The Coming of the Town Beadle
The next morning, Goodwife Higgins and Deliverance heard steps coming
around the side of the house.
“Who can it be at this hour o’ the dawning?” asked the goodwife. “It be
but the half-hour past six o’ the minute-glass.”
“Ye don’t hear the tapping o’ a stick like as it might be Sir Jonathan,
goody,” asked Deliverance, listening fearfully. “I like not his ruddy
beard and his sharp, greeny-gray eyes.”
But as she spoke, the form of the Town Beadle with his Bible and staff of
office darkened the doorway.
“Has our cow Clover gotten loose again?” cried Deliverance, remembering
the meadow-bars were broken. One of the chief duties connected with the
office of Beadle was to arrest stray cows and impose a fine on their
owners.
Goodwife Higgins said never a word, only watched the Beadle, her face
grown white.
“As much as three weeks ago and over,” continued Deliverance, deftly
drying a pewter platter, “as I was cutting across the meadow to Abigail
Brewster’s back door, I saw those broken bars. ‘Hiram’, says I to the
bound boy, ‘ye had best mend those bars, or Clover and her calf will get
loose and ye get your ears boxed for being a silly loon, and ye ken ye
be that, Hiram.’ ‘I ken,’ says he. Hold your dish-cloth over the pan,
goody,” she added, “it be dripping on the floor.”
While she spoke, the Beadle had been turning over the leaves of his
Bible. He laid it open face downward on the table, to keep the place,
while he carefully adjusted his horn-bowed spectacles on his nose. He
cleared his throat.
“Peace be on this household,” he announced pompously, “and suffer the
evil-doer to be brought out from his dark ways and hiding-place into
the public highway where all may be warned by his example.” Having
delivered himself of these words he raised the Bible and read a stretch
therefrom. “Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live, neither wizards that
peep and mutter.... Regard not them that have familiar spirits, neither
seek after them to be defiled by them.” He closed the book and removed
his spectacles. Then he lifted his staff and tapped Deliverance on the
shoulder. “I arrest ye in the name of the law,” he cried in a loud voice,
“to await your trial for witchery, ye having grievously afflicted your
victim, Ebenezer Gibbs.”
Deliverance stared horrified at him and, although she opened her mouth to
speak, her voice was gone.
Goodwife Higgins dusted off the seat of a stool with her apron and
pushed it over to the Beadle. “Sit ye down, goodman, and I will bring
ye a glass o’ buttermilk. Also I will look for the maid’s father who be
herb-gathering. As for ye, Deliverance, go to your room and wait there
until this matter be settled.” For it had flashed into her mind that if
she could get out of the kitchen, while Deliverance went to her room, she
could slip around the corner of the house and assist the little maid out
of the bedroom window, bidding her conceal herself in the forest.
“Nay,” said the Beadle, “I have no time to dilly-dally, as I have five
stray cows to return this morning. Yet I will have a glass o’ buttermilk
to wet my throat. I will watch the witch-maid that she escape not while
ye be gone.”
The goodwife, the tears rolling down her face, hurried to the spring
where the buttermilk was kept.
“I be no so wicked as ye make out,” said Deliverance, finding her voice.
“Touch me not,” cried the Beadle, jumping back in wondrous spry fashion
for so pompous a man, and in his fright overturning the stool, “nay, come
not so near. Take your hands off my doublet. Would ye cast a spell on me?
Approach no nearer than the length o’ this staff.”
He turned the stool right side up again and seated himself to drink the
buttermilk the dame brought him.
“Come,” he said, rising and giving back the mug when he had finished, “I
have no time to dally with five cows to be gotten in.” He drew a stout
rope from his pocket. “Tie her hands behind her, gossip,” he commanded,
“I hanker not for to touch a witch-maid. Nay, not so easy, draw that knot
tighter.”
Goodwife Higgins, weeping, did as he bade, then rose and put the
little maid’s cap on her. She slipped some cookies into Deliverance’s
work-pocket.
“I be not above cookies myself,” remarked the Beadle, quite jovially, and
he helped himself bountifully from the cooky-jar.
“My father will come after me and bring me back,” murmured Deliverance,
with quivering lips. “Weep not, dear goody, for he will explain how it be
a fever sickness that aileth Ebenezer Gibbs, and no spell o’ witchery.”
