1
_The night crackles with Fire. Hell laughs and a Witch meets that which
she long has sought._
Still in the month of May, catastrophe came to Cowan Corners. On
three nights, consecutively, great fires broke out. The first took
the noon-house of the Church. The second the ropewalk of Deacon
Pentwhistle. The third took the barns, sheds, outhouses of Deacon
Ephraim Thumb. This last fire was upon the thirty-first day of May and
the morrow would be June.
The farm servants of Widow Bilby came up from the cow-sheds. They
called to the window in the attic where Hannah slept (for since the
nights were warm she preferred the desolation of an attic to the
proximity of her detested companion), ‘Widow Bilby, Widow Bilby,
there’s a great fire at our neighbour’s. Shall we not go to help?’
The widow told them to go and do their best, and God go with them.
She, too, would follow soon. She got into her clothes, and Doll heard
her stamping down the stairs and out of the house. Doll looked from
her window and the sky was orange. She clutched her throat, for fire
terrified her (because of her parents’ death), yet it fascinated her
(because of her unnatural yearning for Hell).
[Illustration: Building on fire]
Will she, nill she, the young woman dressed and, much perturbed, she
reached the outskirts of the onlookers. With them she could not mingle,
for they feared her, and she dreaded this same fear. She withdrew to a
big straw stack, and beneath its overhanging top (for the cattle had
rubbed against it) she found herself a hiding-place.
Every able man in the village was there, and half of the women. She saw
Titus passing buckets and getting out gear, nor could she have looked
at him without some slight regret, for he was a goodly, comely man and
a young witch has an amorous eye. She heard the shouting, the running
about, the snap and rustle of the flames. Sometimes other idle watchers
came close to where she hid, and from their talk she learned that these
three fires had all been started by a cat breathing fire. Widow Bilby
had said that this same cat could be no other than her old tom, Gideon,
now dead a three-month, thus maliciously returned from Hell. Doll heard
her own name spoken and saw heads shaken. She also heard that Ahab
was still within the vehemently burning barn. Because of his ferocity
as well as because of his wanderings, he had lately been closely
penned. So far no one had been able to loose him, although several
had essayed to do so. The horses, savage with fear, had been moved
far from the fire lest they, with the fondness of their kind, return
to their accustomed stalls and perish. The cattle were running about
the barnyard, where they interfered with the work, upsetting buckets,
etc. Such swine as the Thumbs possessed burned to their deaths, their
stench polluting the air. Doll sickened at the smell, for she never
could forget the holocaust of Mont Hoël. Until the fire burst the
ridgepole, the doves flew constantly from their cotes under the eaves.
Some were so singed they fell to the muck of the yard and, trampled
under foot, perished.
Just before the fall of the barn floor, Ahab was loosed. With sparks
upon his coat, his eyes rolling most horribly, he came out of danger
at a gallop. Seeing the crowd, he charged furiously, passing over the
bodies of three, yet not staying to gore them, so intent was he on
the men who ran. Wherever he went, the crowd melted and the shouting
rose. Many believed it was this wicked bull, and not the Hell cat,
that had set these fires, for now he seemed intent on guarding the
fire and would let no one near it. Doll thought the creature was her
friend—perhaps sometime he would become her familiar; but when she saw
him coming for her on a brisk and determined trot she ran up the short
ladder leaning against the straw stack, not relying unduly on either
charms or friendship.
The same moment the roof fell and sparks flew up, rising into the
night air an hundred feet and more, until the sky seemed filled with
departing souls flying up and up to the Throne of God.
Doll, panting from her vexatious exercise upon the ladder and sweating
from her recent fear, found herself upon the top of the straw stack.
She was sprawled upon hands and knees. In the fury of the orange light
(which with the fall of the roof suddenly was most horrible) she
gazed about her. Then she saw she was not alone, for with her was a
luggard fiend who stretched his length upon the straw. His eyes were
red as though filled with blood. He wore (she said) a costume like
a seaman’s, except that, where a seaman’s clothes are coarse, his
were fine and dainty. For instance, the hoops in his ears were not of
brass but jewels. She said he had a silk kerchief tied about his head.
