Walter Thirsk—Mistress Beldam

Walter Thirsk’s attachment to Mistress Beldam takes shape as a mixture of protective concern and unsettling attraction. After seeing her arrive at the harvest gathering, he accepts Charles Kent’s request to find her and offer shelter, while recognizing that his wish to help is not wholly disinterested.

First Encounter and Protective Errand

Mistress Beldam appears at the barn’s entrance while the harvest revel is at its liveliest. Her presence changes the gathering: the music stops, the dancers turn toward her, and Walter imagines that she might be welcomed into their circle and made their Gleaning Queen. She withdraws instead, leaving the villagers unable to resume their celebration. The scene establishes both her separation from the community and Walter’s impulse to respond to it. He hopes to find her when he leaves, not only because the interruption has moved him, but because Charles Kent has asked him to bring her back to the barn, where she can sleep under shelter rather than alone outdoors.

Attraction and the Motives of His Search

The request to find Mistress Beldam gives Walter Thirsk a proper duty, but it does not account for the force with which he undertakes it. After the harvest gathering, he briefly changes his clothes, takes a broad-brimmed hat and leather jerkin, and heads through the rain toward her rough shelter at The Bottom. His thoughts are divided: he wants to honor Charles Kent’s request and offer her protection, yet admits that his interest is not entirely generous. The errand becomes a way to approach a woman who has unsettled him, under the cover of service to his master.

Walter measures this new disturbance against his enduring attachment to his dead wife, Cecily. His first sight of Cecily had promised a homely, warm and lasting future; it brought calm and hope rather than the sudden upheaval he now associates with Mistress Beldam. He does not treat the difference as evidence that his earlier love has vanished. Instead, the contrast makes his present response feel unfamiliar and uncomfortable, sharpened by the long years of his widowhood. His attraction is bound up with uncertainty: he moves between fearlessness and apprehension as he nears the place where he expects to find her.

The search is not private. Walter hears and glimpses other men moving through the night, and understands that they, too, may be looking for Mistress Beldam. He distinguishes his own purpose by the fact that Charles Kent has openly sent him, while some of the other men have wives or families from whom they must conceal their movements. Even so, Walter recognizes the danger in his own thoughts: he imagines that she might prefer a cottage bed to the shelter of the barn, and that he might dry her with his injured hand. He frames that gesture as making amends, but knows that desire has entered the act of caretaking.

At her ruined shelter, Walter calls for her repeatedly, using only the respectful title Mistress because he does not know her name. No answer comes. Whether she has taken refuge elsewhere or hears him and refuses to respond remains unknown; the encounter ends without contact, leaving his concern and attraction unresolved.

Protective Concern and Shared Vigilance

Walter Thirsk’s concern becomes more than a private attraction when he considers the danger Mistress Beldam faces. As the bloodstained velvet shawl found at her lodging may connect her to Willowjack’s death, he and Philip Earle recognize that the authorities may soon identify her and search for her. Walter insists that she is the one who has most to fear. His attention shifts from imagining a private encounter to judging how exposed she is to men empowered to pursue her.

That concern is not based on an expectation that she will return his feelings or accept his help. Walter and Philip Earle agree to look for her, while fearing that an encounter with the constables could place her at further risk. Walter reasons that she will come by night to feed and comfort her surviving male kinsman, who remains confined at the village cross. He sees this as a duty she will not abandon, and he and Philip plan to wait unseen for her there. His attachment thus takes the form of watchfulness: he is drawn to Mistress Beldam, but the immediate purpose of waiting is to give her warning and protection.

An Attachment Without Mutual Knowledge

Walter Thirsk’s growing concern remains bounded by what he does not know. He has heard her called Mistress Beldam, but lacks her name and receives no answer when he calls for her; the respectful title marks a distance he cannot cross by imagination alone. His sense of what she needs is therefore partly conjectural. At the barn, he pictures her joining the villagers’ circle, while later he supposes she will risk returning at night to care for her imprisoned kinsman. In both cases, he interprets her through duties and hopes rather than through anything she has told him.

That uncertainty keeps the attachment from becoming a shared romance. Mistress Beldam withdraws from the feast, does not respond at her shelter, and remains the object of Walter’s searching attention rather than its participant. His wish to protect her may be genuine, but his own account acknowledges that attraction colors the service he offers. The relationship is consequently defined by an asymmetry: he watches, worries, and imagines a possible welcome, while her intentions and feelings remain her own and largely unknown to him.