The Midwife's Apprentice Read Online Free PDF

was no sign of the Devil on the manor road or in the woods on either side. Finally the villagers started home, and there near Roger Mustard’s cottage were the Devil’s prints, marching down the road, past Dick’s granny’s cottage, around Walter Smith’s barn, and up to the door of William the Reeve’s cottage. Again the villagers flung open the door and again found the Devil had been at work, for there was Wat finishing off William Reeve’s leg-of-mutton dinner.
    The priest decided that Wat’s gluttony and deceit were the fault of the Devil and not of the boy, so Wat’s face was not branded, but William Reeve’s bad-tempered pigs were in his care from that day on.
    The next morning it was a larger group of villagers who followed the hoofprints to the woods where the broken-toothed Jack and his friends were clearing brush from Roger Mustard’s field. Likely the Devil had tricked the boys into laziness, for they were found asleep and given a sound beating.
    Two days went by with no sign of the Devil. The villagers grew calmer, thinking themselves fortunate not to have been tempted by the Devil and then found out in so public a fashion.
    Then, on a misty morning, the Devil walked the village again. By this time no one expected to catch him, but they were eager to see whom they would find in what sin, so all the village followed the prints, except for the midwife, who was called to the manor at the last minute, and Alyce, who was elsewhere.
    The parade of villagers laughed and gossiped out of the village and along the Old North Road. As they followed the prints through a field, they grew quiet. The prints stopped near a large tree and so did the villagers. From behind the tree came the call, “Is that you, Jane, my dove?” and out leaped the baker, holding a bunch of Michaelmas daisies and a basket of bread before him.
    All was quiet. The baker’s wife stepped forward and took the flowers as the villagers turned and walked away, leaving her to sort out what was the Devil’s work and what the baker’s.
    After the departing villagers passed the river, at a spot where the water ran swift and deep, Alyce stepped out of the woods. She took something from under her skirt, threw it into the river, and followed the crowd home. And so it was that all (except the fortunate midwife) who had taunted or tormented Alyce were punished for their secret sins. After this, the Devil was never seen in the village again, and no one but Alyce knew why.
    Several days later, in a village where the river meets the sea, there washed up on the banks two blocks of wood carved in the shape of the hooves of some unknown beast. No one could figure what they were or where they had come from, so eventually Annie Broadbeam threw them into her cooking fire and enjoyed a hot rabbit stew on a cool autumn night.

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8. The Twins
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    T here being few babies born that September, Alyce and the midwife spent their days making soap and brewing cider and wine. The first occupation stank up the air for miles around, what with goose grease and mutton fat boiling away in the kettle, so that Roger Mustard in the manor fields and the miller at his wheel near the river sniffed the air and said, “Someone be making soap today.”
    The second task would lay perfume on the air and gladden noses near and far. Alyce was greatly relieved when enough soap was made to wash all the linen in England, and brewing could begin.
    First they cooked parsnips with sugar and spices and yeast and poured this into casks, where the fermenting mixture sang loud and sweet as it turned into wine. And the same they did with turnips.
    Then Alyce, with baskets tied to each end of a pole, walked with the cat to the abbey gardens to gather fallen fruit. There, lying on the ground as if scattered by God just for Alyce, were apples, red and yellow, large and small, sweet and tart, firm and juicy. She tried a few, but unable to say whether she liked best the crisp, white-fleshed