1
_Young Thumb dwindles. The witch torments him and her foster father
discerns that she is not nor ever can be a Christian woman._
From the day on which Ahab was lost and recovered, Titus began a secret
courting of Doll. Witch or no witch he would have no other. On the
one side of him was his father, winking at him and pointing out the
richness of Mr. Bilby’s fields, the weight of his cattle, the size of
his barns. On the other side of him was his fond mother, whispering
and whispering, ‘The girl’s a witch, she’ll come to no good end,
she’ll hang yet, the girl’s a witch ... witch ... witch.’ Of all these
matrimonial plans Mrs. Hannah knew nothing. She saw that Titus was
much about the house, but, being very proud of her beauty (which was
remarkable in a woman of her years), she believed in her own heart that
she was the reason for the young man’s constant presence. She could not
believe so handsome and sought after a young man could see anything to
desire in the ridiculous hobgoblin-child. Doll Bilby flouted him at
every turn, yet was he always after her, hungry as a cat for fish.
Many noticed, even by June and still more by July, that young Mr. Thumb
was suffering from some malady that sapped strength from body, color
from face, and dulled the eye. He was a listless worker in the fields,
leaning upon his scythe, scanning the horizon, sighing, and weakly
returning to his work. He ate little and slept less, so that his flesh
fell away enormously, and, where four months before had stood a hale
young man, now stood a haggard. He would mutter to himself, sit out in
night vapours to consider the moon as it shone on the distant roof of
Bilby’s house.
Thus things went from bad to worse. His mother noticed his condition
and guessed its cause. She brooded over the young man, and this made
him vexatious and bilious. When his little sisters had met (as they
sometimes did, in spite of their mother) ‘Mistress Dolly’ by the willow
brook, he would beg them to tell him everything the young woman said
to them. How did they play? Did they build a little house of pebbles?
Had they made dolls from stones? They would never tell him, but ran
quickly away. The truth came out later. Doll amused them with stories
of salamanders, elves, fairies, etc. They feared their mother would be
angry if she knew—for she often had said that all the _good_ stories
were in the Bible, and if a story could not be found there it was proof
that it was not good. So the twins ran away and told nothing of their
visits with Doll. They often talked to each other, however, after they
were in bed, and went on making up wicked things like those she had
told them.
All her life Mrs. Thumb swore she knew her son’s distress was from no
ordinary cause. If that were true, people asked her, how did she come
to give consent to her son’s marriage with this same Doll? When she was
an ancient lady, living in her son’s house at Cambridge, she once said:
‘I saw my son like to die, and he swore there was but one cure for
him—that is, marriage with this young woman whom our magistrates later
judged to be a witch. Therefore I said little to oppose the marriage.
Then, too, at that time I placed much confidence in the wisdom of Mr.
Zelley. He stood at my right hand, saying, “The girl is innocent. It
will be a fine match.” Titus would cry out in his sleep for this
witch-girl. How could I deny him when I thought it the only way to save
his life?’
Hannah raged when she learned that the marriage was arranged (although
nothing yet had been said to Doll). Bilby could not fathom her anger,
for he thought she would be pleased to get the girl out of the house.
He did not know that his wife believed herself the reason for Titus’s
mopings and pinings. Indeed she had ordered for herself a new red
riding-hood from Mr. Silas Gore, of Boston, so that she might have
finery with which to fascinate the young man.
At last Doll knew she was to marry the good young man, for her foster
father told her so. He told her roughly, for his heart broke to think
of losing her to another. Sorrow made his tongue unkind. She would not
listen to him, but, laughing, clung about his waist, saying she would
never leave him, that he was the only man she could ever love. He
wanted to keep her with him forever, but he knew that she was a strange
girl, not like others, and he believed that if she were married she
would become less secret and, having a house and children of her own,
she would be happier.
Then, too, he knew that his wife was cruel to her, and he thought that
it would be better for her to live under a roof where there was only
love. It was in vain that he told her that she was now a woman grown,
and it was time that she went about the business of women—that is, the
bearing and raising of children. Did she have a deep aversion for her
handsome and godly young neighbour? Would she not be proud some day
to be a minister’s wife? No, no, never, never—she only wanted to be
his dear foster child. He hardened his heart against her, and unwound
her arms from about his waist. He told her to marry young Thumb, or to
think up better reasons why she should not. He would not have such an
ungrateful, stubborn woman about his house. If she did not wish to do
as he wished, she could find another place to live. He never meant such
hard words. He acted for her own best good. He pushed her from him, and
made off to the fields.
