The Alchemist’s Cottage

This poignant short story by Alyson Hilbourne is set in the 1600s. Some said he was in league with the devil, but Esther knew the truth about Mister Gilpin . . .

ESTHER hugged her sister.

“Goodbye,” she said, sniffing back tears.

For as long as she could remember they had slept in each other’s arms on the mattress of straw, top to tail with the boys, in the small cottage rented by her parents from the estate.

“Is there no other way?” Leah murmured.

Esther shook her head. “We have little money. My choice is to marry Mister Cawdrey who is about ninety and smells of the cow byre or work for the alchemist.

“Which would you have?” Leah shivered.

“Mister Cawdrey will still be looking for a wife, no doubt, when you come of age. Find someone else.

“Papa will let you marry of your choosing.” Esther squeezed her sister’s arm. “And I will still be in the village.

“I will be able to see you on my half day and maybe more if I go to market.”

She smiled, but it did nothing to quell the fear gripping her.

“If the boys drive me to distraction can I come and live with you and the alchemist?” Leah asked. Esther grinned. “Perhaps,” she said, but she didn’t know. Everything was a huge unknown.

Esther waved goodbye to Leah, her parents and her brothers, promising to visit as soon as she was able, then set off along the lane to the village.

The sun was barely rising and a mist lay low over the fields.

The grass along the edge of the lane swayed and rippled, birds sang in the hedges and in the fields sheep called to their lambs.

It was a normal day; except for her, it wasn’t.

She pulled the neck of her gown tighter and gripped her small bundle harder.

“It will be fine,” Esther told herself, but she couldn’t push aside the rumours she’d heard about the alchemist over the years.

She trudged through the village, imagining faces at all the windows, watching her progress.

Her heart thudded and she jumped at every squeak and creak coming from the cottages.

Esther crossed the narrow wooden bridge and began the climb up the hill on the other side.

The alchemist’s cottage was invisible, moulded into the landscape, unseen one moment and then, just two steps on, as clear as day, as if appearing by magic.

Outside the cottage stood Mister Gilpin.

“Good day, Esther,” he said gravely as she approached.

Esther bobbed her head. “Good day, Mister Gilpin.”

He invited her inside with a broad sweep of his arm. “Shall we?”

Esther took a quick look at the thick walls, ferns and plants growing in the nooks and crevices, and lichencovered thatched roof that would be her home and followed him inside.

A large oak table dominated the main room.

There was a huge fireplace built into one wall with a roaring fire, a black cauldron hanging over it from a chain and steam rising.

Along the other walls were benches and above them shelves, all full of a mixture of odd things from dishes, bottles and vials to feathers and small animal skulls.

A variety of plants and herbs hung from the ceiling, some tied in bunches and others

gathered in nets.

But the most noticeable thing about the room was the stench and the smoke, which made Esther’s eyes water.

“This is my domain,” Mister Gilpin said, the sound of his deep voice ringing through Esther to the bottom of her feet.

“You will touch nothing in here unless invited.”

That’s good, Esther thought. She would prefer not to be in there. It was a foul-smelling room that needed the doors and windows flung open.

Mister Gilpin led the way round the table across the hard-packed earthen floor to the back.

A lean-to, built against the main cottage, was the kitchen. A smaller fire burned in a grate and heaped beside it was a pile of turfs.

The table was stacked with bowls, plates and spoons, most of them needing a wash, and a barrel of water stood just inside the door.

“This is your domain,” Mister Gilpin said. “And you are to keep the garden and the chickens cared for.”

He went to the small doorway that led out to a wild garden.

Chickens wandered freely. Several gnarled apple trees had small fruits and Esther could see some greens growing, but everything was higgledypiggledy and needed sorting out.

“Upstairs is my chamber, which you may clean, but not disturb,” Mister Gilpin said, glancing up, and Esther saw two tiny windows let into the thatch.

She hadn’t noticed a staircase but it must lead up from the main room.

“Any questions?” Mister Gilpin asked.

Esther turned to him. Mister Gilpin was a tall man with broken veins across his face and a hooked nose.

He was dressed all in black save for the patina of colourful stains across his smock which were so thick in places the fabric was stiff.

Esther bobbed her head.

“No, sir,” she whispered. “Good, good,” Mister Gilpin said.

He turned and strode back into the cottage, from where Esther could hear things being moved and chopped, and the clinking of vessels.

“Well, well,” she murmured to herself. “So this is to be my life.”

Esther settled into the alchemist’s cottage. Mister Gilpin was not a hard master and her duties were fair.

She sorted out the kitchen as she wanted it and turned to the garden, planting more vegetables and putting up a hazel fence to keep the chickens from scratching her seeds.

Mister Gilpin gave her coin for flour and she exchanged eggs for fish in the market.

Esther kept out of the workroom as much as she could.

