Conrad, Joseph - The Inn Of The Two Witches- A Find

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THE INN OF THE TWO WITCHES: A FIND
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1
THE INN OF THE TWO WITCHES:
A FIND (June, 1913)
By Joseph Conrad
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THE INN OF THE TWO WITCHES: A FIND
Get any book for free on: www.Abika.com
2
THIS tale, episode, experience--call it how you will--was related in the fifties of the last century
by a man who, by his own confession, was sixty years old at the time. Sixty is not a bad age
unless in perspective, when no doubt it is contemplated by the majority of us with mixed
feelings. It is a calm age; the game is practically over by then; and standing aside one begins to
remember with a certain vividness what a fine fellow one used to be. I have observed that, by an
amiable attention of Providence, most people at sixty begin to take a romantic view of
themselves. Their very failures exhale a charm of peculiar potency. And indeed the hopes of the
future are a fine company to live with, exquisite forms, fascinating if you like, but--so to speak--
naked, stripped for a run. The robes of glamour are luckily the property of the immovable past
which, without them, would sit, a shivery sort of thing, under the gathering shadows.
I suppose it was the romanticism of growing age which set our man to relate his experience for
his own satisfaction or for the wonder of his posterity. It could not have been for his glory,
because the experience was simply that of an abominable fright--terror he calls it. You would
have guessed that the relation alluded to in the very first lines was in writing.
This writing constitutes the Find declared in the sub-title. The title itself is my own contrivance
(can't call it invention), and has the merit of veracity. We will be concerned with an inn here. As
to the witches that's merely a conventional expression, and we must take our man's word for it
that it fits the case.
The Find was made in a box of books bought in London, in a street which no longer exists,
from a second-hand bookseller in the last stage of decay. As to the books themselves they were
at least twentieth-hand, and on inspection turned out not worth the very small sum of money I
disbursed. It might have been some premonition of that fact which made me say: "But I must
have the box too." The decayed bookseller assented by the careless, tragic gesture of a man
already doomed to extinction.
A litter of loose pages at the bottom of the box excited my curiosity but faintly. The close, neat,
regular handwriting was not attractive at first sight. But in one place the statement that in A.D.
1813 the writer was twenty-two years old caught my eye. Two and twenty is an interesting age in
which one is easily reckless and easily frightened; the faculty of reflection being weak and the
power of imagination strong.
In another place the phrase: "At night we stood in again," arrested my languid attention,
because it was a sea phrase. "Let's see what it is all about," I thought, without excitement.
Oh, but it was a dull-faced MS., each line resembling every other line in their close-set and
regular order. It was like the drone of a monotonous voice. A treatise on sugar-refining (the
dreariest subject I can think of) could have been given a more lively appearance. "In A.D. 1813, I
was twenty-two years old," he begins earnestly and goes on with every appearance of calm,
horrible industry. Don't imagine, however, that there is anything archaic in my find. Diabolic
ingenuity in invention though as old as the world is by no means a lost art. Lost art. Look at the
telephones for shattering the little peace of mind given to us in this world, or at the machine guns
for letting with dispatch life out of our bodies. Now-a-days any blear-eyed old witch if only
THE INN OF THE TWO WITCHES: A FIND
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3
strong enough to turn an insignificant little handle could lay low a hundred young men of twenty
in the twinkling of an eye.
If this isn't progress!... Why immense! We have moved on, and so you must expect to meet
here a certain naiveness of contrivance and simplicity of aim appertaining to the remote epoch.
And of course no motoring tourist can hope to find such an inn anywhere, now. This one, the one
of the title, was situated in Spain. That much I discovered only from internal evidence, because a
good many pages of that relation were missing--perhaps not a great misfortune after all. The
writer seemed to have entered into a most elaborate detail of the why and wherefore of his
presence on that coast--presumably the north coast of Spain. His experience has nothing to do
with the sea, though. As far as I can make it out, he was an officer on board a sloop-of-war.
There's nothing strange in that. At all stages of the long Peninsular campaign many of our men-
of-war of the smaller kind were cruising off the north coast of Spain--as risky and disagreeable a
station as can be well imagined.
It looks as though that ship of his had had some special service to perform. A careful
explanation of all the circumstances was to be expected from our man, only, as I've said, some of
his pages (good tough paper too) were missing: gone in covers for jampots or in wadding for the
fowling-pieces of his irreverent posterity. But it is to be seen clearly that communication with the
shore and even the sending of messengers inland was part of her service, either to obtain
intelligence from or to transmit orders or advice to patriotic Spaniards, guerilleros or secret
juntas of the province. Something of the sort. All this can be only inferred from the preserved
scraps of his conscientious writing.
