' SSp RIGHT AT LAST, M niirer but most of all for you, Margaret! Still, if only it could be avoided! Who will employ the son of Brown, the noted forger? I shall lose all my practice. Men will look askance at me as I enter their doors. They will drive me into crime. I sometimes fear that crime is hereditary. Oh, Margaret, what am I to do?" "What can you do?" she asked. "I can refuse to prosecute." "Let Crawford go free, you knowing him to be guilty?" "I know him to be guilty." "Then, simply, you can not do this thing. You let loose a criminal upon the public." "But if I do not, we shall come to shame and poverty. It is for you I mind it, not for myself. I ought never to have married." EIGHT AT LAST. 39 "Listen to me. I don't care for poverty; and as for shame, I should feel it twenty times more griev- ously if you and I had consented to screen the guilty from any fear or for any selfish motives of our own. I don't pretend that I shall not feel it when first the truth is known; but my shame will turn into pride as I watch you live it down. You have been rendered morbid, dear husband,-by hav- ing something all your life to conceal. Let the world know the truth and say the worst. You will go forth a free, honest, honorable man, able to do your future work without fear." "That scoundrel Crawford has sent for an answer to his impudent note," said Christie, putting in her head at the door. "Stay! May I write it?" said Margaret. She wrote: "Whatever you may do or say, there is but one course open to us. No threats can deter your master from doing his duty. "Margaret Brown." "There!" she said, passing it to her husband; "he will see that I know all, and I suspect he has reckoned something on your tenderness for me." Margaret's note only enraged—it did not daunt Crawford. Before a week was out, every one who cared knew that Doctor Brown, the rising young physician, was son of the notorious Brown the forg- er. All the consequences took place which he had anticipated. Crawford had to suffer a severe sen- 40 EIGHT AT LAST. tence, and Doctor Brown and his wife had to leave their house and to go to a smaller one; they had to pinch and to screw, aided in all most zealously by the faithful Christie; but Doctor Brown was lighter-hearted than he had ever been before in his conscious lifetime. His foot was now firmly plant- ed on the ground, and every step he rose was a sure gain. People did say that Margaret had been seen, in those worst times, on her hands and knees cleaning her own door-step; but I don't believe it, for Christie would never have let her do that; and, as far as my own evidence goes, I can only say that, the last time I was in London, I saw a brass plate, with Doctor James Brown upon it, on the door of a handsome house in a handsome square; and as I looked, I saw a brougham drive up to the door, and a lady get out and go into that house, who was certainly the Margaret Frazer of old days—graver, more portly, more stern I had almost said; but, as I watched and thought, I saw her come to the din- ing-room window with a baby in her arms, and her whole face melted into a smile of infinite sweetness. THE MANCHESTER MARRIAGE. Mr. and Mrs. Openshaw came from Manchester to settle in London. He had been what is called in Lancashire a salesman for a large manufacturing firm, who were extending their business, and open- ing a warehouse in the city, where Mr. Openshaw was now to superintend their affairs. He rather enjoyed the change, having a kind of curiosity about London, which he had never yet been able to grati- fy in his brief visits to the metropolis. At the same time he had an odd, shrewd contempt for the in- habitants, whom he always pictured to himself as fine, lazy people, caring nothing but for fashion and aristocracy, and lounging away their days in Bond Street and such places, ruining good English, and ready in their turn to despise him as a provincial. The hours that the men of business kept in the city scandalized him too, accustomed as he was to the early dinner of Manchester folk, and the conse- quently far longer evenings. Still, he was pleased to go to London, though he would not for the world have confessed it even to himself, and always spoke of the step to his friends as one demanded of 42 THE MANCHESTER MARRIAGE. him by the interests of his employers, and sweeten- ed to him by a considerable increase of salary. This, indeed, was so liberal, that he might have been justified in taking a much larger house than the one he did, had he not thought himself bound to set an example to Londoners of how little a Manchester man of business cared for show. In- side, however, he furnished it with an unusual de- gree of comfort, and in the winter-time he insisted on keeping up as large fires as the grates would al- low in every room where the temperature was in the least chilly. Moreover, his northern sense of hospitality was such that, if he were at home, he could hardly suffer a visitor to leave the house without forcing meat and drink upon him. Every servant in the house was well warmed, well fed, and kindly treated, for their master scorned all pet- ty saving in aught that conduced to comfort, while he amused himself by following out all his accus- tomed habits and individual ways in defiance of what any of his new neighbors might think. His wife was a pretty, gentle woman, of suitable age and character. He was forty-two, she thirty- five. He was loud and decided, she soft and yield- ing. They had two children—or rather, I should say, she had two, for the elder, a girl of eleven, was Mrs. Openshaw's child by Frank Wilson, her first husband. The younger was a little boy, Edwin, who could just prattle, and to whom his father de- THE MANCHESTER MARRIAGE. 43 lighted to speak in the broadest and most unintel- ligible Lancashire dialect, in order to keep up what he called the true Saxon accent. Mrs. Openshaw's Christian name was Alice, and her first husband had been her own cousin. She was the orphan niece of a sea-captain in Liverpool —a quiet, grave little creature, of great personal attraction when she was fifteen or sixteen, with regular features and a blooming complexion. But she was very shy, and believed herself to be very- stupid and awkward, and was frequently scolded by her aunt, her own uncle's second wife. So, when her cousin, Frank Wilson, came home from a long absence at sea, and first was kind and pro- tective to her; secondly, attentive; and, thirdly, desperately in love with her, she hardly knew how to be grateful enough to him. It is true, she would have preferred his remaining in the first or second stages of behavior, for his violent love puzzled and frightened her. Her uncle neither helped nor hin- dered the love affair, though it was going on under his own eyes. Frank's stepmother had such a va- riable temper that there was no knowing whether what she liked one day she would like the next, or not. At length she went to such extremes of crossness that Alice was only too glad to shut her eyes and rush blindly at the chance of escape from domestic tyranny offered her by a marriage with her cousin; and, liking him better than any one in 44 THE MANCHESTER MARRIAGE. the world except her uncle (who was at this time at sea), she went off one morning and was married to him, her only bridesmaid being the housemaid at her aunt's. The consequence was, that Frank and his wife went into lodgings, and Mrs. Wilson refused to see them, and turned away Norah, the warm-hearted housemaid, whom they accordingly took into their service. When Captain Wilson re- turned from his voyage, he was very cordial with the young couple, and spent many an evening at their lodgings, smoking his pipe and sipping his grog; but he told them that, for quietness' sake, he could not ask them to his own house, for his wife was bitter against them. They were not, however, very unhappy about this. • The seed of future unhappiness lay rather in Prank's vehement, passionate disposition, which led him to resent his wife's shyness and want of demon- strativeness as failures in conjugal duty. He was already tormenting himself, and her too, in a slight- er degree, by apprehensions and imaginations of what might befall her during his approaching ab- sence at sea. At last he went to his father and urged him to insist upon Alice's being once more received under his roof, the more especially as there was now a prospect of her confinement while her husband was away on his voyage. Captain Wilson was, as he himself expressed it, "breaking up," and unwilling to undergo the excitement of a scene, THE MANCHESTER MARRIAGE. . 45 yet he felt that what his son said was true. So ho went to his wife; and, before Frank set sail, he had the comfort of seeing his wife installed in her old little garret in his father's house. To have placed her in the one best spare room was a step beyond Mrs. Wilson's powers of submission or generosity. The worst part about it, however, was, that the faithful Norah had to be dismissed. Her place as housemaid had been filled up; and, even if it had not, she had forfeited Mrs. Wilson's good opinion forever. She comforted her young master and mis- tress by pleasant prophecies of the time when they would have a household of their own, of which, whatever service she might be in meanwhile, she should be sure to form a part. Almost the last action Frank did before setting sail was going with Alice to see Norah once more at her mother's house, and then he went away. Alice's father-in-law grew more and more feeble as the winter advanced. She was of great use to her stepmother in nursing and amusing him; and, although there was anxiety enough in the house- hold, there was, perhaps, more of peace than there had been for years, for Mrs. Wilson had not a bad heart, and was softened by the visible approach of death to one whom she loved, and touched by the lonely condition of the young creature, expecting her first confinement in her husband's absence. To this relenting mood Norah owed the permission to 46 THE MANCHESTER MARRIAGE. come and nurse Alice when her baby was born, and to remain to attend on Captain Wilson. Before one letter had been received from Frank (who had sailed for the East Indies and China) his father died. Alice was always glad to remember that he had held her baby in his arms, and kissed and blessed it before his death. After that, and the consequent examination into the state of his affairs, it was found that he had left far less prop- erty than people had been led by his style of living to expect, and what money there was was all set- tled upon his wife, and at her disposal after her death. This did not signify much to Alice, as Frank was now first mate of his ship, and in an- other voyage or two would be captain. Meanwhile he had left her rather more than two hundred pounds (all his savings) in the bank. It became time for Alice to hear from her hus- band. One letter from the Cape she had already received. The next was to announce his arrival in India. As week after week passed over, and no in- telligence of the ship having got there reached the office of the owners, and the captain's wife was in the same state of ignorant suspense as Alice herself, her fears grew most oppressive. At length the day came when, in reply to her inquiry at the Shipping Office, they told her that the owners had given up hope of ever hearing more of the "Betsy Jane," and had sent in their claim upon the underwriters. THE MANCHESTER MARRIAGE. 47 Now that he was gone forever, she first felt a yearn- ing, longing love for the kind cousin, the dear friend, the sympathizing protector whom she should never see again—first felt a passionate desire to show him his child, whom she had hitherto rather craved to have all to herself—her own sole possession. Her grief was, however, noiseless and quiet—rather to the scandal of Mrs. Wilson, who bewailed her step- son as if he and she had always lived together in perfect harmony, and who evidently thought it her duty to burst into fresh tears at every strange face she saw, dwelling on his poor young widow's deso- late state, and the helplessness of the fatherless child, with an unction, as if she liked the excitement of the sorrowful story. So passed away the first days of Alice's widow- hood. By-and-by things subsided into their natu- ral and tranquil course. But, as if this young crea- ture was always to be in some heavy trouble, her ewe-lamb began to be ailing, pining, and sickly. The child's mysterious illness turned out to be some affection of the spine, likely to affect health, but not to shorten life—at least, so the doctors said. But the long, dreary suffering of one whom a mother loves as Alice loved her only child is hard to look forward to. Only Norah guessed what Alice suf- fered; no one but God knew. And so it fell out that when Mrs. Wilson the el- der came to her one day in violent distress, occa- 48 THE MANCHESTER MARRIAGE. sioned by a very material diminution in the value of the property that her husband had left her—a diminution that made her income barely enough to support herself, much less Alice—the latter could hardly understand how any thing which did not touch health or life could cause such grief, and she received the intelligence with irritating composure. But when, that afternoon, the little sick child was brought in, and the grandmother—who, after all, loved it well—began a fresh moan over her losses to its unconscious ears, saying how she had planned to consult this or that doctor, and to give it this or that comfort or luxury in after years, but that now all chance of this had passed away, Alice's heart was touched, and she drew near to Mrs. Wilson with unwonted caresses, and, in a spirit not unlike to that of Euth, entreated that, come what would, they might remain together. After much discussion in succeeding days, it was arranged that Mrs. Wilson should take a house in Manchester, furnishing- it partly with what furniture she had, and providing the rest with Alice's remaining two hundred pounds. Mrs. Wilson was herself a Manchester woman, and naturally longed to return to her native town; some connections of her own, too, at that time re- quired lodgings, for which they were willing to pay pretty handsomely. Alice undertook the active su- perintendence and superior work of the household; Norah, willing, faithful Norah, offered to cook, scour, THE MANCHESTER MARRIAGE. 49 do any thing, in short, so that she might but re- main with them. The plan succeeded. For some years their first lodgers remained with them, and all went smooth- ly, with the one sad exception of the little girl's in- creasing deformity. How that mother loved that child it is not for words to tell. Then came a break of misfortune. Their lodgers left, and no one succeeded to them. After some months it became necessary to remove to a smaller house, and Alice's tender conscience was torn by the idea that she ought not to be a burden to her mother-in-law, but to go out and seek her own maintenance. And leave her child! The thought came like a sweeping boom of a funeral bell over her heart. By-and-by Mr. Openshaw came to lodge with them. He had started in life as the errand-boy and sweeper-out of a warehouse; had struggled up through all the grades of employment in it, fighting his way through the hard, striving Manchester life with strong, pushing energy of character. Every spare moment of time had been sternly given up to self-teaching. He was a capital accountant, a good French and German scholar, a keen, far-seeing tradesman—understanding markets, and the bear- ing of events, both near and distant, on trade, and yet with such vivid attention to present details, that I do not think he ever saw a group of flowers C 50 THE MANCHESTER MARRIAGE. in the fields without thinking whether their colors would or would not form harmonious contrasts in the coming spring muslins and prints. He went to debating societies, and threw himself with all his heart and soul into politics; esteeming, it must be owned, every man a fool or a knave who differed from him, and overthrowing his opponents rather by the loud strength of his language than the calm strength of his logic. There was something of the Yankee in all this. Indeed, his theory ran parallel to the famous Yankee motto—" England flogs crea- tion, and Manchester flogs England." Such a man, as may be fancied, had had no time for falling in love, or any such nonsense. At the age when most young men go through their courting and matri- mony, he had not the means of keeping a wife, and was far too practical to think of having one. And now that he was in easy circumstances, a rising man, he considered women almost as incumbrances to the world, with whom a man had better have as little to do as possible. His first impression of Alice was indistinct, and he did not care enough about her to make it distinct. "A pretty yea-nay kind of woman" would have been his description of her, if he had been pushed into a corner. He was rather afraid, in the beginning, that her quiet ways arose from a listlessness and laziness of char- acter, which would have been exceedingly discord- ant to his active, energetic nature. But when he THE MANCHESTER MARRIAGE. 51 found out the punctuality with which his wishes were attended to, and her work was done; when he was called in the morning at the very stroke of the clock, his shaving-water scalding hot, his fire bright, his coffee made exactly as his peculiar fancy dictated (for he was a man who had his theory about every thing, based upon what he knew of science, and often perfectly original), then he began to think, not that Alice had any peculiar merit, but that he had got into remarkably good lodgings; his restlessness wore away, and he began to con- sider himself as almost settled for life in them. Mr. Openshaw had been too busy all his days to be introspective. He did not know that he had any tenderness in his nature; and, if he had be- come conscious of its abstract existence, he would have considered it as a manifestation of disease in some part of him. But he was decoyed into pity unawares, and pity led on to tenderness. That lit- tle helpless child—always carried about by one of the three busy women of the house, or else patient- ly threading colored beads in the chair from which, by no effort of its own, could it ever move—the great, grave blue eyes, full of serious, not uncheer- ful expression, giving to the small, delicate face a look beyond its years—the soft, plaintive voice, dropping out but few words, so unlike the continual prattle of a child, caught Mr. Openshaw's attention in spite of himself. One day—he half scorned him- 52 THE MANCHESTER MARRIAGE. self for doing so—he cut short his dinner-hour to go in search of some toy which should take the place of those eternal beads. I forget what he bought, but when he gave the present (which he took care to do in a short, abrupt manner, and when no one was by to see him) he was almost thrilled by the flash of delight that came over that child's face, and he could not help, all through that afternoon, going over and over again the picture left on his memory by the bright effect of unex- pected joy on the little girl's face. When he re- turned home he found his slippers placed by his sitting-room fire, and even more careful attention paid to his fancies than was habitual in those model lodgings. When Alice had taken the last of his tea-things away—she had been silent, as usual, till then—she stood for an instant with the door in her hand. Mr. Openshaw looked as if he were deep in his book, though in fact he did not see a line, but was heartily wishing the woman would go, and not make any palaver of gratitude. But she only said, "I am very much obliged to you, sir. Thank you very much," and was gone, even before he could send her away with a "There, my good woman, that's enough!" For some time' longer he took no apparent notice of the child. He even hardened his heart into dis- regarding her sudden flush of color and little timid THE MANCHESTER MARRIAGE. 53 smile of recognition when he saw her by chance. But, after all, this could not last forever; and, having a second time given way to tenderness, there was no relapse. The insidious enemy having thus entered his heart in the guise of compassion to the child, soon assumed the more dangerous form of interest in the mother. He was aware of this change of feeling—despised himself for it— struggled with it; nay, internally yielded to it and cherished it long before he suffered the slightest expression of it, by word, action, or look, to escape him. He watched Alice's docile, obedient ways to her stepmother; the love which she had inspired in the rough Norah (roughened by the wear and tear of sorrow and years); but, above all, he saw the wild, deep, passionate affection existing between her and her child. They spoke little to any one else or when any one else was by; but, when alone together, they talked, and murmured, and cooed, and chattered so continually, that Mr. Openshaw first wondered what they could find to say to each other, and next became irritated because they were always so grave and silent with him. All this time he was perpetually devising small new pleasures for the child. His thoughts ran, in a pertinacious way, upon the desolate life before her; and often he came back from his day's work loaded with the very thing Alice had been longing for, but had not been able to procure. One time it was a little chair 54 THE MANCHESTER MARRIAGE. for drawing the little sufferer along the streets, and many an evening that following summer Mr. Open- shaw drew her along himself, regardless of the re- marks of his acquaintances. One day in autumn he put down his newspaper as Alice came in with the breakfast, and said, in as indifferent a voice as he could assume, "Mrs. Frank, is there any reason why we two should not put up our horses together?" Alice stood still in a perplexed wonder. What did he mean? He had resumed the reading of his newspaper as if he did not expect any answer; so she found silence her safest course, and went on quietly arranging his breakfast without another word passing between them. Just as he was leav- ing the house to go to the warehouse as usual, he turned back and put his head into the bright, neat, tidy kitchen, where all the women breakfasted in the morning: "You'll think of what I said, Mrs. Frank" (this was her name with the lodgers), "and let me have your opinion upon it to-night." ■ Alice was thankful that her mother and Norah were too busy talking together to attend much to this speech. She determined not to think about it at all through the day, and, of course, the effort not to think made her think all the more. At night she sent up Norah with his tea. But Mr. Openshaw almost knocked Norah down as she was THE MANCHESTER MARRIAGE. 55 going out at the door by pushing past her and call- ing out, "Mrs. Frank!" in an impatient voice, at the top of the stairs. Alice went up, rather than seem to have affixed too much meaning to his words. "Well, Mrs. Frank," he said, "what answer? Don't make it too long, for I have lots of office- work to get through to-night." "I hardly know what you meant, sir," said truth- ful Alice. "Well, I should have thought you might have guessed. You're not new at this sort of work, and I am. However, I'll make it plain this time. Will you have me to be thy wedded husband, and serve me, and love me, and honor me, and all that sort of thing? Because, if you will, I will do as much by you, and be a father to your child—and that's more than is put in the Prayer-book. Now I'm a man of my word, and what I say I feel, and what I promise I'll do. Now for your answer." Alice was silent. He began to make the tea as if her reply was a matter of perfect indifference to him; but, as soon as that was done, he became im- patient. "Well?" said he. "How long, sir, may I have to think over it?" "Three minutes" (looking at his watch). "You've had two already—that makes five. Be a sensible woman, say Yes, and sit down to tea with me, and 56 THE MANCHESTER MARRIAGE. we'll talk it over together, for after tea I shall be busy; say No" (he hesitated a moment to try and keep his voice in the same tone), "and I sha'n't say another word about it, but pay up a year's rent for my rooms to-morrow, and be off. Time's up. Yes or no?" "If you please, sir—you have been so good to little Ailsie—" "There, sit down comfortably by me on the sofa, and let us have our tea together. I am glad to find you are as good and sensible as I took you for." And this was Alice Wilson's second wooing. Mr. Openshaw's will was too strong, and his cir- cumstances too good, for him not to carry all before him. He settled Mrs. Wilson in a comfortable house of her own, and made her quite independent of lodgers. The little that Alice said with regard to future plans was in Norah's behalf. "No," said Mr. Openshaw. "Norah shall take care of the old lady as long as she lives, and after that she shall either come and live with us, or, if she likes it better, she shall have a provision for life—for your sake, missus. No one who has been good to you or the child shall go unrewarded. But even the little one will be better for some fresh stuff about her. Get her a bright, sensible girl as a nurse; one who won't go rubbing her with calf's- foot jelly, as Norah does, wasting good stuff outside that ought to go in, but will follow doctors' direc- THE MANCHESTER MARRIAGE. 