In a Sedan-chair
Never did Abigail forget that wonderful day. The journey could not be
made until nightfall, as Lord Christopher, who insisted upon accompanying
the expedition, would have to be bled and must rest during the
afternoon. So Lady Phipps took the little maid with her, and changed the
sad-coloured linsey-woolsey sacque and petticoat—having perceived a rent
in the latter garment—for a white lute-string dress she herself had worn
when young. Her own fair hands braided the little maid’s soft brown hair
and bound it with yellow ribbon, and she tied a similar ribbon around her
waist. Abigail’s shy brown eyes shone like stars and her cheeks were the
colour of blush-roses.
Mr. Mather remained to dinner. Although solemn in some respects, it was
on the whole a happy company that sat at the Governor’s board that day.
After dinner Lady Phipps and Abigail went out into the garden, leaving
the gentlemen to their pipes and conversation.
Lady Phipps mended the little petticoat with elaborate and careful
darning. She told Abigail many stories and also had her little guest
read aloud from the psalms. Thus the pleasant afternoon was whiled away.
When at last the shadows began to lengthen in the pretty garden, and it
was the hour of five by the ivy-festooned sun-dial, supper was served
out of doors. The Governor and Master Ronald joined them. Mr. Mather had
repaired to his home. Lord Christopher rested in his room. Then Lady
Phipps hurried Abigail upstairs to don again her linsey-woolsey attire.
While thus engaged they heard a great trampling of horses.
“Oh, what may that be?” cried Abigail, all agog.
“It is the soldiers who will accompany my husband to Salem,” replied her
ladyship.
Abigail could scarce dress quickly enough, so anxious was she to get
downstairs. “And what may that other sound o’ laughing be?”
“It is made by the college students outside,” answered Lady Phipps,
glancing out of the window; “they are seated on the fence. They
huzza because the Governor is going to Salem to save your friend.
Lack-a-mercy-me! one great bumpkin hath fallen backwards into my
flower-bed and broken the lily-stalks. Off that fence they go, every
mother’s son of them.” And she flew out of the room and ran downstairs
while Abigail hurried to the window.
She looked out upon a busy scene. It was near sunset. The mellow light
of the departing day flashed upon the spear-heads and muskets and the
burnished armour of mounted soldiers drawn up into a group on the further
side of the street. Near by a Moor held two saddle-horses, one of the
steeds having a pillion. She saw the students all tumble pellmell off
the fence when Lady Phipps appeared, breathless with running, her fine
black eyes flashing, as she lamented her lily-stalks. But the student who
had fallen picked himself up and handed one of the broken stalks to her,
with so much grace that she smiled and went back into the house.
Two black men now bore out the Governor’s state sedan-chair, upholstered
in crimson cloth and gold fringe, the outside painted cream-colour. It
had one large glass door.
Lady Phipps hovered near, a feather duster in her hand.
Lord Christopher next appeared, leaning on two slaves, his face pale from
his recent bleeding. Groaning, he seated himself in the chair. When he
was comfortably settled, one of the slaves at her ladyship’s direction
shut the door.
Abigail saw Lord Christopher’s face change from pallor to crimson.
He strove to open the door, but it was locked on the outside. He rapped
sharply on the glass and shouted to the slave to let him out.
Lady Phipps, alarmed lest he have a fit or break the door, opened it
herself.
“Madam,” said the great physician, fixing her with his stern eye, “was
it at your request that I was boxed up in this ungodly conveyance to
suffocate to death?”
“Sir,” replied she with spirit, “my glass door shall not go swinging
loose to hit against the bearers’ heels and be broken on the journey.”
“Madam,” thundered he, “am I to suffocate to gratify your inordinate
vanities?”
Her ladyship tilted her chin in the air. “Sir,” she replied, “nothing
could compensate me for the breaking of that door.”
“Madam,” he retorted angrily, “in my condition, I should perish of the
heat.”
“Sir,” she replied serenely, “I will lend you a fan.”
[Illustration: _Copyright, 1898, by Lamson, Wolffe and Company_
_Her ladyship tilted her chin in the air._
_page 260_]
His lordship gasped. The spectacle she invoked of himself sitting in a
closed chair, energetically fanning himself through the long night,
incensed him beyond the power of speech for several moments.
“Fy, fy, Lady Phipps,” he said at last, wagging his head at her, “is this
the way you Puritan wives are taught to honour your husbands’ guests?”
“Where should I find such another glass door?” quoth she.
“Very well, madam,” retorted he, “not one step do I go toward Salem, and
that little maid may go hang, and her death will be due to your vanities
and worldlinesses.”
At this her ladyship’s black eyes sparkled with wrath, but those near by
saw her proud chin quiver,—a sign she was weakening.
For several moments there was silence.