She overtook him in a field of flax where the flowers were even bluer
than the rare summer sky. The air was heavy with the murmur of bees.
She flung herself on her knees and caught him by the long blue smock he
wore.
‘Father,’ she cried, ‘wait, wait, I beg of you.’ She put her hands
over her face and wept. He could have wept himself to see her thus.
He hardened his heart and would have pushed by. She cried out she had
something to tell him, so he waited silently, but without looking at
her, for he was afraid that at the sight of her his heart would melt.
She seized him by the hem of his smock and began to talk in a hoarse
voice and a roaring voice like nothing he had ever heard out of her
before. She had something to tell him, she said. There were reasons
why she could not marry, especially not a young man who wished to be a
minister. She feared she was not a Christian woman. She looked up at
him from the ground, and he looked down upon her. Their eyes met, and
in one horrid instant Mr. Bilby realized what it was she meant, why
she feared she might not be a Christian woman. Of Evil she remembered
everything, and at that moment he knew it.
He did not dare question her. He did not dare know what she knew. He
essayed to comfort her and said he did not care who her parents really
were. It mattered no more to him than who might be the sire of the
cat that caught the mice in his barn. He also said what was not true,
for he assured her that what one may have done or promised at a very
tender age had no importance in the eyes of God. So he talked vaguely,
and made off to his labours.
She left him and went to a secret spot she had among the birch trees on
the hillside. She was not comforted, and her heart was hard set against
the thought of marriage.
Those things which Doll told Mr. Bilby frightened him. He went straight
to his neighbours that same afternoon and said the time had come when
Titus, with his own tongue and in his own body, should do a little
courting. Titus said how could he when Doll was never a flea-hop from
her foster father’s heels? Thus it was arranged. Doll, that very night,
should be left alone in her father’s house—Bilby and wife should go
to Thumb’s. Titus would come to her, court her, and persuade her to
marriage. After a sufficient time, all would return to Bilby’s and
celebrate the happy betrothal with sack-posset, hymns, psalms, prayers,
etc.
To this Titus and all agreed. Even Doll had nothing to say, but at her
foster father’s bidding she put on her most wanton dress—a giddy dress
of scarlet tiffany such as no pious woman would wish to possess.
2
_A woman is seized by a Frenzy. And how a man may court without profit._
Now, when she found herself alone, she ran back and forth, back and
forth, through the house. She locked and barred everything. She locked
the cupboards and the doors and shuttered the windows. She went to the
attic and locked the trunks, the boxes, the cribs, and the cases. She
went to the cellar and bolted the door. Doors she could neither bolt
nor bar, she barricaded. Even when this was done, she could not stop
her strange running round and round the house, sometimes turning in
small circles like a dog gone mad. She said over and over to herself,
‘I must be a witch, for I can feel myself weaving a charm.’ So she ran
fast through the house, but there was nothing more to lock.
It was not yet seven o’clock and the evening was still light. Yet so
closely had she barred and shuttered everything, the house inside was
dark as midnight. Then she got old blankets, and in the end, in her
desperation, new blankets, and tried to stuff the gaping chimney hole
in the fire-room so that the whole house should be utterly barred and
tight. But all the time (as she afterwards told Mr. Zelley) she would
ask herself, ‘Why, why do I do these things?’ In the midst of her most
desperate work with the chimney hole, she would stop and begin to run
through the house—unable to stop herself. She thought to herself that
she was working some charm or rather some charm worked within her. She
was powerless before her great need to run back and forth, back and
forth, through the locked and barred house.
Titus Thumb, dressed as though for a bridal and carrying a nosegay of
lad’s-love and a turkey-leather psalm book for gifts, came proudly to
the house, knocking to be let in. Doll heard him, for she was crouched
upon the cold hearth of the fire-room, striving to stuff the chimney
hole. She thought, ‘I will let him in, and then he can do this thing
better than I.’
Titus was astonished to find the house dark and his lady’s hair a
ragged black mat on her shoulders, her gay scarlet gown disordered and
torn open at the throat, as though she had but recently wrestled with
an enemy. And her face astonished him, for her cheeks were bright red.
Fuller and more beautiful than ever before, her eyes glittered indeed
like a goblin’s and her wide mouth was pulled up at the corners in a
wicked but most provocative smile. She, in the dark house, seemed more
like imp or puck than human woman. All that was human in him—that is,
intelligence, conscience, reason, and so forth—was afraid and bade
him turn back; yet all that was animal in him—that is, the hunger and
desire of his body—urged him to enter. So he entered.
