The Discoverer’s Man

His handkerchief, a pin or coin he’d touched,

a button from his shirt, a feather caught

on his coattail — such tokens would fetch a price ...    

Men came to shake his hand, or rub their warts

upon his famous skin; young mothers held

babies for him to bless with luck or wisdom — 

could he ward off the pox? — while others pressed

bribes for the questions they would have him ask.

One woman, facing down a blush, gave him

a scrap of cloth, and asked that he get blood on it:

she would return next day to pay him

if he would care to nominate a fee ... ?

Blood of a witch! Can you believe such a thing?

I think you may be worldly after all.

Boy that I was, I can only guess

at what he must have made of me; and he,

tricked out in a high-crowned hat, Geneva cape,

staff, spurs, and bucket-top boots — he might have been

a landed squire or country magistrate ...    

You think us credulous? Of course you do.

So young, so quick to judge! Friend, these were days

of comets in the air, various auguries,

marvellous tempests, sights on the sea — 

that we might have a witch nesting among us

was not the strangest news we heard.

Proceedings would begin at dawn, he said.

Next day we found ourselves at the chapel house

uncertain who had summoned whom.

It fell to me (though why is more than I can say:

I had not then addressed a congregation)

to tell how, ever since her husband’s death,

Old Bess had shunned society; how week on week

her vacant place in church would be remarked;

how she had made a stranger of herself

so long that when she turned to her next neighbour,

begging a bowl of curds, she was denied;

how she cursed him for this; and how his child

sickened and died soon afterwards. I took my seat

light-headed among murmurs of approval,

part of the crowd once more, strange to myself

for all my eloquence, and some three-and-ninety

witnesses rose to give their evidence ...    

But then: “Ask not what mercy justice can afford

until, as civil law requires, you hear

the witch condemned out of her own mouth.” So:

officers must be sent to search her home — 

he called it ten to one that they would find

trinkets such as beads or crucifixes

or other trumpery; meantime she must be stripped

and should the devil’s marks be found about her

(sure enough, two bitch’s teats hung down

between her secrets and the fundament)

then she must be kept from sleep and meat

and watched most constantly.

at first light on the third day. He seized on me

to write her testimony:

Year of Our Lord Sixteen Forty-Five,

He took me by the arm: we stepped outside.

The magistrates were due within the hour.

Bell’s list of names would carry him through Essex

to Suffolk, Norfolk, Kent, and Bedfordshire — 

might it please me to accompany him as scribe?

The wages would be modest, but I could expect

to witness many true and strange effects:

he had himself observed a Kentish woman

who mothered lambs; and once, contrariwise,

had seen a goat delivered of a human shape —

evil rambled among us! England was plagued

with Satan’s emissaries! We must pluck them down

and let the good news be proclaimed in smoke.

“Such names,” he said, “no mortal could invent.”

Touch a needle: watch it scent about,

quivering after its true north, uncertain,

not to be trusted till it settle — such was I.

God knows, a man’s life has few turning points — 

say he forsakes his father’s dearest hope

to answer his vocation; or say he marries

for love, so losing his inheritance:

do such acts constitute a free election?

Look to yourself: How many decisions brought

you to this parish, minister-to-be?

Fewer than you might care to think!

We are as we were made. But standing there

holding the widow’s words in my two hands

I knew chance had at last combined with choice.

That evening, waiting in the middle wood

for Alice to appear, I turned it over:

whether to sell, with scant words and poor sighs,

her dearly-bought affections; whether to leave her

suddenly on what must seem a fool’s errand ...    

There was a stand of laurel we had made

our meeting place; I had prepared some words

that balanced a worldly wish to prove myself

against my promise to make Alice my wife.

I sat, then stood and paced about, then sat

once more. Then lay and studied stalks and blades.

Then thought to pass the time by picking simples

for a posy that might sweeten our farewell;

but, bending to my task, disturbed a woodlark’s nest.

