A TALE OF WITCHES
Master Simon’s farseeing eyes had certainly discerned the truth when he
said that a garden only came to its own when tended by the children’s
children of the man who planted it. Fair as were the flowers and shrubs
in his own time, they grew steadily more beautiful as the years passed,
until people of Hopewell would always bring their visitors from afar to
see such glories of leaf and blossom. Long after Master Simon had
slipped away to walk in the brighter garden of Paradise, long after the
place belonged to Margeret and then to her children, the villagers would
still speak of it as Master Simon’s Garden.
The hawthorn bush that had come from England as a tiny sprig and that
had been just tall enough to shade Margeret as she sat on the grass
playing with her dolls, was, when her children came to frolic about it,
a great round tower of thorny strength where they could play
king-of-the-castle to their heart’s content. The hedges about the
Queen’s Garden, when Margeret’s daughter, Alisoun, was eighteen, were so
high above the girl’s golden-brown head that her finger-tips could
scarcely touch the top. And by the time Alisoun herself was married to
Master Gilbert Sheffield and had children of her own, the big,
over-hanging, linden tree had grown to resemble a whole forest of
slender trunks springing from one root, and sending forth, in June, such
clouds of fragrance that people passing in the lane outside would stop
to sniff and smile. The trailing roses, also, had grown thick and close
about the sundial, nearly hiding the words that Master Simon had carved
there so long ago.
The level sunshine of a late summer afternoon was slanting across the
rows of blooming flowers and shining like a halo behind Alisoun
Sheffield’s bent head as she sat under the linden tree with her children
about her. It was just so that Margeret Radpath had sat with her father
to hear the story that had to do with Master William Shakespeare and
good Queen Bess and the steadfast courage of Robin Radpath, Master
Simon’s father. Quite as attentive as Margeret had been, were those who
listened to-day, Anna, the daughter nearly grown, Elizabeth, many years
younger and Stephen, youngest and most eagerly interested of all. The
same tale was telling now and added to it were accounts of Master
Simon’s far journey among the Indians, of the coming of the Jesuit
priest and of the stormy meeting in the little school house when Master
Simon walked abroad for the last time. Alisoun Sheffield had also a
story to tell of her own youth and of that perilous season when the last
flood of terror of the Gospel of Fear swept over the land and the cry of
“Witches! Witches!” resounded throughout New England. At that time men
and women everywhere were accused of dabbling in the black arts and were
dragged to trial just as had been the free-thinkers and dissenters of an
earlier generation. Neighbour began to regard neighbour with suspicion
and the question, “What is to become of us?” was the one thought in
every frightened heart.
Alisoun and Margeret Bardwell, so Alisoun told the tale, were working in
the garden on just such a sunny summer day as this, when there came
running through the gate young Amos Bardwell, Alisoun’s nephew, who
dwelt with them and was the greatest mischief-maker in Hopewell. His
mouth and eyes were round with wonder, his yellow hair was ruffled and
full, strange to say, of dust and cobwebs.
“Oh, oh,” he cried. “What do you think? They have taken old Mother
Garford for a witch; there is a whole crowd of men shouting and praying
and of women pretending they cannot bear to look but hurrying after just
the same, and they are bringing her up to the jail. She is weeping and
crying for mercy but nobody listens. Come quick, both of you, I am going
back to watch again.”
“Stop, Amos.” Never had Alisoun heard her mother’s voice sound so tense
or so stern. “Now tell me all of this matter and—wait, how in the world
came these cobwebs in your hair?”
The boy hung his head. His excited enthusiasm seemed suddenly to have
fled from him.
“Richard and Thomas Porter and I,” he explained slowly, “we could not
see the witch’s face for the crowd, since all were so tall and we so
little. So Richard said he knew a famous way and showed us how to get
into the jail before the others came, and how to climb up upon a beam in
the public corridor so that we could see her plain as she passed below.
