In which Abigail sees Deliverance
Thus because she would not confess to the crime of which she had been
proven guilty in the eyes of the law, she was sentenced to be hanged
within five days, on Saturday, not later than the tenth nor earlier than
the eighth hour. Also, owing to the fact of the confusion and almost
ungovernable excitement among the people, it was forbidden any one to
visit her, excepting of course the officers of the law, or the ministers
to exhort her to confession.
At noon the court adjourned.
First, the judges in their velvet gowns went out of the meeting-house.
With the chief justice walked Cotton Mather, conversing learnedly.
Following their departure, two soldiers entered and bade Deliverance rise
and go out with them. So, amidst a great silence, she passed down the
aisle.
Then the people were allowed to leave. Some of them must needs follow
the judges, riding in stately grandeur down the street to the tavern for
dinner. But the greater part of them followed the prisoner’s cart to the
very door of the jail.
As Deliverance stepped from the cart, she saw a familiar figure near by.
It was that of Goodwife Higgins.
“Deliverance, oh, Deliverance,” cried the poor woman, “speak to me, my
bairn!”
But Deliverance looked at her with woe-begone eyes, answering never a
word.
The goodwife, regardless of the angry warnings of the guard to stand
back, pushed her way to her foster-child’s side. Deliverance was as one
stricken dumb. Only she raised her face, and the goodwife bent and kissed
the little maid’s parched lips.
A soldier wrested them violently apart. “Are ye gone daft, gossip,” he
cried harshly, “that ye would buss a witch?”
Of the many that had packed the meeting-house to the full that morning,
but one person now remained in it. This was Master Wentworth, the
simpler, honoured for his pure and blameless life as well as for his
great skill. All that summer noontide he knelt and prayed, unmindful
of the heat, the buzzing flies, the garish light streaming through the
window. He, knowing that the hearts of men were hardened to his cause,
had carried his grief to a higher Tribunal.
When the jailer had turned the key in the door and locked her in, a
certain peace came to Deliverance.
The abhorred prison-cell now seemed sweet to her. No longer was it a
prison, but a refuge from the stern faces, the judges, and the young
minister. Never had the lavender-scented sheets of her little hooded bed
at home seemed half so sweet as did now the pile of straw in the corner.
Once more the chain was fastened around her ankle. But the clanking of
this chain was music to her compared to the voices that had condemned her.
The sunlight came in the window with a green and golden glory through
the leaves of the gnarled old apple tree.
Drearily the long afternoon wore away. Deliverance wondered why she did
not cry, but she seemed to have no tears left, and she felt no pain. So
she began to believe her heart had indeed grown numb, much as her fingers
did in cold weather. She longed to know if the stranger she had met in
the forest had yet arrived from Boston Town. However, she felt that if he
had he would have found her before this. Something entirely unforeseen
must have detained him. Had he not said he would return in state in a
few days? Toward sunset she heard a rustling in the leaves of the apple
tree and the snapping of twigs as if a strong wind had suddenly risen.
She looked up at the window. Something was moving in the tree. After a
breathless moment, she caught a glimpse of the sad-coloured petticoat of
Abigail Brewster. Her heart throbbed with joy. The leaves at the window
were parted by two small, sunbrowned hands, and then against the bars
was pressed a sober face, albeit as round and rosy as an apple, and two
reproachful brown eyes gazed down upon her.
“Deliverance,” asked the newcomer, “might ye be a witch and ne’er telled
me a word on it?”
Hope came back with a glad rush to Deliverance and lit her eyes with joy,
and touched her cheeks with colour. For several moments she could not
speak. Then the tears streamed from her eyes, and she put forth her arms,
crying, “Oh, Abigail, I be fair glad to see ye! I be fair glad to see ye.”
“I thought ye would have telled me on it,” repeated Abigail.
“Ye be right,” answered the little maid, solemnly, “I be no witch. I
speak true words, Abigail. I ken not how to be a witch and I would.”
“I calculate ye were none,” answered the other, “for ye were ne’er o’er
quick to be wicked save in an idle fashion. I calculate ye would ne’er
meddle with witches. Ye were gone so daffy o’er the adorning o’ your
sinful person that ye had thought for nothing else in your frowardness
and vanity.” Severe though the words were, the speaker’s voice trembled
and suddenly broke into sobs. “Oh, Deliverance, Deliverance, I ken not
what I shall do and ye be hanged! I tell ye a wicked witch has done this,
and hanged her evil deeds on ye to escape her righteous punishment.”
“Ye silly one, hush your soughing,” whispered Deliverance, sharply, “or
the jailer will hear ye and send ye away.” She glanced toward the door to
assure herself that it was closed, then whispered, “The Lord has put into
my mind a plan by which ye can free me, and ye be so minded.”
“I ken not how to refrain from soughing when I think o’ ye hanging from
the gallows, swinging back and forth, back and forth,” wept Abigail.
Deliverance shuddered. “Ye were ne’er too pleasant-mouthed,” she retorted
with spirit, despite the terrible picture drawn for her; “but ye be
grown fair evil and full o’ malice to mind me o’ such an awful thing.”
She pointed frantically to the door. “Hush your soughing, ye silly one.
Methinks I hear the jailer.”
“Ye look no reconciled to God, Deliverance,” protested Abigail, meekly,
wiping her eyes on the edge of her linsey-woolsey petticoat.
