Midsummer's Eve by Philippa Carr Read Free Book Online

like at all; she was always ready, during these exhausting days, to retire to her bedroom at an early hour.
    Jacco said we would meet just after eleven o’clock at the stables. There would be no one about, as almost everyone else—if they weren’t in bed—would be down at the harbour or on the moor.
    I was there on time. The heat during the day had been great and the night was warm still. The sky was clear and there seemed to be more stars than usual for there was only a faint light from the waning moon’s slim crescent.
    By the time we reached the moor it was a few minutes after midnight and the bonfires were already being lighted. I could see others springing up in the distance. It was a thrilling sight. Several of the people were there wearing costumes of an early age … clothes which they must have found in trunks and attics. Some of the farmers had old straw hats and smocks and leggings which must have belonged to their grandfathers. It was difficult to recognize some of them in the dim light. They seemed like different people. I saw Jack Gort with some sort of helmet on his head. He was tall and did not look so much like the man from whom we bought our fish on the quay as some marauding Viking. Several of the young men carried torches which they swung round their heads in a circular movement to indicate the movement of the sun in the heavens. The moors looked different; people looked different; the night had imbued them with a certain mysterious quality.
    I saw several of the servants from Cador with Isaacs.
    “Keep well back,” warned Jacco.
    I obeyed, realizing that we must not be seen for if we were, we should probably be sent back.
    I thought, as I watched that scene, that this was how it must have been centuries ago. The people who had danced round the bonfire must have looked a little different, but the ceremony was the same. They said nowadays that the purpose was to bring a blessing on the crops; in the old days it had been—so Rolf had told us—what was called a fertility rite which concerned all living things, including people, and when they had worked themselves up into a frenzy with their dancing, they crept off together to make love.
    One of the women started chanting and the others joined in. It was a song which had come down through the ages. I could not understand the words, for they were in the Cornish language.
    Then I saw a tall figure who stood out among all the others. He looked like a monk in the grey robe which enveloped him.
    I knew that robe. Rolf! I thought.
    People clustered round him. It was as though they were making him master of the ceremonies.
    Up to that time it had been like many another Midsummer’s Eve which I had watched from my parents’ carriage—the only difference being that on this night Jacco and I were here alone and in secret. But I was sure that if my parents had thought of it they would have ordered one of the grooms to bring us here to see the bonfire.
    And then suddenly it ceased to be like any other Midsummer’s Eve.
    The robed figure moved apart from the crowd; he approached the bonfire, and clutching his robe about him, he leaped high in the air … right over the bonfire. There was a deep silence as the flames appeared to lick his robe. Then he was clear on the other side.
    A shout went up: “Bravo! Bravo!”
    “’Ee be free of the witches for a year,” cried someone.
    “The fire didn’t touch ’un.”
    “He did jump right clear.”
    I saw one of the barmaids from the Fisherman’s Rest run up to the fire. She threw up her arms and attempted to leap over it.
    I heard her scream as she fell into the flames.
    Jack Gort was close by; he immediately dragged her out; her dress was on fire. I watched in shocked silence while they beat out the flames.
    “How … crazy!” said Jacco.
    “Papa forbade them to do it,” I said.
    People crowded round the barmaid, who was lying on the grass.
    “I wonder if she’s badly hurt,” I whispered.
    “They’ll