Already that awful necessity that had made her run so madly through the
house was gone. She explained the blankets by the cold hearth, saying
that they were damp, and that she had planned to build a fire and dry
them out. So he built a fire. She explained her dishevelled condition.
She had heard a rat in the cellar and had taken a poker and hunted for
him. Could he not at that moment hear the rat scampering in the cellar?
So he took a light and a poker and went to the cellar, and Doll, a
little ashamed and frightened, quickly ordered her clothes and hair,
and unlocked everything she could before he returned. Yes, he said,
he found a rat and he had killed it. This surprised her, for she had
really heard no rat, and the thought came to her that perhaps the Devil
had sent that rat to excuse her conduct.
The young man sat on the settle with his head in his hands and prayed
God to deliver his soul from the woman’s soul, and her body unto his.
At last he spoke to her, his face turned away from her. He told her
that she knew why he was come. He wished to marry her, and that he
would be to her a true and loving husband. No, she said, she could not
marry him. He was surprised, for Mr. Bilby had told no one of the young
woman’s aversion to marriage. He had understood that he had only to
ask and she would assent. He told her that it was all settled—the very
spot on which their house should be built. How could she now so coldly
say no? She only said again that she could not marry him—nor any other.
‘If that is so,’ he said, ‘I’ll take my hat and go.’ But why, if she
had no idea of marrying him, had she so kept him at her heels? She had
not kept him at her heels. She was always trying to rid herself of him.
She knew that was not true. The very way she drew back from him was
the surest encouragement a man could have. She said she thought he was
talking nonsense. Her eyes glittered at him, round and bright in the
firelight, like a cat’s.
He was afraid. He got up. He said again that he would take his hat
and go. ‘I wish you would,’ said Doll. They could not find his hat. It
seems that, while Doll was straightening herself and ordering the house
(Titus at the moment ratting in the cellar), she had by chance picked
up his hat, with many other things, such as the sooty blankets, and had
stuck them under her own bed. So now they could not find his hat.
The young fellow was afraid, and now, as never before, he believed she
was a witch. His blood pumped through him as though about to burst the
veins; he knew that she wished this hat to work further charms upon
him. But if she were so set upon charming him, making him her slave,
why would she now have none of him? Why should she torture him, making
him love her past all human endurance, and yet now so coldly dismiss
him?
Doll said she was very sorry about the hat. ‘Oh, it is not the hat,’ he
cried in despair, his head again in his two hands, ‘but, my dear Doll,
why will you so torture me? Have I ever been anything but kind and
respectful to you? Look what you have done. A year ago I was twice the
man I now am. You have done it. You’ve sucked the strength and manhood
out of my veins.’ Then he talked strangely so that she could not at
first understand him. At last she understood him well. He believed that
she had cast a witch spell on him, and had thus made him love her so
beyond all reason. For, as he frankly told her, she really was not so
wonderful nor half so beautiful, etc., as he had come to think her.
He said he could remember back three years ago when he thought her a
scrawny, rather ugly, little thing with too big a mouth.
All this made her very angry. She jumped up and down in her rage—more
like an imp than ever—and screamed at him to be gone. She ran into her
own room and came back with his hat—for she had guessed where it really
was, but had not found an opportunity to get it for him. She jumped
up and clapped the hat onto his head, pulling it down so sharply over
his ears that she bent them, and continued to scream, ‘Go! Go! Go!’ He
grabbed her roughly by the arm, called her witch, hellcat, succubus.
She turned and bit his wrist, so that it was marked for days. He pulled
her off him, shook her with great fury, and flung her from him so that
her head struck against the settle and she moaned in pain. Her plight
touched his heart infinitely, and he knew that, witch or no witch, she
was his dear, his own girl.
So the parents and foster parents, returning, found them. The man,
a valiant officer in the militia, a scholar, and the heir to a
fine estate, was convulsed with weeping and sobbing. The girl lay
terror-stricken in the corner, as harmless as a trapped rabbit. Mr.
Bilby had no idea that Titus had flung her into this corner. She was
a strange child, and he thought she had picked it out for herself.
He pitied the terrible (if somewhat unmanly) grief of the young man,
and swore that, in spite of Doll’s ridiculous and, he felt, unnatural
objections, the marriage must go ahead.
Mrs. Thumb took her son home, and Mr. Bilby took Doll to bed, and he
comforted her with that more than female solicitude that a man often
shows towards children or women in distress.
Mrs. Hannah was in a rage when she found her fine blankets blackened
with dirty soot. Nor would Doll offer an explanation to her foster
mother, although afterwards she told Mr. Zelley everything.