Upon his breast he bare—as if in mockery of that virgin whose worship
the Catholics prefer to the worship of God—the very imp, the little
servant, whom she had seen in Greene’s cold-cellar. She guessed he was
her god, or a messenger from her god, so, crying out, ‘Master, master,
you have come for me,’ she further prostrated herself before him. Now
she was no more alone, for this fiend had come for her.
At first the demon made no response; then, after a little and with a
few high but kindly words, he permitted her to approach. She said she
could scarce believe that, after such long waiting and such unanswered
prayers, he had at last come. ‘Oh, I have been lonely, lonely; I have
had no one,’ and she sobbed (no tears came).
‘Why do you sob, Bilby’s Doll?’
‘Because I am happy at last.’
He reproved her gently because she had ever doubted his advent, which
he said he had announced to her by the lighting of these three great
fires. It was his will that turned her steps to the ladder and, as she
became too intent upon the fire to notice the summons of his will, he
loosed a fierce black bull who urged her up the humble ladder and into
his presence.
‘And you really are from....’
‘From Hell,’ he said, and showed her his teeth that were white and
strong as an animal’s. She shrank a little from him. He told her not
to fear to approach and touch him, for he was in human guise. There
was no sulphur on his person, no blasting fire in his hands. To prove
his wholesome humanity he touched her wrist, and she experienced a
shock of joy such as she had formerly experienced when her mother had
led her to Satan in the heart of the oak wood. This joy she accounted
a religious joy—such (so she explained to Mr. Zelley) as a Christian
would experience at receiving the visitations of an angel.
Now was she no longer alone in this sad world, for her god (that is,
Satan) had come to succour her, or had at least sent her a messenger.
She asked him which he was, Satan or lesser demon. At the mention of
Satan’s name, he bowed his head reverently. He admitted that he was but
one of many fallen angels who had left Paradise with the Awful Prince.
At first she was cast down, for she had hoped to hear that it was the
Prince himself. But she looked again, and marked how handsome a man he
was and of what a fine ruddy complexion. She saw how strong were his
shoulders, and how arched and strong his chest. She was thankful then
that Satan had not seen fit to send her merely some ancient hag or
talking cat, ram, or little green bird, but this stalwart demon. She
thought, ‘He can protect me even from the hate of Mrs. Hannah.’ She
thought, in her utter and damnable folly, ‘He can protect me from the
Wrath of God.’
The whole barn fell into the cellar hole. As she looked towards this
glowing pit, she thought of that vaster and crueller bonfire in which
her soul would burn forever. She thought well to ask him a little
concerning those pains which she later must suffer. He laughed at her.
There would be, he said, no pain. Those who served Satan faithfully in
this world were never burned in Hell. Was not Satan King of Hell? Why
should he burn those who loved and obeyed him? She was stuffed full of
lunatic theology. The only souls that suffered in Hell were such of
God’s subjects as had angered Him and yet had made no pact of service
with Satan. These the devils burned—even as God ordered. It gave them a
thing to do. He pointed out there were no angels in Hell watching out
that God’s orders be fulfilled, so naturally the devils did not carry
out the cruel sentences God meted out to true subjects of Satan. Again
he said, ‘Why should they?’
She asked him of news concerning her father and mother—good witches
whom the French had burned in Brittany. These he assured her roamed
happily and at free will, finding cooling breezes even in Hell. When
it pleased them, they sat and conversed with antiquity or with the
greatest kings, princes, etc., who had ever lived in this world. But
her mother was a kindly woman and got more pleasure out of good deeds
than from idle conversation. Therefore Satan permitted her to go about
among those who burn and give them water or fan away the smoke. Doll
was convinced that the messenger had indeed seen her mother, whom she
always remembered as a gentle and loving woman.