67 tions, which, as you must see pretty clearly by this time, Norah won't, because they give the poor little wench pain. Now I'm not above being nesh for other folks myself. I can stand a good blow, and never change color; but, set me in the operating- room in the Infirmary, and I turn as sick as a girl. Yet, if need were, I would hold the little wench on my knees while she screeched with pain, if it were to do her poor back good. Nay, nay, wench! keep your white looks for the time when it comes—I don't say it ever will. But this I know, Norah will spare the child and cheat the doctor, if she can. Now, I say, give the bairn a year or two's chance, and then, when the pack of doctors have done their best—and, maybe, the old lady has gone—we'll have Norah back, or do better for her." The pack of doctors could do no good to little Ailsie; she was beyond their power. But her fa- ther (for so he insisted on being called, and also on Alice's no longer retaining the appellation of mam- ma, but becoming henceforward mother), by his healthy cheerfulness of manner, his clear decision of purpose, his odd turns and quirks of humor, add- ed to his real strong love for the helpless little girl, infused a new element of brightness and confidence into her life; and, though her back remained the same, her general health was strengthened, and Al- ice—never going beyond a smile herself—had the pleasure of seeing her child taught to laugh. C2 58 THE MANCHESTER MARRIAGE. As for Alice's own life, it was happier than it had ever been before. Mr. Openshaw required no dem- onstration, no expressions of affection from her. In- deed, these would rather have disgusted him. Alice could love deeply, but could not talk about it. The perpetual requirement of loving words, looks, and caresses, and misconstruing their absence into ab- sence of love, had been the great trial of her former married life. Now, all went on clear and straight, under the guidance of her husband's strong sense, warm heart, and powerful will. Year by year their worldly prosperity increased. At Mrs. Wilson's death Norah came back to them as nurse to the newly-born little Edwin, into which post she was not installed without a pretty strong oration on the part of the proud and happy father, who declared that if he found out that Norah ever tried to screen the boy by a falsehood, or to make him nesh either in body or mind, she should go that very day. Norah and Mr. Openshaw were not on the most thoroughly cordial terms, neither of them fully rec- ognizing or appreciating the other's best qualities. This was the previous history of the Lancashire family who had now removed to London. They had been there about a year, when Mr. Openshaw suddenly informed his wife that he had determined to heal long-standing feuds, and had asked his uncle and aunt Chadwick to come and pay them a visit and see London. Mrs. Openshaw THE MANCHESTER MARRIAGE. 59 had never seen this uncle and aunt of her husband's. Years before she had married him there had been a quarrel. All she knew was, that Mr. Chad wick was a small manufacturer in a country town in South Lancashire. She was extremely pleased that the breach was to be healed, and began making prepa- rations to render their visit pleasant. They arrived at last. Going to see London was such an event to them that Mrs. Chadwick had made all new linen fresh for the occasion, from night-caps downward; and as for gowns, ribbons, and collars, she might have been going into the wilds of Cana- da, where never a shop is, so large was her stock. A fortnight before the day of her departure for Lon- don she had formally called to take leave of all her acquaintance, saying she should need every bit of the intermediate time for packing up. It was like a second wedding in her imagination; and, to com- plete the resemblance which an entirely new ward- robe made between the two events, her husband brought her back from Manchester, on the last mar- ket-day before they set off, a gorgeous pearl and amethyst brooch, saying, "Lunnon should see that Lancashire folks knew a handsome thing when they saw it." For some time after Mr. and Mrs. Chadwick ar- rived at the Openshaws' there was no opportunity for wearing this brooch; but at length they obtain- ed an order to see Buckingham Palace, and the 60 THE MANCHESTER MARRIAGE. spirit of loyalty demanded that Mrs. Chadwick should wear her best clothes in visiting the abode of her sovereign. On her return she hastily changed her dress, for Mr. Openshaw had planned that they should go to Eichmond, drink tea, and return by moonlight. Accordingly, about five o'clock, Mr. and Mrs. Openshaw and Mr. and Mrs. Chadwick set off. The housemaid and cook sat below, Norah hard- ly knew where. She was always engrossed in the nursery, in tending her two children, and in sitting by the restless, excitable Ailsie till she fell asleep. By-and-by the housemaid, Bessy, tapped gently at the door. Norah went to her, and they spoke in whispers. "Nurse, there's some one down stairs wants you." "Wants me! Who is it?" "A gentleman—" "A gentleman? Nonsense!" "Well, a man, then, and he asks for you, and he rang at the front-door bell, and has walked into the dining-room." "You should never have let him," exclaimed Norah; "master and missus out—" "I did not want him to come in; but when he heard you lived here, he walked past me, and sat down on the first chair, and said, 'Tell her to come and speak to me.' There is no gas lighted in the room, and supper is all set out." THE MANCHESTER MARRIAGE. 61 "He'll be off with the spoons," exclaimed Norah, putting the housemaid's fear into words, and pre- paring to leave the room, first, however, giving a look to Ailsie, sleeping soundly and calmly. Down stairs she went, uneasy fears stirring in her bosom. Before she entered the dining-room she provided herself with a candle, and, with it in her hand, she went in, looking around her in the dark- ness for her visitor. He was standing up, holding by the table. No- rah and he looked at each other, gradual recognition coming into their eyes. "Norah?" at length he asked. "Who are you?" asked Norah, with the sharp tones of alarm and incredulity. "I don't know you;" trying, by futile words of disbelief, to do away with the terrible fact before her. "Am I so changed?" he said, pathetically. "I dare say I am. But, Norah, tell me," he breathed hard, "where is my wife? Is she—is she alive?" He came nearer to Norah, and would have taken her hand, but she backed away from him, looking at him all the time with staring eyes, as if he were some horrible object. Yet he was a handsome, bronzed, good-looking fellow, with beard and mus- tache, giving him a foreign-looking aspect; but his eyes! there was no mistaking those eager, beautiful eyes—the very same that Norah had watched not half an hour ago, till sleep stole softly over them. 62 THE MANCHESTER MARRIAGE. "Tell me, Norah—I can bear it—I have feared it so often. Is she dead?" Norah still kept silence. "She is dead!" lie hung on Norah's words and looks as if for confirmation or contradiction. "What shall I do?" groaned Norah. "Oh, sir, why did you come? how did you find me out? where have you been? We thought you dead, we did indeed." She poured out words and questions to gain time, as if time would help her. "Norah, answer me this question straight, by yes or no—Is my wife dead?" "No, she is not," said Norah, slowly and heavily. "Oh, what a relief! Did she receive my letters? But perhaps you don't know. Why did you leave her? Where is she? Oh, Norah, tell me all quickly." "Mr. Frank," said Norah at last, almost driven to bay by her terror lest her mistress should return at any moment, and find him there—unable to con- sider what was best to be done or said—rushing at something decisive, because she could not endure her present state—" Mr. Frank, we never heard a line from you, and the ship-owners said you had gone down, you and every one else. We thought you were dead, if ever man was, and poor Miss Alice and her little sick, helpless child! Oh, sir, you must guess it," cried the poor creature at last, bursting out into a passionate fit of crying, "for in- deed I can not tell it. But it was no one's fault. God help us all this night!" THE MANCHESTER MARRIAGE. 63 Norah had sat down. She trembled too much to stand. He took her hands in his. He squeezed them hard, as if, by physical pressure, the truth could be wrung out. "Norah." This time his tone was calm, stagnant as despair. "She has married again!" Norah shook her head sadly. The grasp slowly relaxed. The man had fainted. There was brandy in the room. Norah forced some drops into Mr. Frank's mouth, chafed his hands, and—when mere animal life returned, be- fore the mind poured in its flood of memories and thoughts—she lifted him up, and rested his head against her knees. Then she put a few crumbs of bread, taken from the supper-table, soaked in bran- dy, into his mouth. Suddenly he sprang to his feet. "Where is she? Tell me this instant." He look- ed so wild, so mad, so desperate, that Norah felt herself to be in bodily danger; but her time of dread had gone by. She had been afraid to tell him the truth, and then she had been a coward. Now her wits were sharpened by the sense of his desperate state. He must leave the house. She would pity him afterward, but now she must rather command and upbraid, for he must leave the house before her mistress came home. That one necessity stood clear before her. "She is not here; that is enough for you to know. Nor can I say exactly where she is" (which was true 64 THE MANCHESTER MARRIAGE. to the letter, if not to the spirit). "Go away, and tell me where to find you to-morrow, and I will tell you all. My master and mistress may come back at any minute, and then what would become of me, with a strange man in the house?" Such an argument was too petty to touch his ex- cited mind. "I don't care for your master and mistress. If your master is a man, he must feel for me—poor shipwrecked sailor that I am—kept for years a pris- oner among savages, always, always, always think- ing of my wife and my home—dreaming of her by night, talking to her, though she could not hear, by day. I loved her more than all heaven and earth put together. Tell me where she is, this instant, you wretched woman, who salved over her wicked- ness to her as. you do to me!" . The clock struck ten. Desperate positions re- quire desperate measures. "If you will leave the house now, I will come to you to-morrow and tell you all. What is more, you shall see your child now. She lies sleeping up stairs. Oh, sir, you have a child—you do not know that as yet—a little weakly girl, with just a heart and soul beyond her years. We have reared her up with such care! We watched her, for we thought for many a year she might die any day, and we tended her, and no hard thing has come near her, and no rough word has ever been said to her. And THE MANCHESTER MARRIAGE. 65 now you come and will take her life into your hand, and will crush it. Strangers to her have been kind to her; but her own father—Mr. Frank, I am her nurse, and I love her, and I tend her, and I would do any thing for her that I could. Her mother's heart beats as hers beats; and, if she suffers a pain, her mother trembles all over. If she is happy, it is her mother that smiles and is glad. If she is grow- ing stronger, her mother is healthy; if she dwindles, her mother languishes. If she dies—well, I don't know; it is not every one can lie down and die when they wish it. Come up stairs, Mr. Frank, and see your child. Seeing her will do good to your poor heart. Then go away, in God's name, just this one night; to-morrow, if need be, you can do any thing—kill us all -if you will, or show yourself a great, grand man, whom God will bless forever and ever. Come, Mr. Frank, the look of a sleeping child is sure to give peace." She led him up stairs, at first almost helping his steps, till they came near the nursery door. She had well-nigh forgotten the existence of little Ed- win. It struck upon her with affright as the shaded light fell over the other cot; but she skillfully threw that corner of the room into darkness, and let the light fall on the sleeping Ailsie. The child had thrown down the coverings, and her deformity, as she lay with her back to them, was plainly visible through her slight night-gown. Her little face, de- 66 THE MANCHESTER MARRIAGE. prived of the lustre of her eyes, looked wan and pinched, and had a pathetic expression in it even as she slept. The poor father looked and looked with hungry, wistful eyes, into which the big tears came swelling up slowly and dropped heavily down, as he stood trembling and shaking all over. Norah was angry with herself for growing impatient of the length of time that long lingering gaze lasted. She thought that she waited for full half an hour before Frank stirred. And then, instead of going away, he sank down on his knees by the bedside, and buried his face in the clothes. Little Ailsie stirred uneasily. Norah pulled him up in terror. She could afford no more time, even for prayer, in her extremity of fear, for surely the next moment would bring her mistress home. She took him forcibly by the arm; but, as he was going, his eye lighted on the other bed: he stopped. Intelligence came back into his face. His hands clenched. "His child?" he asked. "Her child," replied Norah. "God watches over him," said she, instinctively, for Frank's looks ex- cited her fears, and she needed to remind herself of the Protector of the helpless. "God has not watched oyer me," he said, in de- spair, his thoughts apparently recoiling on his own desolate, deserted state. But Norah had no time for pity. To-morrow she would be as compassion- ate as her heart prompted. At length she guided THE MANCHESTER MARRIAGE. 67 him down stairs, and shut the outer door, and bolted it—as if by bolts to keep out facts. Then she went back into the dining-room, and effaced all traces of his presence as far as she could. She went up stairs to the nursery and sat there, her head on her hand, thinking what was to come of all this misery. It seemed to her very long before her master and mistress returned, yet it was hardly eleven o'clock. She heard the loud, hearty Lan- cashire voices on the stairs, and, for the first time, she understood the contrast of the desolation of the poor man who had so lately gone forth in lonely despair. It almost put her out of patience to see Mrs. Openshaw come in, calmly smiling, handsomely dressed, happy, easy, to inquire after her children. "Did Ailsie go to sleep comfortably?" she whis- pered to Norah. "Yes." Her mother bent over her, looking at her slum- bers with the soft eyes of love. How little she dreamed who had looked on her last! Then she went to Edwin, with perhaps less wistful anxiety in her countenance, but more of pride. She took off her things to go down to supper. Norah saw her no more that night. Besides having a door into the passage, the sleep- ing-nursery opened out of Mr. and Mrs. Openshaw's room, in order that they might have the children 68 THE MANCHESTER MARRIAGE. more immediately under their own eyes. Early the next summer morning Mrs. Openshaw was awakened by Ailsie's startled call of "Mother! mother!" She sprang up, put on her dressing- gown, and went to her child. Ailsie was only half awake, and in a not unusual state of terror. "Who was he, mother? Tell me." "Who, my darling? No one is here. You have been dreaming, love. Waken up quite. See, it is broad daylight." "Yes," said Ailsie, looking round her, then cling- ing to her mother, "but a man was here in the night, mother." "Nonsense,little goose; no man has ever come near you." "Yes he did. He stood there, just by Norah— a man with hair and a beard; and he knelt down and said his prayers. Norah knows he was here, mother" (half angrily, as Mrs. Openshaw shook her head in smiling incredulity). "Well, we will ask Norah when she comes," said Mrs. Openshaw, soothingly. "But we won't talk any more about him now. It is not five o'clock; it is too early for you to get up. Shall I fetch you a book and read to you?" "Don't leave me, mother," said the child, cling- ing to her. So Mrs. Openshaw sat on the bedside talking to Ailsie, and telling her of what they had done at Eichmond the evening before, until the lit- THE MANCHESTER MARRIAGE. 69 tie girl's eyes slowly closed, and she once more fell asleep. "What was the matter?" asked Mr. Openshaw, as his wife returned to bed. "Ailsie wakened up in a fright, with some story of a man having been in the room to say his pray- ers—a dream, I suppose." And no more was said at the time. Mrs. Openshaw had almost forgotten the whole affair when she got up about seven o'clock. But by-and-by she heard a sharp altercation going on in the nursery—Norah speaking angrily to Ailsie, a most unusual thing. Both Mr. and Mrs. Openshaw listened in astonishment. "Hold your tongue, Ailsie! let me hear none of your dreams; never let me hear you tell that story again!" Ailsie began to cry. Mr. Openshaw opened the door of communication before his wife could say a word. "Norah, come herel" The nurse stood at the door, defiant. She per- ceived she had been heard, but she was desperate. "Don't let me hear you speak in that manner to Ailsie again," he said sternly, and shut the door. Norah was infinitely relieved, for she had dread- ed some questioning; and a little blame for sharp speaking was what she could well bear, if cross-ex- amination was let alone. Down stairs they went, Mr. Openshaw carrying 70 THE MANCHESTER MARRIAGE. Ailsie; the sturdy Edwin coming step by step, right foot foremost, always holding his mother's hand. Each child was placed in a chair by the breakfast- table, and then Mr. and Mrs. Openshaw stood to- gether at the window, awaiting their visitors' ap- pearance and making plans for the day. There was a pause. Suddenly Mr. Openshaw turned to Ailsie and said, "What a little goosey somebody is with her dreams, wakening up poor, tired mother in the middle of the night with a story of a man being in the room." "Father, I'm sure I saw him," said Ailsie, half crying. "I don't want to make Norah angry; but I was not asleep, for all she says I was. I had been asleep—and I wakened up quite wide awake, though I was so frightened. I kept my eyes nearly shut, and I saw the man quite plain—a great brown man with a beard. He said his prayers. And then he looked at Edwin. And then Norah took him by the arm and led him away, after they had whisper- ed a bit together." "Now, my little woman must be reasonable," said Mr. Openshaw, who was always patient with Ailsie. "There was no man in the house last night at all. No man comes into the house, as you know, if you think, much less goes up into the nursery. But sometimes we dream something has happened, and the dream is so like reality that you are not THE MANCHESTER MARRIAGE. 71 the first person, little woman, who has stood out that the thing has really happened." "But indeed it was not a dream," said Ailsie, beginning to cry. Just then Mr. and Mrs. Chadwick came down, looking grave and discomposed. All during break- fast time they were silent and uncomfortable. As soon as the breakfast things were taken away and the children had been carried up stairs, Mr. Chad- wick began, in an evidently preconcerted manner, to inquire if his nephew was certain that all his servants were honest, for that Mrs. Chadwick had that morning missed a very valuable brooch which she had worn the day before. She remembered taking it off when she came home from Bucking- ham Palace. Mr. Openshaw's face contracted into hard lines—grew like what it was before he had known his wife and her child. He rang the bell even before his uncle had done speaking. It was answered by the housemaid. "Mary, was any one here last night while we were away?" "A man, sir, came to speak to Norah." "To speak to Norah! Who was he? How long did he stay!" "I'm sure I can't tell, sir. He came—perhaps about nine. I went up to tell Norah in the nurs- ery, and she came down to speak to him. She let him out, sir. She will know who he was, and how long he staid." 72 THE MANCHESTER MARRIAGE. She waited a moment to be asked any more questions, but she was not, so she went away. A minute afterward Mr. Openshaw made as though he were going out of the room, but his wife laid her hand on his arm: "Do not speak to her before the children," she said, in her low, quiet voice. "I will go up and question her." "No, I must speak to her. You must know," said he, turning to his uncle and aunt, "my missus has an old servant as faithful as ever woman was, I do believe, as far as love goes, but, at the same time, who does not always speak truth, as e,ven the missus must allow. Now- my notion is that this Norah of ours has been come over by some good- for-nothing chap (for she's at the time o' life when they say women pray for husbands—'any, good Lord, any'), and has let him into our house, and the chap has made off with your brooch, and m'ap- pen many another thing beside. It's only saying that Norah is soft-hearted, and doesn't stick at a white lie—that's all, missus." It was curious to notice how his tone, his eyes, his whole face was changed as he spoke to his wife, but he was the resolute man through all. She knew better than to oppose him; so she went up stairs, and told Norah her master wanted to speak to her, and that she would take care of the children in the mean while. THE MANCHESTER MARRIAGE. 73 Norah rose to go without a word. Her thoughts were these: "If they tear me to pieces, they shall never know through me. He may come—and then, just Lord have mercy upon us all, for some of us are dead folk to a certainty. But he shall do it, not me." You may fancy, now, her look of determination as she faced her master alone in the dining-room, Mr. and Mrs. Chadwick having left the affair in their nephew's hands, seeing that he took it up with such vehemence. "Norah, who was that man that came to my house last night?" "Man, sir!" As if infinitely surprised; but it was only to gain time. "Yes, the man that Mary let in; that she went up stairs to the nursery to tell you about; that you came down to speak to; the same chap, I make no doubt, that you took into the nursery to have your talk out with; the one Ailsie saw, and afterward dreamed about, thinking, poor wench! she saw him say his prayers, when nothing, I'll be bound, was farther from his thoughts; the one that took Mrs. Chadwick's brooch, value ten pounds. Now, No- rah, don't go off. I'm as sure as my name's Thomas Openshaw that you knew nothing of this robbery, but I do think you've been imposed on, and that's the truth. Some good-for-nothing chap has been making up to you, and you've been just like all D 74 THE MANCHESTER MARRIAGE. other women, and have turned a soft place in your heart to him; and he came last night a-lovyering, and you had him up in the nursery, and he made use of his opportunities, and made off with a few things on his way down. Come, now, Norah, it's no blame to you, only you must not be such a fool again. Tell us," he continued, "what name he gave you, Norah. I'll be bound it was not the right one, but it will be a clew for the police." Norah drew herself up. "You may ask that question, and taunt me with my being single, and with my credulity, as you will, Master Openshaw. You'll get no answer from me. As for the brooch, and the story of theft and burglary, if any friend ever came to see me (which I defy you to prove, and deny), he'd be just as much above doing such a thing as you yourself, Mr. Openshaw—and more so too; for I am not at all sure as every thing you have is rightly come by, or would be yours long, if every man had his own." She meant, of course, his wife, but he understood her to refer to his prop- erty in goods and chattels. "Now, my good woman," said he, "I'll just tell you truly, I never trusted you out and out, but my wife liked you, and I thought you had many a good point about you. If you once begin to sauce me, I'll have the police to you, and get out the truth in a court of justice, if you'll not tell it me quietly and civilly here. Now the best thing you can do is THE MANCHESTER MARRIAGE. 