3
_The voice of Hell is heard in the House of the Lord._
Mrs. Thumb went everywhere whispering: ‘Look to my son. Is he not
bewitched? Look at my boy—so gentle he would not kick a cat, yet you
all know that once he shot at this Doll Bilby, and but a few nights ago
he struck her and flung her upon the ground. Then he cried for hours.
I took him home. Is it according to God and Nature for a man to love
thus? Hating her, loving her, loving her, hating her. Would God the
wench were dead, but she is not, and he will marry her.’
Every one thought the girl a witch. She went her own way quietly,
working as she always did, a little shiftlessly, her mind on other
things.
The harvest was late that year and heavy. One year Nature would starve
her stepchildren (for so the colonists felt in the new land) with too
little, and the next year break their backs with too much. Mr. Bilby,
harassed with many things, did a wrong thing. He went to Mr. Zelley
and begged him on the next Sabbath to publish the banns for his foster
child and young Thumb, and he led Mr. Zelley to believe that Doll had
assented to these plans.
It may well be that Doll, in some secret way common to witches (that
is, through some imp or familiar used as spy), really did know that
upon a certain Sunday the banns were to be read. If she did know, she
said nothing of this thing to any one, keeping her own dark counsel,
and working her secret spells. On a Friday Mr. Bilby sickened slightly,
and upon Saturday he could not touch his proper food, only a cheat-loaf
she baked with her own hands for him, and a barley gruel. Mrs. Hannah
always believed—and doubtless with reason—that the young woman was at
the bottom of this sickening and was endeavouring to keep him from the
Meeting-House, for when she heard he was set upon going she begged him
not to go, saying he was too ill, etc., and must be ruled by her, etc.,
and sit at home in idleness.
But he would not be persuaded, and he went to church as always. She
rode with him upon the pillion. Mrs. Hannah rode the fat plough horse.
By the windows and doors of the Meeting-House were nailed the grim
and grinning heads of wolves, freshly slain. In the stocks before the
Meeting-House were two Quaker women, the one in an extremity of despair
and cold (for there was some ice upon the ground) and the other
brazen, screaming out profanities and laughing in her disgrace. Upon
the roof-walk paced back and forth Captain Buzzey, of the train-band
troop, beating his drum in great long rolls, summoning all to come and
worship.
Inside the Church Mrs. Hannah and Doll sat together on the women’s
side, and Mr. Bilby, as befitted his station in the community, sat
close to the minister. After certain psalms, prayers, etc., Mr. Zelley
held forth from the Book of Judith for the space of two hours. There
were announcements by the clerk, etc., and then Mr. Zelley again
ascended the scaffold. Couched in proper form, he read how Titus, son
of Deacon Ephraim Thumb, and Doll, foster child of Jared Bilby, engaged
themselves for holy wedlock and desired the pronouncement of these
banns.
His voice was drowned by a sharp and most piteous lamentation. At
first none knew from where this infernal sound had come. Deacon looked
to deacon, wife to wife. Mr. Cuppy, the tithing-man, ran up and down
among the wretched small boys. Mr. Zelley stopped in astonishment,
looking first up, as if he thought the sound had come from the corn
crib in the loft of the Church—or from Heaven—and then down, as though
seeking its source from Hell. Doll Bilby was on her feet, her arms
outstretched, addressing her foster father. Her voice rose and died
out. None there could ever repeat what it was she said. That noon, in
the noon-house, between the two services, men and women got together
whispering, wondering, and asking each what it was that Bilby’s saucy
jade had—to her own unending shame and to the great indignity of the
sacred service—dared to pipe forth.
Mr. Zelley—the least disturbed of all—saw to it that Bilby and his
beloved Doll be got to horse and to home, without waiting for the
second service. He was perplexed and harassed by the occurrence, and
refused to discuss with his deacons what would be a fitting punishment
for the young woman, although most were agreed that it would be the
stocks or the pillory. Instead of listening to the discussions in the
noon-house, he went out of doors and stood before the evil women in the
stocks, exhorting them in the name of Christ Jesus to repent and to
be forgiven. Theodate Gookin, a stout child, mocked them and pelted
them with small apples. This action of the child enraged Mr. Zelley
more than had the foul blasphemies of the Quakers. He roughly ordered
Theodate to lay off his own warm overcoat. This he spread kindly upon
the back of the most insufferable of the blasphemers. By which act of
charity, he stilled her lying tongue, and reproved the levity of the
child who would sport about and enjoy himself on the Lord’s Day.