Was this kind mother aware of her daughter’s sufferings? Was it she
who had thought to send him to comfort her? No, no. A mortal who is
dead cannot see back into life. It was Satan himself who had pitied her
and ordered him to her side. Him he bade her worship, ‘Truth in and
humbly.’ At first she could not understand this reversal of many sacred
phrases. Later she came to know this blasphemous jargon well. For every
night she said Our Lord’s most holy prayer backwards—thereby addressing
herself to Satan; but what came to her as punishment for this wicked
practice we shall see.
He had about him a bottle of grog, and from this he baptized her,
‘Ghost holy and son, Father of name the in.’ Now he said she was no
longer Bilby’s Doll. Now she was the Devil’s Doll. And he kissed her
reverently upon the forehead. His pretty imp peeked out from within
his blue blouse where he kept it. He bade her stroke it. This she did.
She said it was a warm and gentle imp, with tired and thoughtful (but
not malicious, as she had at first thought) eyes. It was well furred
and, if it were not for its wise, sad face and minute black hands, she
might have thought it indeed but an animal. She came to love this imp,
playing with it and petting it. Its name, he said, was Bloody Shad.
‘Why,’ she said, ‘that is the name of one of the pirates that escaped.’
The fiend said he knew that fine fellow well. He had taken his nickname
from the imp the young woman now held in her pretty little hands.
The fire was laid and the dawn gave more light than the embers. Birds
shook the thin, watery air with their calling. A few men still stood
about the fire. The one called to the other that Ahab was in a village
garden devouring new-set cabbage plants and terrifying women. Doll
leaned towards these men, listening to their news. As she turned back
to inquire of her instructor the true status of Ahab in the community
and in the Hierarchy of Hell, she found to her great sorrow that he was
gone.
At the same time one of the barnyard fowls who the night before had
suffered bitterly, being as he was a cock, struck a gallant attitude
upon a heap of dung, and, lifting his head, greeted the coming day with
a triumphant cock-a-doodle-doo. She heard the cocks on her own farm
answer this challenge with distant fairy cries.
This was a new day, and with it came great hopes.
Later she was asked if she did not know that cocks crow at an earlier
hour—for they generally begin before the light. Yes, this she knew. But
her demon must have had the power to stay the crowing of the cocks, for
he never remained later than the first cry from such a bird, yet often
he stayed until the day was almost light—for instance, on that first
meeting. It was light when he left, and yet no cock cried until he was
gone.
Where did he go to?
He went back to Hell.
2
_How Doll became a Servant to the Servant of Hell._
This fiend—this caco-demon—came to her again and yet again. But after
his first visit there was a pause and it seemed likely that he might
not come again. She thought daily to get his summons, either to Black
Sabbath or to class of more instruction. Would he bid her mount a broom
and fly to him? Against this emergency she went to Dame Cosset’s, a
broom-maker, and paid sixpence ha’penny for a new red broom that she
might appear handsomely mounted before her lord. This broom she hid
in her chamber. Likewise she hid rushes and clay for the devising of
poppets, and glass, knives, pins, and needles, for the working of her
master’s will.
On the eighth night from the time of the Thumb fire, she heard close by
the house the hooting of an owl—which she knew was no owl. And Hannah,
too, recognized the falsity of that cry, for she started up, saying
that Indians were about. That was at eight o’clock. At nine they heard
again the crying of an owl, and the dog at the barn began to howl
dismally. Hannah swore that it was the bonded boys playing tricks. By
ten again the hooting of the owl, but Hannah slept. Doll Bilby got to
her room, and, taking clothes and a pillow, made a dummy of herself
which she thrust into the bed, thus to deceive Hannah if the woman
should look about for her. Grasping her red broom, but not essaying to
mount it, she ran joyously from the house, anxious to meet her god or
the accredited messenger of that god.