75 quietly to tell me who the fellow is. Look here! a man comes to my house; asks for you; you take him up stairs; a valuable brooch is missing next day; we know that you, and Mary, and cook, are honest; but you refuse to tell us who the man is. Indeed, you've told one lie already about him, say- ing no one was here last night. Now I just put it to you, what do you think a policeman would say to this, or a magistrate? A magistrate would soon make you tell the truth, my good woman." "There's never the creature born that should get it out of me," said ISTorah—" not unless I choose to tell." "I've a great mind to see," said Mr. Openshaw, growing angry at the defiance. Then, checking himself, he thought before he spoke again: "Norah, for your missus's sake I don't want to go to extremities. Be a sensible woman if you can. It's no great disgrace, after all, to have been taken in. I ask you once more—as a friend—who was this man that you let into my house last night?" No answer. He repeated the question in an im- patient tone. Still no answer. Norah's lips were set in determination not to speak. "Then there is but one thing to be done. I shall send for a policeman." "You will not," said Norah, starting forward. "You shall not, sir. No policeman shall touch me. I know nothing of the brooch, but I know this: 76 THE MANCHESTER MARRIAGE. ever since I was four-and-twenty, I have thought more of your wife than of myself; ever since I saw her, a poor motherless girl, put upon in her uncle's house, I have thought more of serving her than of serving myself. I have cared for her and her child as nobody ever cared for me. I don't cast blame on you, sir, but I say it's ill giving up one's life to any one; for, at the end, they will turn round upon you and forsake you. Why does not my missus come herself to suspect me? Maybe she's gone for the police? But I don't stay here either for police, or magistrate, or master. You're an. unlucky lot. I believe there's a curse on you. I'll leave you this very day. Yes, I'll leave that poor Ailsie too. I will! No good will ever come to you." Mr. Openshaw was utterly astonished at this speech, most of which was completely unintelligi- ble to him, as may easily be supposed. Before he could make up his mind what to say or what to do, Norah had left the room. I do not think he had ever really intended to send for the police to this old servant of his wife's, for he had never for a mo- ment doubted her perfect honesty; but he had in- tended to compel her to tell him who the man was, and in this he was baffled. He was, consequently, much irritated. He returned to his uncle and aunt in a state of great annoyance and perplexity, and told them he could get nothing out of the woman; that some man had been in the house the night be- THE MANCHESTER MARRIAGE. 77 fore, but that she refused to tell who he was. At this moment his wife came in, greatly agitated, and asked what had happened to Norah, for that she had put on her things in passionate haste, and left the house. "This looks suspicious," said Mr. Chadwick. "It is not the way in which an honest person would have acted." Mr. Openshaw kept silence. He was sorely per- plexed. But Mrs. Openshaw turned round on Mr. Chadwick with a sudden fierceness no one ever saw in her before. "You don't know Nbrah, uncle. She is gone because she is deeply hurt at being suspected. Oh, I wish I had seen her, that I had spoken to her my- self. She would have told me any thing." Alice wrung her hands. "I must confess," continued Mr. Chadwick to his nephew, in a lower voice, "I can't make you out. You used to be a word and a blow, and oftenest the blow first; and now, when there is every cause for suspicion, you just do naught. Your missus is a very good woman, I grant, but she may have been put upon as well as other folk, I suppose. If you don't send for the police, I shall." "Very well," replied Mr. Openshaw, surlily; "I can't clear Norah. She won't clear herself, as I believe she might if she would. Only I wash my hands of it, for I am sure the woman herself is hon- 78 THE MANCHESTER MARRIAGE. est, and she lived a long time with my wife, and I don't like her to come to shame." "But she will then be forced to clear herself. That, at any rate, will be a good thing." "Very well, very well. I am heart-sick of the whole business. Come, Alice, come up to the ba- bies; they'll be in a sore way. I tell you, uncle," he said, turning round once more to Mr. Chadwick, suddenly and sharply, after his eye had fallen on Alice's wan, tearful, anxious face, "I'll have no sending for the police, after all. I'll buy my aunt twice as handsome a brooch this very day, but I'll not have ISTorah suspected and my missus plagued. There's for you!" He and his wife left the room. Mr. Chadwick quietly waited till he was out of hearing, and then said to his wife, "For all Tom's heroics, I'm just quietly going for a detective, wench. Thou need'st know naught about it." He went to the police-station, and made a state- ment of the case. He was gratified by the impres- sion which the evidence against Norah seemed to make. The men all agreed in his opinion, and steps were to be immediately taken to find out where she was. Most probably, as they suggested, she had gone at once to the man, who, to all appear- ance, was her lover.. When Mr. Chadwick asked how they would find her out, they smiled, shook their heads, and spoke of mysterious but infallible THE MANCHESTER MARRIAGE. 79 ways and means. He returned to his nephew's house with a very comfortable opinion of his own sagacity. He was met by his wife with a penitent face: "Oh, master, I've found my brooch! It was just sticking by its pin in the flounce of my brown silk, that I wore yesterday. I took it off in a hurry, and it must have caught in it; and I hung up my gown in the closet. Just now, when I was going to fold it up, there was the brooch! I'm very vexed, but I never dreamed but what it was lost." Her husband, muttering something very like "Confound thee and thy brooch too! I wish I'd never given it thee," snatched up his hat and rush- ed back to the station, hoping to be in time to stop the police from searching for Norah. But a detect- ive was already gone off on the errand. Where was Norah? Half mad with the strain of the fearful secret, she had hardly slept through the night for thinking what must be done. Upon this terrible state of mind had come Ailsie's ques- tions, showing that she had seen the man, as the unconscious child called her father. Lastly came the suspicion of her honesty. She was little less than crazy as she ran up stairs and dashed on her bonnet and shawl, leaving all else, even her purse, behind her. In that house she would not stay. That was all she knew or was clear about. She would not even see the children again, for fear it 80 THE MANCHESTER MABRIAGE. should weaken her. She dreaded, above every- thing, Mr. Frank's return to claim his wife. She could not tell what remedy there was for a sorrow so tremendous, for her to stay to witness. The de- sire of escaping from the coming event was a strong- er motive for her departure than her soreness about the suspicions directed against her, although this last had been the final goad to the course she took. She walked away almost at headlong speed, sobbing as she went, as she had not dared to do during the past night, for fear of exciting wonder in those who might hear her. Then she stopped. An idea came into her mind that she would leave London alto- gether, and betake herself to her native town of Liverpool. She felt in her pocket for her purse as she drew near the Euston Square station with this intention. She had left it at home. Her poor head aching, her eyes swollen with crying, she had to stand still and think, as well as she could, where next she should bend her steps. Suddenly the thought flashed into her mind that she would go and find out poor Mr. Frank. She had been hard- ly kind to him the night before, though her heart had bled for him ever since. She remembered his telling her, when she inquired for his address, al- most as she had pushed him out of the door, of some hotel in a street not far distant from Euston Square. Thither she went; with what intention she scarcely knew, but to assuage her conscience by THE MANCHESTER MARRIAGE. 81 telling him how much she pitied him. In her pres- ent state she felt herself unfit to counsel, or restrain, or assist, or do aught else but sympathize and weep. The people of the inn said such a person had been there; had arrived only the day before; had gone out soon after his arrival, leaving his luggage in their care, but had never come back. Norah asked for leave to sit down and await the gentleman's re- turn. The landlady—pretty secure in the deposit of luggage against any probable injury—showed her into a room, and quietly locked the door on the outside. Norah was utterly worn out, and fell asleep—a shivering, starting, uneasy slumber, which lasted for hours. The detective, meanwhile, had come up with her some time before she entered the hotel, into which he followed her. Asking the landlady to detain her for an hour or so, without giving any reason be- yond showing his authority (which made the land- lady applaud herself a good deal for having locked her in), he went back to the police-station to report his proceedings. He could have taken her direct- ly; but his object was, if possible, to trace out the man who was supposed to have committed the rob- bery. Then he heard of the discovery of the brooch, and consequently did not care to return. Norah slept till even the summer evening began to close in, then started up. Some one was at the door. It would be Mr. Frank; and she dizzily D2 82 THE MANCHESTER MARRIAGE. pushed back her ruffled gray hair, which had fallen over her eyes, and stood looking to see him. In- stead, there came in Mr. Openshaw and a policeman. "This is Norah Kennedy," said Mr. Openshaw. "Oh, sir," said Norah, "I did not touch the brooch—indeed I did not. Oh, sir, I can not live to be thought so badly of;" and, very sick and faint, she suddenly sank down on the ground. To her surprise, Mr. Openshaw raised her up very tender- ly. Even the policeman helped to lay her on the sofa; and, at Mr. Openshaw's desire, he went for some wine and sandwiches, for the poor gaunt wom- an lay there almost as if dead with weariness and exhaustion. "Norah," said Mr. Openshaw, in his kindest voice, "the brooch is found. It was hanging to Mrs. Chadwick's gown. I beg your pardon—most truly I beg your pardon for having troubled you about it. My wife is almost broken-hearted. Eat, Norah—or, stay, first drink this glass of wine," said he, lifting her head, and pouring a little down her throat. As she drank she remembered where she was and who she was waiting for. She suddenly push- ed Mr. Openshaw away, saying, "Oh, sir, you must go—you must not stop a minute. If he comes back he will kill you." "Alas! Norah, I do not know who 'he' is. But some one is gone away who will never come back; THE MANCHESTER MARRIAGE. 83 some one who knew you, and whom I am afraid you cared for." "I don't understand you, sir," said Norah, her master's kind and sorrowful manner bewildering her yet more than his words. The policeman had left the room at Mr. Openshaw's desire, and they two were alone. "You know what I mean when I say some one is gone who will never come back. I mean that he is dead!" "Who!" said Norah, trembling all over. "A poor man has been found in the Thames this morning—drowned." "Did he drown himself?" asked Norah, solemnly. "God only knows," replied Mr. Openshaw, in the same tone. "Your name and address at our house were found in his pocket; that, and his purse, were the only things that were found upon him. I am sorry to say it, my poor Norah, but you are required to go and identify him." "To what?" asked Norah. "To say who it is. It is always done, in order that some reason may be discovered for the suicide —if suicide it was. I make no doubt he was the man who came to see you at our house last night. It is very sad, I know." He made pauses between each little clause, in order to try and bring back her senses, which he feared were wandering, so wild and sad was her look. 84 THE MANCHESTER MARRIAGE. "Master Openshaw," said she, at last, "I've a dreadful secret to tell you—only you must never breathe it to any one, and you and I must hide it away forever. I thought to have done it all by myself, but I see I can not. Yon poor man—yes, the dead, drowned creature, is, I fear, Mr. Frank, my mistress's first husband!" Mr. Openshaw sat down as if shot. He did not speak, but after a while he signed to Norah to go on. "He came to me the other night, when, God be thanked! you were all away at Eichmond. He asked me if his wife was dead or alive. I was a brute, and thought more of your all coming home than of his sore trial; I spoke out sharp, and said she was married again, and very content and hap- py; I all but turned him away; and now he lies dead and cold." "God forgive me!" said Mr. Openshaw. "God forgive us all!" said Norah. "Yon poor man needs forgiveness, perhaps, less than any one among us. He had been among the savages—ship- wrecked—I know not what—and he had written letters which had never reached my poor missus." "He saw his child!" "He saw her—yes. I took him up to give his thoughts another start, for I believed he was going mad on my hands. I came to seek him here, as I more than half promised. My mind misgave me THE MANCHESTER MARRIAGE. 85 when I heard he never came in. Oh, sir, it must be him!" Mr. Openshaw rang the bell. Norah was almost too much stunned to wonder at what he did. He asked for writing materials, wrote a letter, and then said to Norah, "I am writing to Alice to say I shall be unavoid- ably absent for a few days; that I have found you; that you are well, and send her your love, and will come home to-morrow. You must go with me to the Police Court; you must identify the body; I will pay high to keep names and details out of the papers." "But where are you going, sir?" He did not answer her directly. Then he said, "Norah, I must go with you, and look on the face of the man whom I have so injured—unwit- tingly, it is true; but it seems to me as if I had killed him. I will lay his head in the grave as if he were my only brother: and how he must have hated me! I can not go home to my wife till all that I can do for him is done. Then I go with a dread- ful secret on my mind. I shall never speak of it again after these days are over. I know you will not either." He shook hands with her; and they never named the subject again the one to the other. Norah went home to Alice the next day. Not a word was said on the cause of her abrupt depart- ure a day or two before. Alice had been charged by her husband, in his letter, not to allude to the 86 THE MANCHESTER MARRIAGE. supposed theft of the brooch; so she, implicitly- obedient to those whom she loved both by nature and habit, was entirely silent on the subject, only treated Norah with the most tender respect, as if to make up for unjust suspicion. Nor did Alice inquire into the reason why Mr. Openshaw had been absent during his uncle and aunt's visit, after he had once said that it was un- avoidable. He came back grave and quiet, and from that time forth was curiously changed—more thoughtful, and perhaps less active; quite as deci- ded in conduct, but with new and different rules for the guidance of that conduct. Toward Alice he could hardly be more kind than he had always been; but he now seemed to look upon her as some one sacred, and to be treated with reverence as well as tenderness. He throve in business, and made a large fortune, one half of which was settled upon her. Long years after these events—a few months after her mother died—Ailsie and her "father" (as she always called Mr. Openshaw) drove to a cem- etery a little way out of town, and she was carried to a certain mound by her maid, who was then sent back to the carriage. There was a head-stone, with F. W. and a date upon it^—that was all. Sitting by the grave, Mr. Openshaw told her the story; and for the sad fate of that poor father whom she had never seen, he shed the only tears she ever saw fall from his eyes. LOIS THE WITCH. CHAPTER I. In the year 1691, Lois Barclay stood on a little wooden pier, steadying herself on the stable land in much the same manner as, eight or nine weeks ago, she had tried to steady herself on the deck of the rocking ship which had carried her across from Old to New England. It seemed as strange now to be on solid earth as it had been, not long ago, to be rocked by the sea both by day and by night; and the aspect of the land was equally strange. The forests which showed in the distance all round, and which, in truth, were not very far from the wooden houses forming the town of Boston, were of differ- ent shades of green, and different, too, in shape of outline to those which Lois Barclay knew well in her old home in Warwickshire. Her heart sank a little as she stood alone, waiting for the captain of the good ship Redemption, the kind, rough old sail- or, who was her only known friend in this unknown continent. Captain Holdernesse was busy, however, as she saw, and it would probably be some time be- fore he would be ready to attend to her; so Lois 88 LOIS THE WITCH. sat down on one of the casks that lay about, and wrapped her gray duffle cloak tight around her, and sheltered herself under her hood, as well as might be, from the piercing wind, which seemed to follow those whom it had tyrannized over at sea with a dogged wish of still tormenting them on land. Very patiently did Lois sit there, although she was weary, and shivering with cold; for the day was severe for May, and the Eedemption, with store of necessaries and comforts for the Puritan colonists of New En- gland, was the earliest ship that had ventured across the seas. How could Lois help thinking of the past and speculating on the future as she sat on Boston pier at this breathing-time of her life? In the dim sea- mist which she gazed upon with aching eyes (filled, against her will, with tears from time to time), there rose the little village church of Barford (not three miles from Warwick—you may see it yet), where her father had preached ever since 1661, long be- fore she was born. He and her mother both lay dead in Barford church-yard; and the old low gray church could hardly come before her vision without her seeing the old parsonage too, the cottage cover- ed with Austrian roses and yellow jessamine, where she had been born, sole child of parents already long past the prime of youth. She saw the path, not a hundred yards long, from the parsonage to the vestry door—that path which her father trod LOIS THE WITCH. 89 daily; for the vestry was his study, and the sanc- tum where he pored over the ponderous tomes of the Fathers, and compared their precepts with those of the authority of the Anglican Church of that day —the day of the later Stuarts; for Barford Parson- age at that time scarcely exceeded in size and dig- nity the cottages by which it was surrounded: it only contained three rooms on a floor, and was but two stories high. On the first, or ground floor, were the parlor, kitchen, and back or working kitchen; up stairs, Mr. and Mrs. Barclay's room, that belong- ing to Lois, and the maid-servant's room. If a guest came, Lois left her own chamber, and shared old Clemence's bed. But those days were over. Nev- er more should Lois see father or mother on earth; they slept, calm and still, in Barford church-yard, careless of what became of their orphan child, as far as earthly manifestations of care or love went. And Clemence lay there too, bound down in her grassy bed by withes of the brier-rose, which Lois had trained over those three precious graves before leaving England forever. There were some who would fain have kept her there—one who swore in his heart a great oath unto the Lord that he would seek her sooner or later, if she was still upon the earth. But he was the rich heir and only son of the miller Lucy, whose mill stood by the Avon side in the grassy Barford meadows, and his father looked higher for 90 LOIS THE WITCH. him than the penniless daughter of Parson Barclay (so low were clergymen esteemed in those days!); and the very suspicion of Hugh Lucy's attachment to Lois Barclay made his parents think it more prudent not to offer the orphan a home, although none other of the parishioners had the means, even if they had the will, to do so. So Lois swallowed her tears down till the time came for crying, and acted upon her mother's words: "Lois, thy father is dead of this terrible fever, and I am dying. Nay, it is so, though I am easier from pain for these few hours—the Lord be praised! The cruel men of the Commonwealth have left thee very friendless. Thy father's only brother was shot down at Edge Hill. I, too, have a brother, though thou hast never heard me speak of him, for he was a schismatic; and thy father and he had words, and he left for that new country beyond the seas without ever saying farewell to us. But Ealph was a kind lad until he took up these new-fangled notions, and for the old days' sake he will take thee in, and love thee as a child, and place thee among his children. Blood is thicker than water. Write to him as soon as I am gone—for, Lois, I am going—and I bless the Lord that has letten me join my husband again so soon." Such was the selfishness of conjugal love; she thought little of Lois's desolation in comparison with her rejoicing LOIS THE WITCH. 91 over her speedy reunion with her dead husband! "Write to thine uncle, Kalph Hickson, Salem, New England (put it down, child, on thy tablets), and say that I, Henrietta Barclay, charge him, for the sake of all he holds dear in heaven or on earth— for his salvation's sake as well as for the sake of the old home at Lester Bridge—for the sake of the father and mother that gave us birth, as well as for the sake of the six little children who lie dead be- tween him and me—that he take thee into his home as if thou wert his own flesh and blood, as indeed thou art. He has a wife and children of his own, and no one need fear having thee, my Lois, my darling, my baby, among his household. Oh, Lois, would that thou wert dying with me! The thought of thee makes death sore!" f. Lois comforted her mother more than herself, poor child, by promises to obey her dying wishes to the letter, and by ex- pressing hopes she dared not feel of her uncle's kindness. "Promise me"—the dying woman's breath came harder and harder—"that thou wilt go at once. The money our goods will bring—the letter thy father wrote to Captain Holdernesse, his old school- fellow—thou knowest all I would say—my Lois, God bless thee!" Solemnly did Lois promise; strictly she kept her word. It was all the more easy, for Hugh Lucy met her, and told her, in one great burst of love, 92 LOIS THE WITCH. of his passionate attachment, his vehement strug- gles with his father, his impotence at present, his hopes and resolves for the future. And intermin- gled with all this came such outrageous threats and expressions of uncontrolled vehemence, that Lois felt that in Barford she must not linger to be a cause of desperate quarrel between father and son, while her absence might soften down matters, so that either the rich old miller might relent, or— and her heart ached to think of the other possi- bility—Hugh's love might cool, and the dear play- fellow of her childhood learn to forget. If not—if Hugh were to be trusted in one tithe of what he said—God might permit him to fulfill his resolve of coming to seek her out before many years were over. It was all in God's hands, and that was best, thought Lois Barclay. She was roused out of her trance of recollections by Captain Holdernesse, who, having done all that was necessary in the way of orders and directions to his mate, now came up to her, and, praising her for her quiet patience, told her that he would now take her to the Widow Smith's, a decent kind of house, where he and many other sailors of the bet- ter order were in the habit of lodging during their stay on the New England shores. Widow Smith, he said, had a parlor for herself and her daughters, in which Lois might sit, while he went about the business that, as he had told her, would detain him LOIS THE "WITCH. 