Explore "Witch Wood" by John Buchan on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
On the 22nd day of April the minister went for a walk on the Hill of Deer. He had heard news from Isobel which had awakened his numbed memory. All the long dark winter Woodilee had been severed from the world, and David had also lived in the cage and had had no thoughts beyond the parish. Calidon and its people were as little in his mind as if they had been on another planet. But as spring loosened the bonds word of the neighbourhood's doings was coming in.
"Johnnie Dow's ben the house," Isobel had said as he sat at meat. "He's come down the water frae Calidon, and it seems there's unco changes there. The laird is awa' to the wars again. Na, Johnnie didna ken what airt he had ridden. He gaed off ae mornin' wi' his man Tam Purves, baith o' them on muckle horses, and that's the last heard o' them. It seems that the laird's gude-sister, Mistress Saintserf frae Embro, cam' oot a fortnight syne to tak' chairge o' Calidon and the young lassie -- there's a lassie bides there, ye maun ken, sir, though nane o' the Woodilee folk ever cast een on her -- and the puir body was like to be smoored [smothered] in the Carnwath Moss. Johnnie says she's an auld wumman, as straucht as a wand and wi' an unco ill tongue in her heid. She fleyed Johnnie awa' frae the door when he was for daffin' wi' the serving lasses."