{"collection":"myth-cosmogony","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_75212/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_75212","id":"gutenberg_75212","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/75212","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Historical Novels","Category: Mythology, Legends & Folklore","Category: Novels","Historical fiction","Paranormal fiction","Salem (Mass.) -- History -- Colonial period, ca. 1600-1775 -- Fiction","Trials (Witchcraft) -- Fiction","Witches -- Fiction","Women -- Massachusetts -- Salem -- Fiction"],"text":"Transcriber\u2019s Note\n  Italic text displayed as: _italic_\n\n\n\n\nA MIRROR FOR WITCHES\n\n[Illustration: Demon and woman kissing]\n\n\n\n\n  A MIRROR FOR WITCHES\n\n  in which is reflected the Life, Machinations,\n  and Death of Famous DOLL BILBY, who,\n  with a more than _feminine perversity_, preferred\n  a Demon to a Mortal Lover. Here is\n  also told how and why a Righteous and Most\n  Awful JUDGEMENT befell her, destroying\n  both Corporeal Body and Immortal Soul.\n\n  By\n\n  ESTHER FORBES\n\n  With woodcuts by\n\n  ROBERT GIBBINGS\n\n  [Illustration: Decoration]\n\n  BOSTON AND NEW YORK\n\n  HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY\n\n  The Riverside Press Cambridge\n\n\n\n\nCOPYRIGHT, 1928, BY ESTHER FORBES HOSKINS\n\nALL RIGHTS RESERVED\n\n\n  The Riverside Press\n  CAMBRIDGE \u00b7 MASSACHUSETTS\n  PRINTED IN THE U.S.A.\n\n\n\n\nTO\n\nMARY AND GERHART JENTSCH\n\n\n\n\nA MIRROR FOR WITCHES\n\n\n\n\nA MIRROR FOR WITCHES\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER I\n\n\n1\n\n_Certain Examples to Show Doll Bilby not alone among Women in her\npreference for Evil. The Cases of Ry, Goose, Leda, Dana\u00eb, etc., cited._\n\nIt has long been known that, on occasions, devils in the shape of\nhumanity or in their own shapes (that is, with horns, hoofs, and tails)\nmay fancy mortal women. By dark arts, sly promises of power, flattery,\netc., they may prevail even upon Christian women, always to the\ndestruction of these women\u2019s souls and often to that of their bodies.\n\nFor in Northumberland, Meslie Ry was burned in 1616 because she had\ntaken a fiend to love.\n\nA few years later, Christie Goose, a single woman upwards of forty\nyears, suddenly flew lunatic\u2014and that upon the Lord\u2019s Day. Then she did\nconfess that each night and every night the Devil, wickedly assuming\nthe shape of Mr. Oates, God\u2019s minister at Crumplehorn, Oxon., came to\nher through her window. This fact amazed Crumplehorn, for Goose was of\nall women most pious, and had sat for years in humble prayerfulness at\nthe feet of Mr. Oates. Some were astonished that even a devil should\nfind need for this same Goose, who was of hideous aspect.\n\nThere was a young jade, servant in an alderman\u2019s house in London, who,\nalthough she confessed nothing and remained obdurate to the end, was\nhanged and then burned because she bore a creature with horns on its\nhead and a six-inch tail behind. Such a creature the just magistrates\ndetermined no mortal man might beget, although the saucy wench\nsuggested that an alderman might. Moreover, certain children in the\nneighbourhood testified that they had twice or thrice seen \u2018a burly big\nblack man\u2019 sitting on the ridgepole.\n\nSome assume that as the gods of antiquity were in no way gods (being\nseekers after evil\u2014not after light), they should therefore be\nconsidered caco-demons or devils. The Reverend Pyam Plover, of Boston,\nhas written learnedly on this subject, saying, in part, \u2018For is it\nnot possible that the Lord God of Israel, being those days but the\nGod of _Israel_, may have permitted certain of his Fallen Angels to\nstray from the vitals of Hell and disport themselves through Greece\nand ancient Italy? Here they revealed themselves ... in many ways to\nheathen people, who falsely worshipped them as _gods_. If this be true\nZeus might better assume his true name of _Satan_, and let us call\nApollo but _Apollyon_ and recognize in Mars, Hermes, etc., Beelzebub\nand Belial. Then may the female \u201cdivinities\u201d be true descendants of\nLilith.\u2019 So one may learn from antiquity (consider Leda, Io, Dana\u00eb, and\nothers) how great is the ardour felt by devils for mortal women.\n\nAs is not yet forgotten, in 1662, near threescore years ago, a woman\ncalled Greensmith, living at Hartford in New England, confessed the\nDevil had carnal knowledge of her. For this she was hanged.\n\nMore strangely yet, lived, for brief space of years, famous Doll Bilby,\nbest known as \u2018Bilby\u2019s Doll\u2019. She flourished at Cowan Corners, close\nby the town of Salem, but an afternoon\u2019s journey from my own parish of\nSudbury. Of other women devil-ridden, be it Leda or Ry, Greensmith or\nDana\u00eb, Christie Goose or La Voisin, little can be said, for but little\nis known. All were witches (if we accept as witches such women as\ntraffic with fiends), but little else is known. Yet of Bilby\u2019s famous\nDoll, in the end all things were known. From old wives\u2019 tales, court\nrecords, and the diaries of certain men, from the sworn affidavits and\ndepositions of others, from the demonologies of Mr. Cotton Mather, and\nthe cipher journal of Mr. Zacharias Zelley, we may know with a nicety\nwhat this woman was and how she lived, from whence she came, how she\ngrew to witchcraft, how she felt, thought, and at the last how she died.\n\n\n2\n\n_Mr. Bilby sails far to seek out_ TROUBLE, _and, having found Trouble,\nnurtures it._\n\nShe was born of a wicked witch-woman and begotten by one who was no\nbetter, that is, by a warlock. These two devil-worshippers and, they\nsay, two hundred more were burned in one great holocaust at Mont Ho\u00ebl\nin Brittany. Black smoke, screams of death, stench of flesh settled\ndown over town and harbour, causing sickness and even vomiting.\n\nOn that same day, by evil fortune, a brig manned by Dawlish men stood\nin the Bouche de Saint-Ho\u00ebl. These men, seeing that it was f\u00eate day,\nand curious because of the smoke, the screams, and the stench, went to\nthe holocaust. There they saw a wild child, more animal or goblin than\nhuman being. This wild child would have followed her mother, who burned\nin the heart of the fire, if soldiers had not pushed her back. A priest\nbade the soldiers let her pass to death, for, being of witch-people,\nshe would undoubtedly burn sooner or later. The Englishmen protested,\nand Mr. Jared Bilby, captain and owner of the brig, caught and held\nthe wild child, who did not struggle against him as she had against\nthe soldiers. Instead she held fast to him, for even the wicked may\nrecognize goodness. The priest showed his yellow fangs at the Dawlish\nmen. He hated and scorned them. \u2018Take the child and be gone. She was\nborn of a witch-woman and will grow to witchcraft and do much harm\u2014but\nin England among the heretics. Be gone.\u2019\n\nThe child clung to Mr. Bilby and he to her. He took her in his arms,\nand she lay corpse-pale and glass-eyed like one about to die. This men\nremembered. When he put her down upon the deck of the brig, he was\nbadly sweated as though his burden had been more than he, a strong\nyoung man, might bear. He told his men the child weighed as though a\nchild of stone. Some thought that his heart mistook him, and that he\nalready regretted the acceptance of so dangerous a gift.\n\nGathering his men about him and having prayed, he gave thanks to\nJehovah, Who, although He had never given him a child of his own body,\nyet had seen fit to send this poor little one to him. Then he bade his\nmen keep their tongues behind their teeth, telling no one from whence\nwas this child (which in the future should be his child), nor the\nmanner of her parents\u2019 death, nor the harm which the priest swore she\nshould live to perform. This promise his men kept for years, but in the\nend, when they were old men, they preferred to serve Gossip and Scandal\nrather than a kind master, long, long dead.\n\nFor days the child lay like death, only occasionally jumping madly from\nher pallet, screaming \u2018Le feu! Le feu! Le feu!\u2019 then falling back,\ncovering her face with her hands and laughing horribly. The captain\ncoaxed and petted her, urged her to eat, and quieted her with his\nhands. So by love he restored her to humanity.\n\nBecause of her small size he called her \u2018Doll,\u2019 which name she well\nlived up to, never acquiring the height and weight of other women. No\none ever knew her real age. She may have been seven or perhaps six when\nshe first came to England. Being unable to talk English and at first\nunable to serve herself, she may have seemed younger than she was. Yet,\non the other hand, Fear, Grief, and Sickness often make their Hosts\nappear older than the fact.\n\nMr. Bilby believed that the shock of her parents\u2019 death (for they were\nburned before her eyes, her mother crying out to her most piteously\nfrom the midst of flame) had broken the reins of memory. He thought she\nhad forgotten everything that lay back of her reawakening to life on\nboard his brig, which was called God\u2019s Mercy. Also he comforted himself\nwith the belief that if\u2014as might be\u2014she had learned any little tricks\nof witchery, or if she had ever been taken to Sabbat or Black Mass, or\nif she had looked upon the Prince of Hell, or even if (being led on\nby her parents) she had sworn to serve him, she would have forgotten\nall these things. She was born again and this time of God and to God,\nwhom Mr. Bilby piously swore she should serve\u2014Him and Him alone. The\nchild had been so vehemently frightened she had forgotten all good and\nneedful things, how to dress herself, how to eat with knife and spoon.\nShe had forgotten the language of her birth.\n\nBut of evil she remembered everything.\n\n\n3\n\n_He brings the Foundling to his own hearth and to the bosom of his\nGoodwife. There the goblin-child rewards Kindness and Mercy with\nMalediction and Evil. She overlooks the Goodwife._\n\nHannah, wife of Jared Bilby, would not accept her sterility with\nChristian fortitude. She railed against the wisdom of God, saying,\n\u2018Mrs. Such-and-Such is but half so big and fine a woman as I, yet she\nhas three sons. Goody This-and-That, the jade, can find but little\nfavour in the eyes of her Maker, yet, to _her_ He sends more children\nthan she can feed; but I, a pious, godly, praying woman, remain\nbarren.\u2019 Which, she wickedly averred, showed the injustice of Divinity.\nHowever, by curious chance or mischance, soon after Mr. Bilby set out\nwith his men and brig for the coasts of France and Spain, she found\nherself with child. Some say the Lord tired of her railing, and, to\npunish her, first raised up her hopes and then sent Doll to blight them\nfor her.\n\nSummer wore away. The nights grew chill. She was four months with\nchild. Then Mr. Bilby, late one evening, came to Dawlish harbour. With\nhim was his goblin-child, now grown pretty and playful. He arrived\nhome in the black of the night and through pelting rain. The child he\ncarried wrapped in his greatcoat to protect her from the cruel storm.\nHe shook the shutter which he knew was by his wife\u2019s bedboard.\n\n\u2018Woman, woman, get up and open to me.\u2019\n\nThe woman lay for warmth with her servant wench, Susan Croker. The fury\nof the night shewed forth the grandeur of God. The wind howled above\nthe beating of the rain. Croker cried to her mistress not to open the\ndoor on such a night. It could be no living man who knocked, for it is\non such vexed and angry nights as these the sea gives up its dead.\n\nHannah was a fearless woman. She got quickly to the door, unbarred it,\nand, in a deluge of wind and wet, Mr. Bilby entered with his burden.\nHer heart mistook her. She cried out, \u2018Jared, what have you there in\nthat great bundle?\u2019 So he took it to the hearth and, as the women\nknelt, throwing kindling on the fire, he opened the bundle and out\npopped the goblin-child. She shuddered away from the fire (a thing she\nalways feared) and clutched her foster father with her little hands,\ngazing into his face with round black eyes. Every thread of her spikey\nhair was tumbled up on end. The women cried in horror that this was no\nchild. This was an imp, a monkey, a pug. But Jared Bilby on his knees\nprotected the foundling, both from the fire and the women\u2019s angry\nglances. He soothed her with his body and kind words, \u2018Ah, the fire\nwould never devour her.\u2019 He was here, and he would never leave her.\nShe was his child, etc. He would always love and cherish her\u2014and the\nlike. The child pushed her tously head under his chin and froze into\nstillness.\n\n[Illustration: Child holding man]\n\nSusan Croker told many that, from the beginning, the child bewitched\nhim. Nor did the affection which Bilby gave his Doll ever seem like the\nlove which men feel to their children, but rather the darker and often\nunholy passion which is evoked by mature, or almost mature women\u2014a\npassion which witches, when young and comely, have often engendered\nwith ferocious intensity. As long as he lived he was forever stroking\nher shaggy black hair, looking lovingly into those button-round eyes,\nand kissing a wide hobgoblin mouth which many a Christian would fear\nto kiss. Hannah was a lusty, jealous woman who could not abide such\nmean rivalry as that of a foundling child. The woman, who had always\nbeen a gossiping wife, now, under the baleful influence of Doll, seemed\nlike to become a shrew. She was steely set in her hatred of the child,\nalthough she fed her, gave her a corner to sleep in, and taught her\nsome small prayers. With her the child seemed dull, indifferent, but\nwith Mr. Bilby she was merry, playful, and loving. So the one thought\nher a knowing child and the other a zany.\n\nMr. Bilby would not tell his wife where he had found Doll, but it did\ntrouble him that the woman so cunningly insisted that either she was\nthe child of a witch or the begotten of the Devil. Even Susan Croker,\nwho was kind to the foundling, had horrid suspicions of her. She could\nnot teach Doll the noble, sonorous lines of Our Lord\u2019s Prayer, although\nthe imp was quick to learn worthless things, such as \u2018This Little Pig\nGoes to Market\u2019 or \u2018A Cat Comes Fiddling Out of the Barn.\u2019\n\nThe child, having been in the house a month, there occurred a chance to\nshow what she could do\u2014that is, what evil she could do.\n\n\n4\n\n_Doll covets a ship for a toy and the whole of her Foster Father\u2019s\nlove. She nefariously gains her ends and slays a Dangerous Rival._\n\nThe midwife promised Hannah a great thumping boy handsome as his\nmother, strong as his father. He should either wear the bands of the\nclergy or walk the quarter-deck of the king\u2019s navy. Because her husband\nfavoured the nautical life for his unborn son, he made him a rattle in\nthe shape of a ship. In the hull were seven balls which, when the ship\nwas shaken, rattled. Now Doll was forever leaning against his knees and\nwatching him as he carved out this bauble. As one after another of the\nseven balls were liberated in the heart of the wood, she would laugh\nand gloat. It was not a toy for her, but for him who should (according\nto nature) supplant her in her foster father\u2019s love. In her evil heart\nshe must have brooded on these things and come to hate this other child\nthat would possess the ship and Bilby\u2019s affection. Her hands were\nalways outstretched to the rattle and she cried, \u2018Give, give, give.\u2019\n\nOne day as they were thus\u2014man and child\u2014Hannah came in from the\nmilk-house. The woman was jealous\u2014not only for her own sake, but for\nthe sake of the unborn. \u2018For,\u2019 she thought, \u2018what shall he, who gives\nall to a foundling, have left for his own son? Not only has this wicked\ngirl turned him away from me, but she takes the rightful place of his\nown child.\u2019 Then she said:\n\n\u2018It is not well that a woman in my condition should be exposed to\ncontrary and evil influences. Jared, send away your \u201cpretty pet\u201d;\ngive her to the wife of your ship\u2019s cook to keep\u2014at least until I am\ndelivered. Many wiser than I, yes, and wiser than you....\u2019 Her jaw\nswung loose as though broke. Her teeth stuck out, her eyes bulged, for\nthe goblin-child, through her mat of hair and out of her wild bright\neyes, was staring at her. She stared and moved her lips in a whisper,\nthen she skipped across the room, grinning in diabolical glee. Mrs.\nHannah felt the curse go through her. The babe in her womb moved in its\nwretchedness, and was blasted. The woman felt its tiny soul flutter to\nher lips and escape. She knew that Doll (being of some infernal origin)\ncould see this same soul, and she guessed, from the roving of her\neyes, how it clung for a moment to its mother\u2019s lips, how it flew to\nthe Bible upon the stand (in which its name would never be recorded),\nhow it poised upon the window-sill, then, unborn and frustrated, it\ndeparted to whatever Paradise or Hell God prepares for such half-formed\nsouls. Hannah began to screech and wail, then fell back upon the bed\nin a swoon.\n\nThe body of the unborn child shrivelled within her, and, when a male\nmidwife was called from Dawlish, he said she had been but full of air.\nShe never was again with child. Some said (and Captain Bilby among\nthem) that she never had been\u2014even on the \u2019bove-related most famous\noccasion.\n\nBut if, as the most informed and thoughtful have said, the blasting of\nHannah\u2019s infant was indeed a fact, then we have to hand, and early in\nthe life history of Doll Bilby, an actual case of witchcraft. And is it\nlikely such monstrous power (blasting unborn life with a glance or at\nmost a muttered curse) should be given to any one who had not already\nset her name to the Devil\u2019s Book, and compacted herself to Hell?\n\n\n5\n\n_The New Land holds greater promise than the Old. Mr. Bilby, Ux et\nfilia say fare-you-well to England and take up residence close to Salem\nand not far from Boston, in the Bay Colony. They prosper. The child\ngrows an evil pace._\n\nIn those days England offered little peace to men (like Captain Bilby)\nwho would worship God in their own way, and in accordance with His\nown holy teachings and the dictates of their own hearts\u2014not according\nto teachings of bishops or priests. So Mr. Bilby often yearned towards\nthat newer land which lay far west beyond the Atlantic. In time he sold\nhis brig, God\u2019s Mercy, and his freehold. The agent of the Bay Colony,\nin his office at Maiden Lane, London, told him to get to Southampton\nwith his wife, child, and gear. Within the month he should sail.\n\nMrs. Hannah protested that if the child went she would not. Then he\nwould humour and praise her, so at last she went, although with much\nbad grace.\n\nIn the year 1663 the ship Elizabeth arrived, by the goodness of\nGod, to the colony at Massachusetts Bay, and in her came an hundred\nsouls. There were yeomen, farmers, braziers, wainers, pewterers,\netc., indentured servants, apprentices, etc., and certain gentlemen\nscholars, etc. But in after years the most famous of all these people\nwas Bilby\u2019s Doll, and it is she who has made the name of the ship\nElizabeth remembered. There was in the hold a cargo of close to an\nhundred Bibles, and to this beneficent influence many attributed the\nquick fair passage which the Elizabeth enjoyed. No one thought it\npossible that the button-eyed foster child of Mr. Bilby could be a\nweather breeder. In fact no one thought of the child except to wonder\nat the foolish fondness which her \u2018father\u2019 continually showed her. They\nthought of the Bibles below and thanked God for their sunny voyage.\nRather should they have thought of the witch-child. For good things,\nsuch as fine weather, may spring from evil people.\n\nAlso on this ship came one Zacharias Zelley, an Oxford man and a\nwidower. He was no longer young, nor was he an old man. In demeanour he\nwas sad and thoughtful. After some shiftings he, too, like the Bilbys,\ncame to settle at Cowan Corners, and there he preached the Word of God.\nBut in time he fell from God, and of him more hereafter.\n\nThe new land prospered the Bilbys and they were well content. The\nplantation which Mr. Bilby was able to buy was not only of admirable\nsize, well-set-up with house, barns, sheds, etc., but it was already\nreduced to good order and its fertility was proved. Yet for many years,\ndown to this present day, Bilby\u2019s lands can produce little if anything\nexcept that coarse yellow broom which the vulgar call witches\u2019 blood.\n\nThe cellar hole of this house still stands upon the skirts of Cowan\nCorners, and but six miles removed from Salem. In those days there was\na good road before this house leading from Salem to Newburyport. Beyond\nthis road were salt meadows and the sea. To the north of the house lay\nfields of maize, English grass, corn, peelcorn, barley, oats, pumpkins,\nending only at the waters of the River Inch (as it was called in those\ndays). To the south were the adjoining lands of Deacon Thumb. But to\nthe west, beyond the rough pastures, and too close for a wholesome\npeace of mind, was a forest of a size and terror such as no Englishman\ncould conceive of unless he should actually see it. It stretched\nwithout break farther than man could imagine, and the trees of it were\ngreater than the masts of an admiral or the piers of a cathedral. Yet\nwas it always a green and gloomy night in this forest, and over all was\nsilence, unbreakable.\n\nMany thought the tawny savages who lived within were veritable devils,\nand that, somewhere within this vastness, Satan himself might be found.\nTo this Mr. Zacharias Zelley, having taken up the ministry at Cowan\nCorners, would not listen. \u2018For,\u2019 he said, \u2018we left the Devil behind us\nin England. Seek God in the heart of this majestic and awful forest\u2014not\nthe Devil. When I was a boy in Shropshire I knew the very niche in the\nrocks where old women said the Devil lived and had his kitchen. It was\nthere he kept his wife. Every holiday I hid close by the rocks, hoping\nto see his children.... Let us leave him there in the Old England, but\nin the New keep our eyes pure and open against the coming of the Lord.\u2019\n\nAtheism as the good and learned Glanvill, in his \u2018Sadducismus\nTriumphatus,\u2019 has proved, is begun in Sadducism and those that dare\nnot bluntly say \u2018there is no God\u2019 (for a fair step and introduction)\ncontent themselves to deny there are spirits or witches or devils. Yet\nhow sad to see one of the clergy first agree that the Devil could be\nleft behind in England and soon claim there is no Devil, no witches, no\nspirits. For without these awful presences, who may be sure of God?\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER II\n\n\n1\n\n_There is a small smell of_ WITCHCRAFT _in and about Boston. A straw\ndoll taken to Meeting throws many into confusion._\n\nIn the fall of 1665 two were hanged in Boston for the bedevilment of an\nelderly woman, her cousin Germain, and her swine.\n\nIn that same year Mr. Saul Peterham, a godly, decent man, refused some\nsmall rotten apples to an ancient and malicious hag. For this the old\ncrone muttered at him, making an evil sign by her thumb and her nose,\nand took herself off in great bad humour. Mr. Peterham, on returning\nto his house, found that his wife\u2014an estimable church woman\u2014had fallen\nfrom a ladder she had put to the loft for the purpose of observing the\nconduct of her servant wench and the indentured male servant, the exact\nmoment the crone had made her evil sign. The elders of the Church had\nat the old woman and forced her, weeping and on her knees, to forswear\nthe Devil, his imps, and his ways, and to continue more strictly in the\nways of God. It being observed that she could both weep and say the\nLord\u2019s Prayer, many believed the accusation of witchcraft to be a false\none, such as is often launched against disagreeable and impotent old\nwomen.\n\nBy spring there was yet another suspicion of witchcraft in the Bay\nColony, and this at Cowan Corners. In a hut close by the seashore, and\nin great misery, lived an old pauper called Greene and his wife. He\nwas a tinker, but there were better tinkers than he, and he got little\nwork to do. His wife was a proud woman, born in Kent of high rank,\nyet, by turn of fortune, she was so reduced as to have become the wife\nof a tinker. Her craft in herbs got her some money and more ill fame,\nnor was she content to raise and sell the honest herbs of England, but\nshe must continually associate herself with the heathen tawny savages\nand thus learn arts\u2014doubtless often evil arts\u2014from them. The Indians\nvenerated her, calling her \u2018White Mother\u2019 and Moon Woman.\u2019 She went\neven into the great forest with more safety than any man. She was\nloving towards these peoples and had much traffic with them, in spite\nof the fact the Church elders had warned her twice, saying it is better\nfor a woman to keep her own house than to go abroad through the woods\nalone and no one knew on what errand.\n\nOne Sabbath in the midst of the House of the Lord a poppet contrived\nof straw and maize, with a leather head and a grinning face on it,\nfell from below her skirts. None at the moment questioned her boldly\nas to what purpose she contrived this poppet, yet all thought of those\ndollies witches make but to destroy again, that their enemies may\ndwindle with the dwindling dolly.\n\nLater in the week three deacons called upon her and demanded\nexplanation. She was distrait, cried out upon them in anger because\nof their suspicions, and said she had but made a toy for Bilby\u2019s poor\nlittle Doll, who, she said, was beaten and cruelly used by that shrew\nHannah. The incident was then dismissed except for a public reprimand\nfor a woman so depraved as to put into the hand of a child a toy upon\nthe Lord\u2019s Day and in the Lord\u2019s House. After this the Greenes lost\nwhat friends they had, and no one came commonly to their hut upon the\nsalt marsh but Bilby\u2019s wicked Doll.\n\nOn a February night Hannah Bilby woke overcome with retching and\nvomiting. In the morning Mr. Kleaver, the surgeon, being called,\ntook away two ounces of blood from the forearm; still she continued\nin wretched state three days. By the oppression on her chest and\nespecially because of certain night sweatings and terrors, she became\nconvinced she was bewitched and frankly accused Goodwife Greene. Mr.\nZelley roughly bade her hold her tongue (this being but one of many\ntimes when he befriended a witch) and declared there was no reason why\nGreene should wish her harm. At which statement many were amazed, for\nthey thought every one knew that Greene loved little Doll and hated\nthe foster mother because of her cruelty. Through all the clustering\nvillages\u2014Salem, Ipswich, Cowan Corners, etc.\u2014it was whispered how Doll\nhad surrendered to Greene either parings from Mrs. Hannah\u2019s nails or\nhair from her body, and had thus given Greene the wherewithal to work\nmagic.\n\nWithin a year all suspicion seemed to have passed away from Goody\nGreene, but in a hundred ways more doubts gathered about the child and\nshe was whispered of. Mrs. Bilby told many, here one and there two,\nusually with entreaties for prayers and commands for secrecy, that\nthe girl was born and bred a witch. She told how her own unborn son\n(that thumping boy) had been blasted. She told them to watch\u2014was not\nMr. Bilby himself bewitched by her? So it seemed to many. There were\nno clothes fine enough in Boston for his dear Doll\u2014he needs must send\nto England for them. Sometimes he held her on his knee\u2014and she a girl\nof thirteen or fourteen. Even when the elders and the minister came\nto call on him, and Hannah, as befitted her gender, withdrew from the\nroom, Bilby would keep his ridiculous hobgoblin squatting at his feet.\nAs he talked, he patted her shaggy, spikey, hair.\n\nThe child had nothing to do with children of her own age, nor did godly\nparents wish their children to play with her. For the most part she was\na silent thing, stealing about on feet as quiet as cats\u2019 paws. To her\nfoster father she was pretty and frolicsome. To Goodwife Greene she was\nloving, and stole from the Bilby larder food for the wretched paupers.\nWith her mouth she said little to any one, but her eyes spoke\u2014those\nround button eyes, and they spoke secret and evil things.\n\n\n2\n\n_Monstrous facts regarding Doll\u2019s earliest youth which Mr. Zelley\nrepeated almost twenty years after her death. How she attended Black\nSabbath, etc. How she saw the Devil in Brittany and probably swore to\nserve him, etc._\n\nWhen the time came late in his life that Mr. Zelley, being old and\nbroken, was accused of witchcraft, he told, after long questionings,\nmuch that he knew about Bilby\u2019s Doll. For instance, he said she never\nforgot one of those wicked things which she had learned of her parents\nin Brittany.\n\nIt is true, the shock and horror of their death caused such mental\nanguish it seemed to her a black curtain (much like the smoke of the\nholocaust) dropped down upon her life. All that was actual in her life\nwas before the curtain\u2014that is, after her parents\u2019 death; yet all that\nlay behind this curtain did exist for her\u2014only infinitely small and\ninfinitely far away. To see (for she did not call it _remembering_)\nwhat lay behind this barrier, she had to think and think only of\nblackness. Soon was her industry rewarded. Behold, the blackness\ndisintegrated and little by little she saw strange scenes in piercing\nclarity, yet all in miniature. She saw these visions as though she\nwere above them\u2014say from the height of a church steeple, and she saw\nher own self, a little shaggy girl, walking below.\n\nIf no one disturbed her, if Mrs. Hannah did not cuff her for idleness,\nshe could watch the movements of these people for hours. There were her\nfather and mother, other witches and warlocks, phantom beasts, fiends,\nimps, goblins, fairies, and always her own self. Sometimes these people\nand creatures grew so small they were scarcely more than shifting\nsands. Yet the smaller they grew, the more intense was their actuality.