She hated the smell and Mister Gilpin was busy in there from early morn until late evening, making up potions, boiling, banging, pounding and pouring.

“Horse dung,” Mister Gilpin said one day when he noticed her wrinkling her nose. “Quite the best thing for holding temperature.”

Villagers, many of whom Esther knew, came to the door, secretly and furtively.

She heard conversations in snatched whispers and glimpsed vials and bowls handed over to be secreted under cloths or cloaks before people parted with gifts or coins and stole away again.

On Sunday Esther went to church, although Mister Gilpin did not.

“Is it true? Does he have dealings with witches?

Does he have a medium or familiar? Leah asked. Esther laughed.

“No. He is kindness itself. I’ve seen no cats and the only rooster around is in the garden and more my friend than his.”

“Can he speak with angels?” Leah asked.

Esther shrugged.

“He says he would learn all the ways of the universe,” she said.

“Tsk. He would do better coming to church and obeying the way of the Lord,” her mother interrupted. “Rather than consort with the devil.”

“There is no devilry,” Esther said. “Tis all experimentation he does, and good.”

She pressed her lips together and said nothing about having seen Mister Gilpin at full moon, dancing in the garden as he gathered herbs.

The moonlight had shone into the kitchen where she slept in a small box-bed, and she had looked out through the cracks in the door.

Leah continued to question her each week at church, however, and Esther continued to defend Mister Gilpin.

She was able to prove his worth to her family some weeks later when Leah arrived breathless and panting at the alchemist’s cottage.

“Tis Father.” Leah puffed, finding Esther working in the garden. “He’s had an accident. Cut his leg to the bone . . .”

Esther gasped.

“Let me ask Mister Gilpin for something,” she said. “You wait here.”

“No!” Leah said. “I came for you, not for magic.”

“It’s not magic,” Esther said. “Just a poultice made from herbs or a medicine from plants. Something that may help.”

She knocked lightly on the door to the workroom.

“My father, Mister Gilpin. He’s had an accident.”

“Yes, child,” Mr Gilpin said, handing her a small bowl. “Here is anemone to clean the wound.

“Tell you mother to apply a poultice of bread and yeast as well.

“This is the juice of willow for fever and bedstraw to halt the bleeding.

“Go with your sister, but be back by nightfall, please.”

“Thank you kindly.”

Esther bobbed him a curtsey.

She was shocked by her father’s appearance. He was writhing with pain and his leg bled profusely.

She explained to her mother how the various things Mister Gilpin had sent worked.

Three days later, Leah came back to the alchemist’s cottage.

“The fever has broken,” she said, a broad smile brightening her face.

“And the wound seems to be healing and has not gone bad. We think, we

“Is it true? Does Mister Gilpin have dealings with witches?”

hope, he should mend.”

Esther breathed a sigh of relief.

She had never doubted for a minute Mister Gilpin’s ability to help her father, but it was good to hear of his recovery from Leah.

She would thank Mister Gilpin when she served him supper. She was, she realised, no longer afraid of him, but respected and liked him.

She had even managed to part him from his smock and wash it, but many of the stains were deeply ingrained in the fabric and wouldn’t be washed off.

Over the summer Mister Gilpin began taking Esther out foraging in the hedgerows, pointing out plants and explaining their uses.

Then, as summer faded into autumn, they gathered supplies to keep Mister Gilpin stocked through the winter.

He encouraged Esther to hang the plants up to dry or to grind them and put them in bowls to keep.

She found that, as well as her household chores, she was acting as an apprentice for him in the workroom and every day was one of learning and activity.

Esther was so busy and engaged at the cottage that she was not aware of the gossip in the village until Leah came to the door one afternoon.

“Have you heard?

The witch finder is coming.” Leah looked meaningfully into the cottage.

Esther thought of the thunderous sermons delivered from the pulpit by the minister in church.

He had probably invited the judge himself, she thought angrily.

A cold finger of fear tracked down her spine as she remembered all the hushed visits from villagers, sneaking up to the cottage under cover of dark, and the whispered, guarded conversations they had with Mister Gilpin.

There would be no loyalty from the village. If they needed a witch they’d find one, and Mister Gilpin was as good an offering as any.

Sure enough, early the next morning before the sun had risen there was sharp banging at the door.

“Open up, Gilpin. We know you are in there!”

Mister Gilpin opened the door and was grabbed by the posse of men.

Esther heard the words “devilry . . . popery . . . witchcraft . . .” muttered.

Tears sprang to her eyes. These were folk who but a few days ago would ask for help in time of need.

“Take him and lock him up. Let justice deal with him,” a loud-mouthed villager by the name of

John Perry said.

She peeped round the door.

“Stay out of sight, Esther, if you don’t want to be accused, too,” John Perry said as the men left.

Esther fretted. For a week Mister Gilpin was kept in the lock-up.

