  Bertie sounded puzzled: “Why, from the sound of your footsteps, of course. I’ve been hearing them all day. What time is it, anyway? It’s still quite dark, isn’t it?”

  “It’s midnight,” said Lewis. He sighed. “I was going out on a sort of mission, but now I’m not so sure.”

  “A mission?” asked Bertie. “Tell me about it, do!”

  Lewis bit his lip. He did not want to act like a coward in front of Bertie. “Well,” he said, “it started with this book.” He hastily told Bertie about the chapter in the book and the map to the maze he had found. “It looks like there is a secret place in the middle of the maze,” he finished. “Or does everybody know about that already?”