But the wood was rotten and just as we were settled it gave a great
crack, so down we scrambled in a hurry, I can tell you, lest it fall
with us. We slipped out before any one found us and the crowd, coming
in, passed so close that we saw the witch after all. I think the beam
must have fallen in the end, for later we heard a great crash within and
a cry went up from all the people. Oh, but you should have seen the
witch, she looked—”
“That is enough,” said Margeret, stopping him abruptly. “She looked as
would any old woman who was frightened and in trouble. Suppose I were to
be dragged to prison for a witch, Amos?”
“You—you a witch!” The little boy cried out in horror at the very
thought.
“As much a witch as old Mother Garford,” returned Margeret, “and so,
since she has ever been a good friend to us, we must go up to the
meeting house to-morrow and testify in her behalf.”
For such an errand Amos was willing enough; it was Alisoun who hung
back, trembling and tearful. It was revealed that she and her friend,
Cynthia Turner, had gone to Mother Garford some weeks before, to buy a
love charm, just as had so many of the other maids of Hopewell long
before the rumours of witchcraft arose. Cynthia had wished to make more
certain of the heart of Hugh Atherton, the lad who was studying at
Harvard College to be a minister, while Alisoun wished to assure the
safe return of the young ship’s captain, Gilbert Sheffield, from his
long voyage to the West Indies. The charm, in her eyes, had proved to
have no magic power whatever, so she had nearly forgotten the whole
matter.
“It may be,” said Margeret, when she had heard her daughter’s
confession, “that by telling your story before the people you can prove
that Mother Garford’s spells are of an innocent kind and so can clear
her. Can you do that, my child?”
“Oh, no, mother! Oh, no, no!” cried Alisoun wildly. “To stand up before
them all and confess that I bought a charm to bring Gilbert Sheffield
safe home? Oh, never, never! You will not make me, mother?”
“No, I will not force you,” said Margeret, “but shall an old woman die
disgraced for want of a word to save her when that word can be spoken,
even at the cost of pain and humiliation? Go down into the garden and
take counsel with yourself. You shall act in the matter only as you
choose.”
Margeret went into the house, taking Amos with her, and left Alisoun to
make her decision alone. There, as the dusk fell, she walked among the
flowers, back and forth through the calm, quiet, sweet-smelling garden.
Here dwelt the memory of Master Simon, of all the good that he had done
and of the courage of her own father and mother in those stirring early
days. Could she follow them, could she dare to be as brave as they?
She was in the garden a long, long time; so long that the stars had come
out when she went in at last, and a black silent bat flitted past her as
she stood on the doorstep. She found that Margeret had put the excited
Amos to bed and was singing him to sleep.
“I will do it, mother,” she said simply. Margeret kissed her and
answered quietly,
“I thought that you would!”
And for that night the matter was laid to rest.
The public examination of Mother Garford was to be held at the
meeting-house next morning, at such an early hour that many of the
people on the outlying farms must tumble out of their beds long before
sun-up if they were to be there in time to get good places and hear
every word that passed.
“If this foul witch be disposed of quickly,” they said to one another
piously, “it may be that the good Lord will see our right intentions and
not visit us with another.”
It was, therefore, the idea of all of Hopewell that Mother Garford
should be condemned at once. That there was doubt of her guilt was a
thought that had not entered the mind of any one in that hurrying crowd.
As Alisoun and her mother crossed the garden on their way up to the
meeting-house with Amos running impatiently on ahead, the girl hung back
to take one last look at the flowers in all their beauty and brightness
on that radiant Spring morning. It seemed to her scarcely possible that
she could go through the ordeal before her, or ever come back to be
lighthearted and happy in that dear place again. Although the blue May
sky was without a cloud, the very sunshine seemed cold and dull as
though the terror of her shy, shrinking spirit had cast a blight over
everything.
As she looked down the hillside toward the shining bay she saw suddenly
a white sail rise above the headland and, standing breathless with hope
and fear, she watched a great vessel round the point, turn slowly and,
with all its high-towering sails set to catch the light wind, stand in
toward the wharf. Alisoun could not mistake that tall bow and broad,
heavy stern. It was the _Margeret_, one of her father’s ships, home from
the West Indies and bringing Gilbert Sheffield to be another witness of
what she must do that day.
