At the Governor’s House
While they were still drinking, there came an imperious rap on the door.
In response to Lord Christopher’s bidding, the Governor entered, followed
by a young minister.
Abigail was awed at the sight of the latter, recalling how she had seen
him in the forest only a few short hours ago. The student put down his
wine-cup and rose, deeply respectful.
“I have come to tell you, my dear friend,” said the Governor, addressing
himself to the Cavalier, “that a very strange miscarriage of justice
calls me at once to Salem.”
Ere the Cavalier could reply, his attention was diverted by the strange
action of Cotton Mather, who, pausing half-way across the room, was
staring at the little maid.
“I did see the spectre of that child rise before me in the forest this
very morn,” he cried in a curious voice.
“Nay, good sir,” cried Abigail, finding voice in her terror, “it was my
very living shape ye saw.”
“It rose in my path,” spoke Cotton Mather, as if he heard her not. “I,
believing it a living child, did glance about to see who accompanied it.
When I looked for it again the Shape had gone.”
“Nay,” cried Abigail, in mortal terror. “Nay, good sir, nay, it was my
living self.”
“Ay, reverend sir, it was the little maid you beheld indeed, and no Dead
Shape that rose at the Devil’s bidding,” cried Lord Christopher, and the
effect of his mellow, vigorous voice was magical. So heartily it rang
that the others’ thoughts of spirits and visions grew faint as those
visions are disposed to be faint in flesh.
All felt it but Cotton Mather. Wrapped in his own thoughts, he still
stared at the little maid.
“Do you not perceive the child is frightened to be so regarded?” cried
the Cavalier, impatiently. “I can swear to you, prove to you, her living
self was in the forest this morning. In Salem Town, accused falsely of
witchery, there languishes a little maid——”
“A little maid,” cried Cotton Mather, still in his strained voice.
Suddenly, as if grown faint, he sank upon a chair and covered his
eyes with his hands. Thus he remained for several moments, while his
companions, awed by his emotion, waited in a silence not unmingled
with curiosity. After awhile he took away his hand from his eyes and
raised his face. Worn it was by the night’s long ride and lack of food,
sad it was, for he had but just come from the death-bed of a beloved
parishioner, but above all it was glorified by a transfiguring faith.
“A little maid,” he repeated, and now his voice was tender; “she sits in
prison on her straw pallet, knitting, and the good God watches over her.”
In that solemn silence which followed his words, the room lost all
semblance to the Governor’s state bed-chamber. Its spacious walls faded
and narrowed to a prison cell, wherein on her straw pallet, sat a little
maiden knitting.
The silence was broken by a smothered sob. The faithful little friend,
her face buried on Lord Christopher’s broad breast, was weeping.
When at last on that kind breast her sobs were hushed, the minister spoke
again and she raised her head that she might listen.
He told them how the night before, after his supper at the inn-house,
he had retired to his room to study. But he was restless and could not
compose his thought, and whatever he wrote was meaningless. So, believing
this non-success to be a reproof from the Lord, inasmuch as he was
writing on a profane and worldly subject, he laid down his quill and
fastened his papers with a weight, that the breeze coming in the open
window might not blow them away. Then had he opened his Bible. Now the
breeze was grateful to him, for his room was warm. A subtle fragrance of
the meadow and the peace of the night seemed to be wafted about him. He
was reminded how one of the Patriarchs of old had gone “forth into the
fields at even-tide to pray.” This thought was gracious and so won upon
him, that he rose and snuffed his candles, and went out into a wide field
lying back of the inn.
The moon was not risen, but the night was so fair and holy by reason of
the starlight, that the white reflection of some young meadow birches
showed in the stream, and, a distance off, he could see the moving shapes
of some cows. He heard the tinkling of their bells. He felt no longer
restless but at deep peace.
It seemed not long before he heard the night watchman making his rounds,
crying all good folk in for the night. He heard him but faintly, however,
as in a dream. His heart was exceedingly melted and he felt God in an
inexpressible manner, so that he thought he should have fallen into a
trance there in the meadow. The summons of the night watchman began to
sound louder in his ears, so, reminding himself that the greatest duty
was ever the nearest duty, he turned to go toward the inn-house. Just
then he saw near the cluster of meadow birches, the little maid he had
visited in prison in the afternoon. She was clothed in shining white and
transparent in the starlight as a wan ghost.
Still, by the glory in her face, he knew it was not her Dead Shape, but
her resurrected self. As he would have spoken she vanished, and only the
white trunks of the young birches remained.
By this, he knew it was a sign from God that she was innocent, being
showed to him as if caught up to Heaven. At this he remembered her
words in prison, when Sir Jonathan had sought to make her confess by
threatening that she should be put to death by stones.
An enraged groan and a missile thrown interrupted him. The pale student
in his passion had hurled his wine-mug across the room.