\nMr. Zelley said that she observed that when these images, visions, or\nwhat you will, were presented to her almost as large as life, they were\nvapoury and hard to see, but when they were no larger than a grain\nof sand she could see everything\u2014the little frown on her father\u2019s\nforehead, the scales on the imps\u2019 shoulders, her mother\u2019s teeth as she\nsmiled, even the nails on the hands of her own self; yet how small must\nhave been those hands when the whole body of an adult was no more than\na grain of sand!\n\nMr. Zelley, an old and broken man, was commanded to tell further. What\nwould she see\u2014on what business would these folk be about? She would\nsee naked men and women with goats\u2019 horns on their heads. They danced\nback to back. As they danced, they cried \u2018hu hu hura hu,\u2019 in the manner\nof witch-people. She would see the sacrifice of a black kid, and the\ncrucifixion of the sacred wafer. Did she ever see the Devil himself?\nWitch-people often select one of themselves to be, as it were, high\npriest in their infernal synagogue. Him they call devil. Such a one\nshe often saw. He was young and lusty and dressed in green leaves.\nWhen they danced their sarabands, no one jumped as high as he. He was\na pretty man and women loved him. It was only on Black Sabbath he had\nsuch power over men and women. At other times he was a cordwainer.\n\nThis devil that she saw was but a mock devil. Did she never see that\nScriptural Devil\u2014that Foul Fiend Lucifer? Ah, that she could never\nquite recall\u2014not even with the powerful help of her strange minute\nimages. It is true that after hours of application she would sometimes\nsee a woman whom she knew to be her mother walking through great oak\nwoods (mistletoe-infested) and with her, clinging to her skirts,\nwas a child. The child was her own self. A great light pierced the\ngreen gloom of the forest and where it fell stood a man. He was an\naristocrat, carried a small rapier with the hilt of which he toyed; he\nwas dressed in green velvet, had a handsome, ruddy face, and loving\nblue eyes. Nor had he horns, she said, and if a tail, he kept it to\nhimself; but his shoes she noticed were unsightly, as though contrived\nto accommodate clubbed foot or cloven hoof.\n\nTo him her mother knelt, and the child knelt also. The mother said\nshe had a little servant for him, who she promised would obey him in\nall things. \u2018What shall I do with so little a one?\u2019 But he caressed\nher with his hands. His touch was cold as ice. Even to remember that\ntouch raised the gooseflesh upon her. It was searing as the hands of\nDeath. She never saw this particular scene enacted before her without\nexperiencing a physical shock\u2014pleasant and yet repellent. Then she\ncould see the child accept the Book the man offered her, and she always\nmade a mark in the Book with blood drawn from her own arm. But the\nend of this particular and much-loved vision was always the same and\nalways disappointing, for she saw herself and her mother sitting by the\nhearth. Her mother was stirring the pot and as she stirred she talked,\ntelling the story of a little girl who had walked with her mother in a\ngreat wood, had met the Devil, and had sworn to serve him. So it was\nDoll Bilby never could be sure whether or not she had actually promised\nto serve the Foul Fiend and had made her blood-mark in his Book, or\nwhether it was but a tale told by her mother.\n\nAt first she felt no terror of the strange phantasies which, waking\nand sleeping, were always before her eyes, but as she grew to young\nwomanhood, this uncertainty as to her true status came greatly to worry\nher. If she had indeed signed the Book of Hell, then was she utterly\ndamned, and there was no hope for her. If she had not, then might\nshe, by prayer, watchfulness, etc., escape into Paradise. Thus she\nendured great anguish of spirit. At last the Soul, which ever turns\nand struggles in the heart of man, turned uneasily within her and she\ntried to forget all the evil which she remembered\u2014even the voice of her\nmother, crying out piteously to her from the midst of flame.\n\nThen Conscience\u2014that gift from God to man\u2014raised _its_ head, and she\nlay and moaned upon her bed, listening to the holy voice of Conscience,\nasking her over and over, to her utter weariness, what have you\ndone\u2014what have you done? So she applied herself with burning intensity\nto the ways of religion, and it was then, said Mr. Zelley, he first\ncame to ponder upon her, although she told him nothing of herself or\nof her past until some years later. But all her pious exercises were\nperformed without that pleasure which the good Christian habitually\nmanifests, but rather with the terror of a lost soul. Mr. Zelley\nkept a diary, and in that diary he wrote (Doll being at that time\nin her sixteenth or even possibly in her seventeenth year) a wanton\nsuggestion, \u2018I mark with interest the religious fructuations of Miss D.\nB. but fear she fruits without roots, and but let a man, perhaps, Titus\nThumb, come into her life by the door, and then shall God but pass out\nby the window ...\u2019 and more light and blasphemous talk, suggesting\nslyly that there may be some resemblance between the carnal love of\nbody and the spirit love of soul.\n\n\n3\n\n_A good young man is taken in a witch\u2019s net._\n\nThis Titus Thumb, to whom Mr. Zelley referred, was the oldest child\nand only son of Deacon Ephraim Thumb, whose lands lay south of and\nadjoining to the lands of Mr. Bilby. There had always been intimacy\nbetween the two farms, for the men of one helped the men of the other\nat harvesting, planting, and building. The two women were gossips.\nThe two men were cronies. Titus had been much away because he was a\nscholar at the new college in Cambridge. For one year he was home again\nto help in the opening-up of certain new lands. He was a studious\nyouth who hoped in time to prepare himself for the ministry of God.\nThis, however, never came to pass, for God willed otherwise, and,\non completing his studies at Cambridge, he remains there, known to\nhundreds of young Latinists as \u2018Tutor Thumb.\u2019\n\nHe was a young man of special parts and handsome person. He would be a\nminister and his father was rich. The wenches of the village flocked\nto him like moths to flame, ignoring often in the exuberance of the\nchase (for they were unmannerly and bold to him) proper female conduct.\nThey mocked him among themselves, saying he was his mother\u2019s darling or\ncosset; that he would never seek out a woman for himself. They would\ntorment him, pulling him behind doors and kissing him, pushing their\nbodies against him when he could not escape them, etc., etc. For which\nwanton conduct they were well served, for he would have none of them,\nand, keeping the fifth commandment well in mind, stayed close to his\nparents\u2019 house.\n\nHe had two younger sisters, born at one time, for they were twins. They\nwere sad and puny children, and many who saw them wondered that God had\nseen fit to cut His cloth so close\u2014that is, it seemed to many that He\nhad but enough material (brains, bones, spirits, hair, vitals, etc.)\nto make one proper child, yet out of this little He had made two. In\nanswer to this questioning of Divine Wisdom, Mr. Zelley said no one\nbody could have endured as many diseases and ills as the Thumb twins\nwere heir to. Perhaps it was as well to divide up the maladies as well\nas the strength. Labour had a falling sickness. She would stiffen with\na horrid din, foam, and go into convulsions. Nor was Sorrow of much\nhardier stock. She was subject to nightmares and other delusions (which\nMr. Kleaver insisted arose from a cold stomach). Their mother vexed\nherself greatly over them, and where another woman might think it well\nif the miserable things but made a good end and returned early to that\nGod Who had sent them thus poorly fortified into the world, she was\nalways calling upon Mr. Kleaver or Goody Greene to dose them, or Mr.\nZelley to pray over them. They were pretty children with soft brown\neyes and yellow hair, fine and finicky, but their limbs were miserably\nthin and their bellies somewhat swollen.\n\nMrs. Thumb told them not to play with Bilby\u2019s Doll. She feared the\ngirl because her foster mother said she was a witch. Like most sickly\nchildren, they were poorly trained in obedience. They met Bilby\u2019s Doll,\nwhenever they could, by the willow brook which separated the two farms.\nOf these meetings, however, they said little or nothing. The mother\noften heard them whispering and laughing to each other, and, because\nshe would hear them talk of Mistress Dolly, she knew they saw her.\nAs they were too feeble to be whipped or even shaken, she had little\ncontrol over them.\n\nShe would have been vexed to know that often her husband, sitting at\nthe Black Moon Tavern with Mr. Bilby, planned that in due time this\nsame girl, whom Mrs. Thumb considered too dangerous even to cast an\neye upon the twins, should marry the handsome Titus. On such occasions\nMr. Bilby (although he would clap him on the back, and protest his\nfriendship) always put him off\u2014Doll was but a child, not old enough to\nmarry. She had the immature body of a girl of twelve. Give her time and\nshe would grow. Deacon Thumb would not be put off. Was she not sixteen\nat the youngest? Had not his own mother married before that?\n\nHe was most cupidous. He wanted his son to become heir to the fine\nestate of Bilby. He did not heed what his wife said of danger. He cared\nmore that his son should have a great property in this world than that\nhis soul should be saved for the next. He was not an evil man, for\nhe was a deacon in the Church. He was a heedless man, and too easily\ndismissed as gossip the true stories his wife forever whispered in his\near, in regard to this same Doll.\n\nMrs. Bilby was anxious that the girl should marry and so be out of the\nhouse. One day she said, \u2018What shall we ever do with your Doll? There\u2019s\nnot a man in the town that would marry her.\u2019 Mr. Bilby said that every\nunmarried man in the town would be glad to get her. Mrs. Bilby said,\n\u2018You mean they would be glad to get a slice off your meadows.\u2019 He said\nhe would box her ears for her. She said Doll would be lucky if she got\nherself a vagabond, or a widowed man, or an old man of eighty. Mr.\nBilby boxed her ears and went down to the tavern. Then he told Deacon\nThumb that, although it broke his heart even to think of parting with\nhis treasure, yet was marriage the one and only proper state for woman,\nand he would put her happiness even before his own. Moreover, his\nwife still hated the girl, even more than she had the night she first\nsaw her, and although a good woman (and very handsome), yet she was\nhard. He said he had just boxed her ears and suggested that he was now\nwilling to talk of the marriage settlement. He would do something very\nhandsome by Doll. \u2018For God knows,\u2019 he said, \u2018she is dear to me.\u2019\n\n\n4\n\n_In spite of the Warnings of his Better Nature a young man looks\ncovetously to Bilby\u2019s Doll._\n\nOn certain days the men of the two farms combined their labours, then\nDoll brought to her foster father his midday dinner. To suit his fancy\nshe would bring food for herself also. This food she would eat quickly\nand without speaking to any one, keeping close to Mr. Bilby. On those\nharvest days, when the sun was bright on the stubble and heat shimmered\nin the air, the shade beneath the oaks was grateful. Doll Bilby, in the\nbright dresses her foster father bought for her, looked as fresh within\nthis shade as one of those little summer flowers that go down before\nthe scythes of harvesters. This Titus noticed, and he knew, although\nnever a word had been spoken to him, that his father wished the match\nand his mother opposed it.\n\nAlso he noticed that the young woman, although so small, was made in\na neat and most pleasing manner. She was more dainty, more finicky in\nher cut than the big English girls. He often thought, as he stretched\nhimself to rest upon the earth, that to the eye of a man of rare\ndiscernment such delicacy and small perfection might give more pleasure\nthan more opulent charms, yet he never went so far as to say that he\nhimself was that discerning man. Likewise it pleased him that she was\nshy before him, for he had been over-courted. When he would stretch\nhis body along the ground close to where she sat, she would gaze\nunsmilingly at him out of her wild, troubled eyes, and something in\nthat gaze\u2014some necromancy\u2014stirred his blood, so that at nights he felt\ndesire for her, and often dreamed impossible things of her.\n\nDuring all that year of harvest he had no thought for another one but\nonly of Bilby\u2019s wicked Doll. He knew the stories of her\u2014for his mother\nwas forever at his elbow whispering things. He knew of her foreign\nbirth, how she had once blasted an unborn child, how she and Goody\nGreene had afflicted Mrs. Bilby some years ago, making her vomit pins\nand fur (for to such proportions had the story of the woman\u2019s illness\nalready grown), and he could see for himself how she bewitched her\nfoster father out of his seven senses.\n\nAs he gazed upon her sometimes the marrow grew cold in his bones. He\nthought if he were a wise and Christian man, he would have none of\nher in spite of his own father\u2019s cupidity. In his heart he, like his\nmother, feared her. He could not understand the power she, without\neffort, had over him, for the very sight of her coming across the hot\nfields of noon threw him into a cold, dismal, unnatural sweat. Now\nwas his heart set towards this marriage, but he looked with dread as\nwell as joy to that day which should unite her to him. He believed\nthat whatever her secret might be she should deliver it up to him on\nher bridal. Half he was persuaded that he would find that she, like\nSara in the Book of Tobit, had a demon lover, who would strangle any\nbridegroom, nor had he an angel or a fish\u2019s liver, with which to\nprotect himself.\n\n\n5\n\n_A malignant black Bull leads all astray. Young Thumb fears Doll and\nsuspects the creature is her Familiar._\n\nThe Thumbs had a young black bull, which, with other neat cattle and\nquick stock, they had out from England on the ship Fawnley. This bull\nwas a wanderer, breaking stout fences, and seeking out his own pleasure\namong his neighbours\u2019 corn fields, cabbage plots, and herds.\n\nOn the last day of April, Ahab, the bull, loosed himself, and climbing\na high hedge of stumps, which looked strong enough to hold any creature\nbut an angel from Heaven, he set forth. Having crossed many pastures\nand trampled down valuable rye, he came to the banks of the River Inch,\nwhere it formed the northern boundary of the Bilby farm. The men were\nfar away burning brush. Mrs. Bilby was at her churn in the milk-house.\nDoll, a shiftless wench, was loitering by the river\u2019s edge, and there\nshe came across the bull. He was knee-deep among the cowslips. Seeing\nher, he threatened playfully with his short horns, and set off as fast\nas he could trot with a bunch of yellow flowers dangling from his blue\nlips.\n\n[Illustration: Bull eating]\n\nShe knew the animal to be of great value, and that she must quickly\ngive warning of his liberty lest he escape into the forest, and, being\nset upon by savages or the _fer\u00e6 natur\u00e6_ of the place, become but meat\nin the stomachs of those little schooled to appreciate his worth. She\nran quickly back to the house, calling that Black Ahab was loose and\nshe had seen him head for the forest. Mrs. Hannah, rushing from the\nmilk-house, caught the girl by the arm, shook her angrily because the\ncows were up and ready for milking, and she was late to her work. She\nwould not let her run to the upland fields where the men burned brush,\nnor to the Thumbs\u2019 farm so that the creature might be caught. She flung\nher milking-stool and her pail at her feet, and told her to be about\nher own business, for if she had done as she should have done\u2014that\nis, if she had made cheese all the afternoon, instead of loitering\nabout the pastures\u2014she never would have seen Ahab or known that he had\nescaped. Doll sat upon her stool and bent herself silently to her work.\n\nOn his return in the evening, Mr. Bilby was angry to find that no word\nhad been sent to his neighbour in regard to the loss of his creature.\nNor did Doll tell him that it was his wife\u2019s and not her fault. Partly\nbecause she was ashamed that he thought her responsible for the loss,\nand partly because she was a wild girl who loved to run about, she\njoined the searching party, made up of the men of the two households.\n\nThey searched the pastures and the ploughed lands, the fields, the\nmeadows. There was no place else to search but the forest, for Ahab\nwas utterly gone. They searched the forest until it was black night,\nfollowing the snappings of twigs, blowings, stampings. Not once did\nthey see the body of the black bull. Doll kept to her foster father\u2019s\nheels. Her dress and hands were torn. Her feet soaked with wet. She\noften called, and in a lovely voice, \u2018Ahab ... Ahab.\u2019 As often as she\ncried, Titus knew her whereabouts, and took himself to her side. For\non that black night it was she and not the mischievous bull that he\nwas pursuing. He thought how heavy was the night, how awful in their\nmajesty the woods, and how wild and small the dark goblin-child. So\nhe prayed at the same moment that God might deliver his soul from her\nsoul, and her body unto his.\n\nWeary and disheartened at last, all turned towards home. But Doll had\nlost Mr. Bilby, who had started back with Deacon Thumb. Titus, amazed\nand delighted to find her alone, walked by her side. Doll bitterly\nreproached herself that she had not given warning in time. To comfort\nher Titus said it was only his and his father\u2019s fault because they\ncould not keep the beast in bonds. To his amazement he found that it\nwas not with their loss she was concerned, but only with the fortunes\nor misfortunes of the wretched bull. He thought, has this woman a\nfamiliar, and is it that accursed Ahab? So his marrow froze in his\nbones.\n\nThinking that she was indeed no bigger than one of those little goblins\nthat live by the hob and bring good fortune to those who are kind to\nthem, and also how there was much about her shape to please a man of\nrare discernment, he would have touched her with his hands (witch or\nno witch) and supported her weariness through the rough dark pasture\nlands. If she would accept this much from him, it was possible (for the\nnight was May night when all young men for hundreds of years have been\nallowed special license from their sweethearts) she would permit more\nand more, so that the day\u2019s vexations might end joyously. Many times\nhad he felt a vital spark pass from her to him, and he could not but\nbelieve that she was conscious of it as well as he. Doll seemed not to\nrealize his intent. As in the dark he approached his hands to her, she\nfloated from him. Before her home was reached he came to fancy she had\nno body, or that by some charm (strong as that charm she had worked to\nbind him to her) she now had made a barrier about herself which he had\nnot the physical strength to break.\n\nHe thought of Sara and her loving demon, Asmodeus, and wondered if\nsuch a fiend might not now be protecting her. And he wished he had\nnever heard that holy story, for Sara, according to Sacred Writ, had\nseven husbands and each young man in turn had been strangled upon his\nmarriage bed by the fiend Asmodeus, who loved her.\n\n\n6\n\n_A young Christian witnesses an Awful Metamorphosis and shoots a\nbullet, but not a silver bullet._\n\nThe young man\u2019s bodily fatigue was great, and his soul tormented. It\ngrieved him to think that when at last he had gotten Doll Bilby by\nherself (and that upon a May night) it had profited him nothing. That\nnight he could not sleep, but lay hot and lustful upon his bed. When he\nbelieved day about to dawn, he got himself into breeches, jerkin, hose,\nand shoes, and, having drunk a jorgen of ale, he went again to the\nsearch of Ahab.\n\nBecause there might be danger in the forest, he took with him his\nbastard musket. He came out of the house. It was not yet day. There was\nsome light from the east, but it was a specious and unreal light, and\nthe mists and fog from up over the sea were heavy and blue. He misliked\nthe day.\n\nFirst he looked about his own cow-pens and then about the cow-pens of\nhis neighbour, for he knew the creature loved the company of his own\nkind and if alive would be like to return to them. There was neither\nbull, nor sign of bull. With his musket upon his shoulder, he took a\npath through Mr. Bilby\u2019s meadows and came down to the smooth waters of\nthe River Inch. He thought, \u2018This Ahab is a greedy drinker. As soon as\nthe sun is up he will get to the river and gorge himself with water.\u2019\nThe fogs lay heaviest over the river, and they lay flat and white like\npiled counterpanes. Steadily the watery light grew from the east. He\nthought he would sit upon a boulder under a willow tree. The sun would\nsoon shine out and drink up the fogs and dews of night. He kept his\nbastard musket on his knees, partly because the strangeness of the\ntwilight vexed him, and partly because he knew that not far from him\u2014no\nfarther than he could shoot with his gun\u2014was a path from out of the\nwoods down which wild animals often came early to drink from the river.\nIt was down this path he hoped to see Ahab, and in the meantime he\nmight get venison for his mother\u2019s larder. He sat quietly, and a doe\nstepped out, followed by twin fawns. But these he would not shoot, for\ntheir grace and smallness reminded him of Doll. Everything reminded\nhim of Doll\u2014the birds that sang, the flowers in the grasses, even the\nmystery and silence of the dawn. Yet these things should not have\nreminded him of a woman, but of her Maker.\n\nIn time he heard a crashing and breaking of twigs, and laughed to\nhimself that he had read the bull\u2019s thoughts so well, for nothing\nthat lived in the forest would make such a commotion; only a\ndomestic barnyard animal would carry himself so noisily. Nor was he\ndisappointed, for out of the fogs and through the brush came the young\nbull, looking vast and large in the unreal light of dawn. He thought to\nlet the creature settle himself to his drinking and then to steal up\nfrom behind him and catch his halter. So he sat quietly until he saw\nwith astonishment that what he believed to be an Indian was astride\nhim, and, having rigged reins to the halter, was endeavouring to turn\nhim from the water.\n\nTo see a rider on Ahab did not surprise him, for he knew the bull had\noften carried even his little sisters, the puny Labour and Sorrow.\nIt did astonish and anger him to see a savage in possession of his\nfather\u2019s property. So he called out roughly and forbade the man to turn\nthe creature away from him. What next happened he never truly knew,\nfor he was sure that the tawny (which at the instant seemed a large\nand ferocious brave) jumped from the bull\u2019s back and made at him with\nhis tomahawk. Titus knelt upon one knee and fired. In spite of the\nfogs and bushes that partly confused his sight, he took his aim most\naccurately against a bit of beadwork above the heart of his enemy. Now\nhe saw this boy or man most clearly, the deerskin fringe to his jerkin,\nthe feathers, the dark, angry face, the tomahawk, the patterns made by\nbeads, and he knew that his aim was accurate and good; yet, even as\nthe bullet sped to its mark, the Indian was there no more, and instead\nstood Doll Bilby with her hands clasped to her heart.\n\nHe knew the bullet went through her. When he first saw her, she was\nstill staggering from the impact, but, when he reached her side and\npulled away her hands (crying out and lamenting that he had killed\nher), there was no mark of blood upon her grey gown, and she assured\nhim in a weak and frightened voice that she was unhurt. This gown Doll\nhad on that day was made of strong fustian, and, as Mrs. Hannah always\nsaid, it had not a hole nor tear in it. Yet the next time Doll wore it\nthere was discovered above the heart a minute and perfect patch, put\non, evidently, to cover a hole no larger than a sixpence.\n\nSo great and so unreasonable was Titus\u2019s love for Doll, he at first\nhardly considered the awful metamorphosis he had witnessed. Instead he\nwas sick to think how close she had been to death.\n\nAs this story (which has just been set down in its true form) spread\nthrough the village, it grew incredibly larger in the mouths of certain\npeople, and yet in the mouths of others it dwindled down into nothing.\nFor the former of these insisted that Doll did not come alone, but\nwas escorted by a vast troop of infernals, witches, etc., and that\nAhab spoke to his master, making sundry infantile observations, such\nas might occur to the intelligence of a beast. Those who would make\nnothing of the story (and among these was Mr. Zelley) said Titus was\nno solid rock upon which to build the truth, and that his fancy had\nridden him. There never had been an Indian upon the bull\u2019s back, only\nDoll. He never had seen the beads, fringes, tomahawk. When he shot, his\naim was confused and he had gone wide the mark.\n\nMr. Zelley, in his diary, quotes Scripture in regard to this curious\nincident, saying in part that Our Lord warns us against the putting of\nnew wine into old bottles, lest the new wine prove too strong and burst\nthe bottles. \u2018So a torrent of feeling\u2014especially when arising from the\npassions\u2014is of the greatest danger to a weak container, and young Mr.\nThumb is that weak container.\u2019\n\nAt that moment, however, Titus had but one thought, and that was that\nat last the wench was in his arms, for she was so weakened by fear (or\nperhaps from the actual shock of the bullet) she could hardly stand. He\ncomforted her, stroking her hair, kissing her, and saying over and over\nthat he would have died rather than hurt a hair of her head. Concerning\nthe fact that, but a second before, she had been in other shape and\nenjoying a different gender, he said nothing, for he thought that she\nmight wish to remain mute concerning the matter, and then he thought:\n\u2018It was because of kindness, at least if not towards me, towards the\nbull, that made this modest young female assume another shape. How\ncould she, as a white girl, have ventured to the forest and found\nAhab?\u2019 So he said nothing. Now that at last his arms were about her,\nhe felt none of the fire and anguish he had endured the night before;\nrather, it seemed to him, that he was caressing and comforting one of\nhis own sisters. So he set her sideways on the bull, and took her to\nher own house.\n\nBy the time he had reached his father\u2019s farm, he was once more swept by\nsuch inordinate and passionate desire he could not believe that earlier\nin the same morning he had kissed and comforted her, thinking her only\na child\u2014not even a witch and much less a woman.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER III\n\n\n1\n\n_Young Thumb dwindles. The witch torments him and her foster father\ndiscerns that she is not nor ever can be a Christian woman._\n\nFrom the day on which Ahab was lost and recovered, Titus began a secret\ncourting of Doll. Witch or no witch he would have no other. On the\none side of him was his father, winking at him and pointing out the\nrichness of Mr. Bilby\u2019s fields, the weight of his cattle, the size of\nhis barns. On the other side of him was his fond mother, whispering\nand whispering, \u2018The girl\u2019s a witch, she\u2019ll come to no good end,\nshe\u2019ll hang yet, the girl\u2019s a witch ... witch ... witch.\u2019 Of all these\nmatrimonial plans Mrs. Hannah knew nothing. She saw that Titus was\nmuch about the house, but, being very proud of her beauty (which was\nremarkable in a woman of her years), she believed in her own heart that\nshe was the reason for the young man\u2019s constant presence. She could not\nbelieve so handsome and sought after a young man could see anything to\ndesire in the ridiculous hobgoblin-child. Doll Bilby flouted him at\nevery turn, yet was he always after her, hungry as a cat for fish.\n\nMany noticed, even by June and still more by July, that young Mr. Thumb\nwas suffering from some malady that sapped strength from body, color\nfrom face, and dulled the eye. He was a listless worker in the fields,\nleaning upon his scythe, scanning the horizon, sighing, and weakly\nreturning to his work. He ate little and slept less, so that his flesh\nfell away enormously, and, where four months before had stood a hale\nyoung man, now stood a haggard. He would mutter to himself, sit out in\nnight vapours to consider the moon as it shone on the distant roof of\nBilby\u2019s house.\n\nThus things went from bad to worse. His mother noticed his condition\nand guessed its cause. She brooded over the young man, and this made\nhim vexatious and bilious. When his little sisters had met (as they\nsometimes did, in spite of their mother) \u2018Mistress Dolly\u2019 by the willow\nbrook, he would beg them to tell him everything the young woman said\nto them. How did they play? Did they build a little house of pebbles?\nHad they made dolls from stones? They would never tell him, but ran\nquickly away. The truth came out later. Doll amused them with stories\nof salamanders, elves, fairies, etc. They feared their mother would be\nangry if she knew\u2014for she often had said that all the _good_ stories\nwere in the Bible, and if a story could not be found there it was proof\nthat it was not good. So the twins ran away and told nothing of their\nvisits with Doll. They often talked to each other, however, after they\nwere in bed, and went on making up wicked things like those she had\ntold them.\n\nAll her life Mrs. Thumb swore she knew her son\u2019s distress was from no\nordinary cause. If that were true, people asked her, how did she come\nto give consent to her son\u2019s marriage with this same Doll? When she was\nan ancient lady, living in her son\u2019s house at Cambridge, she once said:\n\u2018I saw my son like to die, and he swore there was but one cure for\nhim\u2014that is, marriage with this young woman whom our magistrates later\njudged to be a witch. Therefore I said little to oppose the marriage.\nThen, too, at that time I placed much confidence in the wisdom of Mr.