She came out of the house and found the moon to be rising and the night
to be of a dainty, delicate, springtime beauty. Birches twinkled in
the moonlight; their slender trunks seemed to be the white limbs of
nymphs. The grasses that her broom brushed were sweet with flowers. She
ran up and down the pastures, along the fences, over the fields. She
ran until she was like to drop, and then found him where hereafter she
always was to find him—in an opening in birch woods, enthroned upon a
tussock. In the flowery pasture land this spot which he had selected
for himself was a darling fairy bower. The exact spot is known to this
day, for Doll, on seeing the fiend, threw her red broom into the birch
trees, thus marking the spot, for she never took it back with her. Five
years later boys found it and, on being taken to Dame Cosset, the woman
said yes, it was one of her own brooms, and indeed the very one she
had once sold to wicked Bilby for sixpence ha’penny. It is noticeable
to this day that cattle will not graze there, and that dogs coursing
for rabbits will stop frozen at this place and howl; yet so inferior
is the good sense and righteousness of man to that of beasts, it has
become a common tryst for lovers, who, in each other’s arms, repeat
with foolish laughter (and yet, it may be hoped, with some sensible
fear) the story of how Bilby’s wicked Doll there met and loved a demon.
Then they will go by moonlight to the cellar hole of the Bilby house,
and pick a little of the yellow broom which country people call witch’s
blood.
The demon Prince permitted the witch to kneel to him and let her kiss
his feet (which were not cloven). She noticed how cold to touch he
was—like the fiends and devils in old tales. But the big hands he put
upon her head (she reverently kneeling) were warm as any man’s, and
this heartened her. So he welcomed her ‘Fellowship Christian in.’ Then
he seated himself and permitted her to sit. At first the talk was of
great dignity, but soon it was much like that of one gossip to another.
He told her how his work had prospered him in Salem, in Boston, and now
in Hartford. And how another fiend (but this one in shape of woman)
worked in New York among the silly Dutch, as far north as Albany, and
yet another (this fiend in the shape of a great tawny dog) in Virginia
and the Carolinas. ‘Ah,’ cried Doll, ‘how thankful I, or rather all of
us witches roundabout the Bay Colony should be that you have deigned
to appear to us in the shape of a true proper man.’ The fiend laughed
horribly, saying there had been much complaining among the wizards and
the warlocks because he was but a man—not a wild free wanton wench like
she of the Dutch country.
Then he asked her if she could come with ease to him on such nights
as he should call her, and she answered yes, she could come to him,
but she must always wait her foster mother’s sleeping and then leave
secretly by her own window. She begged him to cry no more as hooting
owl, for this aroused suspicion—the woman guessing it to be a man’s
voice. At this he seemed angry, and said the cries she had heard were
in truth no man’s cries, for he had bade an owl to go about the house
and hoot. He explained to her that, as man may not laugh convincingly
upon command, neither may owl hoot. Still, for such clumsiness the
owl must die. So they argued for a while, Doll pleading with him to
spare the unfortunate owl, and in the end, going back on her early
statements, she said the cry had not sounded like a man, but exactly
like an owl, and that the creature had hooted amazing well. He agreed,
therefore, to spare the owl and to send him often to call her out.
She was rejoiced and humbled to think that he, so great and busy
a fiend, would find time to send for her again and again, and she
confessed to him the unendurable loneliness, desolation, and despair of
her life—especially since her foster father had died; how even Titus,
who had once professed to love her, now fled in terror from her glance,
fearing her witchcraft; how Mrs. Hannah dreaded her so she would not
leave a combing of hair nor a paring of nail about the house, and also
how this woman had butchered Gideon and her other creatures.
As she talked the fiend came close to her, soothing her with his hands
upon her body. Then she suddenly stopped her rehearsal of sorrow, and
for a moment she went in deathly fear, for she guessed what the fiend
intended. Still, such was her wickedness, she also felt uplifted and
glorified, and in the end, it were these feelings that conquered in
her, for she entirely forgot or set aside Christian fears and Christian
modesty. The fiend kissed her and told her to be of good heart, for
of all the many witches he had met in his recent travels through New
England, it was she he most fancied and she should be his paramour. So
she consented, and thus came to be the servant of the servant of Hell.
3
_A thought for a Wise Man. Is Beauty of Flesh a good or evil thing?
And the opinions of pagan Antiquity as contrasted to our own_ THEOLOGY.
There is one quality in this world which men call goodness. This is
the beauty of the spirit, and is from God and of God. There is another
quality, which is beauty of the body, and from whence comes it?
