HOBBLING MARY.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 6126, 12 March 1898, Page 2

HOBBLING MARY.

[Bt Gbant Allen.]' Author of "An African Millionaire," "What's Bred in the Bone," "Devil's Die," " Tents of Shem," _o„ &o. (All Rights Reserved.) " Aunt Mary ! Aunt Mary ! You come here ! I want you." It was an imperious voice, and it called out angrily. "What dat Pickney calling me forP" Aunt Mary muttered, grumbling. "Him more trouble, dat one gal, nor all de pickney in de house put togedder. Him don't got white man's temper; him got black man in him heart, I comin', Miss Roßh, I comin'. I Wish I rid ob dat pickney. White people iB a 'ble_sed- people ; hab blessed temper. Dat dai' ' pickney 'got black heart: call all day long, 'Aunt Mary! Aunt Mary!'" ."' - And, putting herself in motion, i_e old wonian hobbled 'lip with difficulty .to the' drawing-room. • " L" ■■■•'"''**-'■ "Aunt Mary," Rosa cried, "why don't you come faster when I call you P Here have I been for the last ten minutes waiting 1 for you to come ahd bring a cloth to wipe this ink up with ! And now you've brought no cloth ! Go down and get' one at once ! You might have known 1 . wanted one." " How I goin' to know you want oloth ?" Aunt Mary exclaimed, 'not unreasonably, but with equal anger, "howl know you 'pill do ink ? " Dat piekney too much trouble, I say, for anybody. Not a piokney in all Jamaica gib so much work in a house as dat one. But I goin' to be even wit, • him ; I pink him yet ; me fader don't be Obeah man from Calabar for nuffin." Now Obeah is the West African and West Indian form of witchcraft, dreaded almost as much by the whites as by the black people. Aunt Mary was universally regarded as a. witch. She had fully made made up her mind to work any harm Bhe >■ could on Rosa when opportunity -offered. And she believed in her own power. , ' She had not long to wait for a ohanoeyofi using it. Two days later, as she wassitting\ in the shade, under the big hibisons tree it/ the back garden, Peter Farrell passed thjft way. .... , £*. " Hey, missus," he cried, looking oyer^e low wall, at the wizened old crope,' " youK, heerd de newß ? Heerd what come happen P Isaac Cling, him drown, out swimmin' in de harbour. Him fader bringin' home de body just now. It will be wake to-night. Yo come along to Mistah Clings and see de fun out." Aunt Mary rose slowly and hobbled to the wall. It was her nature to hobble. "Hobbling Mary," indeed, the negroes called her. Sure enough, down the street of low white wooden houses, whioh led by a long decline to the sea, she saw a wild procession of negro girls aud women, Burrounding four men, bare to the waist, who carried between them on a shutter the naked dead body of a short black boy, about thirteeen or fourteen. The women were wailing and beating their bosoms in their wild, half-savage fashion; the men on the contrary, walked on, ereot and. unconcerned paying little heed to the repeated adjurations, addressed to the boy's soul by the women mourners to comeback again to his body. It was a ghastly speotaole. Aunt Mary leaned over and watch the corpse pass, with a curious light in her bleared old eyas. She loved a corpse. "De piokney will do," she muttered to herself, in true negro fashion. "De pickney jumby am de ting for' to settle Miss Rosa !" A jumby is Weefc Indian for a ghost or spirit. Corpses are not kept long in that- tropical climate. The wake was to be to-night, the funeral to-morrow. Aunt Mary knew she had no time to lose if she wished to take advantage of the opportunity offered her. For, like nvoßt of those who practise magic, she firmly believed in the power and efficacy of her own enchantments. " I get a lock of Missy Rosa hair when 1 comb him out to-night," she muttered. with a significant glance at Rosa's window. Then, mumbling and smiling to herself, with her toothless mouth, Bhe stumbled back, well pleased, to her seat under the hibiscus. At seven o'clock that evening Bosa's pretty fair head was thrust once more out of her bedroom window. There was a bell in the room, to be sure, by pure force of European custom; but nobody ever rang it. It sounded in the kitohen, while the servants were almost invariably to be found