THE HEDGE-BOOK

At the Gate

I set this down because I am the last that keeps the old sight both ways along the road, and when I am gone — mm, I know, they say I'll never be gone; they say a deal of foolishness — but when I am gone, the cures should not go with me, for they are good cures and they have never once failed. So here they are, every one, and the charm that did it, plain as I can put it.

And I will say at the start, for the clever ones, who are the ones this book will most disappoint: it is the charm that does it. Not the herb. Any gammer has the herb. Not the kind word, which any fool can waste. The charm — the word said the right way at the right turn of the moon by a hand that knows — that is the cure, and if you do it out of a book without the knowing you will do nothing at all, and serve you right. Do not come to me after. I shall have told you.

Each entry: The Complaint · The Charm · The Cure — the Cure being the charm, obviously, whatever the schoolmaster tells you.

1The Wart That Would Not Go

The Complaint. A girl of two-and-twenty. A wart, on the thumb, months on it, would not shift. The Charm. Take the wrong hand first — that is the whole art, and the clever always take the right one and wonder why it fails. Turn it over. Read what's written in it. Rub the wart once, say the word, and it will be gone by Sunday. The Cure. The wart. Gone by Sunday. (She came about a wart and left about her sister, but that is nothing to do with me; the sister cured itself; I only ever did the wart.)

2The Knocking in the Wall

The Complaint. A widow, alone, a knocking in the wall of a night, three years since her man went. Wanted it laid. The Charm. You do not lay a knocking. You answer it. I sat with her till it came, and when it came I said aloud, "Aye, we hear you, Robert, you're not forgot," and it knocked no more. The Cure. The knocking stopped. (It was the pipe, likely, or the frost in the beam; it is generally the pipe. But a woman three years unanswered in an empty house will hear her grief in a cooling pipe, and a grief once answered aloud lies down. That is the charm. The pipe is neither here nor there.)

3The Cursed Man

The Complaint. A young man, everything gone wrong at once — the cow, the roof, the girl — convinced he was ill-wished, wanting the curse took off. The Charm. I looked him over long, and grave, and I took the curse off. It took an hour. I was very thorough. The Cure. He mended. (There was no curse. There is never a curse; it turns out to be the weather, and the cow, and a man so certain the world was against him that he'd stopped doing the small right things that keep a farm and a girl. But you cannot tell a cursed man he is not cursed; he will only find a worse witch who agrees with him. You take the curse off — solemnly, it must be solemn — and give him back a world with nothing against him in it, and he goes home and does the small right things, and calls it my charm, and he is welcome to.)

4The Child That Would Not Sleep

The Complaint. A little one, night-terrors, screaming the house awake, the mother worn to a rag. The Charm. A knot in a red thread, tied under the cot, one knot a night said over. The Cure. The child slept. (The knot does nothing. But the mother, tying it, had one calm thing to do in the dark instead of frightening, and a child feels its mother's fright the way a boat feels the tide, and a mother given a knot to tie is a mother not passing her terror down the cot. The child slept because the mother's hands were busy being sure. That is the charm. Write it down: the red thread is for the mother, always; the child was never the patient.)

5The Marriage Gone Silent

The Complaint. Two, wed nine years, gone silent, each waiting the other to speak first, both drowning polite within arm's reach. The Charm. I sent them for water, the pair, to the one well, at the low tide, and bid them bring back a full bucket between them and not a word spoke till it was drew. The Cure. They speak again. (A bucket wants two hands on the handle. That is all I did. Standing next to a person is most of it; the words are only the receipt. But if I say that to them plain they'll not do it — folk will do for a charm what they'll not do for sense — so I make it a charm, and it works, because it was always going to, because it was never the well.)

6The Man Who Could Not Grieve

The Complaint. A big hard man, buried his mother dry-eyed, and three months on could not eat, could not sleep, could not weep, and did not know what ailed him. The Charm. I gave him a task: to carry his mother's kettle up to me, on foot, the four miles, and not set it down the whole way. The Cure. He wept, about the third mile, and could not stop, and came to my gate emptied and eased and himself again. (There is nothing in the kettle. But a grief wants somewhere to go and a hard man wants a reason* to break, and four miles alone with his mother's kettle biting his fingers gave him both — the ache in the hand to hang the ache in the chest on, and the privacy of a road. He thinks the kettle was charmed. The kettle was a kettle. The charm was the four miles and the being let.)*

7The Sight, and Who Keeps It

The Complaint. (None. This entry is for the book itself.) The Charm. I have the old sight. I see the trouble under the trouble. A woman comes about a wart and I see the sister; a man about a curse and I see the fear; I see the knock behind the knock and the well behind the words, and that is a gift, and it is real, and I have never once been wrong about another living soul in ninety years and more. The Cure. Them. All of them. Mended. (Every one.)

The Last Entry — Being the One Cure I Could Never Work

There is a thing the old sight cannot see, and it is the one nearest the eye, which is itself.

I have written the charm does it on every page of this book, and I have meant it, and I will tell you now, at the finish, where no clever schoolmaster is left reading, that I have wondered. Late, on the bad nights, alone — for I am alone; they bring me their troubles but none brings me his company; a hedge-witch is a thing you visit, not a body you sit with — I have wondered whether the charm ever did a single thing at all. Whether it was ever the word, and not the bothering. Whether every cure in this book was only ever a lonely old woman giving folk a reason to do the plain kind thing they'd not do for kindness' sake — and calling it magic so they'd swallow it.

And I have put the wondering away, every time, because I could not bear it. Not because it would mean I was a fraud. Because it would mean the cure for the whole parish was only ever someone bothering to sit near them — and that I have handed that cure out, freely, ten thousand times, down all these years, to every soul but the one that keeps this book, who has sat at the end of the oldest lane in the realm being visited and never once sat with, curing everyone's loneliness with a charm and dying of her own for want of the plain thing she prescribes.

So. It is the charm that does it. I have decided. Write it down that way, and do not read this last page to anybody, and if you are a young thing come up my lane about a wart — sit a while first. Let the tea go cold. Tell me the news. Stand near the fire and near me, and let the charm wait.

That part is not for the wart. Never mind what it's for. Mm.

I know.