suppose in your former profession they’d call it black magic,” said Long John with hoarse dread.
“Witchcraft!” exclaimed the magistrate.
“Aye, aye, but that comes later. First, I tramped through the forest, scavenging wood for me fire, when I comes upon a queer little house all made of earth. As I approached, seeking shelter, I hears a sweet, high voice from above and it’s crying out warning — warning to me, in the tongue of the Celts. So I looks up, and bless me soul, but there, hanging above me, is a cage of pine boughs in full green needle, and in the cage — a poor Celtic princess, imprisoned nigh on three hundred year by a wicked Druid wizard what sought her girlish beauty!”
“I say!” marvelled the magistrate.
“She couldn’t have had much ‘girlish beauty’ still left if she were there three hundred years,” remarked Bonnie Mary tartly.
“Er … I believe I had mentioned the sinister glamour the evil Druid had set upon the place,” intoned Long John solemnly. “It must’ve kept back all them ravages of age and such.”
“Yes, but the young lady … what did you do?” asked the magistrate.
“Weeeeee-eell,” said Long John, taking a long draw on his pipe. “The lass told me her jailer were away for a time gathering herbs for his potions, and how very much obliged she’d be should I choose to lower her prison and set her free. ‘Nothing would be easier,’ says I.
“Well, I’d just secured her release from the cage, when blimey! If that poxy old Druid don’t burst out of the trees and set to with his spells. Well, the girl, o’ course, she’s off to parts unknown, and that Druid, he attempts his wicked enchantments on me person! And I, dashing young flash I was in them days, would have none of it, and promptly spit him upon me sword like so!” In demonstration, Long John gave a quick thrusting gesture with his bread knife in the magistrate’s direction, causing the poor man’s heart to flutter in his chest something terrible.
“Then, off I plunges into the woods again with a thank-ye to my sweet cutlass here. Yet soon I knew how lucky I was to walk the forest by day, so alive it was in the gathering dark with the sounds of animal malice. I quickened me pace to make the beach before all light was gone, but the goings were slow … powerful slow. So I stopped a moment to catch me breath, and I sees how a stick on the ground had a most curious shape. It were like no stick I’d ever seen, with wooden branches all splayed out like … like …”
“L-like what?” asked the new magistrate, his voice shaking.
Long John closed his eyes and shuddered. “Like a man’s hand.”
“Dear Lord,” whispered the magistrate.
“And then I seen that them trees all around me wasn’t of natural proportions for trees … but they was right in shape and size for somethin’ else …”
“What?”the magistrate asked breathlessly.
“Men,” groaned Long John. “They was trees what used to be men!”
“Good God!”
“And I pinched me skin and seen it had gone all brown, rough, and senseless as old tree bark. I wanted to run, but found I was held fast, me foot stuck in the ground! I tried to wrench meself free, but now I was stuck up to me ankle in the soil, unable to budge. That’s when I realized … I’d grown roots! Aye, roots tough as little iron anchors stuck down deep in the ground.
“And then the rest of the change began to take place! Me soft flesh went all to hard wood, heavy and stiff. And I sees with sick fascination that awful bark, all cunning-like, making its way creeping up me thigh and I knew that none could help me now. I’d be a spruce by sunup!”
“Heaven help you!”
“Aye, sir, it did, for it was then and only then did this poor sinner turn to our Lord and pray! Pray as I done long ago, a poor innocent child unschooled in them rotten vices of the world.”
Little Jane tried for a moment to picture her father as a child, unschooled in “them rotten vices of the world,” but found it quite impossible.
“And like magic itself them holy words beat back death’s hand and the advance of the Druid’s devilish magic,” continued Long John. “And in the darkness I felt the blood return to me veins as the wicked tree sap left ’em. Beneath the crust I felt me flesh stir to life once more, me false skin of bark crack and fall away like scales from a fish!
“But then I saw that some changes was too long set to reverse. Me foot, which had first went to root in the earth, had gone to sap and timber all through, and I’ll be if it didn’t remain that way, good as any tree. And though I prayed again, I come to figure that the Lord above, blessed cove what he is, left me this as a reminder and punishment of me wicked ways. And I trust it’ll stay stubborn wood till I’m old and grey,” he said wistfully, giving his peg leg a little knock, as if to demonstrate its wooden nature to all.
The preacher jumped at the sound. “M-m-my goodness, how terrible!”
“Ah no, it ain’t so bad. I tell you, though I plod God’s green earth on this bit o’ timber the rest of me days, I praise Providence for his mercy what chose to save me from such a fate as befell them other men,” he said, his voice taking on an eerie whisper. “Them what is to this very day still dropping leaves in that cursed forest over the mouldering bones of their godless master!”
“Lord above!” cried the former preacher, his face white as the cap of a wave.
“Ah, well,” shrugged the pirate with a slight smile. “’Twas a time and place quite far from these sunny shores. And I thank ye, Reverend, for bendin’ an ear to this poor old sailor’s tale. Bless your heart.”
With that, Long John placed a pouch upon the table. The new magistrate took it in his hand, feeling the circular shape of the coins within through the rough weave of the fabric, much larger and heavier than any he ever handled in his life. For a second his mind danced with possibilities. What he could achieve with this in a ministry in some truly ungodly place — like New York City!
“Sir,” he protested, “are you certain?”
“For your good works, Reverend, should you ever wishes to continue your ministrations to the heathen abroad, may they never be interrupted again by lack of funds,” intoned Long John as fervently as any prayer. “Perhaps it’s Providence, as well, what brought ye here, on your way to fulfilling your secret desire of ministering to them. The world is filled with signs, ye see.”
“But how did you know? Who told you of my wish?” asked the new magistrate, wide-eyed.
“The wise man pays attention to what dolphins says,” replied the pirate cryptically. “The bloke what picks a shellfish in his prime, he too must disclose a jaded squid.”
The new magistrate bobbed his head sagely, as if this made the commonest of sense.
Bonnie Mary turned her back and Little Jane guessed rightly from the slight shaking of her mother’s shoulders that she was trying to stifle a laugh.
“To generosity, brave youth, and fair maidens!” exclaimed the magistrate, impetuously raising his glass. “And may Providence ever smile upon thee!”
“Aye!