4
_Evil cursing bears bitter fruit. Mr. Bilby, though struck down,
swears to the innocency of his Destroyer and makes a Pious End._
Bilby went stiffly to his horse, his mouth drawn, his face grey. His
wife got on the pillion behind him and soon left Doll (on the fat work
animal) far behind. When the girl got to the house, she did not seem to
understand why her foster mother shook her fist, spat, and made at her
with a warming-pan. She did not seem to know that she had cursed the
man—that kind man, whom she loved.
Mr. Bilby suffered from a cruel congestion of the lights. Mr. Kleaver
said from the first there was little chance to save him. For on one
day came the surgeon, with his saddle-bags stuffed with motherwort and
goldenrod, and on the next came the minister with his big Bible, and on
the third day they were like to send for Goody Goochey, the woman who
had the laying-out of the dead—so sick was he.
But he delayed his passage into eternity, fighting death with hardly
Christian resignation; for to your true Christian the years spent on
this world must seem but as the nine months which the child spends in
the womb. His death-day is in fact his birthday into the kingdom of
God. Should he fight against death any more than the infant should
fight against birth?
There were gathered in his sick-chamber night and day rarely less than
ten or twelve people, praying for the departure of this fell disease,
or, if this were impossible, they prayed in the hope of giving the
shrinking soul a heavenward lift.
Mr. Bilby bade them save their breath, and, although his face was
settling into lines of death and he breathed horribly and with an
animal roaring, he still begged, as he had from the first, for a sight
of his child Doll. The room was then cleared of the pious exhorters,
who returned to the Thumb farm and there prayed and drank rumbullion.
Only Mr. Kleaver, Mr. Zelley, and the wife remained. Mr. Zelley
commanded Hannah to find the child, and Hannah, frowning, went away,
but she came back soon and said she was not about. The truth is the
woman had struck and cursed the girl so savagely that now, when she
heard her name called, she did not dare to come.
The doors of the death-chamber were shut and sealed. Camphor was burned
on the hearth; then the wife stood by her husband’s side, and, in the
presence of Mr. Zelley and the surgeon, asked him three times and in
a loud voice whether or not he believed he died of a curse pronounced
upon him by his foster child. Mr. Bilby rallied his wits, and, in spite
of the agony of his breathing, he stoutly denied the charge. But some
(among them Hannah) believe that he was already dead when he seemed to
speak, and that an evil spirit had succoured Doll by leaping into the
head of the corpse and thus making answer. For he spoke up in a loud,
clear voice, and yet one in no way like his own, and the next moment
he was not only dead, but looked as though he had been dead for a
half-hour or hour at the least.
5
_Doll forswears the God of our Deliverance and embraces Beelzebub who
prepares (for her instruction) a_ PROCESSION.
The four days Bilby was dying, Doll spent in the hayloft—night and day.
She had over-heard the farm servants talking, and she knew of what she
was accused and why it was Hannah would not let her into the house.
She remembered that strange time when she had run and run through the
house, working, she knew, a spell, or rather feeling a spell work
through her, and she was sick to think that perhaps she had some power
she did not understand, and had really put a charm upon her dear foster
father when she had not intended. Perhaps it was also true that unknown
to herself she had bewitched Titus Thumb. None went to her or knew
where she lay but the youngest of the indentured servants, a good and
gentle lad. This boy brought her food and water. When it was night he
went to his poor lodgings in the cow-shed and took a blanket from his
bed and gave it to her.
From the loft Doll stared down at the house and yard, and could guess,
by the close attendance of the surgeon and the clergyman and by the
multitudes gathered to pray, how sick he was. Every morning she saw
Hannah go early to the dunghill and catch a fowl. This bird Doll knew
would be laid for warmth at the sick man’s feet, for under the dark
covers the creature lay quietly and gave off a good and healing warmth,
yet was no bird imprisoned longer than twenty-four hours lest its heat
be translated into the chill of death.
On the fourth day—that is, the day on which Mr. Bilby died—Doll
determined to leave the loft and if possible to find Goody Greene,
who would at least tell her how her father did. Perhaps Greene might
stay his sickness, for Doll had more confidence in her and her herbs
than in Mr. Kleaver and his bleeding-cups. At this time of year the
woman often went to the Bilby river meadows after an herb called
‘Love-lies-bleeding,’ so Doll, finding the opportunity to slip out
unseen by any, got from the loft and decided first to hunt for her
Sister-in-Evil along the riverbanks. She dared not pass through the
town.
She sat by the river until sundown, crying long and bitterly. She
remembered that time Titus had found her there, and cried afresh—for
even those had been happier days.