\nZelley. He stood at my right hand, saying, \u201cThe girl is innocent. It\nwill be a fine match.\u201d Titus would cry out in his sleep for this\nwitch-girl. How could I deny him when I thought it the only way to save\nhis life?\u2019\n\nHannah raged when she learned that the marriage was arranged (although\nnothing yet had been said to Doll). Bilby could not fathom her anger,\nfor he thought she would be pleased to get the girl out of the house.\nHe did not know that his wife believed herself the reason for Titus\u2019s\nmopings and pinings. Indeed she had ordered for herself a new red\nriding-hood from Mr. Silas Gore, of Boston, so that she might have\nfinery with which to fascinate the young man.\n\nAt last Doll knew she was to marry the good young man, for her foster\nfather told her so. He told her roughly, for his heart broke to think\nof losing her to another. Sorrow made his tongue unkind. She would not\nlisten to him, but, laughing, clung about his waist, saying she would\nnever leave him, that he was the only man she could ever love. He\nwanted to keep her with him forever, but he knew that she was a strange\ngirl, not like others, and he believed that if she were married she\nwould become less secret and, having a house and children of her own,\nshe would be happier.\n\nThen, too, he knew that his wife was cruel to her, and he thought that\nit would be better for her to live under a roof where there was only\nlove. It was in vain that he told her that she was now a woman grown,\nand it was time that she went about the business of women\u2014that is, the\nbearing and raising of children. Did she have a deep aversion for her\nhandsome and godly young neighbour? Would she not be proud some day\nto be a minister\u2019s wife? No, no, never, never\u2014she only wanted to be\nhis dear foster child. He hardened his heart against her, and unwound\nher arms from about his waist. He told her to marry young Thumb, or to\nthink up better reasons why she should not. He would not have such an\nungrateful, stubborn woman about his house. If she did not wish to do\nas he wished, she could find another place to live. He never meant such\nhard words. He acted for her own best good. He pushed her from him, and\nmade off to the fields.\n\nShe overtook him in a field of flax where the flowers were even bluer\nthan the rare summer sky. The air was heavy with the murmur of bees.\nShe flung herself on her knees and caught him by the long blue smock he\nwore.\n\n\u2018Father,\u2019 she cried, \u2018wait, wait, I beg of you.\u2019 She put her hands\nover her face and wept. He could have wept himself to see her thus.\nHe hardened his heart and would have pushed by. She cried out she had\nsomething to tell him, so he waited silently, but without looking at\nher, for he was afraid that at the sight of her his heart would melt.\nShe seized him by the hem of his smock and began to talk in a hoarse\nvoice and a roaring voice like nothing he had ever heard out of her\nbefore. She had something to tell him, she said. There were reasons\nwhy she could not marry, especially not a young man who wished to be a\nminister. She feared she was not a Christian woman. She looked up at\nhim from the ground, and he looked down upon her. Their eyes met, and\nin one horrid instant Mr. Bilby realized what it was she meant, why\nshe feared she might not be a Christian woman. Of Evil she remembered\neverything, and at that moment he knew it.\n\nHe did not dare question her. He did not dare know what she knew. He\nessayed to comfort her and said he did not care who her parents really\nwere. It mattered no more to him than who might be the sire of the\ncat that caught the mice in his barn. He also said what was not true,\nfor he assured her that what one may have done or promised at a very\ntender age had no importance in the eyes of God. So he talked vaguely,\nand made off to his labours.\n\nShe left him and went to a secret spot she had among the birch trees on\nthe hillside. She was not comforted, and her heart was hard set against\nthe thought of marriage.\n\nThose things which Doll told Mr. Bilby frightened him. He went straight\nto his neighbours that same afternoon and said the time had come when\nTitus, with his own tongue and in his own body, should do a little\ncourting. Titus said how could he when Doll was never a flea-hop from\nher foster father\u2019s heels? Thus it was arranged. Doll, that very night,\nshould be left alone in her father\u2019s house\u2014Bilby and wife should go\nto Thumb\u2019s. Titus would come to her, court her, and persuade her to\nmarriage. After a sufficient time, all would return to Bilby\u2019s and\ncelebrate the happy betrothal with sack-posset, hymns, psalms, prayers,\netc.\n\nTo this Titus and all agreed. Even Doll had nothing to say, but at her\nfoster father\u2019s bidding she put on her most wanton dress\u2014a giddy dress\nof scarlet tiffany such as no pious woman would wish to possess.\n\n\n2\n\n_A woman is seized by a Frenzy. And how a man may court without profit._\n\nNow, when she found herself alone, she ran back and forth, back and\nforth, through the house. She locked and barred everything. She locked\nthe cupboards and the doors and shuttered the windows. She went to the\nattic and locked the trunks, the boxes, the cribs, and the cases. She\nwent to the cellar and bolted the door. Doors she could neither bolt\nnor bar, she barricaded. Even when this was done, she could not stop\nher strange running round and round the house, sometimes turning in\nsmall circles like a dog gone mad. She said over and over to herself,\n\u2018I must be a witch, for I can feel myself weaving a charm.\u2019 So she ran\nfast through the house, but there was nothing more to lock.\n\nIt was not yet seven o\u2019clock and the evening was still light. Yet so\nclosely had she barred and shuttered everything, the house inside was\ndark as midnight. Then she got old blankets, and in the end, in her\ndesperation, new blankets, and tried to stuff the gaping chimney hole\nin the fire-room so that the whole house should be utterly barred and\ntight. But all the time (as she afterwards told Mr. Zelley) she would\nask herself, \u2018Why, why do I do these things?\u2019 In the midst of her most\ndesperate work with the chimney hole, she would stop and begin to run\nthrough the house\u2014unable to stop herself. She thought to herself that\nshe was working some charm or rather some charm worked within her. She\nwas powerless before her great need to run back and forth, back and\nforth, through the locked and barred house.\n\nTitus Thumb, dressed as though for a bridal and carrying a nosegay of\nlad\u2019s-love and a turkey-leather psalm book for gifts, came proudly to\nthe house, knocking to be let in. Doll heard him, for she was crouched\nupon the cold hearth of the fire-room, striving to stuff the chimney\nhole. She thought, \u2018I will let him in, and then he can do this thing\nbetter than I.\u2019\n\nTitus was astonished to find the house dark and his lady\u2019s hair a\nragged black mat on her shoulders, her gay scarlet gown disordered and\ntorn open at the throat, as though she had but recently wrestled with\nan enemy. And her face astonished him, for her cheeks were bright red.\nFuller and more beautiful than ever before, her eyes glittered indeed\nlike a goblin\u2019s and her wide mouth was pulled up at the corners in a\nwicked but most provocative smile. She, in the dark house, seemed more\nlike imp or puck than human woman. All that was human in him\u2014that is,\nintelligence, conscience, reason, and so forth\u2014was afraid and bade\nhim turn back; yet all that was animal in him\u2014that is, the hunger and\ndesire of his body\u2014urged him to enter. So he entered.\n\nAlready that awful necessity that had made her run so madly through the\nhouse was gone. She explained the blankets by the cold hearth, saying\nthat they were damp, and that she had planned to build a fire and dry\nthem out. So he built a fire. She explained her dishevelled condition.\nShe had heard a rat in the cellar and had taken a poker and hunted for\nhim. Could he not at that moment hear the rat scampering in the cellar?\nSo he took a light and a poker and went to the cellar, and Doll, a\nlittle ashamed and frightened, quickly ordered her clothes and hair,\nand unlocked everything she could before he returned. Yes, he said,\nhe found a rat and he had killed it. This surprised her, for she had\nreally heard no rat, and the thought came to her that perhaps the Devil\nhad sent that rat to excuse her conduct.\n\nThe young man sat on the settle with his head in his hands and prayed\nGod to deliver his soul from the woman\u2019s soul, and her body unto his.\nAt last he spoke to her, his face turned away from her. He told her\nthat she knew why he was come. He wished to marry her, and that he\nwould be to her a true and loving husband. No, she said, she could not\nmarry him. He was surprised, for Mr. Bilby had told no one of the young\nwoman\u2019s aversion to marriage. He had understood that he had only to\nask and she would assent. He told her that it was all settled\u2014the very\nspot on which their house should be built. How could she now so coldly\nsay no? She only said again that she could not marry him\u2014nor any other.\n\u2018If that is so,\u2019 he said, \u2018I\u2019ll take my hat and go.\u2019 But why, if she\nhad no idea of marrying him, had she so kept him at her heels? She had\nnot kept him at her heels. She was always trying to rid herself of him.\nShe knew that was not true. The very way she drew back from him was\nthe surest encouragement a man could have. She said she thought he was\ntalking nonsense. Her eyes glittered at him, round and bright in the\nfirelight, like a cat\u2019s.\n\nHe was afraid. He got up. He said again that he would take his hat\nand go. \u2018I wish you would,\u2019 said Doll. They could not find his hat. It\nseems that, while Doll was straightening herself and ordering the house\n(Titus at the moment ratting in the cellar), she had by chance picked\nup his hat, with many other things, such as the sooty blankets, and had\nstuck them under her own bed. So now they could not find his hat.\n\nThe young fellow was afraid, and now, as never before, he believed she\nwas a witch. His blood pumped through him as though about to burst the\nveins; he knew that she wished this hat to work further charms upon\nhim. But if she were so set upon charming him, making him her slave,\nwhy would she now have none of him? Why should she torture him, making\nhim love her past all human endurance, and yet now so coldly dismiss\nhim?\n\nDoll said she was very sorry about the hat. \u2018Oh, it is not the hat,\u2019 he\ncried in despair, his head again in his two hands, \u2018but, my dear Doll,\nwhy will you so torture me? Have I ever been anything but kind and\nrespectful to you? Look what you have done. A year ago I was twice the\nman I now am. You have done it. You\u2019ve sucked the strength and manhood\nout of my veins.\u2019 Then he talked strangely so that she could not at\nfirst understand him. At last she understood him well. He believed that\nshe had cast a witch spell on him, and had thus made him love her so\nbeyond all reason. For, as he frankly told her, she really was not so\nwonderful nor half so beautiful, etc., as he had come to think her.\nHe said he could remember back three years ago when he thought her a\nscrawny, rather ugly, little thing with too big a mouth.\n\nAll this made her very angry. She jumped up and down in her rage\u2014more\nlike an imp than ever\u2014and screamed at him to be gone. She ran into her\nown room and came back with his hat\u2014for she had guessed where it really\nwas, but had not found an opportunity to get it for him. She jumped\nup and clapped the hat onto his head, pulling it down so sharply over\nhis ears that she bent them, and continued to scream, \u2018Go! Go! Go!\u2019 He\ngrabbed her roughly by the arm, called her witch, hellcat, succubus.\nShe turned and bit his wrist, so that it was marked for days. He pulled\nher off him, shook her with great fury, and flung her from him so that\nher head struck against the settle and she moaned in pain. Her plight\ntouched his heart infinitely, and he knew that, witch or no witch, she\nwas his dear, his own girl.\n\nSo the parents and foster parents, returning, found them. The man,\na valiant officer in the militia, a scholar, and the heir to a\nfine estate, was convulsed with weeping and sobbing. The girl lay\nterror-stricken in the corner, as harmless as a trapped rabbit. Mr.\nBilby had no idea that Titus had flung her into this corner. She was\na strange child, and he thought she had picked it out for herself.\nHe pitied the terrible (if somewhat unmanly) grief of the young man,\nand swore that, in spite of Doll\u2019s ridiculous and, he felt, unnatural\nobjections, the marriage must go ahead.\n\nMrs. Thumb took her son home, and Mr. Bilby took Doll to bed, and he\ncomforted her with that more than female solicitude that a man often\nshows towards children or women in distress.\n\nMrs. Hannah was in a rage when she found her fine blankets blackened\nwith dirty soot. Nor would Doll offer an explanation to her foster\nmother, although afterwards she told Mr. Zelley everything.\n\n\n3\n\n_The voice of Hell is heard in the House of the Lord._\n\nMrs. Thumb went everywhere whispering: \u2018Look to my son. Is he not\nbewitched? Look at my boy\u2014so gentle he would not kick a cat, yet you\nall know that once he shot at this Doll Bilby, and but a few nights ago\nhe struck her and flung her upon the ground. Then he cried for hours.\nI took him home. Is it according to God and Nature for a man to love\nthus? Hating her, loving her, loving her, hating her. Would God the\nwench were dead, but she is not, and he will marry her.\u2019\n\nEvery one thought the girl a witch. She went her own way quietly,\nworking as she always did, a little shiftlessly, her mind on other\nthings.\n\nThe harvest was late that year and heavy. One year Nature would starve\nher stepchildren (for so the colonists felt in the new land) with too\nlittle, and the next year break their backs with too much. Mr. Bilby,\nharassed with many things, did a wrong thing. He went to Mr. Zelley\nand begged him on the next Sabbath to publish the banns for his foster\nchild and young Thumb, and he led Mr. Zelley to believe that Doll had\nassented to these plans.\n\nIt may well be that Doll, in some secret way common to witches (that\nis, through some imp or familiar used as spy), really did know that\nupon a certain Sunday the banns were to be read. If she did know, she\nsaid nothing of this thing to any one, keeping her own dark counsel,\nand working her secret spells. On a Friday Mr. Bilby sickened slightly,\nand upon Saturday he could not touch his proper food, only a cheat-loaf\nshe baked with her own hands for him, and a barley gruel. Mrs. Hannah\nalways believed\u2014and doubtless with reason\u2014that the young woman was at\nthe bottom of this sickening and was endeavouring to keep him from the\nMeeting-House, for when she heard he was set upon going she begged him\nnot to go, saying he was too ill, etc., and must be ruled by her, etc.,\nand sit at home in idleness.\n\nBut he would not be persuaded, and he went to church as always. She\nrode with him upon the pillion. Mrs. Hannah rode the fat plough horse.\n\nBy the windows and doors of the Meeting-House were nailed the grim\nand grinning heads of wolves, freshly slain. In the stocks before the\nMeeting-House were two Quaker women, the one in an extremity of despair\nand cold (for there was some ice upon the ground) and the other\nbrazen, screaming out profanities and laughing in her disgrace. Upon\nthe roof-walk paced back and forth Captain Buzzey, of the train-band\ntroop, beating his drum in great long rolls, summoning all to come and\nworship.\n\nInside the Church Mrs. Hannah and Doll sat together on the women\u2019s\nside, and Mr. Bilby, as befitted his station in the community, sat\nclose to the minister. After certain psalms, prayers, etc., Mr. Zelley\nheld forth from the Book of Judith for the space of two hours. There\nwere announcements by the clerk, etc., and then Mr. Zelley again\nascended the scaffold. Couched in proper form, he read how Titus, son\nof Deacon Ephraim Thumb, and Doll, foster child of Jared Bilby, engaged\nthemselves for holy wedlock and desired the pronouncement of these\nbanns.\n\nHis voice was drowned by a sharp and most piteous lamentation. At\nfirst none knew from where this infernal sound had come. Deacon looked\nto deacon, wife to wife. Mr. Cuppy, the tithing-man, ran up and down\namong the wretched small boys. Mr. Zelley stopped in astonishment,\nlooking first up, as if he thought the sound had come from the corn\ncrib in the loft of the Church\u2014or from Heaven\u2014and then down, as though\nseeking its source from Hell. Doll Bilby was on her feet, her arms\noutstretched, addressing her foster father. Her voice rose and died\nout. None there could ever repeat what it was she said. That noon, in\nthe noon-house, between the two services, men and women got together\nwhispering, wondering, and asking each what it was that Bilby\u2019s saucy\njade had\u2014to her own unending shame and to the great indignity of the\nsacred service\u2014dared to pipe forth.\n\nMr. Zelley\u2014the least disturbed of all\u2014saw to it that Bilby and his\nbeloved Doll be got to horse and to home, without waiting for the\nsecond service. He was perplexed and harassed by the occurrence, and\nrefused to discuss with his deacons what would be a fitting punishment\nfor the young woman, although most were agreed that it would be the\nstocks or the pillory. Instead of listening to the discussions in the\nnoon-house, he went out of doors and stood before the evil women in the\nstocks, exhorting them in the name of Christ Jesus to repent and to\nbe forgiven. Theodate Gookin, a stout child, mocked them and pelted\nthem with small apples. This action of the child enraged Mr. Zelley\nmore than had the foul blasphemies of the Quakers. He roughly ordered\nTheodate to lay off his own warm overcoat. This he spread kindly upon\nthe back of the most insufferable of the blasphemers. By which act of\ncharity, he stilled her lying tongue, and reproved the levity of the\nchild who would sport about and enjoy himself on the Lord\u2019s Day.\n\n\n4\n\n _Evil cursing bears bitter fruit. Mr. Bilby, though struck down,\n swears to the innocency of his Destroyer and makes a Pious End._\n\nBilby went stiffly to his horse, his mouth drawn, his face grey. His\nwife got on the pillion behind him and soon left Doll (on the fat work\nanimal) far behind. When the girl got to the house, she did not seem to\nunderstand why her foster mother shook her fist, spat, and made at her\nwith a warming-pan. She did not seem to know that she had cursed the\nman\u2014that kind man, whom she loved.\n\nMr. Bilby suffered from a cruel congestion of the lights. Mr. Kleaver\nsaid from the first there was little chance to save him. For on one\nday came the surgeon, with his saddle-bags stuffed with motherwort and\ngoldenrod, and on the next came the minister with his big Bible, and on\nthe third day they were like to send for Goody Goochey, the woman who\nhad the laying-out of the dead\u2014so sick was he.\n\nBut he delayed his passage into eternity, fighting death with hardly\nChristian resignation; for to your true Christian the years spent on\nthis world must seem but as the nine months which the child spends in\nthe womb. His death-day is in fact his birthday into the kingdom of\nGod. Should he fight against death any more than the infant should\nfight against birth?\n\nThere were gathered in his sick-chamber night and day rarely less than\nten or twelve people, praying for the departure of this fell disease,\nor, if this were impossible, they prayed in the hope of giving the\nshrinking soul a heavenward lift.\n\nMr. Bilby bade them save their breath, and, although his face was\nsettling into lines of death and he breathed horribly and with an\nanimal roaring, he still begged, as he had from the first, for a sight\nof his child Doll. The room was then cleared of the pious exhorters,\nwho returned to the Thumb farm and there prayed and drank rumbullion.\nOnly Mr. Kleaver, Mr. Zelley, and the wife remained. Mr. Zelley\ncommanded Hannah to find the child, and Hannah, frowning, went away,\nbut she came back soon and said she was not about. The truth is the\nwoman had struck and cursed the girl so savagely that now, when she\nheard her name called, she did not dare to come.\n\nThe doors of the death-chamber were shut and sealed. Camphor was burned\non the hearth; then the wife stood by her husband\u2019s side, and, in the\npresence of Mr. Zelley and the surgeon, asked him three times and in\na loud voice whether or not he believed he died of a curse pronounced\nupon him by his foster child. Mr. Bilby rallied his wits, and, in spite\nof the agony of his breathing, he stoutly denied the charge. But some\n(among them Hannah) believe that he was already dead when he seemed to\nspeak, and that an evil spirit had succoured Doll by leaping into the\nhead of the corpse and thus making answer. For he spoke up in a loud,\nclear voice, and yet one in no way like his own, and the next moment\nhe was not only dead, but looked as though he had been dead for a\nhalf-hour or hour at the least.\n\n\n5\n\n_Doll forswears the God of our Deliverance and embraces Beelzebub who\nprepares (for her instruction) a_ PROCESSION.\n\nThe four days Bilby was dying, Doll spent in the hayloft\u2014night and day.\nShe had over-heard the farm servants talking, and she knew of what she\nwas accused and why it was Hannah would not let her into the house.\nShe remembered that strange time when she had run and run through the\nhouse, working, she knew, a spell, or rather feeling a spell work\nthrough her, and she was sick to think that perhaps she had some power\nshe did not understand, and had really put a charm upon her dear foster\nfather when she had not intended. Perhaps it was also true that unknown\nto herself she had bewitched Titus Thumb. None went to her or knew\nwhere she lay but the youngest of the indentured servants, a good and\ngentle lad. This boy brought her food and water. When it was night he\nwent to his poor lodgings in the cow-shed and took a blanket from his\nbed and gave it to her.\n\nFrom the loft Doll stared down at the house and yard, and could guess,\nby the close attendance of the surgeon and the clergyman and by the\nmultitudes gathered to pray, how sick he was. Every morning she saw\nHannah go early to the dunghill and catch a fowl. This bird Doll knew\nwould be laid for warmth at the sick man\u2019s feet, for under the dark\ncovers the creature lay quietly and gave off a good and healing warmth,\nyet was no bird imprisoned longer than twenty-four hours lest its heat\nbe translated into the chill of death.\n\nOn the fourth day\u2014that is, the day on which Mr. Bilby died\u2014Doll\ndetermined to leave the loft and if possible to find Goody Greene,\nwho would at least tell her how her father did. Perhaps Greene might\nstay his sickness, for Doll had more confidence in her and her herbs\nthan in Mr. Kleaver and his bleeding-cups. At this time of year the\nwoman often went to the Bilby river meadows after an herb called\n\u2018Love-lies-bleeding,\u2019 so Doll, finding the opportunity to slip out\nunseen by any, got from the loft and decided first to hunt for her\nSister-in-Evil along the riverbanks. She dared not pass through the\ntown.\n\nShe sat by the river until sundown, crying long and bitterly. She\nremembered that time Titus had found her there, and cried afresh\u2014for\neven those had been happier days.\n\nWherever she went she found the flower stems were broke off close to\nthe ground, and she saw the print of a small Indian moccasin in the\nmud. She knew that Goody Greene (being a pauper) wore these moccasins\nand that her feet were small, so she followed this trail, and this led\nher to the great forest. Here she paused, for she feared it. But she\nfeared the cruel suspicions of her foster mother more, so she took a\nfarewell look about her at the pastures and fields, and, finding a\nsmall path (still seeing here and there a moccasin print), she entered\nboldly.\n\nIt would seem, then, that another of those fits of senseless weaving\nback and forth overtook her. She knew the danger of being lost in this\ngreat wood, and she had not for a long time seen a footprint. Suddenly\nshe began to run through the woods on those little paths beaten out by\nanimals, hunters, and Indians. She could not pause either to consider\nher direction or to determine what it was she really sought, for she\nhad almost forgotten the idea of finding Greene. The sun had set and\nthe November night was coming down fast. The gloom and overwhelming\nsilence weighed her down. She began to think that she smelt smoke or\nsaw the glimmer of a fire. Wherever she looked she could see light\nsmouldering in the underbrush. Sometimes she thought there were\nhundreds of tiny Indian encampments, with teepees but a few inches\nhigh, and, because she knew of Goody Greene\u2019s fondness for Indians, she\ntried to come to these miniature encampments. She also knew that she\nwas lost (although this knowledge did not horrify her as it would a\nreasonable person), and not only did she wish the goodwife\u2019s company,\nbut she needed the warmth even of the smallest fire, for the night was\nfrosty cold.\n\nAt last, after much running, sniffing, and circling, she came to a\nsmall cleared spot, where she always maintained she found a fire\nburning, and over this fire was a great pall of black smoke. So she\ngathered more twigs and fagots, and built up the fire\u2014not knowing that\nshe only made a heap of rubbish upon the cold wet ground. At least her\n\u2018fire\u2019 seemed to warm and comfort her. She lay back upon the moss and\nfell quickly into deep sleep.\n\nAfter some time, she waked, startled, for she heard her name called.\n\u2018Bilby\u2019s Doll! cried the voice, \u2018Bilby\u2019s Doll!\n\n\u2018Yes,\u2019 she answered, springing up from her unhappy bed. There was no\nanswer to her \u2018yes.\u2019 Whatever it was, she considered her \u2018fire\u2019 was\nalmost out. \u2018Who calls?\u2019 she cried, and her voice echoed and the awful\nsilence of night mocked at her in solitude.\n\nThen at last, being wide awake, she realized with terror and dismay\nthat the voice that called her was none other than that of her dear\nfoster father. Yet would he never have called her thus, saying \u2018Bilby\u2019s\nDoll,\u2019 but \u2018Doll\u2019 only.\n\nThen she knew that he was dead, and that she would never see him\nagain. It was his lonely spirit, fresh torn from the earthly body,\nthat had stopped this moment on its heavenly flight to cry out to\nher thus sadly. She flung herself, moaning, upon the ground, unable\nto shed a tear. Witches, she knew, have no tears, and she realized\nwith horror that her tears had dried up. She began to pray to \u2018Dear\nGod in Heaven....\u2019 She heard a rustle in the forest, and then low and\nmalicious laughter. She stopped her prayer. After a moment of writhing\nand moaning, she prayed again\u2014\u2018Infinite Master, Lord God of Israel ...\nI never meant to hurt him. He was the only person I have ever loved. I\nnever meant to kill him....\u2019 \u2018Why, then, did you curse him?\u2019 asked a\nvoice, and she again heard malicious laughter. She would have found\nrelief for her remorse in tears, but there were no tears, nor did they\never come to her again.\n\n[Illustration: Wild tiger]\n\nShe felt the presence of a large and probably dangerous animal about,\nso she flung more wood on her \u2018fire.\u2019 She listened to its padded feet,\nand told herself it was lynx or wolf, yet in her heart she hoped and\nfeared that it might be at last a messenger from that infernal King to\nwhom she now was convinced her parents had promised her. For, between\nthe moment that she heard a voice call \u2018Bilby\u2019s Doll\u2019 and that moment\nin which she had felt a corporeal presence in the wood, she had become\nfully convinced that she was a witch with all the powers that belong\nto such an evil estate.\n\nSlyly she made one last appeal to Jehovah, for she thought that He\nmight even for so evil a one as her own self make His awful majesty\nmanifest. \u2018O God, who seest all things, who rulest above, O Great God\nof Israel, give me a sign, give me a sign....\u2019 Then in her impudence\nshe lifted up her impious voice and commanded God, \u2018Put back the soul\nof Jared Bilby, for it is not yet gone far and his body is yet warm.\nDo this and I will serve You. Desert me now, and I wash my hands\nof You and Your cruel ways!\u2019 The rustling and the commotion crept\nnearer. No angel this thing which approached her on its belly. She\nstared, expecting to see horned head and grinning demon face. She saw\nnothing. She cried once more to God. The solitude echoed her voice with\nlaughter. Then she cried to the powers of Hell below and to the Prince\nof Lies, \u2018Great King of Hell, if I serve you, you must serve me\u2019 (for\nshe knew this was a stipulation in a witch\u2019s contract). \u2018I will do\nanything, sign any book, if you will but give me back the soul of Jared\nBilby.\u2019 But this poor soul was now in the keeping of angel hosts. Not\nLucifer himself could snatch it from such guardians. As she thought\nthus, a windy voice cried, \u2018Too late, too late.\u2019 \u2018Satan, you shall\ngive me a sign,\u2019 she cried. And there close to the ground were two\ngreat cat\u2019s eyes, larger than saucers. They glared at her with a green\nhellish light that transpierced the darkness and her very soul.\n\nShe cried out desperately to those eyes, \u2018Whoever you are, step forth.\nI will do anything, sign any book. Tell me now, in Satan\u2019s name, is\nthere no way back to life for Jared Bilby? For it was I, I, I, who slew\nhim\u2014with a witch\u2019s look. Oh, kind spirit, if you are old, I will be\nyour daughter; if you are young, I will be your bride\u2014stand forth now\nto me.\u2019\n\nThe yellow eyes turned from her as she struggled with her unhallowed\nthoughts, and the thing was gone. Far away, mile after mile, a voice\nno bigger than a sparrow\u2019s cried sadly to her, and in great agony of\nspirit, \u2018Bilby\u2019s Doll....\u2019 She thought to run after the voice, to catch\nthe naked soul in her hands. Of what avail? Gone already a thousand\nmiles. In the littlest voice, no larger than voice of flea or worm, she\nheard once more her foster father cry to her, \u2018Bilby\u2019s Doll....