The heathen Greeks, whom the Reverend Pyam Plover has suggested were
but devil worshippers, believed these two things to be identical; that
is, what is good is beautiful, what is ugly is evil. Yet need the
thoughtful Christian but read history, or look about him to-day, to
see that rather than identical these two beauties should be considered
non-congruent or mutually antagonistic. All must have observed how
often the most virtuous women have been of no great bodily beauty,
and yet certain famous wantons have been blessed (or cursed) with
bounteous fleshly charms. One should but consider the lives of
Cleopatra, that Helen known as Helen of Troy, Dido, etc.
Beauty of the body, in that it excites to lust and evil thoughts, is
wicked, but the sick, ugly, maimed body, in that it excites the sweet
and gentle passion of pity, is from God. For this reason modesty in the
young, blooming, comely female is of greater necessity than in the sick
and ancient.
But it is not alone in a consideration of the needful and (in its
proper place) decent female body that one may observe how often Evil
has wormed its way into the hearts of humanity under specious guise of
Beauty. For when the Devil would steal the soul of Bilby’s Doll, he
showed her lavishly and in wanton profusion such sights of pagan beauty
no Christian, godly woman may ever expect to see.
For her this seemly ordered earth, on which we set our houses, in
which we humbly plough and delve—this quiet earth for her brake open
into a rare flowering. She saw the satyrs (close by the salt marshes)
gambolling upon mud flats. In the morning she saw the goatprints of
their hooves. She heard nymphs sing all night in trees. She saw birch
trees in the moonlight spun out of solid silver, and those common
flowers, which by day (and in the sight of God) are but buttercups,
turned into glittering jewels which by their very brilliance frightened
her. Even that fiend the Devil sent to her was handsomer far than any
mortal man might be. He was lovely to the eye, and his touch was as the
touch of fire. The strength of his arms was beyond that of mortal men
(who are born but to praise God and die). So was every moment that she
spent with him a moment of ecstasy. How can mortal man contend with
fiends in the love of woman? Have they such unholy power to arouse
passion?
It is well known that no woman who has ever accepted an infernal lover
may content herself with the ruck of men—such seeming, after the love
of Hell, but pale, unsubstantial shadows. And the same may be said the
other way over, for men, it is said, who have known nymphs, elves,
or succubi, will long for them all their lives, eschewing the feeble
impuissant arms of women.
So it is an established fact that Beauty that delights the eye is
more often a curse from Lucifer than a blessing from God. Let the
reasonable and righteous man content himself with that which is plain
and seemly—whether it is a church or wife or horse or land that he
considers. Let him not yield to the delights of the eye, but rather to
the beauty of goodness, piety, etc., which burns from within.
4
_Some remarkable Wonders of an Invisible Kingdom._
For fairy women came to her by night, whispering.... ‘Get up ... get up
... get up....’
Strange hands plucked at her bedclothes, pinched or patted her.
Although her window was fast shut, once a great scaled and hairy arm
came in by that same window, and she trembled. Now the arm grew to
three times, four times, the length of human arm. She saw it sweep the
room with a blind and scythe-like motion. It searched for her. She
remained still. Then it was gone as miraculously as it had come.
There was a vast animal that rubbed nightly against the house, sniffing
and blowing.
A monster (she thought it a demon) treaded the roof-tree by night.
Such was her appreciation of these awful and yet to her (coming from
him she chose to accept as God) pleasing sights, she scarcely slept,
being more awake by night than day, for at night she could hardly lie
upon her bed nor close her eyes. She was forever staring and listening,
listening and staring. With the crowing of the cock these disturbing
visions retreated to that same Hell in which they had their geneses.
Sometimes she floated forth without volition, as on a certain night
when she cried out, ‘Master, command me and I will come.’ Then far away
and from the midst of the moonlight, she heard fairy women cry, ‘Get up
... get up ... get up....’
‘Then I will,’ she said. Of a sudden her body was filled with lightness
and (at first maintaining her horizontal position) she was elevated
from off her bed. Thrice around the room she floated and, looking down,
she saw her own vacant body as it lay still and flat as any corpse.