The buzz and fluster of a woodlark’s flight — 

scissor and stitch at once! I followed his swerve

north where the woods run out to open fields

and the coal path spools down to the harbour — there

I lost him. Where was Alice? I looked out

over meadows yet to be laid up for mowing,

ponds and cherry orchards. Hedgerows lined

the road I meant to climb next day.

How paltry my equivocations seemed,

and how unmanly, how unmannerly,

to stay and parcel out over-subtle reasons,

such that I could not ask her to allow,

much less approve ... Better to leave at once.

I met with him at dawn. We headed east.

They say there is a bird, the osprey, the fish hawk,

so majestic it can mesmerise

its prey, subduing it without a touch:

a fair example of authority.

But whether, as the book says, the firmament

“sheweth the handiwork of the Creator”

(who “sets a tabernacle for the sun”

which is a “strong man coming from his chamber,

friend to the bridegroom,” yes?) was all one to him.

Not that he had a narrow nature, not

that he made a painful study of his life;

but I marvel that his mind could entertain

nothing but proven truths that, being few,

huddled together like beasts in a storm.

Yet he was merciful, and stood upon these points:

that we should not accuse another soul

nor force confession from the examinate

by violence. Our methods must be nice.

Sometimes to keep them waking was enough — 

if they would sit or offer to couch down

we would desire them to walk about — 

and the swimming test was only used

at such time of the year as when none took

a harm by it. The man was so averse

to witnessing a spectacle of pain

that when our work was done he would not suffer us

to tarry long or watch the execution;

how can you call him, as is the fashion, cruel?

Cruel. You say as much, the way you shift

and smile, and study the rugosity

of the damson stones you’ve ranged about your plate — 

your very attitude accuses us!

And still you smile. Well, I shall take your part.

You think our evidence the product of

ill-disposed constitutions, silly souls

whose fancies, working by gross fumes and vapours,

led them to believe themselves such people

as their confessions blazoned them to be;

as for the Discoverer, as for me, why,

you judge us busy men as I suppose,

troublesome fellows out for gain, or else

frighted by devils of our own design — 

am I not right? Ah, child! Had you but seen

the welcome and good entertainment we received

ranging from town to town without control,

when his name ran on ahead like hope itself

pausing to wait for us at a turn in the road

or on a stranger’s lips ... to have but heard

a crowd of russet-coats imploring us

to such alms-deeds, such tender ministries ...    

well. Unrecorded is not unremembered.

One night (now, were my goodwife still alive

I would not speak of this! And this but one

example drawn from many: I tell it

in confidence that you will keep it close),

one night, I say, a girl stole to my room.

She was, she said, with child (and showing signs),

her first, she said (as I could well believe

for she was barely more than child herself),

and having neither mother, sister, nor

any female companion, and being much afraid

of what her father, should he find her changed,

might do, had come to me. In brief

she was affected by a strange disease:

and now, before I well know what is happening,

she has untied a ribbon, pulled down her blouse,

and shown herself — her pale skin lapped by candlelight,

butter-gold, flawless; except her breasts were dappled

here and there with gray-green blemishes — and she:

“Might these be fairy rings? Am I bewitched?”

I stood aghast like you, helpless and mute — 

she takes my hand — her breath on me, her bright

eyes on me all this time — and draws me near

until, as a flower at the end of day

closes upon a raindrop, my fingers close

upon her trembling warmth ... But — one more glass,

sir, one more glass of wine before you go!

Now, I insist: the parish will be yours

tomorrow. God and his people will forgive

a little cheer ... Suppose you sit once more — 

why, yes, there if you like, where you can see

my herb garden ... I planted it the year

dear Alice passed: in summer you will wake and drowse

to delicate perfumes ... A glass I say!

There. Now let me beg your further judgment.

I mean John Knowles. You must have heard the name — 

he was notorious even in his youth

when he was summoned, twice, before the synod.