Wherever she went she found the flower stems were broke off close to
the ground, and she saw the print of a small Indian moccasin in the
mud. She knew that Goody Greene (being a pauper) wore these moccasins
and that her feet were small, so she followed this trail, and this led
her to the great forest. Here she paused, for she feared it. But she
feared the cruel suspicions of her foster mother more, so she took a
farewell look about her at the pastures and fields, and, finding a
small path (still seeing here and there a moccasin print), she entered
boldly.
It would seem, then, that another of those fits of senseless weaving
back and forth overtook her. She knew the danger of being lost in this
great wood, and she had not for a long time seen a footprint. Suddenly
she began to run through the woods on those little paths beaten out by
animals, hunters, and Indians. She could not pause either to consider
her direction or to determine what it was she really sought, for she
had almost forgotten the idea of finding Greene. The sun had set and
the November night was coming down fast. The gloom and overwhelming
silence weighed her down. She began to think that she smelt smoke or
saw the glimmer of a fire. Wherever she looked she could see light
smouldering in the underbrush. Sometimes she thought there were
hundreds of tiny Indian encampments, with teepees but a few inches
high, and, because she knew of Goody Greene’s fondness for Indians, she
tried to come to these miniature encampments. She also knew that she
was lost (although this knowledge did not horrify her as it would a
reasonable person), and not only did she wish the goodwife’s company,
but she needed the warmth even of the smallest fire, for the night was
frosty cold.
At last, after much running, sniffing, and circling, she came to a
small cleared spot, where she always maintained she found a fire
burning, and over this fire was a great pall of black smoke. So she
gathered more twigs and fagots, and built up the fire—not knowing that
she only made a heap of rubbish upon the cold wet ground. At least her
‘fire’ seemed to warm and comfort her. She lay back upon the moss and
fell quickly into deep sleep.
After some time, she waked, startled, for she heard her name called.
‘Bilby’s Doll! cried the voice, ‘Bilby’s Doll!
‘Yes,’ she answered, springing up from her unhappy bed. There was no
answer to her ‘yes.’ Whatever it was, she considered her ‘fire’ was
almost out. ‘Who calls?’ she cried, and her voice echoed and the awful
silence of night mocked at her in solitude.
Then at last, being wide awake, she realized with terror and dismay
that the voice that called her was none other than that of her dear
foster father. Yet would he never have called her thus, saying ‘Bilby’s
Doll,’ but ‘Doll’ only.
Then she knew that he was dead, and that she would never see him
again. It was his lonely spirit, fresh torn from the earthly body,
that had stopped this moment on its heavenly flight to cry out to
her thus sadly. She flung herself, moaning, upon the ground, unable
to shed a tear. Witches, she knew, have no tears, and she realized
with horror that her tears had dried up. She began to pray to ‘Dear
God in Heaven....’ She heard a rustle in the forest, and then low and
malicious laughter. She stopped her prayer. After a moment of writhing
and moaning, she prayed again—‘Infinite Master, Lord God of Israel ...
I never meant to hurt him. He was the only person I have ever loved. I
never meant to kill him....’ ‘Why, then, did you curse him?’ asked a
voice, and she again heard malicious laughter. She would have found
relief for her remorse in tears, but there were no tears, nor did they
ever come to her again.
[Illustration: Wild tiger]
She felt the presence of a large and probably dangerous animal about,
so she flung more wood on her ‘fire.’ She listened to its padded feet,
and told herself it was lynx or wolf, yet in her heart she hoped and
feared that it might be at last a messenger from that infernal King to
whom she now was convinced her parents had promised her. For, between
the moment that she heard a voice call ‘Bilby’s Doll’ and that moment
in which she had felt a corporeal presence in the wood, she had become
fully convinced that she was a witch with all the powers that belong
to such an evil estate.
Slyly she made one last appeal to Jehovah, for she thought that He
might even for so evil a one as her own self make His awful majesty
manifest. ‘O God, who seest all things, who rulest above, O Great God
of Israel, give me a sign, give me a sign....’ Then in her impudence
she lifted up her impious voice and commanded God, ‘Put back the soul
of Jared Bilby, for it is not yet gone far and his body is yet warm.
Do this and I will serve You. Desert me now, and I wash my hands
of You and Your cruel ways!’ The rustling and the commotion crept
nearer. No angel this thing which approached her on its belly. She
stared, expecting to see horned head and grinning demon face. She saw
nothing. She cried once more to God. The solitude echoed her voice with
laughter. Then she cried to the powers of Hell below and to the Prince
of Lies, ‘Great King of Hell, if I serve you, you must serve me’ (for
she knew this was a stipulation in a witch’s contract). ‘I will do
anything, sign any book, if you will but give me back the soul of Jared
Bilby.’ But this poor soul was now in the keeping of angel hosts. Not
Lucifer himself could snatch it from such guardians. As she thought
thus, a windy voice cried, ‘Too late, too late.’ ‘Satan, you shall
give me a sign,’ she cried. And there close to the ground were two
great cat’s eyes, larger than saucers. They glared at her with a green
hellish light that transpierced the darkness and her very soul.