‘If I am going out to walk wet fields,’ she thought, ‘I should put
on slippers.’ Then the red slippers Mr. Bilby once had bought her in
Boston appeared upon her feet. She floated through the window, but once
this was cleared she was set in vertical position. However, she felt
no contact with the grass, and she took no steps. She floated on.
The moon was big upon the hills. The night air shook ravishing perfumes
from the flowers and new leaves. The air was full of birds’ songs
(although it was dead of night), of voices, strange music, laughter.
She floated on. The silver birches twinkled and bowed to her. Her name
was called by a thousand little voices. A million gleaming eyes watched
her. At last she was thus conveyed to the fiend, who was seated upon
a hillock, as on a throne. He raised her up when she would prostrate
herself to him. He bade her have no fear, for, although in Hell he was
indeed a great prince, upon earth he was as mortal man and her true
love.
In the morning, when she awoke in her own bed, she believed that the
adventure of the night had been but another dream. She drew her body
from between the sheets, and set her feet upon the floor. Upon her feet
were the red slippers, and they were wet. Upon the sheets were green
stains from the grass crushed beneath her feet.
Now could she know truth from dreams and dreams from truth.
5
_We are informed that there is no marriage nor giving in marriage in
Heaven, but in Hell it well may be otherwise._
She never saw her fiend by day. He came at dead of night. He went by
cock crow (yet, as already pointed out, sometimes delaying this same
crowing). He ruled by love and not by terror. She gave him soul and
body, both as act of impious homage, and of true love. So a month wore
away—the month of June.
At every turn and in every way he comforted and charmed her. She
confessed to him how greatly she dreaded that day, which he said must
now soon come, when he would be summoned back to Hell. She begged him
to take her with him—for without him she had no use for this dull
earth. She begged him to slay her now, and thus, her spirit released,
she would take her way with him to Hell, and there live with him, once
more with her parents—whom the French burned in Brittany. So she fitted
his hands to her throat. He would not. He only promised her again and
again that when she lay dying he himself would come to her once more,
and stand at her bed’s head. He promised her a short life, and life
everlasting.
So this young woman, who had often shown a need for true religion,
found great comfort in a false one. It was a fiend that fed, it
would seem, her soul’s hunger. By him and by the hopes of Hell she
was comforted, as the true Christian is by his Lord and the hopes
of Paradise. She became reconciled to life, to death, to adversity,
loneliness, and despair.
There was no problem that he could not answer for her, no doubt he
did not lay. For instance, she was distressed to think that when her
true life should begin (that is, when she died and entered Hell) she
would not see the kind foster father, but would undoubtedly encounter
his disagreeable wife. No, explained the demon, she was wrong, for he
knew that Jared Bilby was already there, well and at peace. He had
committed mortal sin by saving her when a child, for she was already a
witch, and it is mortal sin to save a witch. ‘But at the time he did
not know I was a witch. I do not think he ever believed it.’ The demon
said that made no difference. Mortal sin was mortal sin, but Satan,
grateful to him for saving the life of Doll, had never carried out the
cruel sentence which had been meted out to him at the Awful Judgement
Seat. Doll wanted to know what this sentence was. He said it was of
so revolting a nature he could not tell her. His words made her hate
Jehovah, and she felt Satan was a kinder ‘god.’
The demon went on to assure her that Mrs. Hannah would undoubtedly
be given place in Heaven. She was a pious woman, always at meeting,
lecture, and prayer. There were already millions of just such vixens
singing miserable psalms, badly out of tune, about the golden streets.
If she did in some way get sent down to Hell, he promised they would
all get together and make it hot for her. They couldn’t endure such
ugly scolds in Hell. Doll was surprised. ‘She is not ugly. She is
remarkably handsome.’ The devil was surprised. He said he had supposed
from what he heard that she must be very ugly.
