“Know old Betty? Aye, lived close agen her for years,” confirmed the old man. “I could tell many a queer thing about her, but tain’t right to tell, her being dead and gone mony a year.”
“But Mr. Seymour,” I leaned forward in what I hoped was a conspiratorial pose, “I’m sure our readers of the Yorkshire Post would be very interested in a firsthand account of Betty Binks, the famous Mashamshire witch.” He tossed another log on the fire, sending up a shower of sparks, and we sat staring at the flames.
“Aye, but there’s the spirit world to reckon with, lad,” he mumbled, “have you thought of that?”
In truth, I hadn’t given it any thought at all. I was a newly-hired apprentice on the paper, imbued with my responsibilities for a daily weather report. It made for dismal reading though, as the warm, bright days of summer never came in 1912. Jocund June came and went, the Dogdays followed and hay time and harvest glided by. Except for a few days in early July, there was a phenomenal lack of sunshine and an abnormal quantity of rain.
“About time you tried your hand at a bit of real-life reporting,” announced the editor, Mr. Coverdale, stopping by my desk one morning. “I’m thinking of a series on local witches and warlocks. Get yourself out to visit old Thomas Seymour over by Roundhill Reservoir. He’ll be a good eighty summers or more but I’ll be betting his memory’s as sharp as a new whistle. Hallelujah Tommy we used to call him. He could tell you a thing or two about Betty Binks, if he’s a mind to do so.”
At last, an opportunity to showcase myself with a fine piece of journalism. The start of a stellar career with headline titles and a household name. Witches and warlocks? I’d never considered Betty Binks as anything more than folklore but I had an immense belief in my powers to write up a good story.
“Why the name Hallelujah Tommy?” I asked, pencil poised to take notes. Even the permanent beading of sweat on Coverdale’s florid face couldn’t dampen my excitement.
“Seymour was a celebrated Wesleyan preacher in his day. A man with boundless energy and a quick wit, just the sort to appeal to ordinary working folks.” Coverdale coughed hard into a dingy handkerchief before lighting a cigarette. “He was one for ending his sermons with hearty ‘Hallelujahs’ and that was how he got his appellation.” The smoke enfolded me in a miasma of Coverdale’s foul breath and sour smell. “He carried on farming mindst, and then there was the business with Betty.”
“What business?” I stopped chewing the pencil that hadn’t yet written a single word.
“Was rumoured that Hallelujah Tommy made a pact with the devil. He never spoke on it, though, just retired to his farm and cut himself off from townsfolk and country folk alike.” Coverdale spat something unsavoury into his handkerchief. He thought himself a man of the world but he had some revolting habits. “Now you have all the background you need, get yourself out there and come back with a story.”
Trudging along the ridge above the reservoir, I thought about the old wives’ tales of vindictive witches who had supposedly plagued the inhabitants of this quiet valley. A thin wind whipped around me, stinging my eyes, and for the first time I didn’t feel quite so confident about my first assignment. Through wisps of low cloud, I could see the old man’s grey gabled cottage wrapped in a brooding silence broken only by the distant bleating of sheep. A maid with a lazy eye preceded me into a roomy old-world kitchen, dimly lit by mullioned windows, where Seymour sat in a sturdy armchair upholstered with a sheepskin. His handshake was as strong as his dialect and his hair the old yellow of the fleece at his back. As we neighboured in the ingle with the fire casting shadows between the low oak beams and the uneven brown flags, I could think of no better setting to speak of witchcraft.
“Old Betty wor a queer’un but not a bad sort,” he muttered at last. “There were a vast deal worse folks in them days.” He peered round the room. The house-keeper had disappeared and we were alone, yet I couldn’t shake the impression that we were being watched. I imagined her good eye spying on us. “The Burrills,” he confided, “was a family of ‘bad wishers’, gave folks a ‘bad wish’ and cows died and folks fell sick. Father once had two cows taken bad, gasping and half dead and nowt to help them. They were good cows, one a spanged un, t’other a roaned.” He frowned at me and I nodded as though I’d known the cows personally. “Father sent me to the ‘far learned’ man.” He sucked on his pipe for a while and seemed to be expecting more from me than just eager nodding.
“Where did this gentleman live?” I was already losing my own way in the story.
“A lang way off, probably Leeds or Otley,” was his not very helpful answer, but he continued his tale. “Of course the wise man knew all about them cows already even that one were a spanged un and t’other a roaned. He made up drinks for ‘em and tell’t me to give right drink to’t right cow and nowt would ail ‘em. And it happened exactly as he said. Now that wor a proof, worn’t it? How could he know one were a spanged un and t’other a roaned if he hadn’t had more power than t’ witches?” Again I didn’t have an answer, reminding me that I was the one supposed to be asking the questions.
“What became of the Burrills?” I blurted out.
“Why, they allus say there’s a Hell, and I allus believed in one. That’s what’s become of em!” He paused. “There isn’t a bit a doot about it, they wor killed.”
“How?” I was on the edge of my seat. “Who killed them?” This was not at all how I’d imagined the interview.
“By them as had more power, the ‘far learned’ folks – they got hod of em and stopped em. They was the only protection folks like us had.” He spent some time refilling his pipe before speaking again. “They couldn’t get hold of Betty, though,” he said, “she was allus too much for em because she carried a Prayer Book. They could never cross that, dost ter see.”
“So was she a bad witch, like a ‘bad wisher’, or a good witch, like the ‘far learned’ people?” Even the vocabulary was confusing.
“She had the powers and she liked to have a bit of fun, was all. She wasn’t nothing like the Burrills. One time, father was milking a cow at the farm door when Betty came by. She stood chatting and touched cow on its backside. Sure enough, the cow was ‘witched’. The next day, and every day after, cow reached barn door, she fell into a fit, rolled around for a few minutes, then got up and was right as rain til next milking. Of course, wor Betty that done it, but worn’t no harm in it. She never done anybody ony harm and she knowed every prayer in that book.”
With a trembling hand, he pulled a fresh cotton square from his pocket and pressed it to his eyes. I was embarrassed, not by his tears but by my own prying behaviour. What business did I have upsetting this old man? I doubted if our readers really wanted to know about Betty casting spells on cows. It struck me that she was probably just a simple soul and that the whole business of her being a witch was nothing more than exaggeration and loose tongues. Seymour may even have had some sort of romantic affair with her. That would explain the rumours and why he’d retreated to this out-of-the-way place.
“There’s a lot of power in prayers, lad, though it was plain ordinary folks that ‘bad wished’ her in the end.” His voice was thick and heavy. He drew back into the depths of his chair and spoke no more, punctuating his thoughts from time to time with a wet grunt or a puff of his pipe. I sat with him a while, feeling guilty in the gloomy silence and worrying about what I was going to tell Coverdale.
Coverdale wagged his finger at me. “Written your article, have you, lad?”
“No, sir.’ I still hadn’t decided what excuse to give him, but he didn’t wait for one and continued right on. Newspaper men will always fill a space, be it on the page or in a conversation, and Coverdale was no exception.
“I take it old Seymour wasn’t so sharp after all. Couldn’t get anything worthwhile out of him, I suppose. Witches and warlocks, lot of nonsense anyway. I’ll think of something else for you to get your teeth into.” I should’ve felt relieved but instead I was angry as his easy dismissal of Seymour and when he mopped his fleshy wrinkles with what looked like yesterday’s handkerchief I had a violent urge to ‘bad wish’ him.
“There’s a spirit world to reckon with, have you thought of that?” I wanted to say as he stuffed the objectionable rag back in his pocket, but he was already walking away, lighting yet another cigarette.
Originally appeared in Countryside Tales.
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