\u2019\n\nShe knew that, as there are certain forms and incantations for the\ndestruction of life, so must there be others for the rekindling of\nit. What had Our Lord said before the tomb of Lazarus? Could she but\nremember the words she herself had said in church\u2014perhaps by repeating\nthem backwards she could countermand the curse.\n\nShe fell to the ground in an ague, and lay sobbing dryly, exhorting the\npowers of Hell. Twigs snapped in blackness about her. Feet padded in\nsilence.\n\nThe cold of the night, the terror of her soul, the dearth of food, the\nsorrow of her heart struck her into a stupor from which she could not\nmove. Through this stupor, in steady procession, and with much pomp\nand circumstance, a long parade of figures, fiends, witches, warlocks,\nimps, beasts, familiars, satyrs, and even the beautiful chaste Diana\nherself, moved in fleshly form: a wicked, most fantastic procession.\nGoblins were there with faces of cats and owls, salamanders but lately\ncrawled from fire. Basilisks were there, serpents, vampires with bats\u2019\nwings and horrid mouths swollen with blood. The pretty pink bodies of\ninnocent babes were there, who had died unbaptized, and therefore must\nstand as servants in the halls of Hell, and with them were pucks and\npugs.\n\nAfter them rolled through the forest a great orange cloud\u2014like an old\nand tarnished fire\u2014no longer heat-giving. At first her eye could make\nnothing of it. Then she saw projecting through the dun vapours were\nnaked legs and arms, bits of bodies, and drawn and skull-like heads\nwith tortured eyes. These were they the French burned at Mont Ho\u00ebl in\nBrittany. Although she might not know them, her parents were among\nthem. A group came slowly after these, shrouded and shuffling through\nthe woods. In the midst of these she saw Goody Greene. This woman,\nalone of all the passers-by, turned and looked towards Doll. But her\neyes were blind.\n\nLast of all came Ahab shaking his black head, a cowslip hanging from\nhis blue lips. She would sleep and wake, but the procession would still\nbe passing by, and every so often Ahab would pass by. The woods were\nhumming-full with an infinity of unearthly things. There was continuous\nlovely singing\u2014or rather a rhythmic humming that rose and fell and rose\nagain.\n\n\n6\n\n_With daylight the tides of Hell recede. Doll wakes but to a more\ndetermined Evil._\n\nAt last she awoke to see, not the procession of Hell, but bright day.\nThe humming, however, still continued in her head, rising and falling,\nbut not going away. She was frozen cold to her marrow. Now the loss of\nher foster father had become a tiny thing infinitely far away and long,\nlong ago. All her previous existence seemed removed from her as if\nagain a barrier had come down upon her, shutting one part of her life\nfrom the next. So, although she thought sadly of the kind man\u2019s death,\nit already seemed one with the destruction of her parents\u2014that is, a\nthing which has happened long back in childhood.\n\nShe recalled to herself the story of a girl who had slept in a\nfairy-wood for a hundred years, and she looked fearfully at her hands,\nexpecting them to be gnarled with a century. But they were as they\nalways had been. Her hair about her shoulders was black. She thought\nthat it was possible (and at that time it even seemed most probable)\nthat, although her body might have retained its youthful form, a great\nflight of time had passed. She would go back to Cowan Corners to find\nthe dark forest had swallowed it. There would be cellar holes lost in\nthickets, where Boston, Salem, Cowan Corners, Ipswich, etc., had stood.\nShe felt herself alone upon a whole continent. Her body had grown\nso light and so unreal, she scarce could stand, nor was she wholly\nconvinced of her own reality until she observed she still could cast a\nshadow.\n\nDoll Bilby had always longed for the comforts of religion, so it was\nnatural that she, having as she believed just witnessed a manifestation\nof her \u2018god,\u2019 should now reverently stand and give thanks. She called\nupon her Father in Hell, thanking him that he had made manifest to her\nvisible proof of his greatness. She called upon her father and mother,\nblessed them in the great name of Hell, and promised to serve them.\nShe called upon all that vast host of evil things, blessed them, and\npromised to serve them.\n\nSo she floated lightly forth, intent to see the place where Cowan\nCorners once had stood. Voices called her through the wood, and these\nshe knew were true voices of men, not the eerie cries of ghosts or\ndemons. She answered, \u2018Here am I.\u2019\n\nFour men came to her, nor was one of them a minute older than he had\nseemed last Sabbath at Meeting. Mr. Zelley cried out in pity, for her\nfive days of despair, suffering, and even the astounding pleasures\nof the night before, had marked the face of Doll Bilby, altering its\npretty childish shape.\n\n\u2018My child,\u2019 he said, \u2018you need not have run away. There is no reason to\nbelieve Mr. Bilby\u2019s death due to anything but nature. Such a congestion\nof the lights is not uncommon and often results in death. Doll, as he\nlay dying, we questioned him if he was worked upon by any witchcraft,\nand he cried in a loud voice, \u201cI die spirit free.\u201d\u2019\n\nDoll wept with her hands over her face. None saw that she shed no\ntears. But she knew that the springs of her tears had dried in the\nnight. Mr. Zelley kissed her gently upon the forehead, and with that\nkiss he entered into pact with her, for after that he cherished her and\nbecame at last her confidant in all things, even in all evil things.\nAnd he had once been a minister of God.\n\nMr. Zelley walked by her side. The three other men looked at her\ndoubtfully, thinking each to himself, \u2018This young woman is a murderess\nand a witch.\u2019 They soon outdistanced the minister and the woman, so it\nwas he alone who took her back to her own home.\n\nHe told her that from now on, for a little space of time, life would be\nhard for her. She must live peaceably in the house with Hannah (there\nwas no other place for her to go). She must, by a godly, upright, and\nvirtuous life, and by the goodness of her conversation and dignity\nof her demeanour, give the lie (he said) to all those who would with\ntedious rustic simplicity believe her a witch. Both he and Mr. Kleaver\nknew Mr. Bilby died by nature and not by art. She was, moreover, in\nall things to trust him. He would clear her name (he said). He had\npower among these people (he hoped). She was to be of good heart, and\nthe Lord God would be with her. Also he promised to come to her often,\npraying with her, and strengthening her.\n\nSo he took her to her door. In the yard they saw the two indentured\nservants nailing together a wooden coffin. A group of serious men\nstood, watching them, and discussed the mutabilities of life, etc.\nNow and again one helped himself at the barrel of cider that had been\nrolled out to accommodate their thirst (for thirst is like to rise from\nserious discourse and ponderous thought).\n\nMr. Zelley took her within the house. The ovens were fired and pots\nboiled on the hearth. There was the leg of a great ox on a spit\nover the coals. The little turnspit dog, which ordinarily served at\nthe tavern, had been brought over to serve for the sad yet pleasing\noccasion. He turned the spit, as he had been trained to do. His eyes\nwere red and rheumy. The hair was burned away from his hind quarters,\nand they were red and scorched. Doll remembered how often her foster\nfather at the tavern had given scraps of food to this same miserable\nsmall dog, and how he called it \u2018Old Father Time\u2019 even when it was a\npup, for it had always seemed bent, wizen, and full of many cares. She\nturned away her head.\n\nThe house was full of neighbour women who had come to help prepare\nthe funeral meats. Doll entered. All found reason they must go to the\nmilk-house, the cellar, the barn, the pantry, or to the best room where\nthe corpse lay and the widow sat in black. Doll and Mr. Zelley were\nleft alone except for a squat and horrid form, who stood its own and\nfeared no woman nor man nor witch. This was the form of Goochey, she\nwho had the laying-out of the dead. She had a face and voice like a\nman\u2019s. Indeed many believed that she was a man who, perhaps having\ncommitted offence in the Old World, had fled, thus disguised, to the\nNew. She came from the Welsh borders, and would never touch a corpse\nunless she had first set upon her hands ten iron rings\u2014one to each\nfinger; for she feared that, without this protection, the spirit of the\ncorpse might enter her veins and thus havoc her body.\n\nWhen Doll saw this dwarfish man-woman standing in the fire-room,\nfitting iron rings to her fingers, she shrank from her in horror.\nGoody Goochey muttered at her, and Mr. Zelley was distressed because\nhe believed she was calling the distrait young woman a witch. However,\nsuch was the hoarseness of Goochey\u2019s voice and such was the coarseness\nof her nature, he could not be sure. She might have been calling her\nanother, no more flattering, but surely less dangerous, epithet.\nMr. Zelley sincerely hoped so, for he was far more concerned with\nthe reputation of Doll than he was with the good or bad language of\nGoochey.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IV\n\n\n1\n\n _Two Women sleep in the House of Hate. Doll Bilby, having ruined the\n fortunes of a Student of Divinity, now turns her powers upon a_ DIVINE.\n\nAs soon as the harvest was in and the grave of Jared Bilby was filled,\nwinter came raging in with unwonted ferocity. It came in foot after\nfoot of dazzling snow, at first snowing only in the night, the sun\nsparkling out brightly in the daytime. But by the New Year (the snow\nalready standing up to the window-sills and over the fences) the winter\ngrew black. There was no sun, and such storms blew from out the north\nand northeast as none had ever seen or heard of before. There was no\nceasing of wind, snow, and black days. The sea roared continuously,\nlike a thousand lions seeking food from a false god.\n\nThe dead could not be buried. The cattle froze. The wolves went to the\nbarnyards killing sheep, pigs, cattle, horses. A woman found a lynx\namong her ducks. The deer came out of the forest, joining the dairy\nherds, seeming to ask food of man and shelter in his barns. Such was\nthe cruel winter that settled down on the dead man\u2019s house, where lived\nhis widow and adopted child.\n\nThese two women lived alone, shut off together from the world in\nsolitude. They lived almost without speaking and in hate. The two farm\nservants slept in the cow-sheds, and often afterwards said they dreaded\neven to enter that gloomy house, where the two women sat watching each\nother, hating and being hated.\n\nAs was his duty, Mr. Zelley came often to see them. The snows were so\ndeep he could not travel by horse, so he came on snowshoes with his\nBible under his arm. Each woman he saw separately, praying with her\nand trying to comfort her. What he said to Mrs. Hannah all heard as\nsoon as the roads were broken out and she was out among her gossips,\nbut what he said to Doll no one knew, although in after years much\nthat she said to him was known. Mrs. Bilby said that once he came out\nof Doll\u2019s chamber like a soul spewed out of Hell. He looked roundabout\nhim wildly as if he had seen a most frightful sight or heard most\nfrightful things. Without as much as a word for the woman (who hoped he\nwould pause and elucidate for her certain problems she had found in\nLeviticus), he seized upon a bottle of rumbullion, swallowed half of\nthat, and made out of the house as though the devils were after him.\nThe truth is on that day Doll had confessed to him that she was a witch.\n\nUp to this time he had always praised the Christian fortitude, the\npiety, the humbleness, and sobriety of Bilby\u2019s Doll. But after that he\ncame to be much agitated at the mere mention of her name, shaking his\nhead, exclaiming, \u2018Dear me,\u2019 or mentioning the fact that we are all\nmiserable sinners. He was about the Bilby house more than ever, seeing\nDoll always alone and in her own chamber.\n\nWhen it was said that Doll was a witch, he would reprove the speaker,\nsadly bidding him keep such light thoughts on serious matters to\nhimself. Of course the Bible proves to us that there were witches in\nthe days of Leviticus and Kings\u2014but to-day ... now, he was not sure\nsuch things exist.\n\n\u2018Then you do not believe that Jonet Greene...?\u2019\n\n\u2018There does not live a more excellent Christian. Fools call her a witch\nbecause she begins to lean upon her staff and she has a wandering eye.\nMany do so and have such.\u2019\n\n\u2018Nor yet in the justice done upon the bodies of certain witches in\nBoston?\u2019\n\n\u2018I will not judge of Boston. I speak only of Cowan Corners.\u2019\n\nBy these beliefs he gained some friends and lost others. If one does\nnot believe in witches, how can one believe in devils, and if not in\ndevils, how then in Hell?\u2014and Hell is, as all know, the fundamental\nprinciple on which good conduct and Christian faith are built.\n\nThe women in the Bilby house rarely spoke. Each knew her own duty and\ndid it. The indentured servants kept to the barn, so there was no noise\nbut the swish of the women\u2019s skirts or brooms, the rattle of cooking\nware, the slam of a door. Even the house dog, grown old and deaf, never\nbarked. The cats, five in all, partook of the silence. They slipped\nfrom room to room, eyeing the women suspiciously, but without half the\nsuspicion with which Hannah eyed them.\n\nOn a cold night, Gideon, a big malty tom, being chill, sought animal\nwarmth. He jumped upon Widow Bilby\u2019s bed. She woke gagged with fear.\nShe seized Gideon and, in spite of the clawing that shredded her arms,\nstrangled him.\n\nThe next day with an axe she killed every cat in the house. This brutal\nslaughter of innocent and pretty pets dismayed Doll almost beyond\nendurance. She had loved and fed every one, and they often slept\nupon her bed at night. Filled with abomination towards the woman,\nshe thought at least to give her a headache, or in some way work her\na small harm. She looked about for nail paring or wisp of hair with\nwhich she might fortify a poppet and work magic against the woman. She\nfound to her astonishment that Hannah evidently suspected her, for any\ncombing from her hair was instantly burned, and she never pared her\nnails except over a dark cloth which she shook out into the fire. While\nshe did these things, she would look slyly at Doll, as if to say she\nunderstood her game, and would take every precaution against her. So\nshe had done ever since her husband died, but Doll did not notice this\nprecaution until February.\n\nMuch of the time Doll lay in her own room upon her own narrow bed, and\nprayed to the Prince of Hell that he send some instructor or messenger\nto her ... but thus far only Mr. Zelley came to instruct her. She\nlooked forward to the spring with longing, and because of a dream she\nhad three times concerning a young man asleep in a bed of violets (yet\nthe man she knew, even as she gazed at him, was infernal), she came to\nbelieve that in spring, when the violets blossom, a messenger would\ncome.\n\nBy February, the roads being broken, Widow Bilby was again about, but\nDoll in her discontent walked solitary. She saw no one except perhaps\nonce in a long time Goody Greene, and once a week Mr. Zelley (whom\nshe filled full of the phantasies of her childhood). She did not go\nto Church, and this shocked and angered the whole community, although\nMr. Zelley himself insisted that she was too weak and sick to take the\nhard trip on horseback. Of her neighbours, the Thumbs, she saw nothing.\nTitus (because of the stories which Widow Bilby told his mother, and\nshe, in turn, told him) went in daily terror of his life. He believed\nDoll had a poppet of him. If his head ached, it was because she pinched\nor pricked the head of the poppet. Were it his stomach, lights, bowels,\nthat hurt him, he thought she was rubbing poison on the belly and\nbody of this same poppet. When a black sow he had raised up by hand\nsuddenly jumped into the air and fell dead, he thought she had in\npassing glanced at it.\n\nOf all things, however, Titus most feared Ahab, the black bull, who\nhad, from the day Doll found him in the forest, changed his gentle\nnature to one most ferocious and perverse. He urged his father to\nbutcher the animal before it took human life. The deacon said it would\nbe gluttonous to put into the stomach such costly steaks, roasts, etc.,\nand any man who did so deserved to have his bowels rot.\n\n\n2\n\n_Showing that the Sun will always shine again, no matter how black the\nWinter._\n\nThe winter had come early, but (contrary to country superstition) it\nremained late. For April was full of the racketing of wind, and May\nwas drenched and all but drowned in rain. Not until the end of that\nmonth did the earth rally from adversity, and there come still and\nsunny days. The skies were of heavenly blueness, crossed only by herds\nof fleecy clouds, as sweet and innocent as wandering lambs. The grass\ngrew green and was prettily pied with multitudes of little flowers.\nThe fruit trees glanced but once at sun and sky, then burst into\nrapturous blooming. The beauty of these trees is not idle and barren.\nTheir deeds (that is, their fructuation) is as good as their promise\n(or blossoming). Man may enjoy the loveliness of these flowers, knowing\nthat their loveliness is one of accomplishment.\n\nSpecial lectures were held at the Meeting-House, giving thanks (where\nthanks were due) for the beneficent weather, the fertility of all\nthings, the abundance of fish, game, wild foods, and good health of the\ncommunity. In his praying Mr. Zelley (so it was observed) twice asked\nwith particular passion that the old hatreds, the old jealousies, and\nthe old cruel superstitions might be left behind, and that, in the new\nland, the spirit of man might break forth as a chick breaks the egg.\n\nThe widow\u2019s house had stood fast-shuttered for six months. Now it was\nopen to sun and gentle breeze. Doll had been pale, sad, all winter; now\nshe felt the gladness of the earth singing about her in the sweetest\nvoice, calling her to set aside the dark mantle of the soul to take on\njoy, hope, and even pleasure. She felt frolicsome (as she had often\nfelt with her foster father) and played with the calves and colts,\nsecretly met the Thumb twins by the boundary brook, and filled them\nfull of devilish lies.\n\nShe went again to the Meeting-House, and even wantonly enjoyed herself\nduring service, for she found that (such were her latent powers for\nharm), by merely twisting her fingers together and staring hard at\nDeacon Pentwhistle as he led the psalm singing, she could twist his\nthroat so that he broke off into a coughing fit. Once, on seeing Titus\nenter the pasture where Ahab grazed, she slyly and only by thought\nordered the creature to have at the young man. Behold! She had the\ninimitable pleasure of seeing Ahab make at him, and Titus barely\nreached a tree in time to save his limbs. If Ahab had gained too much\non this swift and willing runner, she would have crossed her legs\nand this would have stopped the bull, for she wanted her old lover\nfrightened, but neither maimed nor slain.\n\nMr. Zelley continued to wrestle with her in prayer, begging her to\nbelieve that she could not be a witch because he (being little better\nthan an atheist) thought such things could not exist. He always claimed\nthat he strove to save her soul. She rewarded him by destroying his.\nShe went often to his house and read in his library, especially of all\nsuch books as the \u2018Malleus Maleficarum\u2019 and \u2018Sadducismus Triumphatus,\u2019\netc., which treat of witches and witchcraft, for she was unskilled and\nwished to learn proper charms and methods for working evil. She also\nquestioned Goodwife Greene. Still she never could learn (except by\naccident) how to do any of the things she wished. She could not even\nsummon the Devil, who, when he came, came as pleased him\u2014not to her\norder.\n\n\n3\n\n _An Intimation comes to Doll that some Infernal is about. She believes\n that he whom she (in wicked abomination) worships will soon send sign\n to her._\n\nOn a morning she awoke, knowing she must go to Greene\u2019s house. \u2018I must\nsee Goody Greene,\u2019 she thought. \u2018I must talk to Goody Greene.\u2019 She left\nthe pots unwashed, the room unswept. She put on neither coat nor hat,\nbut went as she was, for the day was warm. Now the new year seemed to\npromise great things, and she felt confident these things she would\nfind. There was every happiness close to her, hiding, waiting to be\nfound. Through these pleasant and cheerful thoughts came racketing the\nclangour of a brass bell and the terrible blasting of a fish horn, and\nthe voice of man (in this case the voice of the town crier) tolled out\nto her and to all the world those things that were lost.\n\nMr. Minchon, the crier, put the fish horn under his arm and took the\nbrass bell by the clapper.\n\n\u2018Gone away!\u2019 he cried. \u2018Gone away! Gone away! Four pirates from the\nBoston Jail, one day before their trial. Calico Jack and Black Pig\nMurch, Ben Bottle and the Bloody Shad. Likewise, from the pasture of\nDeacon Thumb, one priceless bull known to you all, the young bull\nAhab.\u2019 (Ding-dong! Ding-dong!)\n\n\u2018Lost or stole, lost or stole, a wallet and the money in it of Captain\nTom Buzzey, for he put it on the tavern step, turned, and it was gone.\nLost or stole, the wallet of Tom Buzzey\u2014a wallet with the money in\nit.\u2019 (Ding-dong!) Mr. Minchon, blowing again upon his fish horn, took\nhimself and his sad news of things lost or things stolen to the next\nstreet corner; there, having gathered a crowd about him, he proclaimed\nagain. He moved again and yet again. Knowing the matter of which he\nspoke, Doll could even at a long way recognize the names of the four\npirates, for he always began with full lungs, so she heard four times\nthe crying out of these names, Calico Jack and Black Pig Murch, Ben\nBottle and the Bloody Shad, but of Captain Buzzey\u2019s loss she heard but\nonce, for Mr. Minchon arrived at it with spent ardour and small voice.\nDoll continued on her way to Greene\u2019s hut.\n\nBetween the house of Mr. Zelley and the House of God, she met seven\nIndians who walked the one after the other, with feet silent as panther\npaws. They were dressed in the paint and regalia affected by their\nchief men, in the hope of giving to their persons, by external and\nchildish methods, that true dignity which never can come from without\nbut arises only from the soul. The Indians passed (as they always do)\nwithout so much as glancing at the white woman, but she gazed hard upon\nthem, thinking that perhaps they really were devils\u2014as many ignorant\npeople then believed\u2014and that the sign or messenger which she had come\nto look for constantly would be from them. As she watched, a feather\nfloated or rather seemed to be lifted from the headgear of one of\nthese, and, after wavering a second, it came to rest at her feet. This\nwas a scarlet feather with a yellow tip to it. She stooped to it, and\nhid it in her bosom, looking longingly after the seven chief men,\nthinking that having vouchsafed her this favour they might sign her to\nfollow them. They did not.\n\nShe went her way, but she went exulting, with red cheeks and smiling\nmouth. The young men she passed at the tavern drew back that she might\nnot cast a roving eye upon them and desire them, for they all knew of\nthe bewitchment by which she had afflicted Thumb. They guessed, by the\nunaccustomed red of her cheek and the sparkle of her eye, that (spring\nhaving come again) she was wandering about looking for a new young man\nto devour. The young men stood back; Doll went her way.\n\nShe came to the waste marshes by the sea on which sat the tinker\u2019s hut.\nShe rapped on the door and cried out her own name. The woman did not\ncall \u2018Come in,\u2019 as was usual, and Doll heard rustlings, whisperings,\ntramplings, within. She thought how this woman, like herself, was a\nwitch. Her heart beat quicker with the (to her) delightful thought that\nperhaps at that very moment she had discovered Greene in confab with\nsome fiend spirit or familiar, and that was why the door was not opened\nto her, that was why there were rustlings from within. Then Goody\nGreene opened the door and with her usual affection drew the girl into\nher miserable house, kissed her, and put out the stool, a jointstool,\nfor her to sit on. Greene went on with her own business which was\nconcerned with sorting out into heaps dried toadstools and mushrooms.\n\nDoll stared at her and saw how hard the pulse throbbed in the old\nwoman\u2019s neck, how her hands shook at her work, how again and again she\nswallowed as if choked by an oppressive secret. But the girl could not\ntell the woman she thought her a witch and say, \u2018I would like to see\nthe familiar I know must be close by,\u2019 for the moment she stopped upon\nthe threshold she was aware that she and the goodwife were not alone.\nShe could feel the air tremble about her; she could almost hear it,\nall but see it. It was there, close in the one room of the hut, with\nthem. It had not flown at her coming; it had hid itself. She saw that\nthe hangings upon the bed were drawn. \u2018It is yonder,\u2019 she thought;\n\u2018the fiend hides in the bed behind drawn curtains.\u2019 She was sick with\nfear, but her hopes rode high. She took from her bosom the feather the\nIndian had dropped. What did Goody Greene think of the feather? Greene\nsaid it was a bright and pretty feather, and proved the Indians to be\nmore skillful than we in dyeing. But did it mean nothing more to her\nthan that? No, nothing more. She put it back into her bosom. What would\nGoody do with so many fungi? She would mix them with snake fat and cure\nrheumatics. She said she did not know snakes had any fat. Greene said\nthat any distillation from flesh was called \u2018fat.\u2019 Then they sat for a\nlong time without speaking.\n\nDoll helped with the sorting.\n\nDoll thought to herself, \u2018Be my friend, Goody Greene; confess you are\na witch, show me your familiar, and we will work magic together, for I\ncannot bear to be so lonely.\u2019 The woman set a pot on the fire to make\na gruel for dinner. She put three handfuls of maize into the pot. Doll\nasked her, \u2018Does the goodman come back for dinner?\u2019 \u2018No,\u2019 said Greene,\n\u2018I put in the extra handful by mistake.\u2019 This was very strange, thought\nDoll, but in her mind made note of the fact that a familiar will\ncondescend to eat maize gruel like a poor man. It distressed Doll that\nthe woman would not trust her and produce her familiar.\n\nThe woman squatted before the pot, Doll knelt beside her, and, because\nshe was sick with bitter loneliness, she pressed her face against the\nwoman\u2019s sleeve and said, \u2018You are the only mother I have ever had since\nI was a tiny child, and I, Goody Greene, I am the only child you ever\nhad.\u2019 The woman let the wooden spoon slip from her fingers so that it\nwas lost in the gruel, and Doll, who jumped up to fetch her another\none, saw from the corner of her eye that she glanced at the bed. \u2018Ah,\u2019\nthought Doll, \u2018perhaps she has made herself a popinjay from broom or\nrags or scarecrow, and calls this thing \u201cson.\u201d Perhaps that is what she\nhas about her in this room\u2014and in the bed most likely.\u2019\n\nAs they ate their dinner (of which there was far too much for the\ntwo women), Doll asked Greene to tell her again some of those old\nstories by which she had enchanted her as a child. Greene told her of\nthe unfortunate earl\u2019s daughter, who consented to a boat ride with\na handsome stranger-man. (The masts were of gold, but did not bend\nbefore the wind. The sails were of taffety, and did not fill with the\nbreeze.) They sailed three leagues and then she spied his cloven hoof\nand wept most bitterly, knowing it was no man but a devil with whom she\nmust cope.\n\nGreene told her other ungodly stories from an ungodly antiquity. Doll\nquestioned her at every turn. She must know how each magic trick was\nworked; she must hear how it was Fair Jennifer of Bageley Wood called\nher demon to her. Greene told her the true story of how a lycanthropic\nman, believing himself to be a wolf, killed fifteen in the Midlands\nbefore the soldiers got him. She told her of Queen Mab and her tiny\ntinsel court. At last Doll got to her feet to go. She heard the bed\ncreak, and saw a moving lump bulge out the drawn curtains. But the\nfamiliar did not make itself manifest. As Greene stared at the hearth,\nDoll slyly drew the red and yellow feather from her bosom and, brushing\nby the bed, she slipped the feather within. Calling a hasty good-bye,\nshe left abruptly, and began to run, for she (in spite of hopes) half\nfeared a great, scaly, black fiend would leap from the bed and on the\ninstant shoulder her, and march off down to Hell.\n\n\n4\n\n_Doll finds an Imp in a cellar. It proves unfriendly to her._\n\nOn the next day Doll returned to the marsh hut. Again she found Goody\nGreene seemingly alone, yet the one room was mysteriously filled with a\nPresence. That day Greene was making teas, infusions, etc. She had four\npots on the coals, and was much confined, in her thoughts and in her\nwords, by watching them.\n\nBeside the hut was a cold-cellar dug into the ground, and in this\nGreene stored her herbs, her drugs, fats, oils, bottles, pans\u2014all the\nmatter for her trade. She wanted organy, dittany, and galingale root.\nDoll ran quickly to the cellar. She knew where these things were laid.\n\nShe opened the door, which was in the shape of a bulkhead, and ran down\nthe short flight of stairs. Here she had played in childhood, and the\nstrong odours of herbs, roots, and meat oils were fragrant to her. So\nshe paused a moment, sniffing about. There was a rattle on a dark shelf\nbehind a clay crock, and a snake skin shook. She thought she had left\nthe familiar behind her in the good woman\u2019s bed, yet she cried out in\nher horror, calling by mistake to the _true_ God\u2014not to the Satan she\nhad sworn to serve; for there, peeking about the clay crock, was a\nball of tawny fur and from out the fur glared a little man\u2019s face. His\nfeatures were like an Ethiop\u2019s, and his head no bigger than an orange.