She cried out desperately to those eyes, ‘Whoever you are, step forth.
I will do anything, sign any book. Tell me now, in Satan’s name, is
there no way back to life for Jared Bilby? For it was I, I, I, who slew
him—with a witch’s look. Oh, kind spirit, if you are old, I will be
your daughter; if you are young, I will be your bride—stand forth now
to me.’
The yellow eyes turned from her as she struggled with her unhallowed
thoughts, and the thing was gone. Far away, mile after mile, a voice
no bigger than a sparrow’s cried sadly to her, and in great agony of
spirit, ‘Bilby’s Doll....’ She thought to run after the voice, to catch
the naked soul in her hands. Of what avail? Gone already a thousand
miles. In the littlest voice, no larger than voice of flea or worm, she
heard once more her foster father cry to her, ‘Bilby’s Doll....’
She knew that, as there are certain forms and incantations for the
destruction of life, so must there be others for the rekindling of
it. What had Our Lord said before the tomb of Lazarus? Could she but
remember the words she herself had said in church—perhaps by repeating
them backwards she could countermand the curse.
She fell to the ground in an ague, and lay sobbing dryly, exhorting the
powers of Hell. Twigs snapped in blackness about her. Feet padded in
silence.
The cold of the night, the terror of her soul, the dearth of food, the
sorrow of her heart struck her into a stupor from which she could not
move. Through this stupor, in steady procession, and with much pomp
and circumstance, a long parade of figures, fiends, witches, warlocks,
imps, beasts, familiars, satyrs, and even the beautiful chaste Diana
herself, moved in fleshly form: a wicked, most fantastic procession.
Goblins were there with faces of cats and owls, salamanders but lately
crawled from fire. Basilisks were there, serpents, vampires with bats’
wings and horrid mouths swollen with blood. The pretty pink bodies of
innocent babes were there, who had died unbaptized, and therefore must
stand as servants in the halls of Hell, and with them were pucks and
pugs.
After them rolled through the forest a great orange cloud—like an old
and tarnished fire—no longer heat-giving. At first her eye could make
nothing of it. Then she saw projecting through the dun vapours were
naked legs and arms, bits of bodies, and drawn and skull-like heads
with tortured eyes. These were they the French burned at Mont Hoël in
Brittany. Although she might not know them, her parents were among
them. A group came slowly after these, shrouded and shuffling through
the woods. In the midst of these she saw Goody Greene. This woman,
alone of all the passers-by, turned and looked towards Doll. But her
eyes were blind.
Last of all came Ahab shaking his black head, a cowslip hanging from
his blue lips. She would sleep and wake, but the procession would still
be passing by, and every so often Ahab would pass by. The woods were
humming-full with an infinity of unearthly things. There was continuous
lovely singing—or rather a rhythmic humming that rose and fell and rose
again.
6
_With daylight the tides of Hell recede. Doll wakes but to a more
determined Evil._
At last she awoke to see, not the procession of Hell, but bright day.
The humming, however, still continued in her head, rising and falling,
but not going away. She was frozen cold to her marrow. Now the loss of
her foster father had become a tiny thing infinitely far away and long,
long ago. All her previous existence seemed removed from her as if
again a barrier had come down upon her, shutting one part of her life
from the next. So, although she thought sadly of the kind man’s death,
it already seemed one with the destruction of her parents—that is, a
thing which has happened long back in childhood.
She recalled to herself the story of a girl who had slept in a
fairy-wood for a hundred years, and she looked fearfully at her hands,
expecting them to be gnarled with a century. But they were as they
always had been. Her hair about her shoulders was black. She thought
that it was possible (and at that time it even seemed most probable)
that, although her body might have retained its youthful form, a great
flight of time had passed. She would go back to Cowan Corners to find
the dark forest had swallowed it. There would be cellar holes lost in
thickets, where Boston, Salem, Cowan Corners, Ipswich, etc., had stood.
She felt herself alone upon a whole continent. Her body had grown
so light and so unreal, she scarce could stand, nor was she wholly
convinced of her own reality until she observed she still could cast a
shadow.