There was now only one thing with which she could vex herself, for her
demon comforted her at every turn. Sometimes as he held her in his arms
she moaned a little and pulled away. He begged her to tell him. He
was her true love. Let her tell him and he would help. Then she told
him that she knew that upon occasions fiends do actually marry mortal
women. He laughed at her, and tried to turn her fancy from such homely
thoughts. She would not be turned. He said witches and women talked
alike, and yet he did not refuse to marry her.
With the commendable and proper thought of marriage in her head, she
sought out Goody Greene (whom she had seen but little of late). She
walked with her through the woods, helping her gather that bitter
flower which the Indians call the jug-woman’s-baby. The old woman was
tired and the two sat upon a stone. From where they sat Doll could see
the birch woods, the rough pastures, where by night she met her devil.
‘Dear Goody, tell me as you used to tell the story of the goblin or
infernal who came to a maid’s window on a May eve and wed her in a
respectful and seemly manner. Why cannot devils always do so? It is sad
to think that a loving wench—betrayed by love—may become but the doxy
of the devil.’ She was near tears—although now she never had tears to
shed.
The old woman told the story of Fair Jennifer of Bageley Wood. She had
a demon lover—a black and scaly fellow, cold to touch as serpent or
any ice or iron. He came to her window three times, calling her to
get up and come to him. She lay disobedient upon her bed. Then on the
third occasion he entered her chamber by the chimney hole, bearing in
his hands green branches, and he was dressed in green leaves. Jennifer
and the demon walked around and around the bed. He promised to be her
loving husband until death, to avenge her of her enemies, and she
promised to be his obedient wife until death and after death, and to
deny God and Christ Jesus. Then upon the hearth she made him a cake,
and in the cake they put blood drawn from the veins of both their arms.
They ate this cake and were man and wife. His name was Karlycuke. But
Fair Jennifer of Bageley Wood has been dead three hundred years. Such
a thing cannot happen to-day. Doll thought otherwise, but kept her own
counsel. Nor was she wrong.
On the way back to the hut on the waste land, Doll asked her how it was
she could always remember these old stories. The woman said she had
told them many, many times. ‘To other children, as once you told them
to me?’ ‘Yes,’ she said, ‘to other children.’ Then she set down her
basket and put her arms about Doll. She said once she had a son, but
she would say no more of him and Doll guessed he was a long time dead.
One night, a night of full moon, Doll woke and found the fiend there in
the room beside her bed. He signed her to silence, but Doll, who had
many times by night stolen out of the house, knew that Hannah in her
attic room slept soundly. All that the black and scaly fiend did for
Jennifer, he now did for his love, and more. He set his imp upon the
bedpost for a witness, and on the whole nothing could have been more
seemly. There was no hearth in Doll’s chamber. They could bake no cake.
He pricked his wrist and her wrist, and each drank a little from the
other’s veins. This slight cut upon her wrist never healed, as would a
normal cut. It was red and angry to the day she died. Thus does Nature
(which usually essays to heal) shrink from the lips of Hell.
It was the last of June, and the summer solstice (for on that day he
married her) was passed. The leaves broadened into summer and the
night air no longer held the rhapsody of spring. Now Doll had always
known that he must leave her, but it hurt her to find that he could go
without farewell. She comforted herself with the memory of his sweet
love and her hopes for the future.
6
_The Quenching of three Evil Firebrands._
There were hanged upon a spit of mud in the tidal waters of the Charles
at Boston, on the tenth day of July, 1671, three pirates, long wanted
for their unparalleled offences. These three, Black Pig Murch, Ben
Bottle, and the Bloody Shad, had been taken into custody some two
months earlier, but, having escaped their guardians, separated each to
his own hiding. By agreement they came together again upon the second
of July, thinking the hunt to be up and that they could get a pinnace
and sail south to safety. So all three were taken together, but the
fourth, Calico Jack, was never taken. Being duly indicted and tried,
these fine rogues were found guilty of many homicides, robberies, and
cruel acts of mayhem upon the high seas, so were condemned to hang.
Justice was done upon their bodies, and in due time (after the corpses
had hung in chains some weeks, serving as due warning to others,
especially to seamen) these bodies were buried in mud, close to the
place where they had died.
_Sic transeunt maleficii mundi!_