“And you sat by and heard that vile wretch so torture a child!” he
cried. “Oh, my God! of what stuff are these thy ministers fashioned,
that this godly servant of thine did not take such a living fiend by the
scruff of his neck and fling him out of the cell?”
“Come, come, young sir,” cried Sir William, angrily, “Mr. Mather had not
then received the sign that your sister was not bound to the Evil One.
I will have not the least discourtesy put upon him in my house, and the
wine-mug flung in your wicked passion but just missed my head.”
Cotton Mather waited patiently until the disturbance his words had
wrought subsided. His ministerial experience had taught him sympathy with
the humours of people in trouble. With a compassionate glance, directed
toward the student, he continued to relate how he had straightway
repaired to the inn, and ordering his horse saddled, had journeyed all
night, that he might get a reprieve for the prisoner’s life from Governor
Phipps in time. He was delayed in seeing the Governor sooner, as upon
entering Boston Town he was summoned to the death-bed of a parishioner.
“While all this but the more surely convinces me of the evil reality
of this awful visitation of witches,” he ended, “yet we must not put
too much faith in pure spectre evidence, for it is proven in this case
that the Devil did take upon himself the shape of one very innocent and
virtuous maid.”
“’Tis a very solemn question, my dear sir,” rejoined the Cavalier,
wagging his handsome head. “I remember once talking it over with my very
honoured contemporary, Sir Thomas Browne. ‘I am clearly of the opinion,’
said he to me, ‘that the fits are natural, but heightened by the Devil
coöperating with the malices of the witches, at whose instance he does
the villanies.’”
“Sir,” asked Master Ronald of the Governor, “when will you give me the
reprieve, that I may start at once for Salem?”
“Nay,” cried Lord Christopher, “’twas I who brought trouble on the little
maid. ’Tis I shall carry the reprieve.”
“Methinks ’twere wisdom that I should go in person, accompanied by
soldiers,” spoke the Governor, “lest there be an uprising among the
people at the reprieval of one convicted for witchery.”
“Little mistress,” said the Cavalier to Abigail, “be pretty-mannered and
run and get me the decanter of wine from the living-room that we may
again drink the health of the little maid in prison.”
Abigail obediently went out into the hall. There she saw the pretty
gentlewoman whom she had noticed in the garden, standing by the table,
drawing off her gauntlet gloves. Behind her stood a little black Moor
dressed in the livery of the Governor’s household, and holding a basket
filled with eggs and vegetables fresh from the market.
Lady Phipps turned as she heard steps behind her, and revealed a
sprightly face with a fresh red colour, and fine eyes, black as sloes.
“Lackaday, my pretty child!” she cried, “and prithee who might you be?”
Abigail dropped a courtesy. “I be Abigail Brewster, of Salem Town,”
answered she.
“I hope I see you well,” said the gentlewoman.
Abigail dropped another courtesy. “And it will pleasure you, madam,” said
she, “yon fine and portly gentleman, whom I come for to see, wishes more
wine to drink therein the health of Deliverance Wentworth.”
Lady Phipps shook her head. “I fear in drinking others’ health he drinks
away his own. I will attend to you in a moment, as soon as I have sent my
little Moor to the kitchen with the marketing.”
While Abigail waited there was a vigorous pounding in the adjoining room.
At this, Lady Phipps smiled. “Our good guest be as hot tempered as hasty
pudding be warm. Tell him, sweet child, that he must bide in patience a
moment longer.”
Abigail opened the door just wide enough to put her head inside. She saw
Lord Christopher, purple in the face, frowning and tapping on the floor
with his walking-stick. He smiled when he saw Abigail.
“Haste ye, little maid,” he said blandly, “I wax impatient.”
“Bide ye in patience, honoured sir,” said Abigail, quoting the Governor’s
lady, and then she withdrew her head and shut the door.
Meanwhile Lady Phipps had dusted a lacquered tray which had been brought
her from the East Indies, and laid upon it a square of linen. She cut
some slices of pound cake, so rich that it crumbled, and laid them on
a silver platter. She further placed some silver mugs and a plate of
biscuit on the tray.
“Now you may take this in,” she said, “and I will follow with the wine.”
She crossed the hall and held the chamber-door open for the little maid
to pass in. Perceiving the student inside, she bowed graciously, her fine
black eyes twinkling.
Master Ronald put his hand to his heart and bowed very low, his cheek
reddening, for he perceived by the twinkle in her eyes the drift of the
madam’s thought,—that she surmised him to be in trouble on account of
some rude jesting.
Soon the door opened again and Lady Phipps entered with the wine, which
she placed upon the table. She began to feel that this unusual gathering
in her home, betokened more than some mere student prank, and her manner
bespoke such a modest inquisitiveness, as they say in New England,
that Lord Christopher, understanding, called her back as she was about
to leave the room, and begged that she honour the poor tale he had to
relate, by her gracious presence.