“Now hark ye, Abigail,” said Deliverance, “and I will tell ye an
o’er-strange tale. But ye must swear to me that ye will breathe no word
o’ it. I be on a service for his Majesty, the King, the likes ye wot not
of. And now no more of this lest I betray a secret I be bound in all
loyalty to keep. But in proof o’ my words, that it be no idle tale, ye
can go to-morrow morning to the old oak tree with the secret hollow, and
run your arm into the hole and feel around until you touch summat hard
and small, wrapped in a bit o’ silk. Ye will see the package contains a
string o’ gold beads which ye can look at and try on; for it is great
consolation to feel ye have on good gold beads. Watch out, meantime, that
no witch spy ye. Then wrap them up, and put them back, and run fast away
so ye be no tempted to fall into the sin o’ envy by lingering, for ye be
o’er much given to hankering for worldly things, Abigail.”
“I ken, I ken,” cried Abigail, breaking into sobs, “that I be no so
spiritual minded as I ought to be. But, oh, Deliverance, my unchastened
heart be all so full o’ woe and care to think o’ ye in prison, that I
cannot sleep o’ nights for weeping, and I continually read the Scriptures
comforting against death. But I can find no comfort for thinking on the
good times we have had together, and so I fear I be a great reproach unto
God.”
“Hush, hush!” cried Deliverance, “I hear some one coming.”
There was a moment of fearful listening. Then the approaching footsteps
passed the door and went on down the corridor.
“Now, I have thought out a plan which be summat like this,” continued
Deliverance. “Ye must take a letter to Boston Town for me. If ye start
early and don’t dawdle by the way, ye will reach there by set o’ sun.
Still, if ye should not arrive until dusk, ye could ask the night
watchman the way. And I should advise ye to put on no airs as being
acquaint with the town, but to inquire humbly o’ him the way to Harvard
College. I doubt not he will be pleased to tell ye civilly it be up the
street a little ways, like as the boys’ school be here. So ye must walk
on, and when ye have reached it, raise the knocker and rap, and go in.
There ye will see one young man, much more learned and good to look at
than his fellows, and he will be my dear and only brother, Ronald. After
ye have asked the goodly schoolmaster permission, ye must go up and pluck
hold o’ Ronald by his doublet sleeve, and draw him down to whisper in his
ear o’ my sore plight. Now, I think ye will find all this to be just as
I say, though I have ne’er been in Boston Town. Ronald will go with ye
to search for the fine gentleman I met in the forest. Then, when he has
found him, they will both come and take me out o’ jail. Bring me some
paper and an ink-horn and quill, so I can write the letter to-morrow.”
“I will come as soon as I can,” said Abigail. “I would have come before
this to-day, but some horrid boys were playing ball in Prison Lane, and I
was afeared lest they should see me climb the tree, and suspicion summat.”
For the next hour, the two little maids planned a course of action which
they fondly hoped would free Deliverance.
“Happen like ye have seen my father, lately?” asked Deliverance, very
wistfully, just before they said good-by.
“So sad he looks,” answered Abigail; “shall I whisper to him that I have
talked with ye?”
“Nay,” said Deliverance, “wait until ye have returned from Boston Town
with good news. Speaking o’ news, did ye hear whether or no a woman by
the name o’ Hobbs was hanged last week?”
“That I did,” replied Abigail. “Father taked me to the hanging. A most
awful old witch was she, for sure, with bones like to come through her
skin. A judgment o’ God’s it was come upon her.”
“Oh, Abigail,” wailed Deliverance, “she was no witch. She said many holy
words for me and prayed God forgive her judges. She was in this cell with
me.”
“They shut a witch in with ye!” cried Abigail, aghast; “she might have
cast a spell on ye.”
“She cast no spell on me,” answered Deliverance, sadly. “Go now, lest ye
be missed, and forget not to bring me the paper, quill, and ink-horn.”
Ere Abigail could reply there were heavy footsteps in the corridor. They
paused at the door.
“Get ye gone quick, Abigail,” whispered Deliverance, “some one be coming
in. Oh, make haste!” With wildly beating heart she lay down on the straw
and shut her eyes.
She heard the jailer speaking to some one as he unlocked the door. Unable
to control her curiosity as to the identity of this second person, she
opened her eyes, but closed them again spasmodically.
Of the two persons standing on the threshold, one was the bent old
jailer: the other—she quivered with dread. Through her shut lids she
seemed to see the familiar figure in its cape of sable velvet, the red
beard, the long nose beneath the steeple-crowned hat.
The jailer had begun to have doubts regarding the justice of the law, and
his heart was in a strange ferment of dissatisfaction, for he thought
the Devil had taken upon himself the names and forms of people doubtless
innocent.
Moreover, the witch looked so like his own little granddaughter that he
grumbled at permitting Sir Jonathan to disturb her.
“Let the poor child sleep,” he said, “child o’ the Devil though she be.
Witch or no, I say, let her sleep if she can after such a day as this. Be
no disturbing her, Sir Jonathan. Ye can come again i’ the morning, sith
ye have gotten permission o’ the magistrate.”
“Very well, goodman, very well,” answered Sir Jonathan, “you are
doubtless right. I bethink myself that she would be in no mood for
amiable converse. But I will come to-morrow, bright and early.” He
clapped the jailer on the shoulder and laughed sardonically. “Ha, ha,
goodman, ’tis the early bird that catches the worm. Best close a witch’s
mouth, I say, lest she fly away to bear tales.”