93 in Boston for a day or two, before he could accom- pany her to her uncle's at Salem. All this had been to a certain degree arranged on shipboard; but Captain Holdernesse, for want of any thing else that he could think of to talk about, recapitu- lated it as he and Lois walked along. It was his way of showing sympathy with the emotion that made her gray eyes full of tears as she started up from the pier at the sound of his voice. In his heart he said, "Poor wench! poor wench! it's a strange land to her, and they are all strange folks, and I reckon she will be feeling desolate. I'll try and cheer her up." So he talked on about hard facts, connected with the life that lay before her, until they reached Widow Smith's; and perhaps Lois was more brightened by this style of conver- sation, and the new ideas it presented to her, than she would have been by the tenderest woman's sympathy. "They are a queer set, these New Englanders," said Captain Holdernesse. "They are rare chaps for praying—down on their knees at every turn of their life. Folk are none so busy in a new coun- try, else they would have to pray like me, with a 'Yo-hoy!' on each side of my prayers, and a rope cutting like fire through my hand. Yon pilot was for calling us all to thanksgiving for a good voyage and lucky escape from the pirates; but I said I al- ways put up my thanks on dry land, after I had 94 LOIS THE WITCH. got my ship into harbor. The French colonists, too, are vowing vengeance for the expedition against Canada, and the people here are raging like heath- ens—at least, as like as godly folk can be—for the loss of their charter. All that is the news the pilot told me; for, for all he wanted us to be thanksgiv- ing instead of casting the lead, he was as down in the mouth as could be about the state of the coun- try. But here we are at "Widow Smith's! Now cheer up, and show the godly a pretty smiling Warwickshire lass!" Any body would have smiled at Widow Smith's greeting. She was a comely, motherly woman, dressed in the primmest fashion in vogue twenty years before, in England, among the class to which she belonged. But, somehow, her pleasant face gave the lie to her dress; were it as brown and so- ber-colored as could be, folk remembered it bright and cheerful, because it was a part of Widow Smith herself. She kissed Lois on both cheeks before she right- ly understood who the stranger maiden was, only because she was a stranger, and looked sad and for- lorn; and then she kissed her again, because Captain Holdernesse recommended her to the widow's good offices. And so she led Lois by the hand into her rough, substantial log house, over the door of which hung a great bough of a tree, by way of sign of en- tertainment for man and horse. Yet not all men LOIS THE WITCH. 95 were received by Widow Smith. To some she could be as cold and reserved as need be, deaf to all inquiries save one—where else they could find accommodation? To this question she would give a ready answer, and speed the unwelcome guest on his way. Widow Smith was guided in these mat- ters by instinct; one glance at a man's face told her whether or not she chose to have him as an inmate of the same house as her daughters; and her prompt- ness of decision in these matters gave her manner a kind of authority which no one liked to disobey, especially as she had stalwart neighbors within call to back her, if her assumed deafness in the first in- stance, and her voice and gesture in the second, were not enough to give the would-be guest his dismissal. Widow Smith chose her customers merely by their physical aspect—not one whit with regard to their apparent worldly circumstances. Those who had been staying at her house once always came again, for she had the knack of making every one beneath her roof comfortable and at his ease. Her daugh- ters, Prudence and Hester, had somewhat of their mother's gifts, but not in such perfection. They reasoned a little upon a stranger's appearance, in- stead of knowing at the first moment whether they liked him or no; they noticed the indications of his clothes, the quality and cut thereof, as telling somewhat of his station in society; they were more reserved—they hesitated more than their mother; 96 LOIS THE WITCH. they had not her prompt authority, her happy pow- er. Their bread was not so light, their cream went sometimes to sleep when it should have been turn- ing into butter, their hams were not always "just like the hams of the Old Country," as their moth- er's were invariably pronounced to be; yet they were good, orderly, kindly girls, and rose and greet- ed Lois with a friendly shake of the hand, as their mother, with her arm round the stranger's waist, led her into the private room which she called her parlor. The aspect of this room was strange in the English girl's eyes. The logs of which the house was built showed here and there through the mud plaster, although before both plaster and logs were hung the skins of many curious animals—skins presented to the widow by many a trader of her acquaintance, just as her sailor guests brought her another description of gift—shells, strings of wam- pum beads, sea-birds' eggs, and presents from the Old Country. The room was more like a small museum of natural history of these days than a par- lor; and it had a strange, peculiar, but not unpleas- ant smell about it, neutralized in some degree by the smoke from the enormous trunk of pine wood which smouldered on the hearth. The instant their mother told them that Captain Holdernesse was in the outer room, the girls began putting away their spinning-wheel and knitting- needles, and preparing for a meal of some kind; LOIS THE WITCH. 97 what meal, Lois, sitting there and unconsciously watching, could hardly tell. First, dough was set to rise for cakes; then came out of a corner cup- board— a present from England—an enormous square bottle of a cordial called Golden Wasser; next, a mill for grinding chocolate—a rare unusual treat any where at that time; then a great Cheshire cheese. Three venison steaks were cut ready for broiling, fat cold pork sliced up and treacle poured over it, a great pie something like a mince-pie, but which the daughters spoke of with honor as the "punken-pie," fresh and salt fish brandered, oys- ters cooked in various ways. Lois wondered where would be the end of the provisions for hospitably receiving the strangers from the Old Country. At length every thing was placed on the table, the hot food smoking; but all was cool, not to say cold, before Elder Hawkins (an old neighbor of much repute and standing, who had been invited in by Widow Smith to hear the news) had finished his grace, into which was embodied thanksgivings for the past and prayers for the future lives of every individual present, adapted to their several cases, as far as the elder could guess at them from appear- ances. This grace might not have ended so soon as it did had it not been for the somewhat impa- tient drumming of his knife-handle on the table with which Captain Holdernesse accompanied the latter half of the elder's words. E 98 LOIS THE WITCH. When they first sat down to their meal, all were too hungry for much talking; but as their appe- tites diminished their curiosity increased, and there was much to be told and heard on both sides. With all the English intelligence Lois was, of course, well acquainted; but she listened with natural at- tention to all that was said about the new country, and the new people among whom she had come to live. Her father had been a Jacobite, as the ad- herents of the Stuarts were beginning at this time to be called; his father, again, had been a follower of Archbishop Laud; so Lois had hitherto heard little of the conversation, and seen little of the ways of the Puritans. Elder Hawkins was one of the strictest of the strict, and evidently his presence kept the two daughters of the house considerably in awe. But the widow herself was a privileged person; her known goodness of heart (the effects of which had been experienced by many) gave her the liberty of speech which was tacitly denied to many, under penalty of being esteemed ungodly if they infringed certain conventional limits; and Cap- tain Holdernesse and his mate spoke out their minds, let who would be present; so that on this first landing in New England, Lois was, as it were, gently let down into the midst of the Puritan pe- culiarities, and yet they were sufficient to make her feel very lonely and strange. The first subject of conversation was the present LOIS THE WITCH. ,99 state of the colony—Lois soon found out that, al- though at the beginning she was not a little per- plexed by the frequent reference to names of places which she naturally associated with the Old Coun- try. Widow Smith was speaking: "In county of Essex the folk are ordered to keep four scouts, or companies of minute-men—six persons in each company—to be on the look-out for the wild In- dians, who are forever stirring about in the woods, stealthy brutes as they are! I am sure I got such a fright the first harvest-time after I came over to New England, I go on dreaming, now near twenty years after Lothrop's business, of painted Indians, with their shaven scalps and their war-streaks, lurk- ing behind the trees, and coming nearer and nearer with their noiseless steps." "Yes," broke in one of her daughters; "and, mother, don't you remember how Hannah Benson told us how her husband had cut down every tree near his house at Deerbrook, in order that no one might come near him under cover; and how one evening she was a sitting in the twilight, when all her family were gone to bed, and her husband gone off to Plymouth on business, and she saw a log of wood, just like a trunk of a felled tree, lying in the shadow, and thought nothing of it till, on look- ing again a while after, she fancied it was come a bit nearer to the house, and how her heart turned sick with fright, and how she dared not stir at first, 100 LOIS THK WITCH. but shut her eyes while she counted a hundred,- and looked again, and the shadow was deeper, but she could see that the log was nearer; so she ran in and bolted the door, and went up to where her eldest lad lay? It was Elijah, and he was but six- teen then; but he rose up at his mother's words, and took his father's long duck-gun down, and he tried the loading, and spoke for the first time to put up a prayer that God would give his aim good guid- ance, and went to a window that gave a view upon the side where the log lay, and fired, and no one dared to look what came of it, but all the house- hold read the Scriptures, and prayed the whole night long, till morning came, and showed a long stream of blood lying on the grass close by the log, which the full sunlight showed to be no log at all, but just a red Indian covered with bark, and paint- ed most skillfully, with his war-knife by his side." All were breathless with listening, though to most the story, or such like it, were familiar. Then an- other took up the tale of horror: "And the pirates have been down at Marblehead since you were here, Captain Holdernesse. 'Twas only the last winter they landed—French papist pirates; and the people kept close within their houses, for they knew not what would come of it; and they dragged folk ashore. There was one wom- an among those folk—prisoners from some vessel, doubtless—and the pirates took them by force to LOIS THE WITCH. 101 the inland marsh; and the Marblehead folk kept still and quiet, every gun loaded, and every ear on the watch, for who knew but what the wild sea-rob- bers might take a turn on land next? and, in the dead of the night, they heard a woman's loud and pitiful outcry from the marsh, 'Lord Jesu, have mercy on me! Save me from the power of man, O Lord Jesu!' And the blood of all who heard the cry ran cold with terror, till old Nance Hickson, who had been stone-deaf and bedridden for years, stood up in the midst of the folk all gathered to- gether in her grandson's house, and said, that as they, the dwellers in Marblehead, had not had brave hearts or faith enough to go and succor the helpless, that cry of a dying woman should be in their ears, and in their children's ears, till the end of the world. And Nance dropped down dead as soon as she had made an end of speaking, and the pirates set sail from Marblehead at morning dawn; but the folk there hear the cry still, shrill and pitiful, from the waste marshes, 'Lord Jesu, have mercy on me! Save me from the power of man, O Lord Jesu!'" "And by token," said Elder Hawkins's deep bass voice, speaking with the. strong nasal twang of the Puritans (who, says Butler, "Blasphemed custard through the nose)," "godly Mr. Noyes ordained a fast at Marblehead, and preached a soul-stirring discourse on the words, 'Inasmuch as ye did it not unto one of the least of 102 LOIS THE WITCH. these my brethren, ye did it not unto me.' But it has been borne in upon me at times whether the whole vision of the pirates and the cry of the wom- an was not a device of Satan's to sift the Marblehead folk, and see what fruit their doctrine bore, and so to condemn them in the sight of the Lord. If it were so, the enemy had a great triumph, for assur- edly it was no part of Christian men to leave a help- less woman unaided in her sore distress." "But, elder," said Widow Smith, "it was no vi- sion; they were real living men who went ashore— men who broke down branches and left their foot- marks on the ground." "As for that matter, Satan hath many powers; and if it be the day when he is permitted to go about like a roaring Hon, he will not stick at trifles, but make his work complete. I tell you, many men are spiritual enemies in visible forms, permit- ted to roam about the waste places of the earth. I myself believe that these red Indians are indeed the evil creatures of whom we read in Holy Scripture, and there is no doubt that they are in league with those abominable papists, the French people in Can- ada. I have heard tell that the French pay the In- dians so much gold for every dozen scalps off En- glishmen's heads." "Pretty cheerful talk this," said Captain Holder- nesse to Lois, perceiving her blanched cheek and terror-stricken mien. "Thou art thinking that thou LOIS THE "WITCH. 103 hadst better have staid at Barford, I'll answer for it, wench. But the devil is not so black as he is painted." "Ho! there again!" said Elder Hawkins. "The devil is painted; it hath been said so from old times; and are not these Indians painted, even like unto their father?" "But is it all true?" asked Lois, aside, of Captain Holdernesse, letting the elder hold forth unheeded by her, though listened to, however, with the ut- most reverence by the two daughters of the house. "My wench," said the old sailor, "thou hast come to a country where there are many perils, both from land and from sea. The Indians hate the white men. "Whether other white men" (meaning the French away to the north) "have hounded on the savages, or whether the English have taken their lands and hunting-grounds without due recompense, and so raised the cruel vengeance of the wild crea- tures, who knows? But it is true that it is not safe to go far into the woods for fear of the lurking painted savages; nor has it been safe to build a dwelling far from a settlement; and it takes a brave heart to make a journey from one town to another; and folk do say the Indian creatures rise up out of the very ground to waylay the English; and then others affirm they are all in league with Satan to affright the Christians out of the heathen country over which he has reigned so long. Then, again, 104 LOIS THE WITCH. the sea-shore is infested by pirates, the scum of all nations: they land, and plunder, and ravage, and burn, and destroy. Folk get affrighted of the real dangers, and in their fright imagine, perchance, dan- gers that are not. But who knows? Holy Scrip- ture speaks of witches and wizards, and of the pow- er of the Evil One in desert places; and even in the Old Country we have heard tell of those who have sold their souls forever for the little power they got for a few years on earth." By this time the whole table was silent, listening to the captain; it was just one of those chance si- lences that sometimes occur, without any apparent reason, and often without any apparent consequence. But all present had reason, before many months had passed over, to remember the words which Lois spoke in answer, although her voice was low, and she only thought, in the interest of the moment, of being heard by her old friend the captain. "They are fearful creatures, the witches! and yet I am sorry for the poor old women, while I dread them. .We had one in Barford when I was a little child. No one knew whence she came, but she set- tled herself down in a mud hut by the common side, and there she lived, she and her cat." (At the mention of the cat, Elder Hawkins shook his head long and gloomily.) "No one knew how she lived, if it were not on nettles, and scraps of oatmealand such-like food given her more for fear than for pity. LOIS THE WITCH. 105 She went double, always talking and muttering to herself. Folk said she snared birds and rabbits in the thicket that came down to her hovel. How it came to pass I can not say, but many a one fell sick in the village, and much cattle died one spring, when I was near four years old. I never heard much about it, for my father said it was ill talking about such things; I only know I got a sick fright one afternoon, when the maid had gone out for milk and had taken me with her, and we were passing a meadow where the Avon, circling, makes a deep round pool, and there was a crowd of folk, all still —and a still, breathless crowd makes the heart beat worse than a shouting, noisy one. They were all gazing toward the water, and the maid held me up in her arms to see the sight above the shoulders of the people; and I saw old Hannah in the water, her gray hair all streaming down her shoulders, and her face bloody and black with the stones and the mud they had been throwing at her, and her cat tied round her neck. I hid my face, I know, as soon as I saw the fearsome sight, for her eyes met mine as they were glaring with fury—poor, help- less, baited creature!—and she caught the sight of me, and cried out,'Parson's wench, parson's wench, yonder, in thy nurse's arms, thy dad hath never tried for to save me, and none shall save thee when thou art brought up for a witch.' 'Oh! the words rang in my ears, when I was dropping asleep, for E2 106 LOIS THE WITCH. years after. I used to dream that I was in that pond, all men hating me with their eyes because I was a witch; and at times her black cat used to seem living again, and say over those dreadful words." Lois stopped; the two daughters looked at her excitement with a kind of shrinking surprise, for the tears were in her eyes. Elder Hawkins shook his head, and muttered texts from Scripture; but cheerful Widow Smith, not liking the gloomy turn of the conversation, tried to give it a lighter cast by saying, "And I don't doubt but what the parson's bonny lass has bewitched many a one since, with her dimples and her pleasant ways—eh, Captain Holdernesse? It's you must tell us tales of this young lass's doings in England." "Ay, ay," said the captain, "there's one under her charms in Warwickshire who will never get the better of it, I'm thinking." Elder Hawkins rose to speak; he stood leaning on his hands, which were placed on the table: "Breth- ren," said he, "I must upbraid you if ye speak light- ly; charms and witchcraft are evil things. I trust this maiden hath had nothing to do with them, even in thought. But my mind misgives me at her sto- ry. The hellish witch might have power from Sa- tan to infect her mind, she being yet a child, with the deadly sin. Instead of vain talking, I call upon you all to join with me in prayer for this stranger LOIS THE WITCH. 107 in our land, that her heart may be purged from all iniquity. Let us pray." "Come, there's no harm in that," said the cap- tain; "but, Elder Hawkins, when you are at work, just pray for us all, for I am afeard there be some of us need purging from iniquity a good deal more than Lois Barclay, and a prayer for a man never does mischief." Captain Holdernesse had business in Boston which detained him there for a couple of days, and during that time Lois remained with the Widow Smith, seeing what was to be seen of the new land that contained her future home. The letter of her dying mother was sent off to Salem, meanwhile, by a lad going thither, in order to prepare her uncle, Balph Hickson, for his niece's coming, as soon as Captain Holdernesse could find leisure to take her, for he considered her given into his own personal charge until he could consign her to her uncle's care. When the time came for going to Salem, Lois felt very sad at leaving the kindly woman un- der whose roof she had been staying, and looked back as long as she could see any thing of Widow Smith's dwelling. She was packed into a rough kind of country cart, which just held her and Cap- tain Holdernesse besides the driver. There was a basket of provisions under their feet, and behind them hung a bag of provender for the horse; for it was a good day's journey to Salem, and the road 108 LOIS THE WITCH. was reputed so dangerous that it was ill tarrying a minute longer than necessary for refreshment. English roads were bad enough at that period and for long after, but in America the way was simply the cleared ground of the forest, the stumps of the felled trees still remaining in the direct line, form- ing obstacles which it required the most careful driving to avoid; and in the hollows, where the ground was swampy, the pulpy nature of it was obviated by logs of wood laid across the boggy part. The deep green forest, tangled into heavy darkness even thus early in the year, came within a few yards of the road all the way, though efforts were regularly made by the inhabitants of the neighboring settlements to keep a certain space clear on each side, for fear of the lurking Indians, who might otherwise come upon them unawares. The cries of strange birds, the unwonted color of some of them, all suggested to the imaginative or unaccustomed traveler the idea of war-whoops and painted deadly enemies. But at last they drew near to Salem, which rivaled Boston in size in those days, and boasted the name of one or two streets, although to an English eye they looked rather more like irregularly-built houses, clustered round the meeting-house, or rather one of the meet- ing-houses, for a second was in process of building. The whole place was surrounded with two circles of stockades; between the two were the gardens LOIS THE WITCH. 