The students looked preternaturally grave. The waiting soldiers smiled.
Lord Christopher folded his arms on his breast, rolled his eyes up to the
ceiling of the chair, and sighed. The voices of Master Ronald and the
Governor, inside the house, could be heard distinctly.
This painful calm was suddenly broken by a shrill little voice above
their heads.
“Why don’t ye take the door off’n its hinges and put it in the house?”
All looked up. There, leaning out of the second-story window, was a
small excited maiden, unable to contain longer her anxiety at Lord
Christopher’s threat that her friend might go hang.
On beholding her, the students cheered, the soldiers laughed openly, and
the slaves showed all their white teeth in delight.
“These Puritan children are wondrous blest with sense and wit,” quoth
Lord Christopher.
“Bring a wrench,” ordered Lady Phipps. Thus the painful affair was
happily solved.
Abigail, overcome at her temerity in calling out to the gentlefolk, drew
away from the window and waited in much inquietude until she should be
called.
Soon she heard Lady Phipps’ voice at the foot of the stairs. “Hurry down,
dear child; all are ready to start.”
Outside, the Governor was mounted and waiting. Lord Christopher was
drinking a glass of water, with a dash of rum in it as a tonic,
preparatory to starting. Master Ronald had mounted the pillioned horse.
“Make haste, Mistress Abigail,” he cried, “so we may be fairly on our way
before nightfall.” Old Pompey swung the little maid upon the pillion.
The Governor and the soldiers turned their horses’ heads and rode off
grandly. Next the four Moors lifted the handles of the sedan-chair,
turned and followed. Master Ronald spurred his horse and it trotted off
gayly.
Lady Phipps waved her lace-bordered kerchief and the Fellows of Harvard
their caps. Abigail, sorry to say good-by, gazed backwards until her
ladyship’s lilac-gowned figure, surrounded by the students, with her
kerchief fluttering, was hidden from sight by a turn of the road.
Little could Abigail foresee that within the course of several weeks, the
dreaded accusation of witchcraft would be levelled at Lady Phipps.
Many townspeople stood agape on the road to see the imposing company go
by and cross the Common, which was cool and green in the mellow light.
The salt breeze was blowing off the sea. Early as it was, the gallants
and their “Marmalet Madams” were strolling arm in arm. It was still light
when the party reached the river. Here the ferryman took Lord Christopher
across, the rest of the party taking the fordways a short distance
above. As they entered the road on the other shore, Abigail was glad
of companionship, so gloomily the forest rose on all sides. The night
descended sultry and warm as if a storm were brewing. The moon had not
yet risen, but a few pale stars shone mistily.
Now and then between the trees there flashed on their sight the white
line of foam breaking along the beach of the ocean. They made their way
tediously, those who rode suiting the gait of the horses to the rate of
speed maintained by the chair-bearers. Often the poor fellows, straining
under their heavy burden, stumbled on the rough road, jolting the
invalid so that he swore mightily at them.
And there were many fordways to be crossed, so that he was carried up
stream and down stream to find the most shallow places. Twice the streams
were so swollen that the soldiers had to make rude bridges before Lord
Christopher could be taken across.
Shortly before midnight, to the relief of all, the moon arose, breaking
through light clouds.
Abigail first perceived it behind five tall pine trees.
“Master Ronald,” she cried excitedly, “there be a witch’s cottage back of
those five pines.”
“Nonsense,” answered the student, glancing around him sharply.
“But I be sure o’ it,” averred Abigail. “I saw an old goody with a gobber
tooth, cooking a witch-cake in a weamy-wimy hut, near five pine trees.
And just beyond I drew her water in a bucket, at a spring.”
Master Ronald, great as was his anxiety to press forward to Salem,
nevertheless turned his horse’s head and went up beyond the pines until
he came to the spring. “Here is your spring, Mistress Abigail,” he said,
drawing rein and laughing with gay scorn; “come now, show me the old hag
and her hut.”
He looked back and saw the little maid’s face white in the moonlight. “I
ken not where it can be now,” she said in a fearful whisper, “but it was
there.” She pointed to an empty space of ground where some flowers could
be seen in the silver moonshine, but there was neither hut nor any sign
of human habitation.
As the student observed these flowers a strange uneasiness took
possession of him. A climbing rose stood upright in the air with naught
to cling to, while the other flowers seemed to follow a pathway to an
invisible dwelling.
“I beseech ye, let us hurry from the place,” whispered Abigail, “it be
uncanny. But there on that spot an hut stood when I went to Boston Town.”
Master Ronald spurred his horse, but suddenly drew up again. “What was
that?” he cried; “my horse stumbled.”
“Hurry!” shrieked Abigail, glancing down and recognizing the outlines of
the dark object, “it be the witch’s pail.”