She tended to the garden and tidied the house but the weight of worry was heavy on her.

As she worked she looked up, expecting to hear sounds from the workroom.

The fire had died out and the air cleared, but it made the place feel cold and inhospitable.

Leah came to visit.

“Come back home, Esther,” she said. “It’s not good for you to stay here with Mister Gilpin confined. You’ll be safer there.”

Leah wandered into the workroom and began peering at the things on the big table.

“Don’t touch!” Esther warned. “Mister Gilpin will know if anything is disturbed.”

She looked around the now familiar space.

“I cannot leave here,” she said. “I need to be here when he gets back.”

Leah stared at her.

“But he may not be back, Esther. If they find him guilty –”

“I know. I know.” Esther wrung her hands together.

She didn’t want to go when the witch finder held his court at the inn, but the whole village would be there, and it would be best, she decided, if she knew what was happening.

She pushed her way inside the inn. The air was thick with the smell of unwashed bodies as people pressed close together.

Nobody noticed her hiding at the back.

Mister Gilpin was pulled into the centre of the room. His smock was gone, his face gaunt. His hands were tied in front of him.

Esther could see the rope was chafing his wrists. He could use anemone and comfrey for that, she thought.

Several villagers edged forward in order to accuse Mister Gilpin.

John Perry had a complaint about his father’s death.

“He gave him a cure,” John shouted to the judge, pointing at Mister Gilpin. “But it caused his death.” Esther glared.

Everyone knew that John’s father had fallen and had a bleed on the brain. There was nothing anyone could do but make his last few days more comfortable.

“I’ve seen him out at full moon, consorting with the devil on the hillside,” someone else called out.

Esther watched the judge shift uncomfortably in his seat. He stretched out one leg and winced in pain, stifling a cry.

His portly figure barely fitted in the chair that had been provided for him and each time he spoke or moved his heavy jowls shook.

Horseradish and ground elder, Esther thought, for gout in that leg.

“Here’s one who can tell you what he’s like,” someone said and Esther felt hands on her.

She was pushed forward into the space near Mister Gilpin.

“What do you know of the accused?” the judge asked, another spasm of pain crossing his face.

“I know he’s a good man who has helped many in this parish,” Esther said clearly, trying to keep the fear she felt out of her voice.

She heard whispers and murmurs behind her but could not say if people were agreeing with her.

“No-one could have saved Mister Perry’s father,” she added. “He fell and banged his head.

“Mister Gilpin has saved others, however, my father included.

“I’ve seen no consorting with the devil, no familiars or popery. We live a simple life.”

There were sniggers behind her but she kept her eyes fixed firmly on the judge.

He stretched his leg and winced again.

“And, if I may say, Mister Gilpin may have a poultice for your leg.” Esther pointed at the judge’s foot, which he had rested on a stool.

The judge gave a sharp intake of breath.

“Ground elder and horse radish, sir,” Mister Gilpin said. “I have some in my workshop.”

“Enough!” The judge turned to the villagers. “I find no evidence of sorcery in this man. Let him go.”

There was a collective sigh from the onlookers, most of whom, Esther decided, had been waiting for a burning.

The judge leaned forward and addressed Mister

Gilpin personally.

“Back to your workshop and bring me the cure immediately before I change my mind,” he whispered.

“And someone, find me some ale and roast fowl. I have not eaten for days.”

The villagers began shuffling out, some chattering, some disappointed the show had not gone on longer.

Esther caught up with Mister Gilpin on the hill back to the cottage.

“I have to thank you, Esther,” Mister Gilpin said.

“You saved my father,” Esther said. “I am pleased to see you released. Tis only fair.”

“Maybe, but helping isn’t always appreciated. I’m afraid life cannot go on as it was.”

When they got to the cottage Mister Gilpin immediately prepared the cure for the judge and instructed Esther to take it back to the inn.

When she returned she found Mister Gilpin had packed his most valuable possessions in a hand cart.

“The cottage is yours,” he said to Esther. “I may pass this way again, but in the meanwhile it is yours.”

“B – but . . .” Esther stuttered. “You can’t leave!”

“I won’t be safe here any longer.

“I shall start again elsewhere and I can think of no-one more worthy to have the cottage,” Mister Gilpin said.

“You already have some skills in healing. There is work you can do.

“Be wary, however, for some folk are not so friendly.”

Esther’s eyes filled with tears as she watched

Mister Gilpin push the cart up the hill and out of sight.

Not so many months ago she had been dreading coming to the alchemist’s cottage, but now the place felt like home.

She wouldn’t leave.

She would ask Leah to live with her, and since Mister Gilpin had left some of his books she would learn more of herbs and healing, if she could work out the lettering, and keep the tradition of the alchemist’s cottage going.

But first she flung open the windows to clear the air in the workroom . . .

The End.