109 and grazing ground for those who dreaded their cattle straying into the woods, and the consequent danger of reclaiming them. The lad who drove them flogged his spent horse into a trot as they went through Salem to Ealph Hickson's house. It was the evening, the leisure time for the inhabitants, and their children were at play before-the houses. Lois was struck by the beauty of one wee toddling child, and turned to look after it; it caught its little foot in a stump of wood, and fell with a cry that brought the mother out in affright. As she ran out, her eye caught Lois's anxious gaze, although the noise of the heavy wheels drowned the sound of her words of inquiry as to the nature of the hurt the child had received. Nor had Lois time to think long upon the matter, for the instant after the horse was pull- ed up at the door of a good, square, substantial wooden house, plastered over into a creamy white, perhaps as handsome a house as any in Salem, and there she was told by the driver that her uncle, Ealph Hickson, lived. In the flurry of the mo- ment she did not notice, but Captain Holdernesse did, that no one came out at the unwonted sound of wheels to receive and welcome her. She was lifted down by the old sailor, and led into a large room, almost like the hall of some English manor- house as to size. A tall, gaunt young man of three or four-and-twenty sat on a bench by one of the 110 LOIS THE WITCH. windows, reading a great folio by the fading light of day. He did not rise when they came in, but looked at them with surprise, no gleam of intelli- gence coming into his stern, dark face. There was no woman in the house-place. Captain Holdernesse paused a moment, and then said, "Is this house Ealph Hickson's?" "It is," said the young man, in a- slow, deep voice. But he added no word further. "This is his niece, Lois Barclay," said the cap- tain, taking the girl's arm, and pushing her for- ward. The young man looked at her steadily and gravely for a minute, then rose, and carefully mark- ing the page in the folio which hitherto had lain open upon his knee, said, still in the same heavy, indifferent manner, "I will call my mother; she will know." He opened a door which looked into a warm, bright kitchen, ruddy with the light of the fire over which three women were apparently engaged in cooking something, while a fourth, an old Indian woman, of a greenish-brown color, shriveled up and bent with apparent age, moved backward and forward, evidently fetching the others the articles they required. "Mother!" said the young man; and, having ar- rested her attention, he pointed over his shoulder to the newly-arrived strangers, and returned to the study of his book, from time to time, however, fur- LOIS THE WITCH. Ill tively examining Lois from beneath his dark, shag- gy eyebrows. A tall, largely-made woman, past middle life, came in from the kitchen, and stood reconnoitring the strangers. Captain Holdernesse spoke. "This is Lois Barclay, Master Ealph Hickson's niece." "I know nothing of her," said the mistress of the house, in a deep voice, almost as masculine as her son's. "Master Hickson received his sister's letter, did he not? I sent it off myself by a lad named Elias Wellcome, who left Boston for this place yester morning." "Ralph Hickson has received no such letter. He lies bedridden in the chamber beyond. Any letters for him must come through my hands; wherefore I can affirm with certainty that no such letter has been delivered here. His sister Barclay, she that was Henrietta Hickson, and whose hus- band took the oaths to Charles Stuart, and stuck by his living when all godly men left theirs—" Lois, who had thought her heart was dead and cold a minute before at the ungracious reception she had met with, felt words come up into her mouth at the implied insult to her father, and spoke out, to her own and the captain's astonishment: "They might be godly men who left their church- 112 LOIS THE WITCH. es on that day of which you speak, madam, but they alone were not the godly men, and no one has a right to limit true godliness for mere opinion's sake." "Well said, lass," spoke out the captain, looking round upon her with a kind of admiring wonder, and patting her on the back. Lois and her aunt gazed into each other's eyes unflinchingly for a minute or two of silence; but the girl felt her color coming and going, while the elder woman's never varied; and the eyes of the young maiden were filling fast with tears, while those of Grace Hickson kept on their stare, dry and unwavering. "Mother," said the young man, rising up with a quicker motion than any one had yet used in this house, "it is ill speaking of such matters when my cousin comes first among us. The Lord may give her grace hereafter, but she has traveled from Bos- ton city to-day, and she and this seafaring man must need rest and food." He did not attend to see the effect of his words, but sat down again, and seemed to be absorbed in his book in an instant. Perhaps he knew that his word was law with his grim mother, for he had hardly ceased speaking before she had pointed to a wooden settle, and, smoothing the lines on her countenance, she said, "What Manasseh says is true. Sit down here, while I bid Faith and Nattee get food ready, and meanwhile I will go tell my hus- LOIS THE WITCH. 113 band that one who calls herself his sister's child is come over to pay him a visit." She went to the door leading into the kitchen, and gave some directions to the elder girl, whom Lois now knew to be the daughter of the house. Faith stood impassive while her mother spoke, scarcely caring to look at the newly-arrived stran- gers. She was like her brother Manasseh in com- plexion, but had handsome features, and large, mys- terious-looking eyes, as Lois saw when once she lifted them up, and took in, as it were, the aspect of the sea-captain and her cousin with one swift, searching look. About the stiff, tall, angular moth- er, and the scarce less pliant figure of the daughter, a girl of twelve years old or thereabouts played all manner of impish antics, unheeded by them, as if it were her accustomed habit to peep about, now under their arms, now at this side, now at that, making grimaces all the while at Lois and Captain Holdernesse, who sat facing the door, weary, and somewhat disheartened by their reception. The captain pulled out tobacco, and began to chew it by way of consolation; but in a moment or two his usual elasticity of spirit came to his rescue, and he said in a low voice to Lois, "That scoundrel Elias, I will give it him! If the letter had but been delivered, thou wouldst have had a different kind of welcome; but as soon as I have had some victuals, I will go Out and find 114 LOIS THE "WITCH. the lad, and bring back the letter, and that will make all right, my wench. Nay, don't be down- hearted, for I can not stand women's tears. Thou'rt just worn out with the shaking and the want of food." Lois brushed away her tears, and, looking round to try and divert her thoughts by fixing them on present objects, she caught her cousin Manasseh's deep-set eyes furtively watching her. It was with no unfriendly gaze, yet it made Lois uncomforta- ble, particularly as he did not withdraw his looks after he must have seen that she observed him. She was glad when her aunt called her into an in- ner room to see her uncle, and she escaped from the steady observance of her gloomy, silent cousin. Ealph Hickson was much older than his wife, and his illness made him look older still. He had never had the force of character that Grace, his spouse, possessed, and age and sickness had now rendered him almost childish at times. But his na- ture was affectionate, and, stretching out his trem- bling arms from where he lay bedridden, he gave Lois an unhesitating welcome, never waiting for the confirmation of the missing letter before he ac- knowledged her to be his niece. "Oh! 'tis kind in thee to come all across the sea to make acquaintance with thine uncle—kind in Sister Barclay to spare thee!" Lois had to tell him that there was no one living s LOIS THE WITCH. 115 to miss her at home in England; that, in fact, she had no home in England, no father nor mother left upon earth; and that she had been bidden by her mother's last words to seek him out, and ask him for a home. Her words came up, half choked from a heavy heart, and his dulled wits could not take their meaning in without several repetitions; and then he cried like a child, rather at his own loss of a sister, whom he had not seen for more than twen- ty years, than at that of the orphan's standing be- fore him, trying hard not to cry, but to start brave- ly in this new strange home. What most of all helped Lois in her self-restraint was her aunt's un- sympathetic look. Born and bred in New England, Grace Hickson had a kind of jealous dislike to her husband's English relations, which had increased since of late years his weakened mind yearned after them, and he forgot the good reason he had had for his self-exile, and moaned over the decision which had led to it as the great mistake of his life. "Come," said she, "it strikes me that, in all this sorrow for the loss of one who died full of years, ye are forgetting in Whose hands life and death are!" True words, but ill-spoken at that time. Lois looked up at her with a scarcely disguised indigna- tion, which increased as she heard the contemptu- ous tone in which her aunt went on talking to Ealph Hickson, even while she was arranging his bed with a regard to his greater comfort. 116 LOIS THE WITCH. "One would think thou wert a godless man by the moan thou art always making over spilt milk; and truth is, thou art but childish in thine old age. When we were wed, thou left all things to the Lord; I would never have married thee else. Nay, lass," said she, catching the expression on Lois's face, "thou art never going to browbeat me with thine angry looks. I do my duty as I read it, and there is never a man in Salem that dare speak a word to Grace Hickson about either her works or her faith. Gpdly Mr. Cotton Mather hath said that even he might learn of me; and I would advise thee rather to humble thyself, and see if the Lord may not convert thee from thy ways, since he has sent thee to dwell, as it were, in Zion, where the precious dew falls daily on Aaron's beard." Lois felt ashamed and sorry to find that her aunt had so truly interpreted the momentary expression of her features; she blamed herself a little for the feeling that had caused that expression, trying to think how much her aunt might have been troub- led with something before the unexpected irrup- tion of the strangers, and again hoping that the remembrance of this little misunderstanding would soon pass away. So she endeavored to reassure herself, and not to give way to her uncle's tender, trembling pressure of her hand, as, at her aunt's bidding, she wished him good-night, and returned into the outer, or "keeping"-room, where all the LOIS THE WITCH. 117 family were now assembled, ready for the meal of flour cakes and venison steaks which Nattee, the Indian servant, was bringing in from the kitchen. No one seemed to have been speaking to Captain Holdernesse while Lois had been away. Manasseh sat quiet and silent where he did, with the book upon his knee, his eyes thoughtfully fixed on va- cancy, as if he saw a vision or dreamed dreams. Faith stood by the table, lazily directing Nattee in her preparations; and Prudence lolled against the door-frame, between kitchen and keeping-room, playing tricks on the old Indian woman as she passed backward and forward, till Nattee appeared to be in a strong state of expressed irritation, which she tried in vain to repress, as, whenever she show- ed any sign of it, Prudence only seemed excited to greater mischief. When all was ready, Manasseh lifted his right hand and "asked a blessing," as it was termed; but the grace became a long prayer for abstract spiritual blessings, for strength to com- bat Satan, and to quench his fiery darts, and at length assumed, so Lois thought, a purely personal character, as if the young man had forgotten the occasion, and even the people present, but was searching into the nature of the diseases that beset his own sick soul, and spreading them out before the Lord. He was brought back by a pluck at the coat from Prudence; he opened his shut eyes, cast an angry glance at the child, who made a face at 118 LOIS THE WITCH. him for sole reply, and then he sat down, and they all fell to. Grace Hickson would have thought her hospitality sadly at fault if she had allowed Captain Holdernesse to go out in search of a bed. Skins were spread for him on the floor of the keeping- room; a Bible, and a square bottle of spirits, were placed on the table, to supply his wants during the night; and, in spite of all the cares and troubles, temptations, or sins of the members of that house- hold, they were all asleep before the town clock struck ten. In the morning the captain's first care was to go out in search of the boy Elias and the missing let- ter. He met him bringing it with an easy con- science, for, thought Elias, a few hours sooner or later will make no difference—to-night or the mor- row morning will be all the same. But he was startled into a sense of wrong-doing by a sound box on the ear from the very man who had charged him to deliver it speedily, and whom he believed to be at that very moment in Boston city. The letter delivered, all possible proof being given that Lois had a right to claim a home from her near- est relations, Captain Holdernesse thought it best to take leave. "Thou'lt take to them, lass, maybe, when there is no one here to make thee think on the Old Coun- try. Nay, nay, parting is hard work at all times, and best get hard work done out of hand. Keep LOIS THE WITCH. 119 up thine heart, my wench, and I'll come back and see thee next spring, if we are all spared till then; and who knows what fine young miller mayn't come with me? Don't go and get wed to a pray- ing Puritan meanwhile. There, there—I'm off! God bless thee!" And Lois was left alone in New England. CHAPTEE II. It was hard up-hill work for Lois to win herself a place in this family. Her aunt was a woman of narrow, strong affections. Her love for her hus- band, if ever she had any, was burnt out and dead long ago. What she did for him she did from duty; but duty was not strong enough to restrain that lit- tle member, the tongue, and Lois's heart often bled at the continual flow of contemptuous reproof which Grace constantly addressed to her husband, even while she was sparing no pains or trouble to minis- ter to his bodily ease and comfort. It was more as a relief to herself that she spoke in this way than with any desire that her speeches should affect him, and he was too deadened by illness to feel hurt by them; or, it may be, the constant repetition of her sarcasms had made him indifferent; at any rate, so that he had his food and his state of bodily warmth attended to, he very seldom seemed to care much for any thing else. Even his first flow of affection 120 LOIS THE WITCH. toward Lois was soon exhausted; he cared for her because she arranged his pillows well and skillfully, and because she could prepare new and dainty kinds of food for his sick appetite, but no longer for her as his dead sister's child. Still he did care for her, and Lois was too glad of this little hoard of affec- tion to examine how or why it was given. To him she could give pleasure, but apparently to no one else in that household. Her aunt looked askance at her for many reasons: the first coming of Lois to Salem was inopportune; the expression of dis- approbation on her face on that evening still lin- gered and rankled in Grace's memory; early prej- udices, and feelings, and prepossessions of the En- glish girl were all on the side of what would now be called Church and State, what was then esteem- ed in that country a superstitious observance of the directions of a Popish rubric, and a servile regard for the family of an oppressing and irreligious king. Nor is it to be supposed that Lois did not feel, and feel acutely, the want of sympathy that all those with whom she was now living manifested toward the old hereditary loyalty (religious as well as po- litical loyalty) in which she had been brought up. With her aunt and Manasseh it was more than want of sympathy; it was positive, active antipathy to all the ideas Lois held most dear. The very al- lusion, however incidentally made, to the little old gray church at Barford, where her father had preach- LOIS THE WITCH. 121 ed so long; the occasional reference to the troubles in which her own country had been distracted when she left; and the adherence, in which she had been brought up, to the notion that the king could do no wrong, seemed to irritate Manasseh past endurance. He would get up from his reading, his constant em- ployment when at home, and walk angrily about the room after Lois had said any thing of this kind, muttering to himself; and once he had even stop- ped before her, and in a passionate tone bade her not talk so like a fool. Now this was very differ- ent to his mother's sarcastic, contemptuous way of treating all poor Lois's little loyal speeches. Grace would lead her on—at least she did at first, till ex- perience made Lois wiser—to express her thoughts on such subjects, till, just when the girl's heart was opening, her aunt would turn round upon her with some bitter sneer that roused all the evil feelings in Lois's disposition by its sting. Now Manasseh seemed, through all his anger, to be so really grieved by what he considered her error, that he went much nearer to convincing her that there might be two sides to a question, only this was a view that it ap- peared like treachery to her dead father's memory to entertain. Somehow Lois felt instinctively that Manasseh was really friendly toward her. He was little in the house; there was farming and some kind of mercantile business to be transacted by him, as real F 122 LOIS THE WITCH. head of the house; and, as the season drew on, he went shooting and hunting in the surrounding for- ests with a daring which caused his mother to warn and reprove him in private, although to her neigh- bors she boasted largely of her son's courage and disregard of danger. Lois did not often walk out for the mere sake of walking; there was generally some household errand to be transacted when any of the women of the family went abroad; but once or twice she had caught glimpses of the dreary, dark wood, hemming in the cleared land on all sides—the great wood, with its perpetual movement of branch and bough, and its solemn wail, that came into the very streets of Salem when certain winds blew, bearing the sound of the pine-trees clear upon the ears that had leisure to listen. And, from all accounts, this old forest, girdling round the settle- ment, was full of dreaded and mysterious beasts, and still more to be dreaded Indians, stealing in and out among the shadows, intent on bloody schemes against the Christian people — panther-streaked, shaven Indians, in league, by their own confession, as well as by the popular belief, with evil powers. Nattee, the old Indian servant, would occasion- ally make Lois's blood run cold as she, and Faith, and Prudence listened to the wild stories she told them of the wizards of her race. It was often in the kitchen, in the darkening evening, while some cooking process was going on, that the old Indian LOIS THE WITCH. 123 crone, sitting on her haunches by the bright red wood embers, which sent up no flame, but a lurid light, reversing the shadows of all the faces around, told her weird stories while they were awaiting the rising of the dough, perchance, out of which the household bread had to be made. There ran through these stories always a ghastly, unexpress- ed suggestion of some human sacrifice being need- ed to complete the success of any incantation to the Evil One; ■ and the poor old creature, herself be- lieving and shuddering as she narrated her tale in broken English, took a strange, unconscious pleas- ure in her power over her hearers—young girls of the oppressing race, which had brought her down into a state little differing from slavery, and re- duced her people to outcasts on the hunting-grounds which had belonged to her fathers. After such tales, it required no small effort on Lois's part to go out, at her aunt's command, into the common pasture round the town, and bring the cattle home at night. Who knew but what the double-headed snake might start up from each blackberry-bush—that wicked, cunning, accursed creature in the service of the Indian wizards, that had such power over all those white maidens who met the eyes placed at either end of his long, sinu- ous, creeping body, so that loathe him, loathe the Indian race as they would, off they must go into the forest to seek out some Indian man, and must 124 LOIS' THE WITCH. beg to be taken into his wigwam, abjuring faith and race forever? Or there were spells—so Nattee said—hidden about the ground by the wizards, which changed that person's nature who found them; so that, gentle and loving as they might have been before, thereafter they took no pleasure but in the cruel torments of others, and had a strange power given to them of causing such tor- ments at their will. Once Nattee, speaking low to Lois, who was alone with her in the kitchen, whis- pered out her terrified belief that such a spell had Prudence found; and when the Indian showed her arms to Lois, all pinched black and blue by the impish child, the English girl began to be afraid of her cousin as of one possessed. But it was not Nattee alone, nor young imaginative girls alone, that believed in these stories. We can afford to smile at them now; but our English ancestors en- tertained superstitions of much the same character at the same period, and with less excuse, as the cir- cumstances surrounding them were better known, and consequently more explicable by common sepse than the real mysteries of the deep, untrod- den forests of New England. The gravest divines not only believed stories similar to that of the dou- ble-headed serpent, and other tales of witchcraft, but they made such narrations the subjects of preaching and player; and as cowardice makes us all cruel, men who were blameless in many of the LOIS THE WITCH. 125 relations of life, and even praiseworthy in some, became, from superstition, cruel persecutors about this time, showing no mercy toward any one whom they believed to be in league with the Evil One. Faith was the person with whom the English girl was the most intimately associated in her un- cle's house. The two were about the same age, and certain household employments were shared be- tween them. They took it in turns to call in the cows, to make up the butter which had been churn- ed by Hosea, a stiff old out-door servant, in whom Grace Hickson placed great confidence; and each lassie had her great spinning-wheel for wool, and her lesser for flax, before a month had elapsed aft- er Lois's coming. Faith was a grave, silent per- son, never merry, sometimes very sad, though Lois was a long time in even guessing why. She would try in her sweet, simple fashion to cheer her cousin up, when the latter was depressed, by telling her old stories of English ways and life. Occasionally Faith seemed to care to listen, occasionally she did not heed one word, but dreamed on. Whether of the past or of the future, who could tell? Stern old ministers came in to pay their pastoral visits. On such occasions Grace Hickson would put on clean apron and clean cap, and make them more welcome than she was ever seen to do any one else, bringing out the best provisions of her store, and setting of all before them. Also the 126 LOIS THE WITCH. great Bible was brought forth, and Hosea and Nat- tee summoned from their work to listen while the minister read a chapter, and, as he read, expounded it at considerable length. After this all knelt, while he, standing, lifted up his right hand, and prayed for all possible combinations of Christian men, for all possible cases of spiritual need; and, lastly, taking the individuals before him, he would put up a very personal supplication for each, ac- cording to his notion of their wants. At first Lois wondered at the aptitude of one or two of his prayers of this description to the outward circum- stances of each case; but when she perceived that her aunt had usually a pretty long confidential conversation with the minister in the early part of his visit, she became aware that he received both his impressions and his knowledge through the me- dium of " that godly woman, Grace Hickson;" and I am afraid she paid less regard to the prayer "for the maiden from another land, who hath brought the errors of that land as a seed with her, even across the great ocean, and who is letting even now the little seeds shoot up into an evil tree, in which all unclean creatures may find shelter." "I like the prayers of our Church better," said Lois one day to Faith. "No clergyman in England can pray his own words, and therefore it is that he can not judge of others so as to fit his prayers to what he esteems to be their case, as Mr. Tappau did this morning." LOIS THE WITCH. 