\nShe noticed, even in the brief moment she paused to look at him, that\nhands and even nails were perfect. Behind dangled a long ringed tail\u2014a\npretty tail of black and dun.\n\nThis imp was much offended by her, for it scolded her in strange\nlanguages, and its eyes were red with hate. So in terror she, who\nthought herself brave enough to stand up before Lucifer, fled from the\nlittlest of his servants. This servant she saw again, and the next time\nwithout fear.\n\nShe ran to Goody Greene, crying she had seen a terrible thing.\n\n\u2018Hush,\u2019 said Greene; \u2018you saw a skull or two, or a snake skin....\u2019\n\n\u2018No, no, no, it was alive. It was a little imp.\u2019\n\n\u2018You dreamed it\u2014or it may have been a cat. Cats get into my cellar for\nthe sake of the fats.\u2019\n\n\u2018It was not a cat.\u2019\n\nBut Greene knew it was not an imp.\n\nAt the end Doll was cast down because Greene trusted her so little she\nwould not confess the truth, even when she had seen the actual fact of\nthe imp\u2019s body, had heard it chatter. She was distressed, picked up her\nbonnet and put it on her head. There was much work to do, she said.\nMrs. Hannah was plucking geese, and she must be back in time to rub\nointment on them where they bled.\n\n\u2018Doll,\u2019 said Greene, \u2018I heard you cry out to God for help when you saw\nthe cat in the cellar.\u2019\n\n\u2018I forgot myself,\u2019 murmured Doll, and was ashamed that in her extremity\nshe had called upon God and not upon the Foul Fiend she had sworn to\nworship. She guessed this was the reason both for the imp\u2019s rage and\nGreene\u2019s mistrust. \u2018I will not forget again,\u2019 she said.\n\nGoody Greene assumed an attitude which seemed indeed to the girl one\nof mock piety. She rolled her eyes and said, \u2018Always give thanks where\nthanks are due.\u2019\n\nDoll thought she was reproving her. \u2018I will next time,\u2019 she promised.\n\nThen she went away.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER V\n\n\n1\n\n_The night crackles with Fire. Hell laughs and a Witch meets that which\nshe long has sought._\n\nStill in the month of May, catastrophe came to Cowan Corners. On\nthree nights, consecutively, great fires broke out. The first took\nthe noon-house of the Church. The second the ropewalk of Deacon\nPentwhistle. The third took the barns, sheds, outhouses of Deacon\nEphraim Thumb. This last fire was upon the thirty-first day of May and\nthe morrow would be June.\n\nThe farm servants of Widow Bilby came up from the cow-sheds. They\ncalled to the window in the attic where Hannah slept (for since the\nnights were warm she preferred the desolation of an attic to the\nproximity of her detested companion), \u2018Widow Bilby, Widow Bilby,\nthere\u2019s a great fire at our neighbour\u2019s. Shall we not go to help?\u2019\nThe widow told them to go and do their best, and God go with them.\nShe, too, would follow soon. She got into her clothes, and Doll heard\nher stamping down the stairs and out of the house. Doll looked from\nher window and the sky was orange. She clutched her throat, for fire\nterrified her (because of her parents\u2019 death), yet it fascinated her\n(because of her unnatural yearning for Hell).\n\n[Illustration: Building on fire]\n\nWill she, nill she, the young woman dressed and, much perturbed, she\nreached the outskirts of the onlookers. With them she could not mingle,\nfor they feared her, and she dreaded this same fear. She withdrew to a\nbig straw stack, and beneath its overhanging top (for the cattle had\nrubbed against it) she found herself a hiding-place.\n\nEvery able man in the village was there, and half of the women. She saw\nTitus passing buckets and getting out gear, nor could she have looked\nat him without some slight regret, for he was a goodly, comely man and\na young witch has an amorous eye. She heard the shouting, the running\nabout, the snap and rustle of the flames. Sometimes other idle watchers\ncame close to where she hid, and from their talk she learned that these\nthree fires had all been started by a cat breathing fire. Widow Bilby\nhad said that this same cat could be no other than her old tom, Gideon,\nnow dead a three-month, thus maliciously returned from Hell. Doll heard\nher own name spoken and saw heads shaken. She also heard that Ahab\nwas still within the vehemently burning barn. Because of his ferocity\nas well as because of his wanderings, he had lately been closely\npenned. So far no one had been able to loose him, although several\nhad essayed to do so. The horses, savage with fear, had been moved\nfar from the fire lest they, with the fondness of their kind, return\nto their accustomed stalls and perish. The cattle were running about\nthe barnyard, where they interfered with the work, upsetting buckets,\netc. Such swine as the Thumbs possessed burned to their deaths, their\nstench polluting the air. Doll sickened at the smell, for she never\ncould forget the holocaust of Mont Ho\u00ebl. Until the fire burst the\nridgepole, the doves flew constantly from their cotes under the eaves.\nSome were so singed they fell to the muck of the yard and, trampled\nunder foot, perished.\n\nJust before the fall of the barn floor, Ahab was loosed. With sparks\nupon his coat, his eyes rolling most horribly, he came out of danger\nat a gallop. Seeing the crowd, he charged furiously, passing over the\nbodies of three, yet not staying to gore them, so intent was he on\nthe men who ran. Wherever he went, the crowd melted and the shouting\nrose. Many believed it was this wicked bull, and not the Hell cat,\nthat had set these fires, for now he seemed intent on guarding the\nfire and would let no one near it. Doll thought the creature was her\nfriend\u2014perhaps sometime he would become her familiar; but when she saw\nhim coming for her on a brisk and determined trot she ran up the short\nladder leaning against the straw stack, not relying unduly on either\ncharms or friendship.\n\nThe same moment the roof fell and sparks flew up, rising into the\nnight air an hundred feet and more, until the sky seemed filled with\ndeparting souls flying up and up to the Throne of God.\n\nDoll, panting from her vexatious exercise upon the ladder and sweating\nfrom her recent fear, found herself upon the top of the straw stack.\nShe was sprawled upon hands and knees. In the fury of the orange light\n(which with the fall of the roof suddenly was most horrible) she\ngazed about her. Then she saw she was not alone, for with her was a\nluggard fiend who stretched his length upon the straw. His eyes were\nred as though filled with blood. He wore (she said) a costume like\na seaman\u2019s, except that, where a seaman\u2019s clothes are coarse, his\nwere fine and dainty. For instance, the hoops in his ears were not of\nbrass but jewels. She said he had a silk kerchief tied about his head.\nUpon his breast he bare\u2014as if in mockery of that virgin whose worship\nthe Catholics prefer to the worship of God\u2014the very imp, the little\nservant, whom she had seen in Greene\u2019s cold-cellar. She guessed he was\nher god, or a messenger from her god, so, crying out, \u2018Master, master,\nyou have come for me,\u2019 she further prostrated herself before him. Now\nshe was no more alone, for this fiend had come for her.\n\nAt first the demon made no response; then, after a little and with a\nfew high but kindly words, he permitted her to approach. She said she\ncould scarce believe that, after such long waiting and such unanswered\nprayers, he had at last come. \u2018Oh, I have been lonely, lonely; I have\nhad no one,\u2019 and she sobbed (no tears came).\n\n\u2018Why do you sob, Bilby\u2019s Doll?\u2019\n\n\u2018Because I am happy at last.\u2019\n\nHe reproved her gently because she had ever doubted his advent, which\nhe said he had announced to her by the lighting of these three great\nfires. It was his will that turned her steps to the ladder and, as she\nbecame too intent upon the fire to notice the summons of his will, he\nloosed a fierce black bull who urged her up the humble ladder and into\nhis presence.\n\n\u2018And you really are from....\u2019\n\n\u2018From Hell,\u2019 he said, and showed her his teeth that were white and\nstrong as an animal\u2019s. She shrank a little from him. He told her not\nto fear to approach and touch him, for he was in human guise. There\nwas no sulphur on his person, no blasting fire in his hands. To prove\nhis wholesome humanity he touched her wrist, and she experienced a\nshock of joy such as she had formerly experienced when her mother had\nled her to Satan in the heart of the oak wood. This joy she accounted\na religious joy\u2014such (so she explained to Mr. Zelley) as a Christian\nwould experience at receiving the visitations of an angel.\n\nNow was she no longer alone in this sad world, for her god (that is,\nSatan) had come to succour her, or had at least sent her a messenger.\nShe asked him which he was, Satan or lesser demon. At the mention of\nSatan\u2019s name, he bowed his head reverently. He admitted that he was but\none of many fallen angels who had left Paradise with the Awful Prince.\nAt first she was cast down, for she had hoped to hear that it was the\nPrince himself. But she looked again, and marked how handsome a man he\nwas and of what a fine ruddy complexion. She saw how strong were his\nshoulders, and how arched and strong his chest. She was thankful then\nthat Satan had not seen fit to send her merely some ancient hag or\ntalking cat, ram, or little green bird, but this stalwart demon. She\nthought, \u2018He can protect me even from the hate of Mrs. Hannah.\u2019 She\nthought, in her utter and damnable folly, \u2018He can protect me from the\nWrath of God.\u2019\n\nThe whole barn fell into the cellar hole. As she looked towards this\nglowing pit, she thought of that vaster and crueller bonfire in which\nher soul would burn forever. She thought well to ask him a little\nconcerning those pains which she later must suffer. He laughed at her.\nThere would be, he said, no pain. Those who served Satan faithfully in\nthis world were never burned in Hell. Was not Satan King of Hell? Why\nshould he burn those who loved and obeyed him? She was stuffed full of\nlunatic theology. The only souls that suffered in Hell were such of\nGod\u2019s subjects as had angered Him and yet had made no pact of service\nwith Satan. These the devils burned\u2014even as God ordered. It gave them a\nthing to do. He pointed out there were no angels in Hell watching out\nthat God\u2019s orders be fulfilled, so naturally the devils did not carry\nout the cruel sentences God meted out to true subjects of Satan. Again\nhe said, \u2018Why should they?\u2019\n\nShe asked him of news concerning her father and mother\u2014good witches\nwhom the French had burned in Brittany. These he assured her roamed\nhappily and at free will, finding cooling breezes even in Hell. When\nit pleased them, they sat and conversed with antiquity or with the\ngreatest kings, princes, etc., who had ever lived in this world. But\nher mother was a kindly woman and got more pleasure out of good deeds\nthan from idle conversation. Therefore Satan permitted her to go about\namong those who burn and give them water or fan away the smoke. Doll\nwas convinced that the messenger had indeed seen her mother, whom she\nalways remembered as a gentle and loving woman.\n\nWas this kind mother aware of her daughter\u2019s sufferings? Was it she\nwho had thought to send him to comfort her? No, no. A mortal who is\ndead cannot see back into life. It was Satan himself who had pitied her\nand ordered him to her side. Him he bade her worship, \u2018Truth in and\nhumbly.\u2019 At first she could not understand this reversal of many sacred\nphrases. Later she came to know this blasphemous jargon well. For every\nnight she said Our Lord\u2019s most holy prayer backwards\u2014thereby addressing\nherself to Satan; but what came to her as punishment for this wicked\npractice we shall see.\n\nHe had about him a bottle of grog, and from this he baptized her,\n\u2018Ghost holy and son, Father of name the in.\u2019 Now he said she was no\nlonger Bilby\u2019s Doll. Now she was the Devil\u2019s Doll. And he kissed her\nreverently upon the forehead. His pretty imp peeked out from within\nhis blue blouse where he kept it. He bade her stroke it. This she did.\nShe said it was a warm and gentle imp, with tired and thoughtful (but\nnot malicious, as she had at first thought) eyes. It was well furred\nand, if it were not for its wise, sad face and minute black hands, she\nmight have thought it indeed but an animal. She came to love this imp,\nplaying with it and petting it. Its name, he said, was Bloody Shad.\n\u2018Why,\u2019 she said, \u2018that is the name of one of the pirates that escaped.\u2019\nThe fiend said he knew that fine fellow well. He had taken his nickname\nfrom the imp the young woman now held in her pretty little hands.\n\nThe fire was laid and the dawn gave more light than the embers. Birds\nshook the thin, watery air with their calling. A few men still stood\nabout the fire. The one called to the other that Ahab was in a village\ngarden devouring new-set cabbage plants and terrifying women. Doll\nleaned towards these men, listening to their news. As she turned back\nto inquire of her instructor the true status of Ahab in the community\nand in the Hierarchy of Hell, she found to her great sorrow that he was\ngone.\n\nAt the same time one of the barnyard fowls who the night before had\nsuffered bitterly, being as he was a cock, struck a gallant attitude\nupon a heap of dung, and, lifting his head, greeted the coming day with\na triumphant cock-a-doodle-doo. She heard the cocks on her own farm\nanswer this challenge with distant fairy cries.\n\nThis was a new day, and with it came great hopes.\n\nLater she was asked if she did not know that cocks crow at an earlier\nhour\u2014for they generally begin before the light. Yes, this she knew. But\nher demon must have had the power to stay the crowing of the cocks, for\nhe never remained later than the first cry from such a bird, yet often\nhe stayed until the day was almost light\u2014for instance, on that first\nmeeting. It was light when he left, and yet no cock cried until he was\ngone.\n\nWhere did he go to?\n\nHe went back to Hell.\n\n\n2\n\n_How Doll became a Servant to the Servant of Hell._\n\nThis fiend\u2014this caco-demon\u2014came to her again and yet again. But after\nhis first visit there was a pause and it seemed likely that he might\nnot come again. She thought daily to get his summons, either to Black\nSabbath or to class of more instruction. Would he bid her mount a broom\nand fly to him? Against this emergency she went to Dame Cosset\u2019s, a\nbroom-maker, and paid sixpence ha\u2019penny for a new red broom that she\nmight appear handsomely mounted before her lord. This broom she hid\nin her chamber. Likewise she hid rushes and clay for the devising of\npoppets, and glass, knives, pins, and needles, for the working of her\nmaster\u2019s will.\n\nOn the eighth night from the time of the Thumb fire, she heard close by\nthe house the hooting of an owl\u2014which she knew was no owl. And Hannah,\ntoo, recognized the falsity of that cry, for she started up, saying\nthat Indians were about. That was at eight o\u2019clock. At nine they heard\nagain the crying of an owl, and the dog at the barn began to howl\ndismally. Hannah swore that it was the bonded boys playing tricks. By\nten again the hooting of the owl, but Hannah slept. Doll Bilby got to\nher room, and, taking clothes and a pillow, made a dummy of herself\nwhich she thrust into the bed, thus to deceive Hannah if the woman\nshould look about for her. Grasping her red broom, but not essaying to\nmount it, she ran joyously from the house, anxious to meet her god or\nthe accredited messenger of that god.\n\nShe came out of the house and found the moon to be rising and the night\nto be of a dainty, delicate, springtime beauty. Birches twinkled in\nthe moonlight; their slender trunks seemed to be the white limbs of\nnymphs. The grasses that her broom brushed were sweet with flowers. She\nran up and down the pastures, along the fences, over the fields. She\nran until she was like to drop, and then found him where hereafter she\nalways was to find him\u2014in an opening in birch woods, enthroned upon a\ntussock. In the flowery pasture land this spot which he had selected\nfor himself was a darling fairy bower. The exact spot is known to this\nday, for Doll, on seeing the fiend, threw her red broom into the birch\ntrees, thus marking the spot, for she never took it back with her. Five\nyears later boys found it and, on being taken to Dame Cosset, the woman\nsaid yes, it was one of her own brooms, and indeed the very one she\nhad once sold to wicked Bilby for sixpence ha\u2019penny. It is noticeable\nto this day that cattle will not graze there, and that dogs coursing\nfor rabbits will stop frozen at this place and howl; yet so inferior\nis the good sense and righteousness of man to that of beasts, it has\nbecome a common tryst for lovers, who, in each other\u2019s arms, repeat\nwith foolish laughter (and yet, it may be hoped, with some sensible\nfear) the story of how Bilby\u2019s wicked Doll there met and loved a demon.\nThen they will go by moonlight to the cellar hole of the Bilby house,\nand pick a little of the yellow broom which country people call witch\u2019s\nblood.\n\nThe demon Prince permitted the witch to kneel to him and let her kiss\nhis feet (which were not cloven). She noticed how cold to touch he\nwas\u2014like the fiends and devils in old tales. But the big hands he put\nupon her head (she reverently kneeling) were warm as any man\u2019s, and\nthis heartened her. So he welcomed her \u2018Fellowship Christian in.\u2019 Then\nhe seated himself and permitted her to sit. At first the talk was of\ngreat dignity, but soon it was much like that of one gossip to another.\nHe told her how his work had prospered him in Salem, in Boston, and now\nin Hartford. And how another fiend (but this one in shape of woman)\nworked in New York among the silly Dutch, as far north as Albany, and\nyet another (this fiend in the shape of a great tawny dog) in Virginia\nand the Carolinas. \u2018Ah,\u2019 cried Doll, \u2018how thankful I, or rather all of\nus witches roundabout the Bay Colony should be that you have deigned\nto appear to us in the shape of a true proper man.\u2019 The fiend laughed\nhorribly, saying there had been much complaining among the wizards and\nthe warlocks because he was but a man\u2014not a wild free wanton wench like\nshe of the Dutch country.\n\nThen he asked her if she could come with ease to him on such nights\nas he should call her, and she answered yes, she could come to him,\nbut she must always wait her foster mother\u2019s sleeping and then leave\nsecretly by her own window. She begged him to cry no more as hooting\nowl, for this aroused suspicion\u2014the woman guessing it to be a man\u2019s\nvoice. At this he seemed angry, and said the cries she had heard were\nin truth no man\u2019s cries, for he had bade an owl to go about the house\nand hoot. He explained to her that, as man may not laugh convincingly\nupon command, neither may owl hoot. Still, for such clumsiness the\nowl must die. So they argued for a while, Doll pleading with him to\nspare the unfortunate owl, and in the end, going back on her early\nstatements, she said the cry had not sounded like a man, but exactly\nlike an owl, and that the creature had hooted amazing well. He agreed,\ntherefore, to spare the owl and to send him often to call her out.\n\nShe was rejoiced and humbled to think that he, so great and busy\na fiend, would find time to send for her again and again, and she\nconfessed to him the unendurable loneliness, desolation, and despair of\nher life\u2014especially since her foster father had died; how even Titus,\nwho had once professed to love her, now fled in terror from her glance,\nfearing her witchcraft; how Mrs. Hannah dreaded her so she would not\nleave a combing of hair nor a paring of nail about the house, and also\nhow this woman had butchered Gideon and her other creatures.\n\nAs she talked the fiend came close to her, soothing her with his hands\nupon her body. Then she suddenly stopped her rehearsal of sorrow, and\nfor a moment she went in deathly fear, for she guessed what the fiend\nintended. Still, such was her wickedness, she also felt uplifted and\nglorified, and in the end, it were these feelings that conquered in\nher, for she entirely forgot or set aside Christian fears and Christian\nmodesty. The fiend kissed her and told her to be of good heart, for\nof all the many witches he had met in his recent travels through New\nEngland, it was she he most fancied and she should be his paramour. So\nshe consented, and thus came to be the servant of the servant of Hell.\n\n\n3\n\n _A thought for a Wise Man. Is Beauty of Flesh a good or evil thing?\n And the opinions of pagan Antiquity as contrasted to our own_ THEOLOGY.\n\nThere is one quality in this world which men call goodness. This is\nthe beauty of the spirit, and is from God and of God. There is another\nquality, which is beauty of the body, and from whence comes it?\n\nThe heathen Greeks, whom the Reverend Pyam Plover has suggested were\nbut devil worshippers, believed these two things to be identical; that\nis, what is good is beautiful, what is ugly is evil. Yet need the\nthoughtful Christian but read history, or look about him to-day, to\nsee that rather than identical these two beauties should be considered\nnon-congruent or mutually antagonistic. All must have observed how\noften the most virtuous women have been of no great bodily beauty,\nand yet certain famous wantons have been blessed (or cursed) with\nbounteous fleshly charms. One should but consider the lives of\nCleopatra, that Helen known as Helen of Troy, Dido, etc.\n\nBeauty of the body, in that it excites to lust and evil thoughts, is\nwicked, but the sick, ugly, maimed body, in that it excites the sweet\nand gentle passion of pity, is from God. For this reason modesty in the\nyoung, blooming, comely female is of greater necessity than in the sick\nand ancient.\n\nBut it is not alone in a consideration of the needful and (in its\nproper place) decent female body that one may observe how often Evil\nhas wormed its way into the hearts of humanity under specious guise of\nBeauty. For when the Devil would steal the soul of Bilby\u2019s Doll, he\nshowed her lavishly and in wanton profusion such sights of pagan beauty\nno Christian, godly woman may ever expect to see.\n\nFor her this seemly ordered earth, on which we set our houses, in\nwhich we humbly plough and delve\u2014this quiet earth for her brake open\ninto a rare flowering. She saw the satyrs (close by the salt marshes)\ngambolling upon mud flats. In the morning she saw the goatprints of\ntheir hooves. She heard nymphs sing all night in trees. She saw birch\ntrees in the moonlight spun out of solid silver, and those common\nflowers, which by day (and in the sight of God) are but buttercups,\nturned into glittering jewels which by their very brilliance frightened\nher. Even that fiend the Devil sent to her was handsomer far than any\nmortal man might be. He was lovely to the eye, and his touch was as the\ntouch of fire. The strength of his arms was beyond that of mortal men\n(who are born but to praise God and die). So was every moment that she\nspent with him a moment of ecstasy. How can mortal man contend with\nfiends in the love of woman? Have they such unholy power to arouse\npassion?\n\nIt is well known that no woman who has ever accepted an infernal lover\nmay content herself with the ruck of men\u2014such seeming, after the love\nof Hell, but pale, unsubstantial shadows. And the same may be said the\nother way over, for men, it is said, who have known nymphs, elves,\nor succubi, will long for them all their lives, eschewing the feeble\nimpuissant arms of women.\n\nSo it is an established fact that Beauty that delights the eye is\nmore often a curse from Lucifer than a blessing from God. Let the\nreasonable and righteous man content himself with that which is plain\nand seemly\u2014whether it is a church or wife or horse or land that he\nconsiders. Let him not yield to the delights of the eye, but rather to\nthe beauty of goodness, piety, etc., which burns from within.\n\n\n4\n\n_Some remarkable Wonders of an Invisible Kingdom._\n\nFor fairy women came to her by night, whispering.... \u2018Get up ... get up\n... get up....\u2019\n\nStrange hands plucked at her bedclothes, pinched or patted her.\n\nAlthough her window was fast shut, once a great scaled and hairy arm\ncame in by that same window, and she trembled. Now the arm grew to\nthree times, four times, the length of human arm. She saw it sweep the\nroom with a blind and scythe-like motion. It searched for her. She\nremained still. Then it was gone as miraculously as it had come.\n\nThere was a vast animal that rubbed nightly against the house, sniffing\nand blowing.\n\nA monster (she thought it a demon) treaded the roof-tree by night.\n\nSuch was her appreciation of these awful and yet to her (coming from\nhim she chose to accept as God) pleasing sights, she scarcely slept,\nbeing more awake by night than day, for at night she could hardly lie\nupon her bed nor close her eyes. She was forever staring and listening,\nlistening and staring. With the crowing of the cock these disturbing\nvisions retreated to that same Hell in which they had their geneses.\n\nSometimes she floated forth without volition, as on a certain night\nwhen she cried out, \u2018Master, command me and I will come.\u2019 Then far away\nand from the midst of the moonlight, she heard fairy women cry, \u2018Get up\n... get up ... get up....\u2019\n\n\u2018Then I will,\u2019 she said. Of a sudden her body was filled with lightness\nand (at first maintaining her horizontal position) she was elevated\nfrom off her bed. Thrice around the room she floated and, looking down,\nshe saw her own vacant body as it lay still and flat as any corpse.\n\u2018If I am going out to walk wet fields,\u2019 she thought, \u2018I should put\non slippers.\u2019 Then the red slippers Mr. Bilby once had bought her in\nBoston appeared upon her feet. She floated through the window, but once\nthis was cleared she was set in vertical position. However, she felt\nno contact with the grass, and she took no steps. She floated on.\n\nThe moon was big upon the hills. The night air shook ravishing perfumes\nfrom the flowers and new leaves. The air was full of birds\u2019 songs\n(although it was dead of night), of voices, strange music, laughter.\nShe floated on. The silver birches twinkled and bowed to her. Her name\nwas called by a thousand little voices. A million gleaming eyes watched\nher. At last she was thus conveyed to the fiend, who was seated upon\na hillock, as on a throne. He raised her up when she would prostrate\nherself to him. He bade her have no fear, for, although in Hell he was\nindeed a great prince, upon earth he was as mortal man and her true\nlove.\n\nIn the morning, when she awoke in her own bed, she believed that the\nadventure of the night had been but another dream. She drew her body\nfrom between the sheets, and set her feet upon the floor. Upon her feet\nwere the red slippers, and they were wet. Upon the sheets were green\nstains from the grass crushed beneath her feet.\n\nNow could she know truth from dreams and dreams from truth.\n\n\n5\n\n_We are informed that there is no marriage nor giving in marriage in\nHeaven, but in Hell it well may be otherwise._\n\nShe never saw her fiend by day. He came at dead of night. He went by\ncock crow (yet, as already pointed out, sometimes delaying this same\ncrowing). He ruled by love and not by terror. She gave him soul and\nbody, both as act of impious homage, and of true love. So a month wore\naway\u2014the month of June.\n\nAt every turn and in every way he comforted and charmed her. She\nconfessed to him how greatly she dreaded that day, which he said must\nnow soon come, when he would be summoned back to Hell. She begged him\nto take her with him\u2014for without him she had no use for this dull\nearth. She begged him to slay her now, and thus, her spirit released,\nshe would take her way with him to Hell, and there live with him, once\nmore with her parents\u2014whom the French burned in Brittany. So she fitted\nhis hands to her throat. He would not. He only promised her again and\nagain that when she lay dying he himself would come to her once more,\nand stand at her bed\u2019s head. He promised her a short life, and life\neverlasting.\n\nSo this young woman, who had often shown a need for true religion,\nfound great comfort in a false one. It was a fiend that fed, it\nwould seem, her soul\u2019s hunger. By him and by the hopes of Hell she\nwas comforted, as the true Christian is by his Lord and the hopes\nof Paradise. She became reconciled to life, to death, to adversity,\nloneliness, and despair.\n\nThere was no problem that he could not answer for her, no doubt he\ndid not lay. For instance, she was distressed to think that when her\ntrue life should begin (that is, when she died and entered Hell) she\nwould not see the kind foster father, but would undoubtedly encounter\nhis disagreeable wife. No, explained the demon, she was wrong, for he\nknew that Jared Bilby was already there, well and at peace. He had\ncommitted mortal sin by saving her when a child, for she was already a\nwitch, and it is mortal sin to save a witch. \u2018But at the time he did\nnot know I was a witch. I do not think he ever believed it.\u2019 The demon\nsaid that made no difference. Mortal sin was mortal sin, but Satan,\ngrateful to him for saving the life of Doll, had never carried out the\ncruel sentence which had been meted out to him at the Awful Judgement\nSeat. Doll wanted to know what this sentence was. He said it was of\nso revolting a nature he could not tell her. His words made her hate\nJehovah, and she felt Satan was a kinder \u2018god.\u2019\n\nThe demon went on to assure her that Mrs. Hannah would undoubtedly\nbe given place in Heaven. She was a pious woman, always at meeting,\nlecture, and prayer. There were already millions of just such vixens\nsinging miserable psalms, badly out of tune, about the golden streets.