When they reached the meeting-house, the doors were only just being
unlocked, but already the space at the foot of the steps was packed and
breathless. Their little party would never have been able to come near
the stairs leading up to the entrance had not Margeret, who was esteemed
as a great person in the village, been granted room by those who stood
in the way. By squeezing and slipping in and out, the three managed
finally to make their way close up to the foot of the stairs. Above them
stood the magistrates, the chief men of the church and a stranger, all
waiting for the doors to open. The newcomer was a tall man with greyish
hair, stooped shoulders and a deeply lined face; he wore a rusty black
coat whose pockets bulged with papers. This, as every one knew, was the
great Master Cotton Mather, the famous minister, who knew more of
witches and their evil ways than did any other living man. It was a
great honour that he had come to Hopewell to save them in their danger
and to help in the trial and conviction of their witch.
The chief magistrate had, with some difficulty, drawn the big iron key
from his coat-tail pocket and was inserting it in the lock. Mother
Garford, weeping and trembling was being half led, half dragged up the
stairs by a self-important bailiff. Every head turned in startled
surprise when, of a sudden, a voice cried to the magistrate to stop.
Margeret Bardwell had pushed her way through the crowd and was standing
on the stairs below them. She was speaking in a clear, steady voice that
carried to the ears of all the waiting people.
“Hold,” she cried. “Before we desecrate our meeting house with the trial
of an innocent old woman who is no more of a witch than you or I, you
must hear what we three Bardwells have to say. I would that there were
four of us, and that my husband, who has gone to sea, were here to stand
by me, but as it is you must pause in your folly and listen to a woman.”
“What—what—what?” exclaimed the magistrate. “Who is it dares to speak
thus? Oh—Mistress Bardwell, perhaps I heard amiss. It cannot be that you
defend this woman!”
Wonder and consternation became visible on every upturned face, only
Master Cotton Mather remained unmoved.
“It is well known,” he pronounced in his slow, precise tones, “that in
many cases witches and sorcerers are able to bewitch others into
speaking in their favour against all sense and reason. So it must be
with this poor lady, but yet we will hear her.”
“I wish to say,” continued Margeret, “that there is no real evidence
against Mother Garford, none but that which your own foolish fears have
conjured up.”
“You are wrong there, Mistress,” interrupted one of the Tything Men
quickly, “there have been many suspicious signs and portents such as no
God-fearing person can deny. Mother Garford has looked with an evil eye
upon many a man or woman and many a house in this town, after which
misfortune has followed quickly. Did not Dame Allen’s baby cry itself
into convulsions only an hour after the witch’s shadow had passed the
door, and did not Goodman Green’s cow roll up its eyes and die the very
morning that Mother Garford came there to buy a halfpenny’s worth of
milk?”
“Ay,” broke in the magistrate, “and we have further witness, also, of
her evil ways; there is not one man or woman in this town but can tell
some strange tale of her. However, the proof conclusive was what
happened yesterday, namely, that when she was first brought into the
jail, Heaven sought to destroy so wicked a creature by casting down one
of the great beams in the corridor, so that she came near to being
crushed by it.”
“Yes,” returned Margeret undaunted, “of that I have heard, and it is of
that we have come hither to speak. You may call us bewitched if you
will, but I and these two witnesses of mine must raise our voices for
truth and justice’s sake. Come, Amos, tell these good gentlemen what
befell when you climbed upon the beam. And later my daughter will have
something further to testify.”
Amos, quite enjoying his sudden importance, stepped up beside Margeret
and told with great cheeriness how he and Dicky Porter, in their
eagerness to see the witch, had damaged the beam in the corridor so that
later it fell.
“And any one who looks at the broken wood,” he concluded, “can see that
it was rotten and ready to give way.”
“The boy’s words prove nothing,” thundered forth Master Mather; “he and
his young comrades were chosen as instruments of Providence, that is
all.”
It was an old explanation among the Puritans, but for once it seemed to
give little satisfaction to those who listened. Amos Bardwell and Dicky
Porter, small, impish and ever in mischief, seemed not the most likely
tools to be chosen by Heaven. People began to shake their heads in
doubt. Terror and credulity could drive them far, but there were limits,
even so.