127 "I hate Mr. Tappau," said Faith, shortly, a pas- sionate flash of light coming out of her dark, heavy eyes. "Why so, cousin? It seems to me as if he were a good man, although I like not his prayers." Faith only repeated her words, "I hate him." Lois was sorry for this strong bad feeling—in- stinctively sorry, for she was loving herself, delight- ed in being loved, and felt a jar run through her at every sign of want of love in others. But she did not know what to say, and was silent at the time. Faith, too, went on turning her wheel with vehe- mence, but spoke never a word until her thread snapped, and then she pushed the wheel away has- tily and left the room. Then Prudence crept softly up to Lois's side. This strange child seemed to be tossed about by varying moods: to-day she was caressing and com- municative, to-morrow she might be deceitful, mock- ing, and so indifferent to the pain or sorrows of others that you could call her almost inhuman. "So thou dost not like Pastor Tappau's pray- ers?" she whispered. Lois was sorry to have been overheard, but she neither would nor could take back her words. - "I like them not so well as the prayers I used to hear at home." "Mother says thy home was with the ungodly. Nay, don't look at me so; it was not I that said it. 128 LOIS THE WITCH. I'm none so fond of praying myself, nor of Pastor Tappan for that matter. But Faith can not abide him, and I know why. Shall I tell thee, Cousin Lois?" "No; Faith did not tell me, and she was the right person to give her own reasons." "Ask her where young Mr. Nolan is gone to, and thou wilt hear. I have seen Faith cry by the hour together about Mr. Nolan." "Hush, child, hush!" said Lois, for she heard Faith's approaching step, and feared lest she should overhear what they were saying. The truth was, that a year or two before there had been a great struggle in Salem village, a great division in the religious body, and Pastor Tappau had been the leader of the more violent, and, ulti- mately, the successful party. In consequence of this, the less popular minister, Mr. Nolan, had had to leave the place, and him Faith Hickson loved with all the strength of her passionate heart, al- though he never was aware of the attachment he had excited, and her own family were too regard- less of manifestations of mere feeling to ever ob- serve the signs of any emotion on her part. But the old Indian servant Nattee saw and observed them all. She knew, as well as if she had been told the reason, why Faith had lost all care about father or mother, brother and sister, about house- hold work and daily occupation, nay, about the LOIS THE WITCH. 129 observances of religion as well. Nattee read the meaning of the deep smouldering of Faith's dislike to Pastor Tappau aright; the Indian woman under- stood why the girl (whom alone of all the white people she loved) avoided the old minister—would hide in the wood-stack sooner than be called in to listen to his exhortations and prayers. With sav- age, untutored people, it is not "Love me, love my dog;" they are often jealous of the creature be- loved; but it is, " Whom thou hatest I will hate;" and Nattee's feeling toward Pastor Tappau was even an exaggeration of the mute, unspoken hatred of Faith. For a long time the cause of her cousin's dislike and avoidance of the minister was a mystery to Lois; but the name of Nolan remained in her mem- ory whether she would or no, and it was more from girlish interest in a suspected love affair than from any indifferent and heartless curiosity that she could. not help piecing together little speeches and actions, with Faith's interest in the absent banished minis- ter, for an explanatory clew, till not a doubt re- mained in her mind; and this without any farther communication with Prudence, for Lois declined hearing any more on the subject from her, and so gave deep offense. Faith grew sadder and duller as the autumn drew on. She lost her appetite, her brown com- plexion became sallow and colorless, her dark eyes F2 130 LOIS THE WITCH. looked hollow and wild. The first of November was near at hand; Lois, in her instinctive, well-in- tentioned efforts to bring some life and cheerfulness into the monotonous household, had been telling Faith of many English customs, silly enough, no doubt, and which scarcely lighted up a flicker of interest in the American girl's mind. The cousins were lying awake in their bed in the great unplas- tered room, which was in part store-room, in part bedroom. Lois was full of sympathy for Faith that night, for long she had listened to her cousin's heavy, irrepressible sighs in silence. Faith sighed because her grief was of too old a date for violent emotion or crying. Lois listened without speaking in the dark, quiet night hours, for a long, long time. She kept quite still, because she thought such vent for sorrow might relieve her cousin's weary heart. But when at length, instead of lying motionless, Faith seemed to be growing restless even to con- vulsive motions of her limbs, Lois began to speak, to talk about England, and the dear old ways at home, without exciting much attention on Faith's part, until at length she fell upon the subject of Hallow-e'en, and told about customs then and long afterward practiced in England, and that have scarce- ly yet died out in Scotland. As she told of tricks sue had often played, of the apple eaten facing a mirror, of the dripping sheet, of the basins of water, the nuts burning side by side, and many other LOIS THE WITCH. 131 such innocent ways of divination, by which laugh- ing, trembling English maidens sought to see the form of their future husbands, if husbands they were to have, then Faith listened breathlessly, ask- ing short, eager questions, as if some ray of hope had entered into her gloomy heart. Lois went on speaking, telling her of all the stories that would confirm the truth of the second sight vouchsafed to all seekers in the accustomed methods, half believ- ing, half incredulous herself, but desiring, above all things, to cheer up poor Faith. Suddenly Prudence rose up from her truckle-bed in the dim corner of the room. They had not thought that she was awake, but she had been list- ening long. l "CoUsin Lois may go out and meet Satan by the brook side if she will, but if thou goest, Faith, I will tell mother—ay, and I will tell Pastor Tappau too. Hold thy stories, Cousin Lois; I am afeard of my very life. I would rather never be wed at all than feel the touch of the creature that would take the apple out of my hand as I held it over my left shoulder." The excited girl gave a loud scream of terror at the image her fancy had conjured up. Faith and Lois sprang out toward her, flying across the moonlit room in their white night-gowns. At the same instant, summoned by the same cry, Grace Hickson came to her child. "Hush! hush!" said Faith, authoritatively. 132 LOIS THE WITCH. "What is it, my wench?" asked Grace. While Lois, feeling as if she had done all the mischief, kept silence. "Take her away! take heB away!" screamed Pru- dence. "Look over her shoulder—her left shoul- der—the Evil One is there now; I see him stretch- ing over for the half-bitten apple." . "What is this she says?" said Grace, austerely. "She is dreaming," said Faith; "Prudence, hold thy tongue." And she pinched the child severely, while Lois more tenderly tried to soothe the alarms she felt assured that she had conjured up. "Be quiet, Prudence," said she, "and go to sleep. I will stay by thee until thou hast gone off into slumber." "No, no! go away," sobbed Prudence, who was really terrified at first, but was now assuming more alarm than she felt, from the pleasure she received at perceiving herself the centre of attention. "Faith shall stay by me, not you, wicked English witch!" So Faith sat by her sister, and Grace, displeased and perplexed, withdrew to her own bed, purpos- ing to inquire more into the matter in the morning. Lois only hoped it might all be forgotten by that time, and resolved never to talk again of such things. But an event happened in the remaining hours of the night to change the current of affairs. While Grace had been absent from her room, her husband had had another paralytic stroke: wheth' LOIS THE WITCH. 133 er he too had been alarmed by that eldritch scream no one could ever know. By the faint light of the rush candle burning at the bedside, his wife per- ceived that a great change had taken place in his aspect on her return: the irregular breathing came almost like snorts—the end was drawing near. The family were roused, and all help given that either the doctor or experience could suggest. But before the late November morning light all was ended for Balph Hickson. The whole of the ensuing day they sat or moved in darkened rooms, and spoke few words, and those below their breath. Manasseh kept at home, re- gretting his father, no doubt, but showing little emotion. Faith was the child that bewailed her loss most grievously; she had a warm heart, hid- den away somewhere under her moody exterior, and her father had shown her far more passive kindness than ever her mother had done, for Grace made distinct favorites of Manasseh, her only son, and Prudence, her youngest child. Lois was about as unhappy as any of them, for she had felt strong- ly drawn toward her uncle as her- kindest friend, and the sense of his loss renewed the old sorrow she had experienced at her own parents' death. But she had no time and no place to cry in. On her devolved many of the cares, which it would have seemed indecorous in the nearer relatives to interest themselves in enough to take an active 134 LOIS THE WITCH. part: the change required in their dress, the house- hold preparations for the sad feast of the funeral— Lois had to arrange all under her aunt's stern direc- tion. But a day or two afterward—the last day before the funeral—she went into the yard to fetch in some fagots for the oven; it was a solemn, beauti- ful, starlit evening, and some sudden sense of deso- lation in the midst of the vast universe thus reveal- ed touched Lois's heart, and she sat down behind the wood-stack, and cried very plentiful tears. She was startled by Manasseh, who suddenly turned the corner of the stack, and stood before her. "Lois crying!" "Only a little," she said, rising up, and gathering her bundle of fagots, for she dreaded being ques- tioned by her grim, impassive cousin. To her sur- prise, he laid his hand on her arm, and said, "Stay one minute. Why art thou crying, cous- in?" "I don't know," she said, just like a child ques- tioned in like manner; and she was again on the point of weeping. "My father was very kind to thee, Lois; I do not wonder that thou grievest after him. But the Lord who taketh away .can restore tenfold. I will be as kind as my father—yea, kinder. This is not a time to talk of marriage and giving in marriage. LOIS THE WITCH. 135 But after we have buried our dead I wish to speak to thee." Lois did not cry now, but she shrank with af- fright. What did her cousin mean? She would far rather that he had been angry with her for un- reasonable grieving, for folly. She avoided him carefully—as carefully as she could, without seeming to dread him—for the next few days. Sometimes she thought it must have been a bad dream; for if there had been no English lover in the case, no other man in the whole world, she could never have thought of Manasseh as her husband; indeed, till now, there had been nothing in his words or actions to suggest such an idea. Now it had been suggested, there was no telling how much she loathed him. He might be good and pious—he doubtless was; but his dark fixed eyes, moving so slowly and heavily, his lank black hair, his gray coarse skin, all made her dislike him now—all his personal ugliness and ungainliness struck on her senses with a jar since those few words spoken behind the wood-stack. She knew that sooner or later the time must come for farther discussion of this subject; but, like a coward, she tried to put it off by clinging to her aunt's apron-string, for she was sure that Grace Hickson had far different views for her only son; as, indeed, she had, for she was an ambitious as well as a religious woman; and by an early purchase of 136 LOIS THE WITCH. land in Salem village, the Hicksons had become wealthy people, without any great exertions of their own; partly, also, by the silent process of ac- cumulation, for they had never cared to change their manner of living from the time when it had been suitable to a far smaller income than that which they at present enjoyed. So much for world- ly circumstances. As for their worldly character, it stood as high. No one could say a word against any of their habits or actions. The righteousness and godliness was patent to every one's eyes. So Grace Hickson thought herself entitled to pick and choose among the maidens before she should meet with one fitted to be Manasseh's wife. None in Sa- lem came up to her imaginary standard. She had it in her mind even at this very time—so soon aft- er her husband's death—to go to Boston, and take counsel with the leading ministers there, with wor- thy Mr. Cotton Mather at their head, and see if they could tell her of a well-favored and godly young maiden in their congregations worthy of being the wife of her son. But, besides good looks and god- liness, the wench must have good birth and good wealth, or Grace Hickson would have put her con- temptuously on one side. When once this paragon was found, and the ministers had approved, Grace anticipated no difficulty on her son's part. So Lois was right in feeling that her aunt would dislike any speech of marriage between Manasseh and herself. LOIS THE WITCH. 137 But the girl was brought to bay one day in this . wise. Manasseh had ridden forth on some busi- ness, which every one said would occupy him the whole day; but, meeting the man with whom he had to transact his affairs, he returned earlier than any one expected. He missed Lois from the keep- ing-room where his sisters were spinning almost immediately. His mother sat by at her knitting; he could see Nattee in the kitchen through the open door. He was too reserved to ask where Lois was, but he quietly sought till he found her— in the great loft, already piled with winter stores of fruit and vegetables. Her aunt had sent her there to examine the apples one by one, and pick out such as were unsound for immediate use. She was stooping down, and intent upon this work, and was hardly aware of his approach until she lifted up her head and saw him standing close before her. She dropped the apple she was holding, went a lit- tle paler than her wont, and faced him in silence. "Lois," he said, "thou rememberest the words that I spoke while we yet mourned over my father. I think that I am called to marriage now, as the head of this household; and I have seen no maiden so pleasant in my sight as thou art, Lois." He tried to take her hand; but she put it behind her with a childish shake of her head, and, half crying, said, "Please, Cousin Manasseh, do not say this to me. I dare say you ought to be married, being the head 138 LOIS THE WITCH. of the household now, but I don't want to be mar- ried. I would rather not." "That is well spoken," replied he, frowning a little, nevertheless. "I should not like to take to wife an over-forward maiden, ready to jump at wed- lock. Besides, the congregation might talk if we were to be married too soon after my father's death. We have, perchance, said enough, even now. But I wished thee to have thy mind set at ease as to thy future well-doing. Thou wilt have leisure to think of it, and to bring thy mind more fully round to it." Again he held out his hand. This time she took hold of it with a free, frank gesture. "I owe you somewhat for your kindness to me ever since I came, Cousin Manasseh, and I have no way of paying you but by telling you truly I can love you as a dear friend, if you will let me, but never as a wife." He flung her hand away, but did not take his eyes off her face, though the glance was lowering and gloomy. He muttered something which she did not quite hear, and so she went on bravely, al- though she kept trembling a little, and had much ado to keep from crying. "Please let me tell you all. There was a young man in Barford—nay, Manasseh, I can not speak if you are so angry; it is hard work to tell you any how—he said that he wanted to marry me; but I was poor, and his father would have none of it, and LOIS THE WITCH. 139 I do not want to marry any one; but if I did, it would be—" Her voice dropped, and her blushes told the rest. Manasseh stood looking at her with sullen, hollow eyes, that had a gathering touch of wildness in them, and then he said, "It is borne in upon me—verily I see it as in a vision—that thou must be my spouse, and no other man's. Thou canst not escape what is foredoomed. Months ago, when I set myself to read the old god- ly books in which my soul used to delight until thy coming, I saw no letters of printers' ink marked on the page, but I saw a gold and ruddy type of some unknown language, the meaning whereof was whis- pered into my soul; it was, 'Marry Lois! marry Lois!' And when my father died, I knew it was the beginning of the end. It is the Lord's will, Lois, and thou canst not escape from it." And again he would have taken her hand and drawn her toward him. But this time she eluded him with ready movement. "I do not acknowledge it to be the Lord's will, Manasseh," said she. "It is not' borne in upon me,' as you Puritans call it, that I am to be your wife. I am none so set upon wedlock as to take you, even though there be no other chance for me; for I do not care for you as I ought to care for my hus- band; but I could have cared for you very much as a cousin—as a kind cousin." She stopped speaking; she could not choose the 140 LOIS THE WITCH. right words with which to speak to him of her grat- itude and friendliness, which yet could never be any feeling nearer and dearer, no more than two paral- lel lines can ever meet. But he was so convinced by what he considered the spirit of prophecy that Lois was to be his wife, that he felt rather more indignant at what he con- sidered to be her resistance to the preordained de- cree than really anxious as to the result. Again he tried to convince her that neither he nor she had any choice in the matter by saying, "The voice said unto me, 'Marry Lois,' and I said, 'I will, Lord.'" "But," Lois replied, "the voice, as'you call it, has never spoken such a word to me." "Lois," he answered, solemnly, "it will speak. And then wilt thou obey, even as Samuel did?" "No; indeed I can not," she answered, briskly. "I may take a dream to be truth, and hear my own fancies if I think about them too long, but I can not marry any one from obedience." "Lois, Lois, thou art as yet unregenerate; but I have seen thee in a vision as one of the elect, robed in white. As yet thy faith is too weak for thee to obey meekly, but it shall not always be so. I will pray that thou mayest see thy preordained course. Meanwhile, I will smooth away all worldly obsta- cles." "Cousin Manasseh!' Cousin Manasseh!" cried LOIS THE WITCH. 141 Lois after him, as he was leaving the room, "come back. I can not put it in strong enough words. Manasseh, there is no power in heaven or earth that can make me love thee enough to marry thee, or to wed thee without such love. And this I say sol- emnly, because it is better that this should end at once." For a moment he was staggered; then he lifted up his hands and said, "God forgive thee thy blasphemy! Eemember Ilazael, who said, 'Is thy servant a dog, that he should do this great thing?' and went straight and did it, because his evil courses were fixed and ap- pointed for him from before the foundation of the world. And shall not thy paths be laid out among the godly, as it hath been foretold to me?" He went away, and for a minute or two Lois felt as if his words must come true, and that, struggle as she would, hate her doom as she would, she must become his wife; and, under the circumstances, many a girl would have succumbed to her apparent fate. Isolated from all previous connections, hear- ing no word from England, living in the heavy, monotonous routine of a family with one man for head, and this man esteemed a hero by most of those around him, simply because he was the only man in the family—these facts alone would have formed strong presumptions that most girls would have yielded to the offers of such a one. But, be- 142 LOIS THE WITCH. sides this, there was much to tell upon the imagina- tion in those days, in that place and time. It was prevalently believed that there were manifestations of spiritual influence—of the direct influence both of good and bad spirits—constantly to be perceived in the course of men's lives. Lots were drawn as guidance from the Lord; the Bible was opened, and the leaves allowed to fall apart, and the first text the eye fell upon was supposed to be appointed from above as a direction. Sounds were heard that could not be accounted for; they were made by the evil spirits not yet banished from the desert places of which they had so long held possession. Sights, inexplicable and mysterious, were dimly seen—Sa- tan in some shape, seeking whom he might devour. And at the beginning of the long winter season, such whispered tales, such old temptations, and hauntings, and devilish terrors, were supposed to be peculiarly rife. Salem was, as it were, snowed up, and left to prey upon itself. The long dark evenings, the dimly-lighted rooms, the creaking pas- sages, where heterogeneous articles were piled away out of reach of the keen-piercing frost, and where oc- casionally, in the dead of night, a sound was heard, as of some heavy falling body, when, next morning, every thing appeared to be in its right place—so ac- customed are we to measure noises by comparison with themselves, and not with the absolute stillness of the night-season—the white mist, coming nearer LOIS THE WITCH. 143 and nearer to the windows every evening in strange shapes, like phantoms—all these, and many other circumstances, such as the distant fall of mighty trees in the mysterious forests girdling them round, the faint whoop and cry of some Indian seeking his camp, and unwittingly nearer to the white men's settlement than either he or they would have liked could they have chosen, the hungry yells of the wild beasts approaching the cattle-pens—these were the things which made that winter life in Salem, in the memorable time of 1691-2, seem strange, and haunted, and terrific to many—peculiarly weird and awful to the English girl in her first year's sojourn in America. And now imagine Lois worked upon perpetually by Manasseh's conviction that it was decreed that she should be his wife, and you will see that she was not without courage and spirit to resist as she did, steadily, firmly, and yet sweetly. Take one in- stance out of many, when her nerves were subjected to a shock, slight in relation, it is true, but then re- member that she had been all day, and for many days, shut up within doors, in a dull light, that at midday was almost dark with a long-continued snow- storm. Evening was coming on, and the wood fire was more cheerful than any of the human beings surrounding it; the monotonous whirr of the small- er spinning-wheels had been going on all day, and the store of flax down stairs was nearly exhausted, 144 LOIS THE WITCH. when Grace Hickson bade Lois fetch down some more from the store-room before the light so entire- ly waned away that it could not be found without a candle, and a candle it would be dangerous to carry into that apartment, full of combustible materials, especially at this time of hard frost, when every drop of water was locked up and bound in icy hard- ness. So Lois went, half shrinking from the long passage that led to the stairs leading up into the store-room, for it was in this passage that the strange night-sounds were heard, which every one had be- gun to notice, and speak about in lowered tones. She sang, however, as she went, "to keep her cour- age up"—sang, however, in a subdued voice, the evening hymn she had so often sung in Barford church— "Glory to thee, my God, this night"— and so it was, I suppose, that she never heard the breathing or motion of any creature near her till, just as she was loading herself with flax to carry down, she heard some one—it was Manasseh—say close to her ear, "Has the voice spoken yet? Speak, Lois. Has the voice spoken yet to thee, that speaketh to me day and night, ' Marry Lois ?'" She started and turned a little sick, but spoke al- most directly in a brave, clear manner, "No, Cousin Manasseh, and it never will." "Then I must wait yet longer," he replied, hoarse- LOIS THE WITCH. 