\nIf she did in some way get sent down to Hell, he promised they would\nall get together and make it hot for her. They couldn\u2019t endure such\nugly scolds in Hell. Doll was surprised. \u2018She is not ugly. She is\nremarkably handsome.\u2019 The devil was surprised. He said he had supposed\nfrom what he heard that she must be very ugly.\n\nThere was now only one thing with which she could vex herself, for her\ndemon comforted her at every turn. Sometimes as he held her in his arms\nshe moaned a little and pulled away. He begged her to tell him. He\nwas her true love. Let her tell him and he would help. Then she told\nhim that she knew that upon occasions fiends do actually marry mortal\nwomen. He laughed at her, and tried to turn her fancy from such homely\nthoughts. She would not be turned. He said witches and women talked\nalike, and yet he did not refuse to marry her.\n\nWith the commendable and proper thought of marriage in her head, she\nsought out Goody Greene (whom she had seen but little of late). She\nwalked with her through the woods, helping her gather that bitter\nflower which the Indians call the jug-woman\u2019s-baby. The old woman was\ntired and the two sat upon a stone. From where they sat Doll could see\nthe birch woods, the rough pastures, where by night she met her devil.\n\n\u2018Dear Goody, tell me as you used to tell the story of the goblin or\ninfernal who came to a maid\u2019s window on a May eve and wed her in a\nrespectful and seemly manner. Why cannot devils always do so? It is sad\nto think that a loving wench\u2014betrayed by love\u2014may become but the doxy\nof the devil.\u2019 She was near tears\u2014although now she never had tears to\nshed.\n\nThe old woman told the story of Fair Jennifer of Bageley Wood. She had\na demon lover\u2014a black and scaly fellow, cold to touch as serpent or\nany ice or iron. He came to her window three times, calling her to\nget up and come to him. She lay disobedient upon her bed. Then on the\nthird occasion he entered her chamber by the chimney hole, bearing in\nhis hands green branches, and he was dressed in green leaves. Jennifer\nand the demon walked around and around the bed. He promised to be her\nloving husband until death, to avenge her of her enemies, and she\npromised to be his obedient wife until death and after death, and to\ndeny God and Christ Jesus. Then upon the hearth she made him a cake,\nand in the cake they put blood drawn from the veins of both their arms.\nThey ate this cake and were man and wife. His name was Karlycuke. But\nFair Jennifer of Bageley Wood has been dead three hundred years. Such\na thing cannot happen to-day. Doll thought otherwise, but kept her own\ncounsel. Nor was she wrong.\n\nOn the way back to the hut on the waste land, Doll asked her how it was\nshe could always remember these old stories. The woman said she had\ntold them many, many times. \u2018To other children, as once you told them\nto me?\u2019 \u2018Yes,\u2019 she said, \u2018to other children.\u2019 Then she set down her\nbasket and put her arms about Doll. She said once she had a son, but\nshe would say no more of him and Doll guessed he was a long time dead.\n\nOne night, a night of full moon, Doll woke and found the fiend there in\nthe room beside her bed. He signed her to silence, but Doll, who had\nmany times by night stolen out of the house, knew that Hannah in her\nattic room slept soundly. All that the black and scaly fiend did for\nJennifer, he now did for his love, and more. He set his imp upon the\nbedpost for a witness, and on the whole nothing could have been more\nseemly. There was no hearth in Doll\u2019s chamber. They could bake no cake.\nHe pricked his wrist and her wrist, and each drank a little from the\nother\u2019s veins. This slight cut upon her wrist never healed, as would a\nnormal cut. It was red and angry to the day she died. Thus does Nature\n(which usually essays to heal) shrink from the lips of Hell.\n\nIt was the last of June, and the summer solstice (for on that day he\nmarried her) was passed. The leaves broadened into summer and the\nnight air no longer held the rhapsody of spring. Now Doll had always\nknown that he must leave her, but it hurt her to find that he could go\nwithout farewell. She comforted herself with the memory of his sweet\nlove and her hopes for the future.\n\n\n6\n\n_The Quenching of three Evil Firebrands._\n\nThere were hanged upon a spit of mud in the tidal waters of the Charles\nat Boston, on the tenth day of July, 1671, three pirates, long wanted\nfor their unparalleled offences. These three, Black Pig Murch, Ben\nBottle, and the Bloody Shad, had been taken into custody some two\nmonths earlier, but, having escaped their guardians, separated each to\nhis own hiding. By agreement they came together again upon the second\nof July, thinking the hunt to be up and that they could get a pinnace\nand sail south to safety. So all three were taken together, but the\nfourth, Calico Jack, was never taken. Being duly indicted and tried,\nthese fine rogues were found guilty of many homicides, robberies, and\ncruel acts of mayhem upon the high seas, so were condemned to hang.\n\nJustice was done upon their bodies, and in due time (after the corpses\nhad hung in chains some weeks, serving as due warning to others,\nespecially to seamen) these bodies were buried in mud, close to the\nplace where they had died.\n\n_Sic transeunt maleficii mundi!_\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VI\n\n\n1\n\n_A Trap is set for two Tender Souls._\n\nDoll never thought the demon would wait until her death-bed to come\nto her. Every moonlight night and every sunny day she looked for him\nand thought, \u2018Perhaps this day or this night he will come to me.\u2019 She\nalways wore even quite commonly her prettiest, most worldly clothes,\nand she kept her shaggy black hair as neat as she was able. She\nthought, \u2018He sees me always, everything I do, everything I wear,\u2019 and\nshe kept herself comely for him. She guessed he even knew her thoughts,\nand so she dedicated them to him.\n\nIn her own chamber she daily worshipped and prayed to Satan, as the\nfiend had taught her; that is, by foul blasphemies, such as the\nreversal of the Lord\u2019s Prayer, etc. She even wrote little hymns to\nSatan and entuned them for him. She felt that she should be about some\nharm, such, for instance, as the bewitchment of the godly, but she\nreceived no command, so she did, for some time at least, no devilment.\nShe was happy and grew sleek.\n\nThe widow was already courted by three men, all reputable widowers and\nchurch members. Now that the windows were opened and Doll sang as she\nworked, and her own mind was taken up with her suitors, she did not\nfear her so much. Each went her own way.\n\nDoll had always shown a dawdling and trifling attitude towards honest\nlabour. And in this offence Bilby had encouraged her. For he had had\nher out in the woods and the fields (where there was nothing a young\nfemale could do) with himself, instead of leaving her at home to serve\nHannah, as would have been more proper.\n\nNow that he was gone, Doll still continued in her childish and\nfrivolous wanderings. She often sat herself on the stone fence by the\nwillow brook which divided the lands of the Bilbys and the Thumbs. The\nbonded boys upon the farm said they often saw her sitting upon the\nstone fence and feeding small rotten apples to Ahab (whose ferocity\nnow had grown hideous). Yet this girl patted him freely, talking to\nhim, laying her face against his cheek, and all these attentions Ahab\naccepted of. She wished him for her familiar, but the creature (so she\ntold Mr. Zelley) would never do one of the things she asked of him,\nexcept to pursue and render ridiculous young Thumb.\n\nMrs. Thumb heard that her black bull was often down on the boundary\nwith Bilby\u2019s Doll. She asked that he be penned, for she guessed that\nDoll was at the bottom of Ahab\u2019s remarkable dissatisfaction in Titus.\nShe wished the bull withdrawn from the young woman\u2019s influence. By so\ndoing and thus making these fields by the willow brook safe to cross,\nshe did great harm to her own household, for now it was Labour and\nSorrow who came daily (if they could) to see Doll. Undoubtedly she\nhad been waiting for the twins to come and play with her. She must\nhave seen in these weak and disobedient little girls fit matter for\nher to work upon to the further enlargement of the Kingdom of Hell.\nFor she lay in wait there, and finally they came to her. They came\nslyly. No one at first knew they came, and they played at ungodly\ngames, furtively, where no one of either house could know. Thus passed\nSeptember, and October, and the half of November.\n\n\n2\n\n_The Horrible Example of the Thumb Twins, or to what a Pass\nDisobedience may bring a Child._\n\nDoubtless some who read these words will recall how in childhood they\nwere brought to obedience and wholesome respect for authority by\nhearing a mother, or grannie, or aunt, or servant tell them the awful\nstory of the Thumb twins, and to what their disobedience brought them.\nIt is true that these children had never been well, and for them to\nfall from health to point of death was not a long fall. Nor when one\nconsiders what good use has been made of their example, and how many\nother children have learned decent docility from their story, can one\nwholly regret the incident which occurred as follows.\n\nOn the twentieth day of November (the day had been a mellow, warm,\nyellow day) the disobedient Labour and Sorrow went to the willow brook,\nand there found, as they hoped to find, the witch-woman awaiting them.\nShe was all in fine scarlet as her fancy was. The children said they\ndared not stay and play\u2014their mother had sent them to Goody Greene\u2019s to\nbuy mints. She would wonder if they did not return within the hour.\nThey said (a long time later) that Doll smiled at them in a terrible\nfashion and suggested to them that what their mother wanted was of no\nimportance. But the twins for once were mindful of their good mother\u2019s\nwishes. They said again they could not stay. They had only come to tell\nher that they could not stay. \u2018Well, take that then,\u2019 said the witch,\nand angrily tossed across the brook and to their feet two dolls that\nshe had contrived out of corn husks and pumpkin seeds. So she went\naway, and the twins went to Greene\u2019s.\n\n[Illustration: Woman with two kids and a cow]\n\nThey came home again and they were late as usual, or rather as always,\nfor they were dawdling, mischievous children. Their mother was angry\nwith them. She could not whip nor even shake them. She dared not,\nthey were too feeble. She put them to bed without their dinner and\nthere they lay to supper-time, talking and whispering, laughing to each\nother. She bade them get up for supper. They would not, but lay in\ntheir bed. No one thought further of them until morning. The truth is\nthat, having no dinner and no supper, they grew hungry and so they ate\nthe dollies, which were made mostly of pumpkin seeds. The pumpkin in\nall its parts, even the seeds of it, is wholesome food. It could not be\nthis that sickened the children, yet from that day they sickened.\n\nFor forty-eight hours they were afflicted in their stomachs. This\npassing a little, an even more grievous malady seized their bowels,\nwhich seemed to rot away. Their very bones gave out from within them,\nrefusing to support their weight, etc. They pined, would not eat\nbecause of the pain they were in. First it was \u2018My belly, mamma, oh,\nmy belly!\u2019 and the next, \u2018My throat, mamma!\u2019 or \u2018My head, mamma, my\nmiserable bowels! My vitals are decaying within me.\u2019 These frightful\npains were the result of their disobedience, for if they had done as\nbidden\u2014that is, if they had eschewed the young woman and received no\npresents from her\u2014they never would have so suffered.\n\nThey had thus sickened and suffered for a week, and then Mrs. Thumb,\nputting fresh linen upon their bed, found, between bed and wall, all\nthat remained of the pumpkin-seed poppets. It was plain that these\ntwo poppets were intended to represent the twins. They were all but\nidentical, yet was the one (Sorrow) plumper than the other (Labour).\nThey had dark eyes, made from little buttons, and light hair fashioned\nfrom corn silk. In this respect they simulated the brown eyes and\nyellow hair of the twins. The one was tied about the waist with a red\nrag, and the other with a blue, and it was thus in these two colours\nMrs. Thumb habitually dressed them.\n\nThe twins gaped at their mother as she found these things, and their\neyes were guilty eyes. She asked them from whence came these dollies.\nThey swore they did not know. Perhaps a cat had brought them in. They\nwere sure a cat had brought them in. Their mother told them they were\nlying and they said nothing. She said she would shake them, and they\nsaid that they were far too sick, and Labour offered to fall into a\nspasm. Well, if they would not tell from whence these things were,\nwould they tell who it was that had eaten out the pumpkin seeds that\nhad made their vitals. The twins responded heartily, yes, it was they\nthemselves who had eaten up the vitals. The woman cried out in anguish,\n\u2018My children, oh, my poor children, it is your own vitals that you have\neaten, God help us all!\u2019 And she rushed from the sick-room, weeping,\nwringing her hands, screaming to her husband, her son.\n\nFor three days the twins would not say from whence were these poppets.\nTheir mother fancied it was old Goody Greene had given them, because\nshe knew that the girls had been to her evil hut on the very day they\nsickened. Now Greene, as well as Mr. Kleaver, had been called in every\nfew days to advise in the care of the twins. Mrs. Thumb was enraged\nto think that she had thus allowed the woman access to her darlings.\nBut Widow Bilby told her to look to Doll, for she knew that she had in\nher own room pumpkin seeds with red and blue rags, and corn silk. She\nwarned her, \u2018Look to Doll.\u2019\n\nIn her heart the woman was convinced that her little ones suffered\nfrom witchcraft. Mr. Zelley, who showed at that time a most stubborn\ndisbelief in such infernal manifestations, or perhaps wishing to\nprotect the wicked, pooh-poohed the idea. Mr. Kleaver also said that\nsuch wasting fevers were indeed far from rare. By the New Year he\npromised the twins would be well or in their coffins. He himself had\nseen no signs of demoniacal possession.\n\nThe woman asked the children\u2014for who should know as well as they? At\nfirst they stoutly denied the idea and then weakened, admitting that it\nwas possible. When their mother pressed them further, they put their\nheads under the bedclothing and remained mute. The mother decided to\nspy upon them to see if between themselves they might not prove more\nhonest.\n\nShe told them she was going abroad. And she left the door of the\nchamber open into the fire-room. Having bid them farewell and slammed\nthe front door, she returned on tiptoe to the stool she had set herself\nbehind the chamber door. There she listened. They talked little and\nbut casually. And then at last Labour said, \u2018I wish we had not eaten\nthe pretty poppets Mistress Dolly made us. I wish we had them to play\nwith.\u2019 So she knew that in truth the poppets were from Doll. Nothing\nmore of consequence was said.\n\nThat very night, however, they woke up the whole house, screaming that\na great tawny cat had come down the chimney and had sat upon their\nchests, kneading its paws and purring most hideous. Father, mother, and\nbrother flew to them. They saw no cat, but there were two red fresh\nscratches on the face of Labour. Their father reproved them for their\nfancies, reminding his wife how since early childhood they had been\nsubject to night fears. The children were ashamed. They put their heads\nunder the bedclothing. From then on, however (when their father was\nnot present), they often spoke of this cat, and suggested even more\nhorrible visions that came to torment them. Every day their plight was\nmore piteous.\n\nAlmost in the middle of December, close to the shortest day of the\nyear, the woman sat by her hearth, pondering these things. She was\ndetermined to find the truth for herself. Husband, doctor, and minister\nwere all wilfully blind.\n\nThe children lay sick in the next room, and often seemed like to die.\nThe one said to the other, \u2018She will come again to-night.\u2019 At the\nword \u2018she\u2019 the woman pricked her ears. It was only of the cat they had\nspoken before, and this cat they called \u2018he.\u2019 The child said, \u2018She will\nbring her baby and let us play with it.\u2019 The other said, \u2018Oh, I hope\nshe will not come. Although she seems kind to us, I am afraid that it\nis she who hurts us, for God knows we are bewitched.\u2019 (She vomited a\nlittle.)\n\nThe woman went to the door, saying, \u2018Pretty pets, who comes to you,\nand of whom is this baby?\u2019 She spoke quietly. They hid their heads and\nwould not answer. The woman went again to the fireplace and listened.\n\u2018I think,\u2019 said one, \u2018it is her cat that comes to hurt us,\u2019 and the\nchildren whispered together. The woman trembled with excitement. She\ndid not go immediately to the children! Instead she sat close by the\nfire and listened. Sorrow said, \u2018And the little black man with the\nlittle black hat....\u2019 She could hear no more. But later Sorrow was\nsaying, \u2018Little people came, no bigger than my finger. They ate a\nlittle feast of honey and suet, served out to them in acorn cups\u2014like\nthose Mistress Dolly makes for us....\u2019 And later, \u2018There was a tiny\nqueen. She looked just like Mistress Dolly, only smaller, a Mistress\nDolly you could put away in a teacup, and her baby was no bigger than a\nthumb nail....\u2019 The mother now felt she had proof. She hurried to her\nchildren, begging them to tell her all. Could Mistress Dolly, then,\nshrink no bigger than a poppet? And who was the little black man? At\nfirst the children would not speak, but, as was usual, stubbornly hid\ntheir heads.\n\nShe wept and prayed over them, begging them to be frank with her, for,\nif it were only known who bewitched them and how, they might be cured.\nAs it was they would grow sicker and weaker, and finally languish and\ndie. They protested they did not want to die, and began to weep and\ncast themselves about. And at last they confessed to everything (but\nin the midst, Labour was thrown into a grievous fit). They told how it\nwas Bilby\u2019s Doll had given them the poppets; how she came to them every\nnight\u2014not cruelly using them, but amusing and diverting them. \u2018And she\nhad with her a book ...\u2019 said Sorrow. \u2018My children, my poor miserable\nchildren ... was it a black book, and have you signed?\u2019 Yes, it was a\nblack book. No, they had not signed.\n\nThen the pious woman got out the Bible, and she made them kiss it and\nswear that no matter how ill-used they were, or how delicately they\nwere tempted by the witch, they would remain fast-sealed to God and not\nsign away their souls to Hell\u2014no matter if devils did come and pull\ntheir vitals up by the roots and run needles through their eyeballs\nand brain-pans. The children, lamenting, shrieking, and yet for once\nobedient, promised and swore as they were bid.\n\n\n3\n\n_A Hideous Malady and a Bridle for it._\n\nFrom the day mentioned above Doll made no further pretence at kindness,\nfor she began to come to these twins in hideous and cruel aspect. The\ndeacons of the Church, the elders, the constables, the neighbours, took\nturn and turn about, in praying with them. These good words would often\nfrighten away the witch, with her black book and infernal troop, and\nthe little ones would rest a little or even sleep.\n\nAt last was the godly father of the haunted children convinced that\nthis was witchcraft. He or his son Titus sat night and day with a\nbastard musket in the hand and a silver bullet in it.\n\nAt last was Mr. Kleaver convinced, and the doctor from Salem was\nconvinced, and Mr. Increase Mather from Boston was convinced, that\nhere at Cowan Corners was being enacted the most heinous and wicked\nwitchcraft ever practised by any one in the New World. Here was indeed\na witchcraft. Where was the witch?\n\nDoll Bilby claimed that at this time she knew the children to be sick,\nbut because week in and week out no one spoke to her (she went no more\nto Meeting) she had not guessed they were bewitched nor that she was\ntalked about. She said she was sorry for what she mockingly called \u2018her\nlittle friends.\u2019 So she made a junket, and a fowl being killed she made\na broth and put expensive cloves and nutmegs in this broth. She laid\nthese things in a basket and asked the youngest of the farm servants to\ngo present this basket to the Thumb twins, but not to say from whom it\nwas.\n\nWhen the mother saw the basket she cried out. Upon the handle of the\nbasket in pretty Indian fashion were strung blue beads, identical\nwith those the poor little wretches had but lately spewed forth.\nThe children set up a great clamour at the sight of this food, for,\nalthough so hard to tempt, this particular food they would eat. She\nconsulted Mr. Zelley (it was the last time she ever consulted him). He\nsaid it was good food and let the children eat. So they ate and quickly\nfell to sleep. That night they woke in horrid writhing fits, and almost\ndied. Not only did they see Doll Bilby as she floated about over their\nbed, but Deacon Pentwhistle saw her and three others. Also Mr. Minchon,\non going to the horse barn to get out his horse and ride home (for it\nwas late), was bitten mysteriously in the arm. Lot Charty, a poor boy,\nthat same night saw a fiery rat, and he said to this same rat, \u2018Who are\nyou?\u2019 The rat said, \u2018I am who I am.\u2019 And he said, \u2018Whom serve you?\u2019 And\nthe creature replied, \u2018I serve Hell and the will of Bilby\u2019s Doll.\u2019 Then\nwith a clap like thunder he was up the fire hole.\n\nA woman by the Ipswich Road that selfsame night sat nursing a feeble\nbabe. She said the room grew light and there before her stood an\nawful female form. She never had set an eye upon Bilby\u2019s Doll, but by\ndescription she knew that this was she or her apparition. The child\nin her arms gave a great screech and the female form made off. Then\n(although it was midwinter) to the mother\u2019s apprehension, lightning\ncame and struck the babe, squeezing it flat as a plank so it died.\n\nDoubtless there were many devils abroad. The blessed God permitted\ntheir escapement from Hell that they might give bodily confutation to\nall atheists who should say \u2018there is no God.\u2019 So must ever the Prince\nof Lies and his servants serve the will of God. Because of the powers\nof an invisible Kingdom manifested in the years 1671-72, the churches\nwere gorged with the pious and the entire community awoke to an awful\nrealization of the potency of God.\n\n_Non est religio ubi omnia patent._ (Which might be translated, Where\nthere is no mystery there is no religion.)\n\nAll in all there seemed no proof lacking that Cowan Corners and more\nparticularly the Thumb twins were suffering from a cruel demoniacal\ntormentation. Mr. Kleaver and the Salem doctor, the deacons, the\nelders, Captain Buzzey, the marshal, and others gave affidavit in\nwriting to the magistrates that the woman Bilby was a witch of provable\nperversity and that she should be set in jail. Mr. Zelley alone among\nall the men of standing had nothing to do with the signing and\ndrawing-up of this paper. In fact, such was his strange, distrait, and\nheretical attitude, no one asked him to assist. Already it was bruited\nabroad that he was a man to be looked at, for, after all, have not some\nof the most potent wizards done their blasphemies under a cloak of\npiety?\n\n[Illustration: People on horseback]\n\nSo Captain Tom Buzzey, of the Train-Band troop (and he was also\nsheriff), taking two constables with him, rode to the house of Widow\nBilby and there served warrant upon the young woman. She showed neither\nsurprise nor terror, but looked up at her captors fearlessly. She\nwanted to know of what she was accused. She was primarily accused of\nafflicting the Thumb twins. Why, then she was as innocent as a babe\nunborn. She would have explained to the sheriff that she had been the\nfriend of these little ones ever since they could toddle. The sheriff\ntold her that all were agreed that they were bewitched. If not she, who\nwas it? Then she became confused and in the end said, \u2018It was the work\nof _another witch_,\u2019 thereby denying all and confessing all.\n\nCaptain Buzzey, as he had been instructed, searched her chamber and the\nhouse. He did not find the pumpkin seeds, corn husks, etc., etc., that\nWidow Bilby said the girl kept under her bed to work evil out of. It is\nlikely the young woman really did know that her name was talked about\nand had rid herself of them.\n\nShe rode upon a pillion back of Captain Buzzey. A great jeering crowd\nhad gathered to see her off to Salem jail. Widow Bilby laughed loudly\nfrom where she stood in the crowd between two of her suitors, \u2018You\u2019ve\ngot it now, you jade, you jade!\u2019 she cried.\n\nCaptain Buzzey said the girl bowed her head and he heard her whisper,\n\u2018He has not abandoned me. My god, my god, protect me and save me.\u2019\nThinking that she was referring to our Lord Jesus Christ and to the\ntrue God, he, in his heart, pitied her. She begged Captain Buzzey to\nhurry. \u2018Oh, for pity\u2019s sake take me out of this crowd.\u2019 He clapped\nspurs to his stallion, and the young horse, in spite of his double\nload, put off at a gallop. The day was a winter day, crisp and cold,\nand the snow was fresh and spotless under the horses\u2019 hooves. So at a\ntremendous pace the cavalcade of armed men and the one prisoner passed\nthrough dark woods and by a winter sea. They rode for six miles and\ncame to Salem, where again they encountered angry faces, hoots, gibes,\nand threats of instant death.\n\nThat night she lay upon straw and without a mattress. The dungeon was\nso cold the water froze in the jug. She could not sleep for cold, but\nspent hours upon her knees in prayer (as the jailor later reported),\nyet now it is known it was to her demon or to Satan that she prayed. At\nlast a heavenly quiet descended upon her and she slept.\n\nConcurrent to her jailing, the Thumb twins were a little eased in their\nmisery. It would seem that the witch had been put to fright at the fear\nof bodily incarceration and pain, and that she had diminished the force\nand malignancy of her spells.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VII\n\n\n1\n\nJUSTICE _arrives. She will not be stayed nor thrown from her scent,\nalthough the morning wears slowly and some fear_ JUSTICE _will be\nbalked._\n\nOn the twenty-seventh day of December, 1672, Judge Lollimour and\nJudge Bride, of the Court of Assistants, Boston, entered with pomp\ninto Salem. They were escorted by the Boston marshal, by constables,\naides, etc., in full regalia. This pretty cavalcade drew rein by the\nhorse-block of the Black Moon, where ordinarily preliminary hearings\nwere conducted.\n\nJudge Bride (this was the great Judge Bride) said to Judge Lollimour,\nhis colleague, \u2018Sir, what will we do with this great crowd gathered\nhereabout, waiting to hear the findings of Justice?\u2019\n\n\u2018Sir,\u2019 said Judge Lollimour, \u2018the tap-room of the Black Moon could not\naccommodate one fifth of this great multitude. Let us move on to the\nMeeting-House.\u2019\n\nAfter them straggled the populace of some five villages\u2014yes, and\nlearned men, elders, doctors, jurists, etc., out from Boston. The\ncrowd was black with the gowns of the clergy.\n\nEvery seat in the Meeting-House was quickly taken. The aisles were\nfilled. Body pressed close to body, rendering breathing difficult. In\nthis way a stale heat was engendered, and a fear, and an expectation.\nOne said to another it was a fatal day. Some would have left if it had\nbeen allowed them, but the room being filled the Judges ordered the\nconstables to permit neither egress nor entry. They feared a milling\nabout and a turmoil that would be a detriment to the dignity of the\nCourt.\n\nThe magistrates were set in great chairs before the pulpit. At their\nfeet were pallets whereon the sick children should be laid when their\ntime came to testify. The constables pulled a table (a heavy oak table)\nclose to the magistrates. Upon this the accused should stand in the\nsight of all men\u2014yes, and in the sight of God.\n\nCertain men cried out, \u2018Make way! Make way!\u2019 and in came Captain Buzzey\nand the prisoner. She looked most wild and shaggy and of a touchingly\nsmall size. Captain Buzzey lifted her to the table set for her, and\nthen, addressing the Court, showed true warrant for her arrest and\nswore that as commanded he had diligently searched the house for\npoppets, images, etc.; having found what he found, he now produced\nthese things in the bundle which he laid at their honours\u2019 feet.\n\nJudge Bride, looking about him at the many black-robed clergy, said,\n\u2018Gentlemen of the ministry, who among you officiating in these parts\nis senior?\u2019 He was told Mr. Zelley was senior in these parts, but that\nthe famous Mr. Increase Mather was present. \u2018Sir,\u2019 said Judge Bride,\n\u2018will you, Mr. Zelley, offer up a prayer?\u2019 Mr. Zelley prayed, begging\nGod to discover evil where there was evil and innocency where there was\ninnocency. He prayed that the prisoner confess if she might be guilty,\nbut if she were innocent, God strengthen her not to confess merely to\nsave her life. To this prayer the magistrates gave fervent amen.\n\nJudge Lollimour thus addressed the prisoner at the bar: \u2018You\nunderstand, Doll Bilby, whereof you are now charged, that is, to be\nguilty of sundry acts of witchcraft, more specifically the wasting and\nafflicting of twin sisters, Labour and Sorrow Thumb. What say you to\nit?\u2019\n\n\u2018I am as innocent as the babe unborn.\u2019\n\n\u2018You are now in the hands of authority and, God helping, you shall have\njustice, and the afflicted shall have justice. May God help us all.