gossipping over the wall in the baok garden. "Aunt Mary ! Aunt Mary !" the young girl cried, in her imperious voice. "Are you going to keep me here waiting all night to have my hair done? It's almost dinner time. Make haste ! Of all the lazy, idle, good-for-nothing nigger women I ever knew " But Aunt Mary jumped up with unwonted agility, and answering briskly, "I comin', honey ; I comin'," hobbled up the stairs as fast as her feeble old legs would carry her. A prettier buckra lady of seventeen Aunt Mary had never seen than Rosa Mackonochio. As she dressed her hair the old woman gloated over her. " Him make a pretty corpse," she thought to herself more than once, gazing at Rosa's bright, girlish face in the glass before her. " Him so young and fresh ! " And even when Rosa exclaimed impatiently, as was her wont, "Do be careful, Aunt Mary! You're pulling my hair out," the old woman smiled on to herself benignly. " Him soon get ober dat," she muttered to herself. " Him lose all dem ways when de piokney jumby trouble her." By-and-bye she came to a harder tangle than all. The comb stuok for a moment. Quick as lightning Aunt Mary bad snapped up the scissors tbat lay by her side, and snipped off the end of the offending lock with it. Rosa turned round suspiciously. " You've out my hair," she cried in an angry voice. " What have you done with the pieces ?" With a dexterity acquired by years of practice the negro woman secreted half the lock of golden hair in the folds of her bandanna, and handed the other half, with the most innocent air in the world, ) to Rosa. j " Dere it am, missy," she answered. y . "You've given me allP" the girl asked, f once more, in a doubtful whisper. \ " Yeas, missy, I gib you all," the negreaa . ■' answered glibly. " See here !" and she held out both hands, palm open downwards, like the conjuror who assures ,you that there's no deception. Her arms Were bare ; she had no sleeve to hide it in. Rona took the look carefully in her hand, with curious precision, and rolled it up in a Binall piece of paper. Then she burnt it all to ashes in the flame of the candle, and crumpling it in her hand flung the frizzled remains out of the open window. It iB, dangerous to let a witch or wizard get a lock of your hair or a paring of your nail., for if they once possess themselves of any-? thing that has formed a part of your body they can do dire witchcraft with it afterwards as they will upon the remainder. About ten o'clock that night, in her best old dress, Aunt Mary hobbled off to the wake over Isaac. All friends and neighbours in Port Antonio were gathered together in the single small room of tha stuffy little cottage. The body lay in its coffin in the midst; men talked and smoked; women wailed and keened; and rum flowed like water. It was a most gruesome carouse, a melancholy rejoicing — the chief publio amusement of the Jamaican negro. They love the excitement. When Aunt Mary hobbled in, half a moment's silence supervened to receive her. As the daughter and representative of a genuine acknowledged West African Obeah man, of true Fanti origin, she had a place of importance in all such funeral cermonies. She moved over to the coffin and admired the corpse with professional ardour. "Him beautifully laid out," she said, gazing at it. jumby don't goin' to gib no trouble." Then she leaned over the shroud, and, unseen by the rest, thrust the lock of Rosa's hair between the dead boy's fingers. Ai she did bo, she whispered itt th*

iearpee. ear in a ghost-like voice the one /word— " Remember !" The fun at ding's that night was fast jand furious. Not till the sun rose did (tfeex^ul.the, coffin .down..... Meanwhile the arum -went round, and the women keened more mournfully than ever. There was ■flinging and dancing. Aunt Mary sat mumbling at the dead boy's head ; and as the lid was placed above his face she murmured once more, this time in her father's native Fanti, the same one ominous ■word, "Remember!" Two days later Martha Hone, the negro wasber-woman, brought home Rosa Mac•konochie's two white lawn dresses, most 'neatly crimped and ironed.