145 ly, as if to himself. "But all submission—all sub- mission." At last a break came upon the monotony of the long, dark winter. The parishioners once more raised the discussion whether—the parish extend- ing as it did—it was not absolutely necessary for Pastor Tappau to have help. This question had been mooted once before; and then Pastor Tappau had acquiesced in the necessity, and all had gone on smoothly for some months after the appointment of his assistant, until a feeling had sprung up on the part of the elder minister, which might have been called jealousy of the younger, if so godly a man as Pastor Tappau could have been supposed to entertain so evil a passion. However that might be,, two parties were speedily formed, the younger and more ardent being in favor of Mr. Nolan, the elder and more persistent—and, at the same time, the more numerous—clinging to the old, gray-head- ed, dogmatic Mr. Tappau, who had married them, baptized their children, and was to them literally as a " pillar of the church." So Mr. Nolan left Sa- lem, carrying away with him, possibly, more hearts than that of Faith Hickson's; but certainly she had never been the same creature since. But now—Christmas, 1691—one or two of the older members of the congregation being dead, and some who were younger men having come to settle in Salem—Mr. Tappau being also older, and, some G 146 LOIS THE WITCH. charitably supposed, wiser—a fresh effort had been made, and Mr. Nolan was returning to labor in ground apparently smoothed over. Lois had taken a keen interest in all the proceedings for Faith's sake—far more than the latter did for herself, any spectator would have said. Faith's wheel never went faster or slower, her thread never broke, her color never came, her eyes were never uplifted with sudden interest all the time these discussions re- specting Mr. Nolan's return were going on. But Lois, after the hint given by Prudence, had found a clew to many a sigh and look of despairing sor- row, even without the help of Nattee's improvised songs, in which, under strange allegories, the help- less love of her favorite was told to ears heedless of all meaning except those of the tender-hearted and sympathetic Lois. Occasionally she heard a strange chant of the old Indian woman's—half in her own language, half in broken English—droned over some simmering pipkin, from which the smell was, to say the least, unearthly. Once, on perceiv- ing this odor in the keeping-room, Grace Hickson suddenly exclaimed, "Nattee is at her heathen ways again; we shall have some mischief unless she is stayed." But Faith, moving quicker than ordinary, said something about putting a stop to it, and so fore- stalled her mother's evident intention of going into the kitchen. Faith shut the door between the two LOIS THE WITCH. 147 rooms, and entered upon some remonstrance with Nattee; but no one could hear the words used. Faith and Nattee seemed more bound together by love and common interest than any other two among the self-contained individuals comprising this household. Lois sometimes felt as if her pres- ence as a third interrupted some confidential talk between her cousin and the old servant. And yet she was fond of Faith, and could almost think that Faith liked her more than she did either mother, brother, or sister; for the first two were indifferent as to any unspoken feelings, while Prudence de- lighted in discovering them only to make an amuse- ment to herself out of them. One day Lois was sitting by herself at her sewing- table, while Faith and Nattee were holding one of the secret conclaves from which Lois felt herself to be tacitly excluded, when the outer door opened, and a tall, pale young man, in the strict professional habit of a minister, entered. Lois sprang up with a smile and a look of welcome for Faith's sake, for this must be the Mr. Nolan whose name had been on the tongue of every one for days, and who was, as Lois knew, expected to arrive the day before. He seemed half surprised at the glad alacrity with which he was received by this stranger; pos- sibly he had not heard of the English girl, who was an inmate in the house where formerly he had seen only grave, solemn, rigid, or heavy faces, and had 148 LOIS THE WITCH. been received with a stiff form of welcome, very different from the blushing, smiling, dimpled looks that innocently met him with the greeting almost of an old acquaintance. Lois, having placed a chair for him, hastened out to call Faith, never doubting but that the feeling which her cousin entertained for the young pastor was mutual, although it might be unrecognized in its full depth by either. "Faith," said she, bright and breathless, "guess— No," checking herself to an assumed unconscious- ness of any particular importance likely to be af- fixed to her words, "Mr. Nolan, the new pastor, is in the keeping-room. He has asked for my aunt and Manasseh. My aunt is gone to the prayer- meeting at Pastor Tappau's, and Manasseh is away." Lois went on speaking to give Faith time, for the girl had become deadly white at the intelligence, . while, at the same time, her eyes met the keen, cun- ning eyes of the old Indian with a peculiar look of half-wondering awe, while Nattee's looks expressed triumphant satisfaction. "Go," said Lois, smoothing Faith's hair, and kiss- ing the white, cold cheek, "or he will wonder why no one comes to see him, and perhaps think he is not welcome." Faith went without another word into the keeping-room, and shut the door of com- munication. Nattee and Lois were left together. Lois felt as happy as if some piece of good fortune had befallen herself. For the time, her growing LOIS THE WITCH. 149 dread of Manasseh's wild, ominous persistence in his suit, her aunt's coldness, her own loneliness, were all forgotten, and she could almost have danced with joy. Nattee laughed aloud, and talked and chuckled to herself: "Old Indian woman great mystery. Old Indian woman sent hither and thither; go where she is told, where she hears with her ears. But old Indian woman"—and here she drew herself up, and the expression of her face quite changed— "know how to call, and then white man must come; and old Indian have spoken never a word, and white man have hear nothing with his ears." So the old crone muttered. All this time things were going on very differ- ently in the keeping-room to what Lois imagined. Faith sat stiller even than usual, her eyes downcast, her words few. A quick observer might have no- ticed a certain tremulousness about her hands, and an occasional twitching throughout all her frame. But Pastor Nolan was not a keen observer upon this occasion; he was absorbed with his own little wonders and perplexities. His wonder was that of a carnal man—who that pretty stranger might be, who had seemed, on his first coming, so glad to see him, but had vanished instantly, apparently not to reappear. And, indeed, I am not sure if his per- plexity was not that of a carnal man rather than that of a godly minister, for this was his dilemma. It was the custom of Salem (as we have already 150 LOIS THE WITCH. seen) for the minister, on entering a household for the visit which, among other people and in other times, would have been termed "a morning call," to put up a prayer for the eternal welfare of the family under whose roof-tree he was. Now this prayer was expected to be adapted to the individ- ual character, joys, sorrows, wants, and failings of every member present; and here was he, a young pastor, alone with a young woman, and he thought —vain thoughts, perhaps, but still very natural— that the implied guesses at her character involved in the minute supplications above described would be very awkward in a tete-a-t£te prayer; so, wheth- er it was his wonder or his perplexity, I do not know, but he did not contribute much to the con- versation for some time, and at last, by a sudden burst of courage and impromptu hit, he cut the Gordian knot by making the usual proposal for prayer, and adding to it a request that the house- hold might be summoned. In came Lois, quiet and decorous; in came Nattee, all one impassive, stiff piece of wood—no look of intelligence or trace of giggling near her countenance. Solemnly recalling each wandering thought, Pastor Nolan knelt in the midst of these three to pray. He was a good and truly religious man, whose name here is the only thing disguised, and played his part bravely in the awful trial to which he was afterward subjected; and if at the time, before he went through his fiery LOIS THE WITCH. 151 persecutions, the human fancies which beset all young hearts came across his, we at this day know that these fancies are no sin. But now he prays in earnest—prays so heartily for himself, with such a sense of his own spiritual need and spiritual failings, that each one of his hearers feels as if a prayer and a supplication had gone up for each of them. Even Nattee muttered the few words she knew of the Lord's Prayer; gibberish though the disjointed nouns and verbs might be, the poor creature said them because she was stirred to unwonted reverence. As for Lois, she rose up comforted and strengthen- ed, as no special prayers of Pastor Tappau had ever made her feel. But Faith was sobbing—sobbing aloud, almost hysterically, and made no effort to rise, but lay on her outstretched arms spread out upon the settle. Lois and Pastor Nolan looked at each other for an instant. Then Lois said: "Sir, you must go. My cousin has not been strong for some time, and doubtless she needs more quiet than she has had to-day." Pastor Nolan bowed and left the house, but in a moment he returned. Half opening the door, but without entering, he said, "I come back to ask if perchance I may call this evening to inquire how young Mistress Hickson finds herself?" But Faith did not hear this; she was sobbing louder than ever. 152 LOIS THE WITCH. "Why did you send him away, Lois? I should have been better directly, and it is so long since I have seen him." She had her face hidden as she uttered these words, and Lois could not hear them distinctly. She bent her head down by her cousin's on the set- tle, meaning to ask her to repeat what she had said. But in the irritation of the moment, and prompted possibly by some incipient jealousy, Faith pushed Lois away so violently that the latter was hurt against the hard, sharp corner of the wooden settle. Tears came into her eyes, not so much because her cheek was bruised, as because of the surprised pain she felt at this repulse from the cousin toward whom she was feeling so warmly and kindly. Just for the moment Lois was as angry as any child could have been; but some of the words of Pastor Nolan's prayer yet rang in her ears, and she thought it would be a shame if she did not let them sink into her heart. She dared not, however, stoop again to caress Faith, but stood quietly by her, sorrowfully waiting, until a step at the outer door caused Faith to rise quickly and rush into the kitchen, leaving Lois to bear the brunt of the new-comer. It was Manasseh, returned from hunting. He had been two days away, in company with other young men belonging to Salem. It was almost the only occu- pation which could draw him out of his secluded habits. He stopped suddenly at the door on seeing LOIS THE WITCH. 153 Lois, and alone, for she had avoided him of late in every possible way. "Where is my mother?" "At a prayer-meeting at Pastor Tappau's. She has taken Prudence. Faith has left the room this minute. I will call her." And Lois was going to- ward the kitchen, when he placed himself between her and the door. "Lois," said he, "the time is going by, and I can not wait much longer. The visions come thick upon me, and my sight grows clearer and clearer. Only this last night, camping out in the woods, I saw in my soul, between sleeping and waking, the spirit come and offer thee two lots, and the color of the one was white, like a bride's, and the other was black and red, which is, being interpreted, a violent death. And when thou didst choose the latter the spirit said unto me,'Come!' and I came, and did as I was bidden. I put it on thee with mine own hands, as it is preordained, if thou wilt not hearken unto the voice and be my wife. And when the black and red dress fell to the ground, thou wert even as a corpse three days old. Now be ad- vised, Lois, in time. Lois, my cousin, I have seen it in a vision, and my soul cleaveth unto thee—I would fain spare thee." He was really in earnest—in passionate earnest; whatever his visions, as he called them, might be, he believed in them, and this belief gave something of G2 154 LOIS THE WITCH. unselfishness to his love for Lois. This she felt at this moment, if she had never done so before, and it seemed like a contrast to the repulse she had just met with from his sister. He had drawn near her, but now he took hold of her hand, repeating, in his wild, pathetic, dreamy way, "And the voice said unto me, 'Marry Lois!'" And Lois was more inclined to soothe and reason with him than she had ever been before, since the first time of his speaking to her on the subject— when Grace Hickson and Prudence entered the room from the passage. They had returned from the prayer-meeting by the back way, which had prevented the sound of their approach from being heard. But Manasseh did not stir or look round; he kept his eyes fixed on Lois, as if to note the effect of his words. Grace came hastily forward, and, lifting up her strong right arm, smote their joined hands in twain, in spite of the fervor of Manasseh's grasp. "What means this?" said she, addressing herself more to Lois than to her son, anger flashing out of her deep-set eyes. Lois waited for Manasseh to speak. He seemed, but a few minutes before, to be more gentle and less threatening than he had been of late on this subject, and she did not wish to irritate him. But he did not speak, and her aunt stood angrily wait- ing for an answer. LOIS THE WITCH. 155 "At any rate," thought Lois, "it will put an end to the thought in his mind when my aunt speaks out about it." "My cousin seeks me in marriage," said Lois. "Thee!" and Grace struck out in the direction of her niece with a gesture of supreme contempt. But now Manasseh spoke forth: "Yea, it is preordained. The voice has said it, and the spirit has brought her to me as my bride." "Spirit! an evil spirit, then. A good spirit would have chosen out for thee a godly maiden of thine own people, and not a prelatist and a stran- ger like this girl. A pretty return, Mistress Lois, for all our kindness." "Indeed, Aunt Hickson, I have done all I could —Cousin Manasseh knows it—to show him I can be none of his. I have told him," said she, blush- ing, but determined to say the whole out at once, "that I am all but troth-plight to a young man of our own village at home; and, even putting all that on one side, I wish not for marriage at present." "Wish rather for conversion and regeneration. Marriage is an unseemly word in the mouth of a maiden. As for Manasseh, I will take reason with him in private; and, meanwhile, if thou hast spo- ken truly, throw not thyself in his path, as I have noticed thou hast done but too often of late." Lois's heart burnt within her at this unjust accu- sation, for she knew how much she had dreaded 156 LOIS THE WITCH. and avoided her cousin, and she almost looked to him to give evidence that her aunt's last words were not true. But, instead, he returned to his one fixed idea, and said, "Mother, listen. If I wed not Lois, both she and I die within the year. I care not for life; before this, as you know, I have sought for death" (Grace shuddered, and was for a moment subdued by some recollection of past horror); "but if Lois were my wife I should live, and she would be spared from what is the other lot. That whole vision grows clearer to me day by day. Yet, when I try to know whether I am one of the elect, all is dark. The mystery of free-will and foreknowledge is a mystery of Satan's devising, not of God's." "Alas! my son, Satan is abroad among the breth- ren even now; but let the old vexed topics rest. Sooner than fret thyself again, thou shalt have Lois to be thy wife, though my heart was set far differ- ently for thee." "No, Manasseh," said Lois. "I love you well as a cousin, but wife of yours I can never be. Aunt Hickson, it is not well to delude him so. I say, if ever I marry man, I am troth-plight to one in En- gland." "Tush, child! I am your guardian in my dead husband's place. Thou thinkest thyself so great a prize that I would clutch at thee whether or no, I doubt not. I value thee not, save as a medicine for LOIS THE WITCH. 157 Manasseh, if his mind get disturbed again, as I have noted signs of late." This, then, was the secret explanation of much that had alarmed her in her cousin's manner; and if Lois had been a physician of modern times, she might have traced somewhat of the same tempera- ment in his sisters as well—in Prudence's lack of natural feeling and impish delight in mischief, in Faith's vehemence of unrequited love. But as yet Lois did not know, any more than Faith, that the attachment of the latter to Mr. Nolan was not mere- ly unreturned, but even unperceived by the young minister. He came, it is true—came often to the house, sat long with the family, and watched them narrowly, but took no especial notice of Faith. Lois perceived this, and grieved over it; Nattee perceived it, and was indignant at it, long before Faith slowly ac- knowledged it to herself, and went to Nattee, the Indian woman, rather than to Lois her cousin, for sympathy and counsel. "He cares not for me," said Faith. "He cares more for Lois's little finger than for my whole body," the girl moaned out in the bitter pain of jealousy. "Hush thee, hush thee, prairie bird! How can he build a nest when the old bird has got all the moss and the feathers? Wait till the Indian has found means to send the old bird flying far away." This was the mysterious comfort Nattee gave. 158 LOIS THE WITCH. Grace Hickson took some kind of charge over Manasseh that relieved Lois of much of her distress at his strange behavior. Yet at times he escaped from his mother's watchfulness, and in such oppor- tunities he would always seek Lois, entreating her, as of old, to marry him—sometimes pleading his love for her, oftener speaking wildly of his visions and the voices which he heard foretelling a terrible futurity. We have now to do with events which were tak- ing place in Salem beyond the narrow circle of the Hickson family; but, as they only concern us in as far as they bore down in their consequences on the future of those who formed part of it, I shall go over the narrative very briefly. The town of Salem had lost by death, within a very short time preceding the commencement of my story, nearly all its ven- erable men and leading citizens—men of ripe wis- dom and sound counsel. The people had hardly yet recovered from the shock of their loss, as one by one the patriarchs of the primitive little commu- nity had rapidly followed each other to the grave. They had been beloved as fathers, and looked up to as judges in the land. The first bad effect of their loss was seen in the heated dissension which sprang up between Pastor Tappau and the candi- date Nolan. It had been apparently healed over; but Mr. Nolan had not been many weeks in Salem, after his second coming, before the strife broke out LOIS THE WITCH. 159 afresh, and alienated many for life who had till then been bound together by the ties of friendship or re- lationship. Even in the Hickson family something of this feeling soon sprang up; Grace being a ve- hement partisan of the elder pastor's more gloomy doctrines, while Faith was a passionate, if a power- less, advocate of Mr. Nolan. Manasseh's growing absorption in his own fancies, and imagined gift of prophecy, making him comparatively indifferent to all outward events, did not tend to either the fulfill- ment of his visions, or the elucidation of the dark, mysterious doctrines over which he had pondered too long for the health either of his mind or body; while Prudence delighted in irritating every one by her advocacy of the views of thinking to which they were most opposed, and retailing every gossiping story to the person most likely to disbelieve, and be indignant at what she told, with an assumed un- consciousness of any such effect to be produced. There was much talk of the congregational difficul- ties and dissensions being carried up to the General Court, and each party naturally hoped that, if such were the course*of events, the opposing pastor and that portion of the congregation which adhered to him might be worsted in the struggle. Such was the state of things in the township when, one day toward the end of the month of February, Grace Hickson returned from the weekly prayer-meeting, which it was her custom to attend 160 LOIS THE WITCH. at Pastor Tappau's house, in a state of extreme ex- citement. On her entrance into her own house she sat down, rocking her body backward and forward, and praying to herself; both Faith and Lois stop- ped their spinning, in wonder at her agitation, be- fore either of them ventured to address her. At length Faith rose and spoke: "Mother, what is it? Hath any thing happened of an evil nature?" The brave, stern old woman's face was blanched, and her eyes were almost set in horror as she pray- ed, the great drops running down her cheeks. It seemed almost as if she had to make a struggle to recover her sense of the present homely accus- tomed life before she could find words to answer: "Evil nature! Daughters, Satan is abroad—is close to us. I have this very hour seen him afflict two innocent children, as of old he troubled those who were possessed by him in Judsea. Hester and Abigail Tappau have been contorted and convulsed by him and his servants into such shapes as I am afeard to think on; and when their father, godly Mr. Tappau, began to exhort and to pray, their howl- ings were like the wild beasts of the field. Satan is of a truth let loose among us. The girls kept calling upon him as if he .were even then present among us. Abigail screeched out that he stood at my very back in the guise of a black man; and truly, as I turned round at her words, I saw a crea- LOIS THE "WITCH. 161 ture like a shadow vanishing, and turned all of a cold sweat. Who knows where he is now? Faith, lay straws across on the door-sill." "But if he be already entered in," asked Pru- dence, "may not that make it difficult for him to depart?" Her mother, taking no notice of her question, went on rocking herself, and praying, till again she broke out into narration: "Keverend Mr. Tappau says that only last night he heard a sound as of a heavy body dragged all through the house by some strong power; once it was thrown against his bedroom door, and would, doubtless, have broken it in, if he had not prayed fervently and aloud at that very time; and a shriek went up at his prayer that made his hair stand on end; and this morning all the crockery in the house was found broken and piled up in the middle of the kitchen floor; and Pastor Tappau says that, as soon as he began to ask a blessing on the morning's meal, Abigail and Hester cried out, as if some one was pinching them. Lord, have mercy upon us all! Satan is of a truth let loose." "They sound like the old stories I used to hear in Barford," said Lois, breathless with affright. Faith seemed less alarmed; and then her dislike to Pastor Tappau was so great that she could hard- ly sympathize with any misfortunes that befell him or his family. 