\u2019\n\nThen Judge Lollimour called on many witnesses. He called on Mr. Kleaver\nthe surgeon, and the older doctor from Salem whose name was Bunion. He\ncalled upon the Thumbs and upon Widow Bilby. This latter woman showed\nsuch spite and malice in her testimony that Judge Bride frowned upon\nher and reproved her. Thus, instead of hurting the accused, she helped\nher, for the Judges felt some pity for the tousled, wild child (she\nseemed but a child) perched upon the table in the sight of all men\u2014yes,\nand in the sight of God.\n\nMr. Zelley was called. He was a bony man of fifty years, and his hair\nwas white. In contrast to the big fine presence of Mr. Mather and\nmany another clergyman then present, he seemed a poor thing; that is,\nuncertain, ill at ease. He spoke in a low voice, saying how good had\nbeen this young woman as a child. How in earliest womanhood she had\nshown a most exemplary piety. How she was often at her prayers, and\ncame to him for religious comfort, etc. As he spoke, he twisted his\nhands in his sleeves as a boy might. Then he said in a defiant voice\nthat the girl had since childhood endured the most cruel abuse from her\nfoster mother\u2014that is, from this same Widow Bilby, who had but lately\nbeen heard. This last statement had much weight with the Judges, who\nthereafter did not permit Widow Bilby to testify, or, if they did,\nthey took her words with knowing glance. By this dismissal of Hannah\nthey also dismissed the earlier tales of Doll\u2019s witchcraft. Although\nthey heard how the green fruit of Hannah\u2019s womb was blasted, how she\nhad suffered a wretched and unaccountable illness, it was evident they\nwere not impressed\u2014rather were they bored. To the death of Mr. Bilby\nthey listened with more attention, questioning a number (especially Mr.\nKleaver and Mr. Zelley) with some pains. When they heard that the dying\nman with his last breath denied any witchcraft, they would not permit\nHannah to explain how it may be that an evil spirit enter a corpse and\nthen cry out.\n\n[Illustration: Two men talking]\n\nAt noon, while they ate their bloaters and drank their rum punch at the\nBlack Moon, the barmaid heard Judge Bride say to Judge Lollimour that\nit was easy to see through the whole miserable affair. _In primo_: This\nrustic town was so tedious they had to patch up an excitement\u2014he would\nbegin seeing devils himself if he lived there. _Secundo_: This jealous,\nscolding widow was at the bottom of it. _Tertio_: The wench indeed\nlooked like a goblin, and, no matter how pious a life she might lead,\nvillage gossips would always speak ill of her\u2014especially, as in her own\nungodly way she was a pretty mouse. _Quarto_: They would both of them\nbe back in Boston within the three-day, the case being dismissed and\nthe local people reproved for their gullibility. Said Judge Lollimour,\n\u2018Sir, we have not as yet seen these afflicted children.\u2019 Judge Bride\nsaid, \u2018Blah,\u2019 draining the last of his rum punch.\n\n\n2\n\n _From Noon to Sundown rages a famous battle, with Righteousness and\n Justice on the one hand and Witchcraft and Evil upon the other._\n\nOn the afternoon of the same day, Doll Bilby was set again upon the\ntable. The crowd within the Meeting-House was even greater than it had\nbeen in the morning. Many had not even gone out for dinner, so ravenous\nwas their hunger to hear the findings of Justice and to observe the\nconduct of a witch.\n\n _Judge Bride_: Once again are we assembled in the eyes of all men and\n in the eyes of God to administer justice as well as mortal man (a\n puny, weak, and miserable creation) is able. Mr. Mather, of Boston,\n sir, we beg your blessing and your prayers.\n\nThen Mr. Mather prayed most decently, and as if in sight of God\u2019s\nmost awful throne. To this prayer the Judges gave amen and bade the\nsheriff go and fetch the bodies of the Thumb twins, who should next be\nquestioned. Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings wise men may be\ninstructed, and an innocent child may speak with greater knowledge\nthan is given to the cloudy heart of maturity. Mrs. Thumb was asked\nto tell all she might concerning the health and humour of these twins\nsince birth. These things she told. She told of the past-nature love\nher son Titus bore this woman now accused, and at the moment the\nsheriff entered and the cry \u2018Make way!\u2019 went up. After him was Deacon\nThumb, and he bore Sorrow Thumb, and after him was Titus. He bore\nLabour Thumb. It was explained that the children were taken in fits at\nthe threshold of the courtroom. They lay in a swoon as though dead,\ntheir faces green with pallor, their eyes closed. The bearers laid them\non the pallets.\n\n _Judge Bride_: Titus Thumb, stand up and answer me. You see this\n woman who stands thus before and above you all. Now is she charged\n with crimes which, if proven, shall cost her her life, yet a year and\n a little more and she was your dear heart and you were about to wed\n with her. You have heard your mother say that this Bilby won you by\n wicked spells, that once she assumed the shape of an Indian and you\n shot her through the heart\u2014yet she did not suffer for it. That again\n she perversely set upon you, tempting and staying you beyond the puny\n endurance of our sex, and you struck her a blow that would have killed\n an ox, yet _she_ rose up unharmed. We have listened to some length of\n how violent and beyond the usual wants of nature was your desire for\n her. Your flesh fell away, etc. What do you now say? Are these things\n true?\n\n _Thumb_: Sir, as God hears me, these things are true.\n\n _Judge Bride_: There has been no enlargement upon fact?\n\n _Thumb_: None.\n\n _Judge Bride_: It does not seem to you that you mistook for\n enchantment what another would call lust? Possibly you are a young man\n of gross sensual nature, who might strike what he loved?\n\n _Thumb_: God knows I am the least sensual of all men. I have never\n sought out women. Ask any here.\n\nAt that a girl was possessed and now a demon began manifestly to speak\nin her. The demon belched forth most horrid and nefarious blasphemies.\nThe constable took her out. A dozen cried to the Judges, begging to\nvouch for the young man\u2019s purity. All were silenced.\n\n _Judge Bride_: Thumb, I see your eyes avoid to look towards this young\n woman. Perhaps your heart regrets that you give testimony most like to\n lead her in the halter. Look upon her now. Is she not your enemy? Tell\n her she is a witch and that you wish her hanged for it.\n\n _Thumb_ (after a most tedious pause, looked to her feet): You are a\n witch.\n\n _Judge Bride_: Better than that, louder and firmer. Come, you shall\n look upon her face. You shall not mock this Court.\n\n _Thumb_: Sir, I cannot.\n\n _Judge Bride_: What, are you still bewitched, or is it that you still\n love her and will not harm her?\n\n _Thumb_: I love her. (He put his arm across his eyes. He wept.)\n\n _Judge Bride_: Get to your chair again. How can you who love her give\n good and valid testimony? Get to your chair again. Your mother, she is\n made of sterner stuff. I see the children stir. They are about to be\n recovered to consciousness. Sheriff, cover the face and body of the\n accused so that they may not see her until the time comes.\n\nCaptain Buzzey took off his scarlet cape. It was a good new cape that\nhad cost him two pounds. Within the month it rotted mysteriously, and\nthe Assistants bought him another one. With this scarlet cape he now\ncovered Bilby\u2019s Doll from head to foot.\n\n _Labour_: Oh, for Christ\u2019s dear sake, sister, where are we now? Oh,\n for God\u2019s sake....\n\n _Sorrow_: Oh, my back, oh, my bowels!\n\nThe children aroused themselves a little, sat up, and gazed about the\ncourt. Now it is noticeable that Judge Lollimour took to himself the\nquestioning of the children. The reason is he had seven such at home,\nwhile the great Judge Bride had none.\n\n _Judge Lollimour_: Children, do not be afraid, for is there none among\n us but wish you well. You are only to speak the truth as your good\n mother has taught you\u2014the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.\n\n _Sorrow_ (in loud, bold voice): There is one here who does not wish us\n well. I can feel her presence.\n\nThe Judge gave no heed, although many were amazed that the child had\nnot seen Doll, yet knew there was one there who did not wish her well.\n\n _Judge Lollimour_: You have been strangely sick, and I see you are not\n well. What, think you, caused this sickness?\n\n _Sorrow_: Oh, sir, have you not heard? We are bewitched. She gave us\n our own vitals to eat, and she comes at night and torments us.\n\n _Judge Lollimour_: You say \u2018she,\u2019 yet half the world are \u2018she.\u2019 To\n whom do you refer?\n\n _Sorrow_: I can\u2019t say her name, oh-oh-oh....\n\nShe gagged and went purple in the face, she clawed at her windpipe.\n\n _Labour_: Oh, don\u2019t you see, don\u2019t you see, the witch has her by the\n throat? She won\u2019t let her answer. Oh, sir, she\u2019ll die. (The puny child\n struck the air above her sister\u2019s head.) Go away, you wicked witch, go\n away!\n\n _Judge Lollimour_: Now that you are restored, I shall name some to\n you, and when you reach the name of her whom you think torments you,\n you shall make a sign. Abigail Stone, Sarah Black, Obedience Lovejoy,\n Alice May, Delilah Broadbent, Doll Bilby....\n\nThen the afflicted did cry out, and fell back weak and dumb.\n\n _Judge Lollimour_: So you accuse Doll Bilby, that she bewitches you,\n causing your sickness? What else does she do to you?\n\n _Sorrow_: She will have us sign in the Black Book.\n\n _Judge Lollimour_: Come, you contrive a fancy. I do not believe she\n comes with a black book. Tell me how.\n\n _Sorrow_: She comes with devils and imps and hideous animals, and they\n torment us, pressing out our lives, sticking pins and knives into us,\n and while they torment us she presses close to us, bidding us sign her\n book. But we will none of her, and God helps us and will save us.\n\n _Judge Lollimour_: You claim that this woman comes to you by night,\n bringing such with her as prick and torment you. How does she come, in\n her own proper form?\n\n _Sorrow_: At first she would come as a great tawny cat, and then again\n as a pig, or as a mouse, and once I remember she came as a black dog.\n And she brings fiends with her, hairy little black men, and these\n torment us. Of late I think she comes only in her own proper form.\n Sometimes it is hard to tell, for she can at will assume any shape.\n And sometimes a hand puts into the bed amongst us and pulls at our\n vitals.\n\n _Judge Lollimour_: When this woman came to you and offered you a book\n to sign (as you claim), what would she say?\n\n _Sorrow_: She would say, \u2018Sign.\u2019\n\n _Judge Lollimour_: And no other word?\n\n _Sorrow_: Sometimes she would say, \u2018Sign, or I\u2019ll squeeze your vitals\n for you.\u2019\n\n _Judge Lollimour_: But you, being good and Christian girls, would not\n sign?\n\n _Labour_: Oh, sir, once a most awful and majestic voice spoke out, and\n I do believe it was the voice of God, and He bade us not to sign. Then\n the fiend flew away in a clap and did not return for a three-day.\n\nTheir mother said, yes, this was true. She herself heard the clap and\nit was three days before the affliction again commenced.\n\n _Judge Lollimour_: And if you sign, what does she promise you?\n\n _Sorrow_: Prettiest things to play with\u2014little goats, no larger than\n a cat and a cat as small as a kit, and brooms to ride on through the\n sky\u2014and her own pretty babe to play with.\n\n _Judge Lollimour_: And when you refuse to sign?\n\n _Sorrow_: Oh, she pinches and torments us, or lets her fiends and\n familiars torment us. They but do her bidding and I do not think are\n as wicked as she. Once she set my father\u2019s great black bull Ahab upon\n us. He tramples us like to break our bones.\n\nThe mother interrupted to say, yes, this was true. The bull was a\nwitch\u2019s familiar beyond good doubt, and they but waited the finding of\nthe Court before they butchered him.\n\n _Sorrow_: Sometimes the witch shakes us cruelly.\n\n _Thumb_: Sir, it is true. Those small and puny girls were so shaken\n two strong men could not hold them in their beds.\n\n _Judge Bride_: What, young Thumb, is this girl, even though proved a\n witch, so strong, she can best two strong men\u2014how think you?\n\n _Thumb_: Sir, I think the Devil helps her and he gives her strength.\n\n _Judge Bride_: You who were once her lover\u2014you should know her\n strength. Was she then so brawny-strong those times you bundled her?\n\nTitus was confused. He believed the Court to be against him. The\ncongregation was angry, for bundling is a pleasantry for yokels, and no\nmore likely to occur in Salem than in Boston, nor in the Thumb house\nthan in the house of Bride or Lollimour. It was felt the Judge intended\nan insult. Some feared the magistrates might dismiss the whole case but\nfrom caprice. But Judge Bride was a godly man, who would not lift his\nnose from a scent until Justice herself was satisfied, although those\nwho knew him best said he often seemed to pause and idly bay the moon.\n\n _Thumb_: I never got such favour from her.\n\n _Judge Bride_: One more thing you shall tell us, although you are not\n a likely witness. Is it true, as your mother has said, that you shot\n silver bullets up the fire hole, and that upon occasion you think you\n struck the accused?\n\n _Thumb_: It is true, sir, but I shot only three silver bullets\u2014these\n were buttons from my coat. My sisters cried, \u2018There she goes up the\n flue.\u2019 I fired where they pointed and they exclaimed that I had struck\n her on the wrist. Some here will tell you that there was indeed the\n next day a bullet-gouge on her wrist, nor has it yet healed\u2014to this\n day. I saw it when you bade me look at her. You may see this mark\n yourself. Her apparition came commonly to afflict my sisters in an old\n black riding-hood.\n\nCaptain Buzzey said he had the very one with him in the bundle at their\nhonours\u2019 feet. He took it out, and Labour and Sorrow both said, yes, it\nwas the very one. Captain Buzzey held it up before the magistrates. It\nwas riddled with bullet holes.\n\n _Captain Buzzey_: Widow Bilby gave me this coat. See, it is burnt with\n fire, shot full of holes as a sieve, and still smells of soot from the\n Thumb chimney, and gunpowder from Thumb\u2019s musket.\n\n _A boy_ (crying out from the back of the court): I know that coat,\n sir, well.\n\n _Judge Bride_: And who may you be?\n\n _The boy_: Jake Tulley, bonded man to Widow Bilby, and I know that\n coat for the one our scarecrow has worn these three years, and but\n yesterday I saw the coat gone and the scarecrow naked. Mate and I\n (that is the other farmhand) often shot at it for practice. Why, it\n means nothing that it is full of holes.\n\n _Judge Bride_: And are you and Mate such miserable poor shots you must\n press your pieces into the very belly of the scarecrow to be assured\n of your aim? Look, how the powder has burned the cloth.\n\nThe Judges took the coat up between them and discussed in low voices.\nJake sat down in confusion.\n\n _Judge Bride_: Mr. Kleaver, you have already given generously of your\n knowledge. You have told us in what way the maladies arising from\n witchcraft differ from those arising from the proper body\u2014in other\n words, what are the differences between diseases inflicted by the\n Devil for wicked ends, and those by Jehovah for our own good. And\n you have told us how you came to recognize the case in hand as one\n provoked by art. Will you tell us further?\n\n _Mr. Kleaver_: Invisible hands often clutched the twins by the throat.\n I have seen them.\n\n _Judge Bride_: The invisible hands?\n\n _Mr. Kleaver_: No. I have seen the throats. And I have also taken the\n needles, pins, and such from their flesh. These children have vomited\n strange things\u2014fur, insects, glass, long hanks of hair\u2014blue beads....\n (He stooped to the bundle at their honours\u2019 feet.) Sirs, here is the\n basket in which the young woman sent poisoned or possessed food to\n the afflicted\u2014mark the blue beads on the handle. Three days earlier,\n the one of them spewed forth these blue beads I now take from my\n pocket\u2014mark, gentlemen\u2014they are identical.\n\n _Mrs. Thumb_: There was never a bead like that before in my house.\n\nShe wept. The children screamed out in gibberish at sight of the beads,\nand fell back upon their pallets.\n\n _Judge Bride_: Mark the children, Mr. Kleaver, are they now, in your\n opinion, possessed?\n\n _Mr. Kleaver_: Not exactly possessed. (He whispered to the\n magistrates.) They are conscious of a malignant presence. They know\n the witch is in the room.\n\n _The twins_: Oh, oh, oh, God help us, oh, oh, oh!\n\n _Judge Bride_: Sheriff, uncover to us the accused. Now, children,\n stand up, if able, and look there at the table above you.\n\nThe room was filled with their piercing din. Labour fell in a fit,\nfoaming, rolling her eyes. She was stretched out stark and dead. Sorrow\nflung herself in hideous terror upon the feet of the Judges, crying\nout piteously that they save her. Then she fell back stark and dumb.\nJudge Lollimour was touched by her plight, her fear, and the appeal she\nmade to him. He raised her up, felt of her hands and face. They were\ndank with a cold sweat which both Judges knew no art could imitate. Her\npulse scarce moved. Her tongue was tied in her throat. She could not\nspeak. She looked up out of tortured eyes.\n\n _Mr. Mather_: Here, sir, if ever, is demoniacal possession.\n\n _Judge Bride_: Here is witchcraft\u2014now to find the witch.\n\n _Mr. Mather_: It has been proved an hundred times in English courts\n that a spell cast by a witch\u2019s eye must return to the witch\u2019s body\u2014if\n the witch touch the afflicted.\n\n _Judge Bride_: Sheriff, carry the body of this Labour Thumb to the\n prisoner. She shall touch her. We shall see. Observe. The child is\n utterly lifeless now.\n\n _Captain Buzzey_: She has no pulse, sir.\n\n _Mrs. Thumb_: Sir, sir, you have let her slay my child before my eyes.\n Oh, God, oh, God!...\n\n _Judge Bride_: No one can say that this child knows who touches her.\n Sheriff, take her, alive or dead, to the prisoner.\n\nCaptain Buzzey took her up. The witch readily assented. She reached\ndown and touched the child. The colour returned to the child\u2019s face.\nCaptain Buzzey felt her pulse leap in her wrist. He felt her heart\nstir under her hand. The child turned in his arms, smiling prettily,\nas though in sleep. With a smile she woke. She glanced to the Judges,\nnoted her sister (still in semi-trance). She smiled at her mother. Her\neyes went up, and there on the table beside and above her was the awful\nvision of Bilby\u2019s Doll. With a wail of terror no art could simulate,\nshe clung to Captain Buzzey. At that moment all in the courtroom\nrealized how hideous had been her weeks of anguish. No one could so\nfear a person who had never done her harm.\n\n _Judge Bride_: Lay the child upon her pallet\u2014and you, Sorrow, go you\n now and lie upon your pallet.\n\n _Sorrow_ (her tongue still tied): Gar, gar, gah, gah, gah.\n\n _Judge Bride_: Labour and Sorrow, as you fell into these fits, tell\n me what occurred. Did a fiend or familiar come to torment you? Did\n the accused send her apparition to you, there before your very\n eyes\u2014leaving her body, as it were, vacant upon the table? Tell us.\n\nNow was Labour also taken with dumbness. All saw how the lower lips\nof the afflicted were sucked in, and the teeth were clamped down upon\nthem. Mr. Kleaver essayed to break the lock on their teeth. He could\nnot.\n\n _Widow Bilby_: Look to the witch, look, look!\n\nIt was seen the witch bit her lip\u2014thus locking the jaws of the\nchildren. Captain Buzzey struck her slightly, and bade her loose her\nlip. Then the children were released. They said it was her own devil\ncame to them.\n\n _Judge Bride_: Doll Bilby, I have asked several the meaning of the\n manifestation of evil, so recent among us. Mr. Kleaver and Mr. Mather\n have both explained it to the satisfaction of many\u2014is it to your\n satisfaction?\n\n _Doll Bilby_: I am an ignorant woman. I cannot explain.\n\n _Judge Bride_: Now you are to talk freely, deny the truth of the\n statements which you have heard made, explain and elucidate for us\u2014or,\n if you wish, you may confess.\n\nShe was silent.\n\n _Judge Bride_: At least you can concur with the judgement of those\n wiser than yourself. At least say this, Was it or was it not a devil\n who tied the children\u2019s tongues for them?\n\n _Doll Bilby_: That I do know\u2014it was not.\n\n _Judge Bride_: How do you know? No one else can claim to be so wise.\n\n _Doll Bilby_: If it were a demon, I would have seen him.\n\n _Judge Bride_: You have, then, so nice a sight you can see devils?\n\n _Mr. Zelley_: May I speak?\n\n _Judge Bride_: Speak.\n\n _Mr. Zelley_: If this young woman could command a devil to serve her,\n would he then be so unmindful of her safety as to come into this court\n and work tricks so likely to hurt her cause?\n\n _Mr. Mather_: Cannot God as well as this wretched girl or Satan\n command devils? Has it not been proved often and often that it\n sometimes pleases Him to suffer them to do such things in this\n world as shall stop the mouths of gainsayers and exhort a Christian\n confession from those who will believe only the most obvious of His\n truths?\n\n _Judge Bride_: Bilby, give us your thoughts on the matter. These\n Divines have spoken wisely.\n\n _Doll Bilby_: I think it was perhaps an angel\u2014come to do me a mischief.\n\n _Judge Bride_: Do angels come to do mischief to good and baptized\n women?\n\nThe defendant saw she was in difficulty. She twisted her hands in the\nfolds of her gown. Then were the children afflicted.\n\n _Judge Bride_: Bilby, if these are indeed your tricks, keep them for\n more seemly time. Constable, seize her hands. And if, as you suggest,\n these manifestations are the actions of angels, I pray God to spare us\n His angels until the Court is adjourned.\n\nA woman was taken in a fit. She fell down laughing and sobbing, and was\npassed out through a window.\n\n _Judge Bride_: Do you think those who are afflicted suffer voluntarily\n or involuntarily?\n\n _Doll Bilby_: I cannot tell.\n\n _Judge Bride_: That is strange; every one may judge for himself.\n\n _Doll Bilby_: I must be silent.\n\n _Judge Bride_: You have heard this morning two learned medici explain\n in what way witchcraft is like to resemble natural ailment, and in\n what ways it differs. Keep this counsel in your mind, and tell me what\n you would say of the illness of these children.\n\n _Doll Bilby_: It would seem they suffer from witchcraft.\n\n _Judge Bride_: So it would seem to many here. And where there is a\n witchcraft there must be a witch.\n\n _Doll Bilby_: Yes.\n\n _Judge Bride_: Where is that witch?\n\n _Doll Bilby_: God knows I do not know. God knows I never hurt a child.\n I know of no witch that would afflict these children.\n\nCaptain Buzzey stood up. He said that when he and his men came to\narrest this woman, now standing trial for witchcraft, he and his men\nheard her deny clearly the afflicting of the Thumb twins, and yet she\nhad said\u2014most meaningly\u2014\u2018\u2019Tis the work of _another witch_.\u2019\n\n _Judge Bride_: You shall explain this for us, Bilby.\n\n _Doll Bilby_: How shall I explain?\n\n _Judge Bride_: Confess now, as you did then, that you are a witch.\n\nShe was silent.\n\n _Judge Bride_: Confess now, and your life shall be spared.\n\nShe was silent.\n\n _Judge Bride_: Confess now and turn against these other witches\u2014for it\n is possible that many are about\u2014and I swear to you your life will be\n spared.\n\nShe was silent.\n\n _Judge Lollimour_: Will the prisoner at the bar recite the Lord\u2019s\n Prayer?\n\nDoll began readily enough. As she spoke the Holy Words, Mr. Zelley\ncovered his face in his hands, and made them with his lips as though\nhe would help her. She went on without chance or mishap till she came\nto the last sentence, which begins, \u2018Lead us not into temptation.\u2019 She\ngot no further. Mr. Zelley clenched his hands until his knuckles went\nwhite. He turned up his eyes to God. Then quickly she began and said,\nto the horror and consternation of all, \u2018Ever for, glory the and, power\nthe, kingdom the, is thine for, evil from us deliver, but temptation\ninto not us lead\u2014Amen.\u2019 She did not know what she had done. She looked\nabout with assurance. There was an incessant and horrid silence in the\ncourt. The Judges looked to each other. Clergyman looked to clergyman,\nthen turned eyes to God. So was she utterly undone, but the Court was\nnot yet satisfied.\n\n _Judge Bride_: You have responded to my colleague\u2019s request to the\n satisfaction of all, but there are some small matters yet to clear.\n Be of good heart, soon we will let you go. I see you are pale and\n distrait. Constable, see to it she does not fall from the table. What\n did you mean when you said the bewitchment of the Thumb twins was \u2018the\n work of another witch\u2019?\n\n _Doll Bilby_: Sir, how can I explain?\n\n _Judge Bride_: There is nothing you cannot either confess to, or\n explain.\n\n _Doll Bilby_: Sir, I am confused and amazed.\n\n _Judge Bride_: Answer but a few minutes with frankness, and you shall\n go to your own cell\u2014we are not your enemies\u2014open your heart to us.\n\nShe was mute.\n\n _Judge Bride_: Be stubborn, and you shall stand there all night\u2014yes,\n and the next day. Come, have you ever seen a devil?\n\nShe nodded her head.\n\n _Judge Bride_: Ah, then you have seen a devil. Do not feel ashamed of\n that. Did not Christ Himself see Satan? Was not Luther often tormented\n by his presence? Some of the best of men have been the most foully\n pursued. Feel no shame, Doll Bilby. Speak out freely. When was it\n first?\n\n _Doll Bilby_: I was a child in Brittany; my mother took me to see him\n in a great wood.\n\n _Judge Bride_: An instructive and remarkable experience\u2014and have you\n seen him since?\n\n _Doll Bilby_: Last spring I saw him\u2014he came to me again.\n\n _Judge Bride_: In proper human form?\n\n _Doll Bilby_: He came to me by night. Yes, he came in form of proper\n man. He wore seaman\u2019s clothes and with him was an imp\u2014a black-faced\n imp with a long ringed tail. He wore this imp upon his bosom.\n\nThere was a commotion at the back of the hall.\n\n _Judge Bride_: When did he come last spring to you?\n\n _Doll Bilby_: The last night in May\u2014the night the Thumbs\u2019 barn burned.\n Oh, sir, I am sick, let me go to my cell.\n\nCaptain Buzzey held her up.\n\n _A high, wild voice from the midst of the confusion_: I will speak,\n sirs, you shall hear me.\n\n _Judge Bride_: Who cries out?\n\n _Voice_: I am Jonet Greene, the tinker\u2019s wife. There are things I\n know....\n\n _Judge Bride_: Stand back, all, from the woman. Dame Greene, deliver\n yourself of these things.\n\nThe crowd drew back. Goody Greene, an old woman and of great dignity,\nwas revealed to the Judges. Mr. Kleaver whispered to the Judges that\nshe was an evil woman.\n\n _Goody Greene_: This girl never saw a devil. She saw my own son\n Shadrach. He was wanted for piracy\u2014Heaven help me, I hid him by day,\n but he prowled by night. He had a monkey, he wore seaman\u2019s clothes. He\n saw in my house the girl and lusted after her. I speak....\n\n _A man from back_: Her husband says she lies\u2014she never had no son.\n\n _Goody Greene_: Believe me, for Christ\u2019s dear sake, believe me. I had\n a son and I hid him ... but they found him just the same ... God found\n out his sin. They hanged him; he was called the Bloody Shad.\n\n _The man_: The woman\u2019s husband, sir, says she never had no son. Time\n has broken her memory.\n\n _Goody Greene_: Husband, you are afraid. You coward, who will not\n confess to the son of your own loins, lest you come to shame\u2014now is\n Doll indeed undone....\n\n _Judge Lollimour_: The woman is lunatic. See how she rolls her eyes.\n\n _Judge Bride_: Could you have had a son of which your husband knew\n nothing\u2014why did you never speak of him to your neighbours? How can we\n believe your fables? You are lunatic.\n\n _Goody Greene_: God help me! God help me.... May God help Doll!\n\n _Judge Bride_: Constable, throw out this ancient\u2014let her learn to be\n a sager hag\u2014and her husband after her.\n\nA confusion and clamour of tongues rose from all parts of the\ncourtroom. Some wished to say what they knew of the Greenes; others\nhad stories to tell of lunacy, devils, etc. And there was laughing and\ncrying among women, and children wailed and would be taken home. Judge\nBride stood up in a noble wrath.\n\n _Judge Bride_: Clear the court! Clear the court! What, shall Justice\n find her house in Bedlam? Constables, pick up and carry out\u2014if they\n are too weak to walk\u2014the Thumb twins, and you, madame, who are their\n mother, go with them. Every one shall now be turned out into the snow\n except those who are the witnesses and proper officers of the law, and\n the six that I shall name. Mr. Increase Mather, Mr. Seth Dinsmore,\n Dr. Zerubbabel Endicott, Mr. Zacharias Zelley, Mr. John Wilson, and\n you, sir, also, Colonel Place Peabody. Gentlemen, the case shall be\n continued _in camera_. I beg of you few, however, to stay to the end.\n\n\n3\n\n _From Sundown to black Night the battle continues. The Witch is thrown\n to confusion. Justitia triumphans. Deus regnat._\n\nNow was the courtroom, empty and vast, silent as the grave. Only twenty\nremained in the room where a minute before had been many hundreds.\nThe day had worn to sunset and the room was dark. Flares were lighted\nand candles were set where there was need. But the light of flare and\ncandle made the far reaches of the room and the dark corners behind the\nscaffold even blacker. Such humanity as was present were huddled about\nthe platform and the great chairs of the Judges. By candlelight Judge\nBride glanced over the notes that he had taken, and by candlelight\nTitus Thumb looked to the witch upon the table. She stood there ghastly\npale and like to swoon. Her eyes were round and struck terror to all.\nShe did not look again to Titus, only to Judge Bride, whom she in her\nsimplicity thought to be her friend.\n\nJudge Bride bade the sheriff fetch a chair\u2014a good chair with a back to\nit, for he said he saw that the accused was tired past human strength.