Next we come upon the panegyric of a very fine sailor, a member of the ship's company,
having the rating of the captain's coxswain. He was known on board as Cuba Tom; not because
he was Cuban, however; he was indeed the best type of a genuine British tar of that time, and a
man-of-war's man for years. He came by the name on account of some wonderful adventures he
had in that island in his young days, adventures which were the favourite subject of the yarns he
was in the habit of spinning to his shipmates of an evening on the forecastle head. He was
intelligent, very strong, and of proved courage. Incidentally, we are told, so exact is our narrator,
that Tom had the finest pigtail for thickness and length of any man in the Navy. This appendage,
much cared for and sheathed tightly in a porpoise skin, hung half way down his broad back to the
great admiration of all beholders and to the great envy of some.
Our young officer dwells on the manly qualities of Cuba Tom with something like affection.
This sort of relation between officer and man was not then very rare. A youngster on joining the
service was put under the charge of a trustworthy seaman, who slung his first hammock for him
and often later on became a sort of humble friend to the junior officer. The narrator on joining
the sloop had found this man on board after some years of separation. There is something
touching in the warm pleasure he remembers and records at this meeting with the professional
mentor of his boyhood.
We discover then that, no Spaniard being forthcoming for the service, this worthy seaman with
the unique pigtail and a very high character for courage and steadiness had been selected as
messenger for one of these missions inland which have been mentioned. His preparations were
not elaborate. One gloomy autumn morning the sloop ran close to a shallow cove where a
landing could be made on that iron-bound shore. A boat was lowered, and pulled in with Tom
THE INN OF THE TWO WITCHES: A FIND
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4
Corbin (Cuba Tom) perched in the bow, and our young man (Mr. Edgar Byrne was his name on
this earth which knows him no more) sitting in the stern-sheets.
A few inhabitants of a hamlet, whose grey stone houses could be seen a hundred yards or so up
a deep ravine, had come down to the shore and watched the approach of the boat. The two
Englishmen leaped ashore. Either from dullness or astonishment the peasants gave no greeting,
and only fell back in silence.
Mr. Byrne had made up his mind to see Tom Corbin started fairly on his way. He looked round
at the heavy surprised faces.
"There isn't much to get out of them," he said. "Let us walk up to the village. There will be a
wineshop for sure where we may find somebody more promising to talk to and get some
information from."
"Aye, aye, sir," said Tom, falling into step behind his officer. "A bit of palaver as to courses
and distances can do no harm; I crossed the broadest part of Cuba by the help of my tongue tho'
knowing far less Spanish than I do now. As they say themselves it was 'four words and no more'
with me, that time when I got left behind on shore by the Blanche, frigate."
He made light of what was before him, which was but a day's journey into the mountains. It is
true that there was a full day's journey before striking the mountain path, but that was nothing for
a man who had crossed the island of Cuba on his two legs, and with no more than four words of
the language to begin with.
The officer and the man were walking now on a thick sodden bed of dead leaves, which the
peasants thereabouts accumulate in the streets of their villages to rot during the winter for field
manure. Turning his head Mr. Byrne perceived that the whole male population of the hamlet was
following them on the noiseless springy carpet. Women stared from the doors of the houses and
the children had apparently gone into hiding. The village knew the ship by sight, afar off, but no
stranger had landed on that spot perhaps for a hundred years or more. The cocked hat of Mr.
Byrne, the bushy whiskers and the enormous pigtail of the sailor, filled them with mute wonder.
They pressed behind the two Englishmen staring like those islanders discovered by Captain
Cook in the South Seas.
It was then that Byrne had his first glimpse of the little cloaked man in a yellow hat. Faded and
dingy as it was, this covering for his head made him noticeable.
The entrance to the wine-shop was like a rough hole in a wall of flints. The owner was the only
person who was not in the street, for he came out from the darkness at the back where the
inflated forms of wine skins hung on nails could be vaguely distinguished. He was a tall, one-
eyed Asturian with scrubby, hollow cheeks; a grave expression of countenance contrasted
enigmatically with the roaming restlessness of his solitary eye. On learning that the matter in
hand was the sending on his way of that English mariner towards a certain Gonzales in the
mountains, he closed his good eye for a moment as if in meditation. Then opened it, very lively
again.
"Possibly, possibly. It could be done."
THE INN OF THE TWO WITCHES: A FIND
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5
A friendly murmur arose in the group in the doorway at the name of Gonzales, the local leader
against the French. Inquiring as to the safety of the road Byrne was glad to learn that no troops of
that nation had been seen in the neighbourhood for months. Not the smallest little detachment of
these impious polizones. While giving these answers the owner of the wineshop busied himself
in drawing into an earthenware jug some wine which he set before the heretic English, pocketing
with grave abstraction the small piece of money the officer threw upon the table in recognition of
the unwritten law that none may enter a wine-shop without buying drink. His eye was in constant
motion as if it were trying to do the work of the two; but when Byrne made inquiries as to the
possibility of hiring a mule, it became immovably fixed in the direction of the door which was
closely besieged by the curious. In front of them, just within the threshold, the little man in the
large cloak and yellow hat had taken his stand. He was a diminutive person, a mere homunculus,
Byrne describes him, in a ridiculously mysterious, yet assertive attitude, a corner of his cloak
thrown cavalierly over his left shoulder, muffling his chin and mouth; while the broad-brimmed
yellow hat hung on a corner of his square little head. He stood there taking snuff, repeatedly.