Pastor of Brandeston? That was his title,

though if he sought to make a fair show in the flesh

such is the devil’s business! An old man?

Certain as I am I, but young enough

to play the knave with us, making us run

him back and forth three nights and days together

before he would confess to having sunk

a sailing vessel out of Ipswich ... and yet

when it came (after much wrestling,

not to begrudge our toil) the fall was swift.

Drag a man from his last-but-one defence — 

and then stand down. Have patience. He will yield.

Permit his vanity one bauble — he is apt

to cast it back at you, for pride achieves

its final flower in authoring its own

defeat. I say his was a free confession.

(I waited his reply.) No, he was joyful

to see the power his imps possessed.

No, for he had a charm to keep him free.

No. Cruel malice was his chief delight.

His was the only execution that we witnessed.

Before he was brought out, they cut his tongue

(“We must have no more juggling from you, John”)

and stripped him to his shirt. They fastened him

with shackles and a steel brace to the stake

and hung a bag of powder round his neck.

Then officers stacked reed and faggots

about his body, and set fire on the reed — 

the wind being high, this took no little time — 

and as I was so jostled in the press

I saw no more until a great flame rose

(the crowd fell silent then) that sparkled and deformed

the visor of his face — and so at last

the powder caught, and he gave up the ghost.

How enviously life clings to its toy

and then casts it aside! Broiled black, puffed up,

Knowles suffered great extremity in his death,

which notwithstanding he had borne with patience — 

and it seemed the people were impressed by this

for as they went their ways some doffed their hats,

causing my companion to cry out

that Knowles was scandalous, that he had carried himself

as though he were the holy sacrament

even unto the stake, and that they had

done right to send the wolf back whence he came;

and while he spoke, I noted his pale brow

and the unseasonable bloom upon his cheeks,

for these were signs. He died within the year.

Know this: the instrument whereby God called

so many to knowledge, so many to salvation;

the man of letters that readily could give

in any matter of controversy

a godly learned sentence; the man of law

who persecuted in excess of two

hundred and fifty witches — of whom more

than half were duly executed — passed

peacefully in his bed of a consumption,

not greatly troubled in his conscience as

you may have falsely heard, nor was he once

suspected. And with great zeal he went about

his godly work some two years unmolested

until the Lord in mercy gave him rest.

I tried to see a life continuing the trade,

taking our method north through Lincolnshire,

perhaps to Scotland where the savages

busied themselves designing ever crueller tortures — 

was this my mission? To enlighten them? — 

but no: I made for home with tales to tell,

took up my father’s ministry and in time

persuaded Alice to forgive my leaving her.

Some discoverers, seeking to be justified,

have published tedious apologies,

but such comes too near tendering a confession.

Our sanction may be found in the Book of Exodus

twenty-two, eighteen. I have committed

(and need commit) nothing further to record.

What comes back now most clearly, and most often,

is not the tidy, disembellished funeral

(he wanted neither psalms nor solemn bells,

no rosemary to ornament his coffin),

much less my undeniable disappointment

at learning that he was — not quite low-born,

yet something shy of a true gentleman — like me

a minister’s third son (and his mother French!

She had escaped, he said, the massacres in Paris);

but walking out together that first morning,

our work before us, when we found the verges lit

with new-blown colours — bluebells, cornflowers, eyebright — 

like intermeddling voices, so I thought,

each one contending with its neighbour to be heard.

My companion walked in silence.

(Hours would pass before I found the nerve

to enquire towards what his silence tended,

and when at last I did, his answer was so short and quick — 

“The days to come” — I did not ask again.)

The sun dazzled my eyes, and I allowed myself

to fancy we had left the road behind

and were ascending into the blue ether,

England disappearing far below.

Already the syringa was in bloom,

its scent so concentrated in the dawn — 

open the window: this herb, breathe it now:

the smell is like the sweat of a young girl

who runs in a summer meadow, is it not?