**** "You hearin' what dem say in', missy," she asked, " all ober Port Antonio ? " ,r No; what news?" Rosa inquired, (wondering in her heart whether people could already have noticed what marked attention Captain Galloway was showing her. Martha hesitated a second. It was a delicate matter. " Well, it's better to tell you, missy," |fihe went on slowly, " dem sayin* dat when [Maurice Kinley aorew down Isaac ding's jcoflßn de udder night at him fader's, him tsee a look ob buckra hair in de nigger jnckney's fingers." .""vvliat sort, bf hair?" Rosa cried, clapipbig ber hand instinctively her hand instinctively to" the part of her own' head, where she had felt the cold touch of Aunt (Mary's scissors. " Dem sayin' it yaller, like Missy Rosa's own,** Martha answered, staring hard at her. Rosa's face was white as death. She Icnew what it meant. The Obeah womau mad despatched the black boy's ghost to wander over the world, with a magic command that he should trouble the soul of the man or woman whose lock of hair had been placed in his hands to give him power ovor them. That same evening Captain Galloway proposed to her. She went to bed flushed with, a young girl's triumph. He was so (handsome. For the first half hour she thought of nothing but Seymour Galloway ■—the best-born young Englishman at that moment in the island. Then, suddenly, tiirough the open window, out of the moou3ifc night, one of the great black frnit-bats cf the country wheeled flapping into the room." A turkey-buzzard vulture screamed Once from the house top. Familiar episodes, these, of tropical existence, but on -J&is particular night they disturbed her peverißL She looked and wondered. What Vneant these portents ? X,The fruit-bat settled down on tho wardjtfbba opposite : by the dim moonlight, which penetrated the room, she could see Bis great black eyes fixed firmly upon her. In a moment a weird feeling crept over 'ler bodily. She trembled and shivered, and hid her head under the bed-clothes. Could this be the visible form of Isaac Clings jumby ? Tbe thought was appalling. For an hour she lay there in unspeakable torment. Then, unable to contain her terror any longer, Bhe raised her head once more with an' effort from the bedclothes. Her action disturbed the fruit-bat from his perch, where he hung, head downward, with his face turned outward and backward towards her. He dislodged himself and flew towards the bed. Rosa hid beneath the clothes again, but felt him alight on her breast, only separ ited from herself, in that warm climate, by the sheet and her night-dress. She sobbed in terror. She sobbed herself to sleep. When she woke at three o'clock the fruit-bat was gone, but the vulture flew about in long curves past the window. ! From that evening forth, every night of the year, Rosa Mackonochie saw, or fancied she saw, in one form or another, Isaac .ling's jumby. It pursued her everywhere. Sometimes it was visibly present as bird or beast, or lizard on the wall; Sometimes— and that was worse — she did . not behold it, but felt its presence. Silently, inaudibly, it Btood by the bedside and grinned and jabbered at her. It never left her. - Seymour Galloway noticed she grew pale and preoccupied. " The prospect of a long engagement," he thought. The negroes knew better. They whispered among themselves, "De pickney jumby trouble her." #...■» * * * Eight months later the Colonial Asylum at Half-way Tree received a new inmate — a beautiful girl of eighteen with golden hair and harassed blue eyes,. who looked perpetually around her as tbough something or somebody were dogging her footsteps. "Thafs he!" she would say. "That's he! Oh, help me!" And Aunt Mary, lolling in the shade of the hibiscus, muttered to herself with a gratified smile — " Dat nigger pickney good boy. Him do what I tell him. I tink at first him goin' to kill de Missy, but de Missy too strong for him; dem got good con3titooshun for true, dem Mackonochie. However, him do what all so good : him drive him to 'sylum. Clobber chile, dat pickney : bhaa know what I want; it all de same to me whedder him mad or him dead, so long as I get the missy out ob de house, wid him troublin', fcroubHn' !" " Insanity due to superstitious fright," the asylum doctor called it. But the negroes gave a simpler diagnosis — " De ■■nmHiT trnnHin' Vifm " I