Doll Bilby had always longed for the comforts of religion, so it was
natural that she, having as she believed just witnessed a manifestation
of her ‘god,’ should now reverently stand and give thanks. She called
upon her Father in Hell, thanking him that he had made manifest to her
visible proof of his greatness. She called upon her father and mother,
blessed them in the great name of Hell, and promised to serve them.
She called upon all that vast host of evil things, blessed them, and
promised to serve them.
So she floated lightly forth, intent to see the place where Cowan
Corners once had stood. Voices called her through the wood, and these
she knew were true voices of men, not the eerie cries of ghosts or
demons. She answered, ‘Here am I.’
Four men came to her, nor was one of them a minute older than he had
seemed last Sabbath at Meeting. Mr. Zelley cried out in pity, for her
five days of despair, suffering, and even the astounding pleasures
of the night before, had marked the face of Doll Bilby, altering its
pretty childish shape.
‘My child,’ he said, ‘you need not have run away. There is no reason to
believe Mr. Bilby’s death due to anything but nature. Such a congestion
of the lights is not uncommon and often results in death. Doll, as he
lay dying, we questioned him if he was worked upon by any witchcraft,
and he cried in a loud voice, “I die spirit free.”’
Doll wept with her hands over her face. None saw that she shed no
tears. But she knew that the springs of her tears had dried in the
night. Mr. Zelley kissed her gently upon the forehead, and with that
kiss he entered into pact with her, for after that he cherished her and
became at last her confidant in all things, even in all evil things.
And he had once been a minister of God.
Mr. Zelley walked by her side. The three other men looked at her
doubtfully, thinking each to himself, ‘This young woman is a murderess
and a witch.’ They soon outdistanced the minister and the woman, so it
was he alone who took her back to her own home.
He told her that from now on, for a little space of time, life would be
hard for her. She must live peaceably in the house with Hannah (there
was no other place for her to go). She must, by a godly, upright, and
virtuous life, and by the goodness of her conversation and dignity
of her demeanour, give the lie (he said) to all those who would with
tedious rustic simplicity believe her a witch. Both he and Mr. Kleaver
knew Mr. Bilby died by nature and not by art. She was, moreover, in
all things to trust him. He would clear her name (he said). He had
power among these people (he hoped). She was to be of good heart, and
the Lord God would be with her. Also he promised to come to her often,
praying with her, and strengthening her.
So he took her to her door. In the yard they saw the two indentured
servants nailing together a wooden coffin. A group of serious men
stood, watching them, and discussed the mutabilities of life, etc.
Now and again one helped himself at the barrel of cider that had been
rolled out to accommodate their thirst (for thirst is like to rise from
serious discourse and ponderous thought).
Mr. Zelley took her within the house. The ovens were fired and pots
boiled on the hearth. There was the leg of a great ox on a spit
over the coals. The little turnspit dog, which ordinarily served at
the tavern, had been brought over to serve for the sad yet pleasing
occasion. He turned the spit, as he had been trained to do. His eyes
were red and rheumy. The hair was burned away from his hind quarters,
and they were red and scorched. Doll remembered how often her foster
father at the tavern had given scraps of food to this same miserable
small dog, and how he called it ‘Old Father Time’ even when it was a
pup, for it had always seemed bent, wizen, and full of many cares. She
turned away her head.
The house was full of neighbour women who had come to help prepare
the funeral meats. Doll entered. All found reason they must go to the
milk-house, the cellar, the barn, the pantry, or to the best room where
the corpse lay and the widow sat in black. Doll and Mr. Zelley were
left alone except for a squat and horrid form, who stood its own and
feared no woman nor man nor witch. This was the form of Goochey, she
who had the laying-out of the dead. She had a face and voice like a
man’s. Indeed many believed that she was a man who, perhaps having
committed offence in the Old World, had fled, thus disguised, to the
New. She came from the Welsh borders, and would never touch a corpse
unless she had first set upon her hands ten iron rings—one to each
finger; for she feared that, without this protection, the spirit of the
corpse might enter her veins and thus havoc her body.
When Doll saw this dwarfish man-woman standing in the fire-room,
fitting iron rings to her fingers, she shrank from her in horror.
Goody Goochey muttered at her, and Mr. Zelley was distressed because
he believed she was calling the distrait young woman a witch. However,
such was the hoarseness of Goochey’s voice and such was the coarseness
of her nature, he could not be sure. She might have been calling her
another, no more flattering, but surely less dangerous, epithet.
Mr. Zelley sincerely hoped so, for he was far more concerned with
the reputation of Doll than he was with the good or bad language of
Goochey.