Now Master Ronald, for all his fine scorn of witches, spurred his
horse and rode on in a lively fashion. His face had grown so wet with
perspiration that he was obliged to borrow Abigail’s kerchief, his own
not being convenient to get at under his belted doublet.
“It be the kerchief ye lent me this morn,” said Abigail. She clasped her
arms tightly around his waist, casting terror-stricken glances behind
her. “Master Ronald,” she inquired, recalling some of her father’s tales,
“ye don’t see a wolf near by, do ye, with bloody jowls, a-sitting down,
a-grinning at us?”
“I fear I am going in the wrong direction,” he answered abstractedly; “we
have gone some ways now. Your eyes are sharp, Mistress Abigail. See if
you can distinguish our friends ahead.”
“Not one do I see,” she replied, after a moment’s peering.
“We will turn back toward the sea,” said the student, “and try to strike
the path again from there.”
Suddenly a lusty calling broke the silence.
“What can that be?” cried Master Ronald; “it sounds uncommon near.”
“It be Lord Christopher’s voice,” said Abigail; “summat awful has happed.”
“I cannot get the direction of the sound; can you?” asked the young man,
holding his hand to his ear.
“Just ahead o’ us,” cried Abigail. “Hurry!”
After several moments of brisk riding they came to a bar of sand where
the sea had once sent up an arm. All was silent again, save for the
hooting of an owl.
“I see naught,” said the student, reining in his horse.
“There below us be summat dark,” said Abigail, pointing.
As she spoke, the calling for help broke forth again not a stone’s throw
from them. This time the voice was unmistakably Lord Christopher’s.
“Halloo!” cried Master Ronald, riding forward, “what’s the matter there?”
“Don’t come so near,” came the reply, “there is quicksand. Lord have
mercy on my soul!”
Master Ronald dismounted and ran toward Lord Christopher, relapsing into
a cautious walk as he neared him.
“May Satan take the knaves that left me in this plight!” groaned his
lordship.
And, although it was but a sorry time for laughter, Master Ronald,
perceiving that his lordship was in no immediate danger, must needs clap
his hands to his knees and double up with merriment. For while most of
the chair rested on the solid earth, the back and one side tilted toward
a strip of quicksand in such fashion that the invalid did not dare move,
lest in his struggles to free himself, he tip the chair completely over
and be swallowed up.
He smiled at Master Ronald’s convulsed figure. “’Tis a merry jest, I
wot, young sir,” he said dryly, “but it so haps I be in no position to
observe the marvellous humour of the situation.”
“Sir,” said Master Ronald, “I beg your pardon. Take a good grip of my
hand. Now out with your best foot—the ground is solid here—wait till I
brace myself. Ah-h-h!” and he tumbled over backwards, nearly pulling the
invalid with him.
The chair, thus lightened, rose slightly from the quicksand. The young
man seized the shafts and with a vigorous jerk had the chair on good,
hard sand. But he pulled it over yet some way. “What became of the Moors,
sir?” he asked.
Poor Lord Christopher leant heavily on the student’s slender frame. “My
lad,” he said, “I wot not what I should have done had you not followed
after. Those cowardly knaves, startled by a wolf crossing our path,
dropped the shafts of my chair, and with a howl, fitter to issue from
brutish throats than human, took to their heels without a thought of me.”
“But what has become of the Governor?” asked the student.
“He and his soldiers had been a fair distance ahead of us, until my
bearers, trying to find the smoothest path at my direction, lost their
way,” he answered, groaning.
“Bide you here,” said the student, tenderly assisting him into his chair,
“whilst I go and halloo to those rascals. They cannot be far off.”
Turning, he called to Abigail, “Be not afeared, Mistress Brewster, I will
be back in a minute.” And he ran on and vanished in the forest beyond.
The Cavalier and Abigail waited.
“My little maid,” he called, breaking the silence between them, “come
nearer.”
Abigail crept over into the saddle and took the reins. “Get up,” she
said, shaking them. Her steed obediently stepped out into the strip of
moonlit sand and she guided him over to the chair, the rich colouring of
which in crimson and gold was to be faintly discerned.
“I have been thinking of my sweet Elizabeth in Merry England,” quoth his
lordship.
“Ay,” assented Abigail, listening intensely for any sound of the student;
“ah, Master Ronald hath catched the knaves. I can hear their voices and
the trampling of horses’ feet.”
“’Tis well,” rejoined his lordship. “Little maid, I have been thinking of
the words of my very learned contemporary, Sir Thomas Browne.”
“And what might they be?” asked Abigail, giving him but half an ear.
“Great experience hath he had of death and hath seen many die,” replied
his lordship, solemnly, “for he too is a physician. Thus was he led to
say that when he reflected upon the many doors which led to death, he
thanked his God that he could die but once!”