“Step out ahead o’ me,” commanded the Beadle, as he put the end of his
long staff against her back. “There, keep ye at that distance, and turn
not your gaze over your shoulder at me. I ken your sly ways.”
Solemnly around the house and out of the gate he marched her, and as the
latter swung to behind them, he turned and waved his hand to Goodwife
Higgins. “Farewell, gossip,” he cried, “I have rid ye o’ a witch.”
Down the forest road into the town’s highway, he marched Deliverance.
Many turned to look at them and drew aside with a muttered prayer. The
little maid was greatly relieved that they met no naughty boys to hoot
and call derisively after her. They were already at their books with the
schoolmaster.
At last they reached the jail, in front of which the old jailer sat
smoking.
“Bless my soul,” he piped, “’tis a pretty maid to be a witch, Beadle.
Bide ye at the stoop a bit until I get my bunch o’ keys.” He hobbled down
the corridor inside and disappeared, returning in a few moments jangling
a bunch of keys. He stopped half-way down the hall, and unlocking a heavy
oaken door, beckoned them to follow.
“Step briskly, Mistress Deliverance,” commanded the Beadle, poking her
with his staff.
The cell to which she was shown was long and very narrow, and lighted by
a small barred window set high in the wall opposite the door. An apple
tree growing in Prison Lane thrust its twigs and leaves between the bars.
A straw bed was the only furniture. An iron chain, nearly the length of
the cell, was coiled in one corner.
“Beshrew me if I like the looks o’ that chain,” said Deliverance to
herself; “I be not at all minded to go in.” She wrinkled her nose and
sniffed vigorously. “The place has an ill savour. Methinks the straw must
be musty,” she added out loud.
“Ye shall have fresh to lay on to-night,” piped the jailer, “but step in,
step in.”
“Ay,” echoed the Beadle, “step in;” and he poked her again in the back
with his stick in a merry fashion quite his own.
Sorely against her will, Deliverance complied. The jailer followed her in
and bent over the chain.
“Take care lest she cast a spell on ye to make your bones ache,” advised
the Beadle, standing safely outside the threshold.
“I be no feared,” answered the jailer, whom long experience and
familiarity with witches had rendered impervious, “but the lock on this
chain ha’ rusted an’ opens hard.”
“Concern yourself not,” rejoined the Beadle; “the maid be in no hurry,
I wot, and can wait.” He laughed hugely at his little joke, and began
munching one of the seed-cookies he had brought in his doublet pocket.
Nothing could have exasperated Deliverance more than to see the fat
Beadle enjoying the cookies she herself had helped to make, and so she
cast such a resentful look at him that he drew quickly back into the
corridor beyond her gaze.
“If e’er I set eyes on a witch,” he muttered solemnly, “I have this time,
for she has a glint in her een that makes my blood run cold.”
At the moment her attention was attracted to the Beadle, Deliverance felt
a hand clasp her left foot, and in another instant the jailer had snapped
the iron ring around her ankle. The other end of the chain was fastened
to the wall.
The Beadle’s fat face appeared a moment at the side of the door. “A good
day to ye, Mistress Deliverance Wentworth,” quoth he, “I must away to
find my cows. Mistress Deliverance Wentworth, I say, ye had best confess
when ye come to trial.”
“Ay,” retorted Deliverance, “and ye had best be careful lest a witch get
ye. Methinks I dreamed one had catched hold on ye by the hair o’ your
head.”
“An’ I ha’ heerd tell o’ evil spirits taking on the form o’ a cow,” put
in the old jailer. He cackled feebly in such malicious fashion that
Deliverance shuddered, and felt more fear of this old man with his bent
back and toothless jaws than of the pompous Beadle. To her relief he did
not address her, but left the cell, locking the door after him.
All that day Deliverance waited eagerly, but her father did not come for
her, and she feared he had been taken ill. She was confident Goodwife
Higgins would come in his stead, and so sure was she of this that she
slept sweetly, even on the musty straw the jailer had neglected to
change. But when the second day passed, and then the third, and the
fourth, until at last the Sabbath came again, and in all that time no one
had come, nor sent word to her, she grew despondent, fearing the present
and dreading the future under the terrible strain of hope deferred. The
jailer would have naught to say to her. At last she ceased to expect
any change, sitting listlessly on her straw bed, finding one day like
another, waiting only for her trial to come.