\nCaptain Buzzey got a chair. It was a great chair similar to those\nin which the Judges sat. Judge Bride had it placed on the platform\nbetween himself and Judge Lollimour. The three sat thus for a moment in\nsilence, a judge, and next a witch, and then a judge. So they sat in\ngreat chairs and upon crimson damask cushions. The witch\u2019s feet could\nnot reach the floor. Judge Bride gave her wine to drink from the silver\ngoblet set out for his own use. She drank the wine and was grateful to\nhim.\n\nLittle by little\u2014tenderly\u2014he questioned her. And little by little she\ntold him all. Of the Thumb twins he asked no word, he asked her only\nof her own self, and of that demon who had but so recently gone from\nher. She told in so low a voice those but a few yards away could not\nhear, and Mr. Mather several times cried out, \u2018Louder\u2014an it please the\nwench.\u2019 She told of her father and mother in Brittany, and the night\nthat Mr. Bilby died. She told of the long winter, and the expectations\nof the spring and the fulfilment of these expectations\u2014for the\nmessenger had come, a most vigorous and comely fiend. Sometimes she\nreddened and turned away as might a modest Christian woman. Sometimes\nshe sighed, and once or twice she smiled a small and secret smile. And\nthree times she said she loved and did not fear the demon, and that he\nhad been kind and pitiful to her.\n\n _Judge Bride_: You say this devil was your lover and that he conducted\n himself as has many a shameless mortal man to many a woman, for\n he loved you, and when he had stayed himself of you he went away,\n whistling, we may presume, and shrugging his shoulders\u2014ah, gentlemen,\n how shocking is the conduct of the male, be he demon or tomcat! And\n now, Doll Bilby, we are almost to the end. Do not fear to weary us\n with the length and detail of your history. Come, tell us more. The\n ears of Justice must ever be long and patient ears.\n\nShe told more. There was nothing left untold, and where she would have\nturned aside, Judge Bride encouraged and helped her. Mr. Zelley moaned\nand cried out, and his head was in his hands. Titus went ghostly white\nand, trembling, staggered from the room.\n\n _Judge Bride_: But did not your conscience hurt? Did you not know that\n you lived with this strange lover of yours in sin?\n\n _Doll Bilby_: I begged him to marry me. So he did.\n\n _Judge Bride_: A most virtuous and homely fiend. And did you find\n clerk or magistrate to register your vows?\n\n _Doll Bilby_: No, we married ourselves.\n\n _Judge Bride_: Ah, the Governor of Connecticut but recently gave you\n example.\n\nAnd he pointed out to Judge Lollimour with much leisure how evil is bad\nexample in high places. He questioned Doll further. She told him all\nthere was to tell about the marriage, and it humiliated her to tell\nthat she had accepted this fiend before marriage.\n\n _Judge Bride_: Come, come, is it then so sorry a sin for two young\n people to be too hot and previous in their love? Surely honest\n marriage may be considered salve to such misconduct.\n\nHe glanced through his notes. There was not a sound in the room, not\nthe scamper of a mouse, not the taking of breath, no sound except the\nfiery rustle of the flares and the crackle of the paper.\n\n _Judge Bride_: Doll Bilby, I notice that the children spoke often of a\n pretty babe\u2014which they called yours. Now to what do they refer?\n\n _Doll Bilby_: Sir, I cannot be sure.\n\n _Judge Bride_: You may guess, perhaps?\n\n _Doll Bilby_: Oh, sir, sir....\n\nHer eyes sought Mr. Zelley, but his face was in his hands.\n\n _Judge Bride_: Speak freely.\n\n _Doll Bilby_: I think it was to my own babe they referred.\n\n _Judge Bride_: And where now is this child?\n\n _Doll Bilby_: It is not yet born.\n\n _Judge Bride_: And to whom the honour of its paternity?\n\n _Doll Bilby_: Who else would it be but the fiend who came to comfort\n me?\n\n _Judge Bride_: Do not hang your head, young Bilby, for to conceive is\n natural to woman. Rather should you redden and look down if after such\n expenditure of infernal ardour you had proved sterile. Conception is\n the glory of woman.\n\nHe stood up and dismissed the hearing. Then Captain Buzzey in a great\nsweat of fear took the witch back to her cell, and all others went\nhome. That night the Boston Judges lay at the Black Moon. The barmaid\nheard Judge Lollimour say to Judge Bride, as these two sat by the\nhearth and drank their sack-posset: \u2018Sir, this hearing is done as\nquickly as ever you prophesied. We will be back to Boston on the third\nday. I warrant the finding is more than any expected. There is enough\nagainst the wench to hang her three times over\u2014but that is yet for the\nmagistrates of the Superior Court to decide. We, at least, shall hold\nher without bail or bond.\u2019 Then he said in wonder, \u2018To think that God\nhas vouchsafed to our eyes the sight of a woman who has embraced a\ndemon....\u2019 The Judges whispered. The barmaid would not repeat what they\nsaid.\n\nThese learned men called for ink-horn, sand, and pens. By ten o\u2019clock\nthey had written thus:\n\n Doll Bilby of Cowan Corners, (Essex County,) being this day brought\n before us upon suspicion of witchcraft and upon the specific charge of\n afflicting Labour and Sorrow Thumb, twin daughters of Deacon Ephraim\n Thumb, we heard the aforesaid, and seeing what we did see, together\n with hearing charges of the persons then present, we committed this\n same Doll Bilby (she denying the matter of fact, yet confessing\n herself a witch, also confessing having had carnal knowledge of a\n fiend, also to being at this time pregnant by him, also to being\n married to him by the ceremony of Max Pax Fax) unto their majesties\u2019\n jail at Salem, as per mittimus then given out in order to further\n examination.\n\n  ADAM BRIDE      }\n  RALPH LOLLIMOUR } Magistrates\n\nBy eleven they slept upon their beds.\n\n\n4\n\n_Doll having cooked her goose, now must sit to eat it. And one who\nlater proves a warlock comes to sit by her side._\n\nNext day Doll rose early, thinking she would be called again before\nthe magistrates. Judge Bride had talked kindly to her and at the end\nnothing had been said about the Thumb twins. She had not guessed his\nmind to be made up against her.\n\nShe rose early, an hour before dawn, and by a rushlight prepared\nherself for court. The jailor, John Ackes, could watch her through\na chink in the masonry. He saw her put on hat and cloak and set out\nwooden pattens. He ran in fear to the Black Moon where Mr. Zelley\nthat night lay, and begged him\u2014if he dared\u2014to come a-running, for\nhe believed the witch was about to fly though the roof. She was all\ndressed and set to go.\n\nMr. Zelley went to the dungeon and found her waiting to be taken before\nthe magistrates. He sat upon her straw bed by her side, and he took her\nhands. He said, \u2018Poor child, lay by your hat and riding-gear, for \u2019tis\nall done.\u2019\n\nDone? She had thought they were but started. The matter of the Thumb\ntwins was not yet proven\u2014Judge Bride himself had confessed as much.\nMr. Zelley said that now there was another warrant for her and another\n_mittimus_. But Mr. Zelley must have heard Judge Bride say there was no\noffence in having seen a devil\u2014had not even Christ talked with Lucifer?\nAnd obviously the magistrates had approved her marriage and had even\nforgiven her that she had been too pliant to her lover\u2019s desires. How,\ntherefore, could the Court be done with her\u2014unless they were about to\nset her free?\n\n\u2018You are to be held for a jury\u2014a jury, my poor Doll, of your own angry\nneighbours, and for the February sessions of the Superior Court of\nJudicature.\u2019 He explained that Judges Bride and Lollimour could only\nexamine her and hold her over to a higher court. It is true they could\nhave dismissed her as innocent\u2014if it had pleased them; but they could\nnot give sentence of death.... He wished her to think of death and it\nmight be to prepare her mind and more especially her soul (if she had a\nsoul) against this likely contingence.\n\n\u2018Death?\u2019 she said. \u2018How can I die? God, God, oh, God! I do not want\nto die.\u2019 At the first moment she was afraid of death like any other\nwicked woman. She closed her eyes and leaned back against the masonry\nof her cell, remaining a long, long time silent, but her lips moved.\nMr. Zelley sat beside her. His head was in his hands. When next she\nspoke she had conquered fear of death. She spoke bravely in a clear,\nstrong voice. Then she told Mr. Zelley more concerning the fiend whom\nHell had sent to love her. She said that he had promised her that,\nwhen she should come to die, he would stand at her bed\u2019s head. After\ndeath he would be with her and she with him forever and ever. She said\nboldly that she did not fear to die. But she flung herself to her knees\nand laid her tousled head in Mr. Zelley\u2019s lap and then confessed that\nshe had a most hideous horror of gallows and halter. As he could he\ncomforted her. Tears streamed from his eyes, though hers were always\ndry. He knelt and seemed to pray to God.\n\nJohn Ackes at his chink saw him pray and heard his prayer. He said it\nwas an unseemly prayer\u2014not like those one hears in church\u2014not like the\nmajestic and awful utterances of Mr. Increase Mather. Zelley talked\nto God as you might talk to a friend. So many thought that it was not\nto the true God that he prayed, but to some demon whom he privately\nworshipped. When his own day came to hang, this thing was remembered\nagainst him.\n\nThe witch-woman crouched upon her straw bed the while he prayed. She\nhad put her hat on her head again and was wrapped in her scarlet\nriding-coat. She stared out of round cat\u2019s eyes at the man who prayed\nfor her.\n\n\n5\n\n_Abortive attempts to save a_ SOUL _and more infernal manifestations of\nthe Demon Lover_.\n\nNow was her physical body in sore plight, for she was bound in irons\nheavier than a strong man might bear. The jailors feared her, and,\nalthough an eye was forever at the chink, they did as little for her\nas might be. The Court permitted only these to go to her: her jailors;\nthe two ministers of God, labouring in Salem, and Mr. Increase Mather\nwhose mind was at that time big with a demonology. He wished to study\nand examine her. It was three weeks before Mr. Zelley got a permit from\nBoston to visit her. He guessed by the cold, tardy manner in which his\nrequest was answered that he himself had fallen into ill-repute. This\nwas true. His people thought him a warlock and feared and hated him.\n\nWhen twenty years later, in the days of the great witch-hunting and\nhanging in Salem, Mr. Zelley himself came to be tried, John Ackes was\ncommanded to tell the Court (if he could remember) of what it was the\nwitch and the warlock had talked through those long hours they had sat\nside by side upon the witch\u2019s straw bed. He testified (swearing to his\ntruth upon the Bible) that they talked but little. Zelley\u2019s head was\nforever in his hands. He did not see the witch-woman\u2019s face\u2014nor her\neyes. He did not see how constantly she gaped at empty corners; how she\nsmiled and nodded into space; how sometimes she would close her eyes\nand raise her mouth for the empty air to kiss. All this she did behind\nMr. Zelley\u2019s back. They asked John Ackes if Mr. Zelley made no attempt\nto save the woman\u2019s soul. No, he only sat. Sometimes he talked a little\nto Doll and sometimes he talked to one whom he designated as \u2018god.\u2019 But\nhe did not really pray at all\u2014not as Mr. Mather prayed\u2014him you could\nhear through stone walls and up and down the street. The crowd would\ngather outside the jail when Mr. Mather prayed. He was a most fearful\nand righteous suppliant before the Throne of God. After his prayers\nthe wonder was no lightning came to destroy the young witch where she\nsat\u2014grimacing and leering at spectres. When one considered Mr. Mather,\none could not say that Zelley prayed at all.\n\nHowever, it was true that Zelley would sometimes seem to beg Doll Bilby\nto turn to God before it was too late. She would always explain to him\nthat she wanted no other God than Lucifer and no Heaven, for where her\nparents were and her foster father and her dear husband\u2014there with them\nwas her Paradise, not in Heaven with the cold angels singing psalms\nforever to an angry and awful God; not in Heaven where doubtless\nHannah Bilby would be found and all her cruel neighbours\u2014no, no, a\nthousand times no. Hell was her true home\u2014her Paradise.\n\nSometimes he would read to her from a stout big book, and John Ackes\nswore he thought it was a Bible, although it was possible that the book\nwas a book of magic\u2014perhaps this was even probable. Still the stories\nhe read to her from this book sounded to him like Bible stories. What\nwould he read to her? He read to her of Mary of Magdala, how she laid\nher head upon our Saviour\u2019s feet and wiped them with her hair. He read\nto her the holy promises of John. It was evident, said John Ackes, that\nZelley was not for a long time conscious of the fiend which lurked\nforever in the witch\u2019s cell.\n\nTowards the end no one but Mr. Zelley dared go to her dungeon. They\nwere all afraid. It was remembered and marked against him that, where\nother and more godly men felt fear, he felt no fear. At last even Mr.\nZelley knew that he and the witch were never alone. There was another\nand more awful presence about.\n\nNow he would look up quickly from his reading and catch her eyes as\nthey sought those of some one or something close behind his own\nshoulder. When their eyes met, she would smile so softly and happily\nhe knew that the invisible presence must be that of the one she loved.\nMr. Zelley confessed that this consciousness of a third and unseen\nparty in the cell sadly upset and confused him. He sweated, he could\nnot read. One afternoon she gave him such close attention he decided\nthat the fiend had left, so he closed his book and asked her abruptly\nif her demon lover had come back again. She was surprised that he asked\nthis question. \u2018Of course he is back,\u2019 she said. \u2018Now he will not leave\nme until the end.\u2019 It was not he, she said, whom the Thumb twins saw\nat the trial, and Doll again wickedly said that perhaps that creature\nhad been an angel. \u2018My fiend never came near me as I stood all day on\ntrial. Now he has sworn to stay with me. If I go to Gallows Hill, he\nwill go with me. If I die here first, he will hold my hands.\u2019\n\nZelley asked her if she could really see this demon. For instance,\nwas he at that very moment in the room? Oh, yes. He sat yonder by the\ncupboard. His head, she said, rested upon his bosom. \u2018Last night I had\na fearful fit of terror. I thought I could not face the gallows. He\nheld me in his arms and sang to me until sunrise. Now he sleeps.\u2019\n\n\u2018Is he now in seaman\u2019s clothes and has he the likeness of proper man?\u2019\n(Mr. Zelley whispered. He feared to wake the demon.)\n\n\u2018No. He has returned in shape of true fiend. For he is horned, naked,\nscaly, black. His feet are cloven. He has vast leathery bat-pinions.\nHis tail is long and spiked.\u2019\n\n\u2018How, then, can you know that this is your own fiend and not another\none?\u2019\n\n\u2018By his eyes and by his loving voice. These things have not changed.\u2019\n\n\u2018How is it he returned to you? In what manner did he make himself\nmanifest?\u2019\n\n\u2018You recall that day after the trial when you came to me and let me\nknow beyond a doubt that I must die? All the next day I felt him in\nthe cell with me. Then little by little he took visible form. At first\nhe was a vapour that seemed to rise between the flags of the dungeon\nfloor, and then I could see the shadow of his great and most awful\nform\u2014a transparent shadow through which one could look, even as one\nlooks through smoke. But daily he gained more and more in body and he\nnow is as hard and sturdy as mortal man. At first seeing horns, tail,\nand so fearsome a scaly black body, I cried out in my disappointment\nand despair. I, in my simplicity, had imagined he would always be to\nme as he had been\u2014shaped, dressed, and coloured like comely, mortal\nman. He seemed monstrous to me\u2014more likely to inspire fear than love.\nAt last I could see his eyes and they were unchanged. And his voice\n(for, having gained complete actuality, he could speak) was the same.\nSo I knew him as my own husband, and now I love him more in his present\ninfernal majesty than I did in seaman\u2019s form. This shape is fairer to\nme.\u2019 (Thus twenty years later Mr. Zelley testified in court as to his\nconversation with Doll Bilby.)\n\nOn being pressed, Mr. Zelley confessed still further. He said he\nasked her why it was that no one\u2014not even the jailors\u2014dared go to her\ncell. Did they fear the spectral presence? She was amazed that he had\nheard no gossip. Surely the village must by now be buzzing with the\ntricks her demon had performed. Had he not heard what had befallen her\npeeping jailors? They used (to her unutterable torment and vexation) to\nwatch her through a chink in the masonry. But the demon punished them\nby blowing into their eyes. This had given them the pink-eye. Surely\nhe must have noticed that her jailors suffered from pink-eye? Now\nthat she mentioned it he said he believed he had noticed it. And she\nwas to tell him further. Why did the great Mr. Mather come no more?\nShe clapped her hands, laughing and purring. Her demon had hated Mr.\nMather so bitterly, and had so resented his long, loud prayers, that\nhe had several times been on the point of strangling him. In his utter\nfoolishness the man had dared to read the story of Tobit to her\u2014how\nSara was beloved of the fiend Asmodeus and how this fiend strangled\nher many husbands upon their marriage beds, but how at the last this\nfine fiend Asmodeus had been driven to farthest Egypt by the stench\nof a burning fish\u2019s liver. This story the wicked witch claimed to be\nutterly false\u2014it made no jot of difference to her that it was found in\nHoly Writ. She said it was a black lie that did much to minimize that\ndignity of Prince Asmodeus\u2014who was a close friend to her own lover. She\nput up her hand and whispered to Mr. Zelley that, although her fiend\nhad never told her his own true name, she had reason to suspect that\nhe himself was none other than this same Asmodeus, for he was touchy\nbeyond all reason for the dignity of the Prince and he had told her at\nsome length how dull, tedious, and complaining a woman Sara had been,\nand how gladly her lover had surrendered her in the end to the young\nJew. The burning fish\u2019s liver had never driven him forth\u2014he went as\nit pleased himself. The stench had almost expelled the bride from her\nbridal chamber, but it had had no effect upon the stalwart demon Prince.\n\nMr. Mather had insisted on reading this story thrice over to her, and\non the last reading he had also endeavoured to burn the large liver\nof a cod-fish. Then her husband rushed at the fire. His tail stood up\nrigid in rage; he shook his horns like an angry bull; he rustled his\nvast pinions, and, as he snuffed out the fire that made the stench with\nhis two horny hands, Mr. Mather looked up and of a sudden saw him there\nand was close to dying of terror. Doll begged the fiend again to assume\ninvisibility and not to strangle the distinguished Divine. So Mr.\nMather went away and never came again. But surely, surely Mr. Zelley\nhad heard this thing spoken of? And how her demon had served the two\nSalem clergymen\u2014the tricks he had put on them\u2014surely these things were\ncommon gossip? No, of these things he had heard never a word. No one\ngossiped with him\u2014now.\n\nIt was then at that moment he first came to know he was under\nsuspicion. Doll knew this too. She told him how she had never heard\nthat the Thumb twins were bewitched until the very day Captain Buzzey\nrode up and accused her of their bewitchment. She said she pitied Mr.\nZelley and he said his life grew strange. Every one in all the world\nwas far removed, and even God had turned His face away from him. He\nsaid (foolishly) that all his life he had felt that if he believed in\nwitches, demons, etc., he could not believe in God; for that God Whom\nhe worshipped would not tolerate such evil things. Yet now had he seen\nthe proof that such things were true\u2014and, if true, where, then, was\nthat great and good God whom he had long worshipped? \u2018My Doll,\u2019 he\nsaid, \u2018you have taken away my reason and my God\u2014now I have nothing. I\nhave not even one man I may call \u201cfriend.\u201d\u2019\n\nShe comforted him, not by words, but by putting her small hands (now\nthin as a bird\u2019s claws) upon his bent head. She kissed his forehead.\nHe got up and went away. He did not stay as he should have stayed with\nhis flock in Cowan Corners. He slept at the Black Moon, for such was\nthe bewitchment that Doll had set upon him he must see her again and\nthat early upon the next day.\n\n\n6\n\n_The Labours of a Witch and the Prayers of the Godly._\n\nThe year was nine days old and no more. Then was Doll Bilby taken in\nlabour and brought prematurely to bed.\n\nThe Salem midwife\u2014ancient Nan Hackett\u2014would have none of her, and it\nseemed that, whatever it was she must bear, she should bear alone.\nNor did she ask for mortal aid. She was content with that phantom\nwhich stood night and day (as many saw) at her bed\u2019s head. Mr. Zelley\nremembered that Goody Goochey, when first she came to Cowan Corners,\nhad served the beginning as well as the end of life\u2014that is, she had\nbeen a midwife as well as a layer-out of the dead. He went to the woman\nand begged her, in pity\u2019s name and partly commanded her in the name of\nthe General Court, to get herself to Salem jail and there give such\nservice as might be.\n\nShe was afraid. She did not wish to be midwife to a witch and the first\nto welcome a black imp into the world. She drank three piggins of ale\nand took a leather bottle of brandy with her. She set upon her thumbs\nand fingers those iron rings with which she was accustomed to guard\nherself against the ghosts of the dead. She thought, after all, is not\na live imp of greater danger to a good Christian\u2019s soul than the body\nof a dead church elder? Mr. Zelley went with her to the jail.\n\nThe witch at the moment was not in pain. She lay with eyes black as the\npits of Hell. Her white mouth was open. She roused herself a little and\nmade Mr. Zelley a brief speech in which she said that she had, as he\nknew, sought God and spiritual peace, and now, let him look into her\nface and say that she had failed to find either. It was true, said Mr.\nZelley. Her face was fulfilled of heavenly peace. He left her without a\nword.\n\nOutside he found a conclave of idle men and women who laughed and\njoked coarsely. One big ruddy wench (who had already borne, to the\nembarrassment of the community, three fatherless children) was crying\nout loudly that God knew it was enough for woman to give birth to\nhuman child, which is round and sleek as a melon. God help the witch\nnow in labour with an imp, for it would come into the world with spiked\ntail and horns. Such a thing would be the death of any mortal woman.\nAll were afraid. Some believed a clap of thunder would come down from\nHeaven and destroy the woman. Others that a fiend would rise up from\nHell to succour her. Some said that the witches and warlocks for an\nhundred miles had gathered together and now, mounting broomsticks, were\nabout to charge down upon Salem. One said, \u2018Have you not heard? Judge\nBride has suffered an apoplexy. Judge Lollimour is at death\u2019s door.\u2019\nThis was not so.\n\nAnother said Captain Tom Buzzey\u2019s hands (those hands that had held the\nwitch) had withered. They had shrivelled to the size of a child\u2019s. This\nwas not so.\n\nAll said the witch is in labour. She\u2019s with child by the Devil. God\nwill burn her soul in Hell. This was so.\n\nThe day wore on. The sun, as sometimes may be in the midst of winter,\nwas so warm the snow melted and water dripped from the eaves of the\njail. It was tender as a day in spring. Planks and rugs were laid in\nthe slush, for certain clergymen came to pray and must have dry land to\nkneel upon. They prayed that God recollect the number of good, pious\nChristian people there were at Salem and not destroy all, for they\nfeared His wrath might blast the whole village. God made no sign, but\nthe water dripped from the eaves and a sweet spring fragrance rose from\nthe melting snow.\n\nThe multitude gaped and feared. Sometimes they smelt sulphur,\nsaltpeter, brimstone, and the stench as of a sloughing serpent. They\nheard the crying of a phantom voice and the swishing of a thousand\nbrooms. So they waited through the day expecting every moment to see\ncrabbed Goody Goochey hobble out with a black imp upon a blanket to\nshow them.\n\nThere was no sound from the cell. Not one cry nor moan from the witch,\nnot one word from Goochey. The jailors would open the door. It stuck.\nTheir keys would not fit it. They could not open the door, and believed\ndevils were holding it fast. They dared not peek in the chink because\nof their pink-eye.\n\nBy sundown most went home.\n\n\n7\n\n_Mr. Zelley opens a Dungeon Door, and what came of it._\n\nThe next day dawned cold and grey over an icy sea, and the gulls and\nterns came in from the harbour crying and lamenting. There was now no\ntenderness in the air, and the water that had but yesterday melted\nunder the rays of a genial sun froze to glassy ice. A wind sharp as\nneedles came in off the sea and few if any watched the night out on\ntheir knees beside the dungeon walls. As soon as it was possible to\nsee six feet ahead, the multitude again began to assemble, but this\ntime they came without laughter or conversation. They were shrouded\nin hoods, shawls, etc., for warmth, and seemed a spectral band. Now\nand then one or another of them would raise a pious voice in prayer,\nlamentation, or thanksgiving, but for the most part they stood bowed\nand mute. All night there had been no sound from the witch\u2019s cell\u2014never\na sound. Who was there so bold as to enter in to her and bring back a\nreport, for John Ackes\u2019s hand shook so he could not manage the key?\nSome said Mr. Zelley would go\u2014he had no normal, wholesome fear of\nwitches or demons. Others said, \u2018Where does he lie to-night?\u2019 Others,\n\u2018Go, run and fetch him\u2019; and a boy (it was Widow Hannah\u2019s bonded boy\nJake Tulley) said the man lay at the Black Moon and that he would run\nand fetch him. This he did.\n\nMr. Zelley came in a steeple hat and a greatcoat. He spoke to no one.\nNo one spoke to him. He entered the jail and took the cell key from\nAckes, and, after some shaking and effort, he turned the lock and\npushed hard on the door, which swung in so suddenly he almost fell on\nhis knees beside that straw bed where he had sat so many wicked hours\nwith the witch-girl. A hundred had crowded down the passage and into\nthe doorway after Mr. Zelley. All stopped at the threshold of the cell.\nThey stood agape, some filled with curiosity, some with fear, others\nwith pious ejaculations and elevated thoughts.\n\nGoody Goochey (who indeed proved to be no woman, but a man) lay in a\ndrunken fit in a corner. His face was purple and his throat twisted and\nbruised as though he had been half strangled\u2014which he always averred to\nhis dying day was the truth, for he had seen the scaly black demon come\nat him with great hands outstretched to his throat, and that was the\nlast he could really remember until certain ones tumbled him out into\nthe snow. He was sure, however, that, as he lay thus almost unconscious\nin a corner, a great concourse of spectrals and infernals had filled\nthe cell. They had danced, sung, and made much of the witch, praising\nher, encouraging her, etc. Because the man was known to be an impostor\n(he had for many years made all think him a woman) and because of his\nswinish, drunken ways, many did not believe what he said.\n\nAll could see that Bilby\u2019s Doll was dead. She lay with her round eyes\nopen to the ceiling, and her expression was one of peace and content.\nWhatever she might have borne was dead within her.\n\n\n8\n\n_Without_ HELL _where is_ HEAVEN? _And without a Devil where is_ GOD?\n_Also the last of Doll Bilby and an end to these instructions._\n\nThere are court records, affidavits, etc.; there are diaries, letters\nand such; there is the memory of old gaffers and goodies to prove that\nonce Doll Bilby flourished. But of physical, inanimate objects nothing\nthat was associated with her evil life and awful end now exists. The\nhouse she lived in mysteriously rotted and fell into the cellar hole.\nThe grave they dug her is now lost under a ploughed field (a sterile\nfield that yields little). Where the dungeon was now is a brick house,\na fine big house of red bricks had out from England. No one will live\nthere. Yet any gamin, for a copper penny, and any courting couple, for\nwanton pleasure, will show you the very spot in the white birch thicket\nwhere Doll met her demon lover night after night under the moonlight,\nin that world of witchery which none to-day will ever see. For in\nthose days there were sights and wonders that will not come again. In\nthose days God was nearer to man than He is to-day, and where God is\nthere also must be His Evil Opponent\u2014the Prince of Lies, for show me\nParadise, and there, around a corner, I will show you Hell.\n\n\n_Finis coronat opus_\n\n[Illustration: Demon and woman laying down]\n\n\n\n\n  Transcriber\u2019s Notes\n\n  pg 12 Changed: (a thing she aways feared)\n             to: (a thing she always feared)\n\n  pg 59 Changed: but here was nothing more to lock\n             to: but there was nothing more to lock\n\n  pg 122 Changed: and how in Hartford\n              to: and now in Hartford","title":"A mirror for witches : $b in which is reflected the life, machinations, and death of famous Doll Bilby, who, with a more than feminine perversity, preferred a demon to a mortal lover; here is also told how and why a righteous and most awfull judgement befell her, destroying both corporeal body and immortal soul","tradition":"myth-cosmogony","translated_text":null,"word_count":43665}