“We will listen to what the maid has to say,” announced the chief
magistrate, declining to commit himself over Amos’ story.
Alisoun stepped bravely up and stood beside her mother. The dense crowd
below seemed to her to number a thousand thousand instead of only the
few hundred that they were. Her breath caught in her throat and her
tongue was dry, so that the first words she tried to speak would make no
sound. Did it bring help or only an added pang of shame that she saw, at
that moment, Gilbert Sheffield come through the narrow street and look
up at her amazedly from the edge of the throng? He had hastened from the
wharf and had arrived just in time to hear her confession. For a minute
it seemed that her cup of humiliation had overflowed and that she could
never speak. Then one look into his honest brown eyes steadied her as
nothing else could have done; his presence gave her courage, although it
deepened the crimson of her cheeks.
Mother Garford, looking down in trembling fear, spoke out for the first
time.
“Oh, Mistress Alisoun, sweet Mistress Alisoun,” she cried; “tell the
truth and save me if you can.”
Alisoun climbed a step higher and took the old woman’s shaking hand in
hers.
“Yes,” she said, able to speak clearly at last, “the truth will save you
and it is the truth that I am going to tell.”
Master Mather bent upon her a threatening, scowling countenance.
“What had she to do with the accused witch?” he wished to know.
She had bought a charm, a love charm, Alisoun told him. After the first
plunge it seemed not hard at all to speak out.
“And had she been alone when she bought it? Where was the charm now? Had
it had effect?”
“There was one with me whose name I cannot tell,” Alisoun answered. “Nor
do I know where the charm is now. In my belief it had no atom of magic
power nor any effect.”
“Have you or that other become engaged to wed since receiving it?”
Master Mather pursued relentlessly.
“Yes, the other has plighted her troth and is soon to be married,”
Alisoun was forced to admit.
“And the charm,” he insisted, “you say you know not where it is?”
“No,” said Alisoun, “it is gone.”
“See you not, good people,” he cried, turning triumphantly to the crowd.
“The talisman has done its work and then has vanished, yet the maid
claims there is no witchcraft here. Surely she is bewitched herself or
else is in league with the accused woman and her sorcery.”
“No, no,” exclaimed Alisoun, all trace of her terror gone, “you shall
hear my story before you judge. I went to Mother Garford, whom people
call the Wise Woman, to buy a love charm, that much is true. It was
folly I know, and I blush for it, but maids in this village have done
the same thing for many and many a year before this. The charm that
Mother Garford gave us, a little, round, white stone, she said had no
power alone, but must be joined with neat, well-ordered ways, with
cheerful faces and clean, shining houses to give it any potency.”
The women in the crowd looked at each other. This sounded, surely, more
like ordinary common sense than like witchcraft.
“I was to keep the stone for seven days and then give it to my friend,”
Alisoun went on, “but with every day I grew to hate myself and it the
more. Upon the last one I went for a long walk upon the beach, to think
the matter out, once and for all. Suddenly my scorn of my own folly grew
so great that I plucked the charm from my pocket and flung it into the
sea. A moment later, however, I regretted what I had done, for now the
talisman was gone forever and Cyn—that other would be sorely
disappointed. Since I could not bear the shame of asking Mother Garford
for another, I picked up a pebble from the beach where lay ten thousand
just like the one I had flung away, and where, I doubt not, the Wise
Woman had found it in the first place. And the next day I gave the stone
to my comrade for a charm.”
“And she who had it after you, won her lover with but a plain white
stone?” asked the chief magistrate, interested in spite of himself.
“With just a plain white stone and a happy heart,” answered Alisoun. “It
seemed to be enough.”
“He-hem!” The dignified magistrate was just able to suppress a chuckle
by putting his hand before his mouth. He glanced nervously at Master
Cotton Mather, who stood frowning and nonplussed. While he waited, Hugh
Atherton, standing among the spectators, raised his voice so that all
could hear.