"A mule," repeated the wine-seller, his eyes fixed on that quaint and snuffy figure.... "No,
señor officer! Decidedly no mule is to be got in this poor place."
The coxswain, who stood by with the true sailor's air of unconcern in strange surroundings,
struck in quietly--
"If your honour will believe me Shank's pony's the best for this job. I would have to leave the
beast somewhere, anyhow, since the captain has told me that half my way will be along paths fit
only for goats."
The diminutive man made a step forward, and speaking through the folds of the cloak which
seemed to muffle a sarcastic intention--
"Si, señor. They are too honest in this village to have a single mule amongst them for your
worship's service. To that I can bear testimony. In these times it's only rogues or very clever men
who can manage to have mules or any other four-footed beasts and the wherewithal to keep
them. But what this valiant mariner wants is a guide; and here, señor, behold my brother-in-law,
Bernardino, wine-seller, and alcade of this most Christian and hospitable village, who will find
you one."
This, Mr. Byrne says in his relation, was the only thing to do. A youth in a ragged coat and
goat-skin breeches was produced after some more talk. The English officer stood treat to the
whole village, and while the peasants drank he and Cuba Tom took their departure accompanied
by the guide. The diminutive man in the cloak had disappeared.
Byrne went along with the coxswain out of the village He wanted to see him fairly on his way;
and he would have gone a greater distance if the seaman had not suggested respectfully the
advisability of return so as not to keep the ship a moment longer than necessary so close in with
the shore on such an unpromising looking morning. A wild gloomy sky hung over their heads
when they took leave of each other, and their surroundings of rank bushes and stony fields were
dreary.
THE INN OF THE TWO WITCHES: A FIND
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6
"In four days' time," were Byrne's last words, "the ship will stand in and send a boat on shore if
the weather permits. If not you'll have to make it out on shore the best you can till we come
along to take you off."
"Right you are, sir," answered Tom, and strode on. Byrne watched him step out of a narrow
path. In a thick pea-jacket with a pair of pistols in his belt, a cutlass by his side, and a stout
cudgel in his hand, he looked a sturdy figure and well able to take care of himself. He turned
round for a moment to wave his hand, giving to Byrne one more view of his honest bronzed face
with bushy whiskers. The lad in goatskin breeches looking, Byrne says, like a faun or a young
satyr leaping ahead, stopped to wait for him, and then went off at a bound. Both disappeared.
Byrne turned back. The hamlet was hidden in a fold of the ground, and the spot seemed the
most lonely corner of the earth and as if accursed in its uninhabited desolate barrenness. Before
he had walked many yards, there appeared very suddenly from behind a bush the muffled up
diminutive Spaniard. Naturally Byrne stopped short.
The other made a mysterious gesture with a tiny hand peeping from under his cloak. His hat
hung very much at the side of his head. "señor," he said without any preliminaries. "Caution! It is
a positive fact that one-eyed Bernardino, my brother-in-law, has at this moment a mule in his
stable. And why he who is not clever has a mule there? Because he is a rogue; a man without
conscience. Because I had to give up the macho to him to secure for myself a roof to sleep under
and a mouthful of olla to keep my soul in this insignificant body of mine. Yet, señor, it contains
a heart many times bigger than the mean thing which beats in the breast of that brute connection
of mine of which I am ashamed, though I opposed that marriage with all my power. Well, the
misguided woman suffered enough. She had her purgatory on this earth--God rest her soul."
Byrne says he was so astonished by the sudden appearance of that sprite-like being, and by the
sardonic bitterness of the speech, that he was unable to disentangle the significant fact from what
seemed but a piece of family history fired out at him without rhyme or reason. Not at first. He
was confounded and at the same time he was impressed by the rapid forcible delivery, quite
different from the frothy excited loquacity of an Italian. So he stared while the homunculus,
letting his cloak fall about him, aspired an immense quantity of snuff out of the hollow of his
palm.
"A mule," exclaimed Byrne seizing at last the real aspect of the discourse. "You say he has got
a mule? That's queer! Why did he refuse to let me have it?"
The diminutive Spaniard muffled himself up again with great dignity.
"Quien sabe," he said coldly, with a shrug of his draped shoulders. "He is a great politico in
everything he does. But one thing your worship may be certain of--that his intentions are always
rascally. This husband of my defunta sister ought to have been married a long time ago to the
widow with the wooden legs.1"
"I see. But remember that, whatever your motives, your worship countenanced him in this lie."
The bright unhappy eyes on each side of a predatory nose confronted Byrne without wincing,
while with that testiness which lurks so often at the bottom of Spanish dignity--"No doubt the
señor officer would not lose an ounce of blood if I were stuck under the fifth rib," he retorted.
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THEINNOFTHETWOWITCHES:AFINDGetanybookforfreeon:www.Abika.com1THEINNOFTHETWOWITCHES:AFIND(June,1913)B...

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