“I also would say a word for this poor old woman,” he began. “She was my
nurse when I was a boy, and a simpler, gentler soul has never lived.”
“Master Atherton,” shouted Cotton Mather suddenly. “You who would be a
minister some day, have a care what you do. Think not that you can ever
find a church to receive you, if it be known that you defended a proven
witch and turned Devil’s Advocate.”
“I should not be worthy of a church,” retorted Hugh, “did I stand by in
silence and let justice go so woefully awry. Here are grave and learned
men threatening the life of a poor, quavering old dame, and here are
none who dare to speak for her save a woman, a young maid and a little
boy. Where is our manhood, to be so afraid at such a time? Do you
remember,” he went on, looking from one to another of those who stood so
intently listening, “you—and you—and you, that day in the school house,
when some of us, as children, sat upon the benches, and some of you, as
grown men, stood about the walls and listened to the words that Master
Simon spoke in our midst? It was of priests of the Roman Church and of
Free-Thinkers and Quakers that we were in such deadly terror then,
although we have since learned to let them dwell in peace and know that
they can bring us no harm. But to-day we cower before a new fear, of
spells and witchcraft and muttering old women, and it would be well
could Master Simon rise up from the grave to soothe our terrors with
those famous words of his—‘Walk not in fear, ye men of God!’”
“Silence,” roared Master Mather, leaning far out over the stairs. “Away
with him; he is bewitched like the woman and the maid. Away with them
all to jail!”
But the crowd was no longer with the great minister, the bubble of the
witchcraft terror had burst. Murmurs and exclamations began, cries of
“Good, good, Master Hugh!” “Good, brave Mistress Alisoun!” Then suddenly
the murmurings grew into a rumble and the rumble into a mighty roar as
the whole assembly surged forward.
“Away with _him_,” they cried. “Away with the man who would have us shed
innocent blood.”
Master Cotton Mather was a brave man and one always firmly, nay,
stubbornly loyal to his cause. But even he could see when such a cause
had perished utterly and when it were better to pursue his object in
some more hopeful place. Without another word he clapped on his rusty
three-cornered hat, pocketed the great bundle of papers from which he
had purposed to preach a memorable sermon on the evils of witchcraft,
and, on the magistrate’s opening the door, passed into the meeting
house, the skirts of his threadbare coat flapping behind him in his
haste. And down the hill in the bright, joyful sunshine poured the crowd
of village folk, laughing and shouting and bearing in their midst,
Margeret, Amos, Alisoun and poor old Mother Garford weeping with joy.
“And so,” said Alisoun, finishing her story amid the breathless interest
of her three listeners, “it is recorded with great pride in the annals
of Hopewell that, through all the panic of terror that swept across New
England, we never had in our town another whisper of witchcraft, for in
this place, at least, the Gospel of Fear had come to an end. Further,
from that famous meeting onward, Master Cotton Mather’s authority
concerning witches steadily declined and soon people throughout the
Colonies would listen to him no more.”
“And did Cynthia Turner marry Hugh Atherton?” inquired Elizabeth.
“Yes, at almost the same time that I became Mistress Sheffield,” Alisoun
answered, “and Hugh has been minister of Hopewell these many years now.”
Stephen, round, rosy, cheery-hearted little Stephen, was the only one
who made no immediate comment upon the story. He was lying upon the
grass, his chin in his hand, his steady blue eyes staring out to sea.
“Of what are you thinking, Stephen?” his mother inquired at last.
“I was thinking,” he answered slowly, “that I should like to have lived
in such stirring times and to have seen such adventures. And I should
like, when I come to be a man, to be as bold a sailor as my father and
my grandfather, and to have such steady courage as you and my
grandmother. And I should like to be as well loved by all people as
Master Simon, and to tend just such a garden out of which wondrous
things should come.”
“I should think then,” observed Elizabeth, with the air of wisdom that
she loved to assume, “that you had better grow up to be a man to-morrow,
for it will take you a very long lifetime to be all those things.”
Stephen kicked his heels in the long grass and heaved a great sigh.
“Oh, dear,” he said, “it might chance that I should never be any of
them. Anyway I will try.”