162 LOIS THE WITCH. Toward evening Mr. Nolan came in. In general, so high did party spirit run, Grace Hickson only tolerated his visits, finding herself often engaged at such hours, and being too much abstracted in f$jt thought to show him the ready hospitality which was one of her most prominent virtues. But to day, both as bringing the latest intelligence of the new horrors sprung up in Salem, and as being one of the Church militant (or what the Puritans consid- ered as equivalent to the Church militant) against Sa- tan, he was welcomed by her in an unusual manner. He seemed oppressed with the occurences of the day; at first it appeared to be almost a relief to him to sit still, and cogitate upon them, and his hosts were becoming almost impatient for him to say something more than mere monosyllables, when he began: "Such a day as this I pray that I may never see again. It is as if the devils whom our Lord ban- ished into the herd of swine had been permitted to come again upon the earth. And I would it were only the lost spirits who were tormenting us; but I much fear that certain of those whom we have esteemed as God's people have sold their souls to Satan for the sake of a little of his evil power, whereby they may afflict others for a time. Elder Sherringham hath lost this very day a good and valuable horse, wherewith he used to drive his fam- ily to meeting, his wife being bedridden." "Perchance," said Lois, " the horse died of some natural disease." LOIS THE WITCH. 163 "True," said Pastor Nolan; "but I was going on to say, that as he entered into his house, full of do- lor at the loss of his beast, a mouse ran in before him so sudden that it almost tripped him up, though an instant before there was no such thing to be seen; and he caught at it with his shoe and hit it, and it cried out like a human creature in pain, and straight ran up the chimney, caring nothing for the hot flame and smoke." Manasseh listened greedily to all this story, and when it was ended he smote upon his breast and prayed aloud for deliverance from the power of the Evil One; and he continually went on praying at intervals through the evening, with every mark of abject terror on his face and in his manner—he, the bravest, most daring hunter in all the settlement. Indeed, all the family huddled together in silent fear, scarcely finding any interest in the usual house- hold occupations. Faith and Lois sat with arms entwined, as in days before the former had become jealous of the latter; Prudence asked low, fearful questions of her mother and of the pastor as to the creatures that were abroad, and the ways in which they afflicted others; and when Grace besought the minister to pray for her and her household, he made a long and passionate supplication that none of that little flock might ever so far fall away into hopeless perdition as to be guilty of the sin without forgive- ness—the sin of witchcraft. 164 L0I8 THE WITCH. CHAPTEE HI. "The sin of witchcraft." We read about it, we look on it from the outside, but we can hardly real- ize the terror it induced. Every impulsive or un- accustomed action, every little nervous affection, ev- ery ache or pain was noticed, not merely by those around the sufferer, but by the person himself, who- ever he might be, that was acting, or being acted upon, in any but the most simple and ordinary man- ner. He or she (for it was most frequently a wom- an or girl that was the supposed subject) felt a de- sire for isome unusual kind of food—some unusual motion or rest—her hand twitched, her foot was asleep, or her leg had the cramp; and the dreadful question immediately suggested itself, "Is any one possessing an evil power over me by the help of Satan?" and perhaps they went on to think, "It is bad enough to feel that my body can be made to suffer through the power of some unknown evil- wisher to me, but what if Satan gives them still fur- ther power, and they can touch my soul, and inspire me with loathful thoughts leading me into crimes which at present I abhor?" and so on, till the very dread of what might happen, and the constant dwell- ing of the thoughts, even with horror, upon certain LOIS THE WITCH. 165 possibilities, or what were esteemed such, really brought about the corruption of imagination at least, which at first they had shuddered at. More- over, there was a sort of uncertainty as to who might be infected—not unlike the overpowering «£ul dread of the plague, which made some shrink from their best-beloved with irrepressible fear. The brother or sister, who was the dearest friend of their childhood and youth, might now be bound in some mysterious deadly pact with evil spirits of the most horrible kind—who could tell? And in such a case it became a duty—a sacred duty—to give up the earthly body which had been once so loved, but which was-now the habitation of a soul corrupt and horrible in its evil inclinations. Possibly terror of death might bring on confession, and repentance, and purification; or, if it did not, why, away with the evil creature, the witch, out of the world, down to the kingdom of the master, whose bidding was done on earth in all manner of corruption and torture of God's creatures! There were others who, to these more simple, if more ignorant feelings of horror at witches and witchcraft, added the desire, conscious or unconscious, of revenge on those whose conduct had been in any way displeasing to them. Where evidence takes a supernatural character, there is no disproving it. This argument comes up: "You have only the natural powers; I have supernatural. You admit the existence of the supernatural by the 166 LOIS THE WITCH. condemnation of this very crime of witchcraft. You hardly know the limits of the natural powers; how, then, can you define the supernatural? I say that in the dead of night, when my body seemed to all present to be lying in quiet sleep, I was, in the most complete and wakeful consciousness, present in my body at an assembly of witches and wizards with Satan at their head; that I was by them tortured in my body, because my soul would not acknowl- edge him as its king, and that I witnessed such and such deeds. What the nature of the appearance was that took the semblance of myself, sleeping quietly in my bed, I know not; but once admitting, as you do, the possibility of witchcraft, you can not disprove my evidence." This evidence might be given truly or falsely, as the person witnessing be- lieved it or not; but every one must see what im- mense and terrible power was abroad for revenge. Then, again, the accused themselves ministered to the horrible panic abroad. Some, in dread of death, confessed from cowardice to the imaginary crimes of which they were accused, and of which they were promised a pardon on confession. Some, weak and terrified, came honestly to believe in their own guilt, through the diseases of imagination which were sure to be engendered at such a time as this. Lois sat spinning with Faith. Both were silent, pondering over the stories that were abroad. Lois spoke first. LOIS THE WITCH. 167 "Oh, Faith, this country is worse than ever En- gland was, even in the days of Master Matthew Hop- kinson, the witch-finder. I grow frightened of ev- ery one, I think. I even get afeard sometimes of Nattee!" Faith colored a little. Then she asked, "Why? What should make you distrust the Indian woman?" "Oh! I am ashamed of my fear as soon as it arises in my mind. But, you know, her look and color were strange to me when first I came; and she is not a christened woman; and they tell stories of Indian wizards; and I know not what the mix- tures are which she is sometimes stirring over the fire, nor the meaning of the strange chants she sings to herself. And once I met her in the dusk, just close by Pastor Tappau's house, in company with Hota, his servant—it was just before we heard of the sore disturbance in his house—and I have won- dered if she had aught to do with it." Faith sat very still, as if thinking. At last she said, "If Nattee has powers beyond what you and I have, she will not use them for evil—at least not evil to those whom she loves." "That comforts me but little," said Lois. "If she has powers beyond what she ought to have, I dread her, though I have done her no evil—nay, though I could almost say she bore me a kindly 168 LOIS THE WITCH. feeling. But such powers are only given by the Evil One; and the proof thereof is, that, as you im- ply, Nattee would use them on those who offend her." "And why should she not?" asked Faith, lifting her eyes, and flashing heavy fire out of them at the question. "Because," said Lois, not seeing Faith's glance, "we are told to pray for them that despitefully use us, and to do good to them that persecute us. But poor Nattee is not a christened woman. I would that Mr. Nolan would baptize her; it would, may- be, take her out of the power of Satan's tempta- tions." "Are you never tempted?" asked Faith, half scornfully; "and yet, I doubt not, you were well baptized." "True," said Lois, sadly; "I often do very wrong, but perhaps I might have done worse if the holy form had not been observed." They were again silent for a minute. "Lois," said Faith, "I did not mean any offense. But do you never feel as if you would give up all that future life, of which the parsons talk, and which seems so vague and so distant, for a few years of real, vivid blessedness, to begin to-morrow—this hour—this' minute? Oh, I could think of happi- ness for which I would willingly give up all those misty chances of heaven—" LOIS THE WITCH. 169 "Faith! Faith!" cried Lois, in terror, holding her hand before her cousin's mouth, and looking around in fright. "Hush! you know not who may be list- ening; you are putting yourself in his power." But Faith pushed her hand away, and said, "Lois, I believe in him no more than I believe in heaven. Both may exist, but they are so far away that I defy them. Why all this ado about Mr. Tappau's house? Promise me never to tell living creature, and I will tell you a secret." "No," said Lois, terrified, "I dread all secrets; I will hear none. I will do all that I can for you, Cousin Faith, in any way; but just at this time I strive to keep my life and thoughts within the strict- est bounds of godly simplicity, and I dread pledg- ing myself to aught that is hidden and secret." "As you will, cowardly girl, full of terrors, which, if you had listened to me, might have been lessened, if not entirely done away with." And Faith would not utter another word, though Lois tried meekly to entice her into conversation on some other sub- ject. The rumor of witchcraft was like the echo of thunder among the hills. It had broken out in Mr. Tappau's house, and his two little daughters were the first supposed to be bewitched; but round about, from every quarter of the town, came in accounts of sufferers by witchcraft. There was hardly a family without one of these supposed victims. Then arose H 170 LOIS THE WITCH. a growl and menaces of vengeance from many a household—menaces deepened, not daunted by the terror and mystery of the suffering that gave rise to them. At length a day was appointed when, after solemn fasting and prayer, Mr. Tappau invited the neigh- boring ministers and all godly people to assemble at his house, and unite with him in devoting a day to solemn religious services, and to supplication for the deliverance of his children, and those similarly afflicted, from the power of the Evil One. All Sa- lem poured out toward the house of the minister. There was a look of excitement on all their faces; eagerness and horror were depicted on many, while stern resolution, amounting to determined cruelty, if the occasion arose, was seen on others. In the midst of the prayer, Hester Tappau, the younger girl, fell into convulsions; fit after fit came on, and her screams mingled with the shrieks and cries of the assembled congregation. In the first pause, when the child was partially recovered, when the people stood around exhausted and breathless, her father, the Pastor Tappau, lifted his right hand, and adjured her, in the name of the Trinity, to say who tormented her. There was a dead silence; not a creature stirred of all those hundreds. Hes- ter turned wearily and uneasily, and moaned out the name of Hota, her father's Indian servant. Hota was present, apparently as much interested as any LOIS THE WITCH. 171 one; indeed, she had been busying herself much in bringing remedies to the suffering child. But now she stood aghast, transfixed, while her name was caught up and shouted out in tones of reprobation and hatred by all the crowd around her. Another moment, and they would have fallen upon the trem- bling creature and torn her limb from limb—pale, dusky, shivering Hota, half guilty-looking from her very bewilderment. Boat Pastor Tappau, the gaunt, gray man, lifting himself to his utmost height, sign- ed to them to go back, to keep still while he ad- dressed them; and then he told them that instant vengeance was not just, deliberate punishment; that there would be need of conviction, perchance of confession—he hoped for some redress for his suffering children from her revelations if she were brought to confession. They must leave the cul- prit in his hands and in those of his brother minis- ters, that they might wrestle with Satan before de- livering her up to the civil power. He spoke well, for he spoke from the heart of a father seeing his children exposed to dreadful and mysterious suffer- ing, and firmly believing that he now held the clew in his hand which should ultimately release them and their fellow-sufferers. And the congregation moaned themselves into unsatisfied submission, and listened to his long, passionate prayer, which he uplifted even while the hapless Hota stood there, guarded and bound by two men, who glared at her 172 LOIS THE WITCH. like bloodhounds ready to slip, even while the pray- er ended in the words of the merciful Savior. Lois sickened and shuddered at the whole scene; and this was no intellectual shuddering at the folly and superstition of the people, but tender moral shuddering at the sight of guilt which she believed in, and at the evidence of men's hatred and abhor- rence, which, when shown even to the guilty, troub- led and distressed her merciful heart . She follow- ed her aunt and cousins out into the open air with downcast eyes and pale face. Grace Hickson was going home with a feeling of triumphant relief at the detection of the guilty one. Faith alone seem- ed uneasy and disturbed beyond her wont, for Ma- nasseh received the whole transaction as the fulfill- ment of a prophecy, and Prudence was excited by the novel scene into a state of discordant high spirits. "I am quite as old as Hester Tappau," said she; "her birthday is in September and mine in Octo- ber." "What has that to do with it?" said Faith, sharply. "Nothing; only she seemed such a little thing for all those grave ministers to be praying for, and so many folk come from a distance—some from Boston, they said—all for her sake, as it were. Why, didst thou see, it was godly Mr. Henwick that held her head when she wriggled so, and old Mad- LOIS THE WITCH. 173 am Holbrook had herself helped upon a chair to see the better. I wonder how long I might wriggle before great and godly folk would take so much notice of me? But I suppose that comes of being a pastor's daughter. She'll be so set up there'll be no speaking to her now. Faith, thinkest thou that Hota really had bewitched her? She gave me corn-cakes the last time I was at Pastor Tappau's, just like any other woman, only, perchance, a trifle more good-natured; and to think of her being a witch after all!" But Faith seemed in a hurry to reach home, and paid no attention to Prudence's talking. Lois has- tened on with Faith, for Manasseh was walking alongside of his mother, and she kept steady to her plan of avoiding him, even though she pressed her company upon Faith, who had seemed of late desir- ous of avoiding her. That evening the news spread through Salem that Hota had confessed her sin—had acknowledged that she was a witch. Nattee was the first to hear the intelligence. She broke into the room where the girls were sitting with Grace Hickson, solemnly doing nothing, because of the great prayer-meeting in the morning, and cried out, "Mercy, mercy, mis- tress, every body! take care of poor Indian Nattee, who never do wrong but for mistress and the fam- ily. Hota one bad wicked witch, she say so herself; oh me! oh me!" and, stooping over Faith, she said 174 LOIS THE WITCH. something in a low, miserable- tone of voice, of which Lois only heard the word "torture." But Faith heard all, and, turning very pale, half accom- panied, half led Nattee back to her. kitchen. Presently Grace Hickson came in. She had been out to see a neighbor; it will not do to say that so godly a woman had been gossiping; and, indeed, the subject of the conversation she had held was of too serious and momentous a nature for me to em- ploy a light word to designate it. There was all the listening to and repeating of small details and rumors, in which the speakers have no concern, that constitutes gossiping, but in this instance all trivial facts and speeches might be considered to bear such dreadful significance, and might have so ghastly an ending, that such whispers were occa- sionally raised to a tragic importance. Every frag- ment of intelligence that related to Mr. Tappau's household was eagerly snatched at; how his dog howled all one long night through, and could not be stilled; how his cow suddenly failed in her milk only two months after she had calved; how his memory had forsaken him one morning, for a min- ute or two, in repeating the Lord's Prayer, and he had even omitted a clause thereof in his sudden perturbation; and how all these forerunners of his children's strange illness might now be interpreted and understood—this had formed the staple of the conversation between Grace Hickson and her friends. LOIS THE WITCH. 175 There had arisen a dispute among them at last as to how far these subjections to the power of the Evil One were to be considered as a judgment upon Pastor Tappau for some sin on his part; and if so, what? It was not an unpleasant discussion, al- though there was considerable difference of opin- ion; for as none of the speakers had had their fam- ilies so troubled, it was rather a proof that they had none of them committed any sin. In the midst of this talk, one, entering in from the street, brought the news that Hota had confessed all—had owned to signing a certain little red book which Satan had presented to her—had been present at impious sac- raments—had ridden through the air to Newbury Falls—and, in fact, had assented to all the questions which the elders and magistrates, carefully reading over the confessions of the witches who had former- ly been tried in England, in order that they might not omit a single inquiry, had asked of her. More she had owned to, but things of inferior importance, and partaking more of the nature of earthly tricks than of spiritual power. She had spoken of care- fully adjusted strings, by which all the crockery in Pastor Tappau's house could be pulled down or dis- turbed; but of such intelligible malpractices the gossips of Salem took little heed. One of them said that such an action showed Satan's prompting, but they all preferred to listen to the grander guilt of the blasphemous sacraments and supernatural rites. 176 LOIS THE WITCH. The narrator ended by saying that Hota was to be hung the next morning, in spite of her confession, even although her life had been promised to her if she acknowledged her sin; for it was well to make an example of the first-discovered witch, and it was also well that she was an Indian, a heathen, whose life would be no great loss to the community. Grace Hickson on this spoke out. It was well that witches should perish off the face of the earth, Indian or English, heathen or, worse, a baptized Christian who had betrayed the Lord, even as Judas did, and had gone over to Satan. For her part, she wished that the first-discovered witch had been a member of a godly English household, that it might be seen of all men that religious folk were willing to cut off the right hand, and pluck out the right eye, if taint- ed with this devilish sin. She spoke sternly and well. The last comer said that her words might be brought to the proof, for it had been whispered that Hota had named others, and some from the most religious families of Salem, whom she had seen among the unholy communicants at the sacrament of the Evil One. And Grace replied that she would answer for it, all godly folk would stand the proof, and quench all natural affection rather than that such a sin should grow and spread among them. She herself had a weak bodily dread of witnessing the violent death even of an animal; but she would not let that deter her from standing amid those who LOIS THE WITCH. 177 cast the accursed creature out from among them on the morrow morning. Contrary to her wont, Grace Hickson told her family much of this conversation. It was a sign of.her excitement on the subject that she thus spoke, and the excitement spread in different forms through her family. Faith was flushed and restless, wan- dering between the keeping-room and the kitchen, and questioning her mother particularly as to the more extraordinary parts of Hota's confession, as if she wished to satisfy herself that the Indian witch had really done those horrible and mysterious deeds. Lois shivered and trembled with affright at the narration, and the idea that such things were possi- ble. Occasionally she found herself wandering off into sympathetic thought for the woman who was to die, abhorred of all men, and unpardoned by God, to whom she had been so fearful a traitor, and who was now, at this very time—when Lois sat among her kindred by the warm and cheerful firelight, an- ticipating many peaceful, perchance happy, morrows —solitary, shivering, panic-stricken, guilty, with none to stand by her and exhort her, shut up in dark- ness between the cold walls of the town prison. But Lois almost shrank from sympathizing with so loathsome an accomplice of Satan, and prayed for forgiveness for her charitable thought; and yet, again, she remembered the tender spirit of the Sav- ior, and allowed herself to fall into pity, till at last H2 178 LOIS THE WITCH. her sense of right and wrong became so bewildered that she could only leave all to God's disposal, and just ask that He would take all creatures and all events into His hands. Prudence was as bright as if she were listening to some merry story—curious as to more than her mother would tell her—seeming to have no partic- ular terror of witches or witchcraft, and yet to be especially desirous to accompany her mother the next morning to the hanging. Lois shrank from the cruel, eager face of the young girl as she begged her mother to allow her to go. Even Grace was disturbed and perplexed by her daughter's perti- nacity. "No," said she. "Ask me no more. Thoushalt not go. Such sights are not for the young. I go, and I sicken at the thoughts of it. But I go to show that I, a Christian woman, take God's part against the devil's. Thou shalt not go, I tell thee. I could whip thee for thinking of it." "Manasseh says Hota was well whipped by Pas- tor Tappau ere she was brought to confession," said Prudence, as if anxious to change the subject of discussion. Manasseh lifted up his head from the great folio Bible, brought by his father from England, which he was studying. He had not heard what Prudence said, but he looked up at the sound of his name. All present were startled at his wild eyes, his blood- v LOIS THE WITCH. 179 less face. But he was evidently annoyed at the expression of their countenances. "Why look ye at me in that manner?" asked he. And his manner was anxious and agitated. His mother made haste to speak: "It was but that Prudence said something that thou hast told her—that Pastor Tappau defiled his hands by whipping the witch Hota. What evil thought has got hold of thee? Talk to us, and crack not thy skull against the learning of man." "It is not the learning of man that I study; it is the word of God. I would fain know more of the nature of this sin of witchcraft, and whether it be, indeed, the unpardonable sin against the Holy Ghost. At times I feel a creeping influence com- ing over me, prompting all evil thoughts and un- heard-of deeds, and I question within myself, 'Is not this the power of witchcraft?' and I sicken, and loathe all that I do or say, and yet some evil crea- ture hath the mastery over me, and I must needs do and say what I loathe and dread. Why wonder you, mother, that I, of all men, strive to learn the exact nature of witchcraft, and for that end study the word of God? Have you not seen me when I was, as it were, possessed with a devil?" He spoke calmly, sadly, but as under deep con- viction. His mother rose to comfort him. "My son," she said, "no one ever saw thee do deeds or heard thee utter words which any one 180 LOIS THE WITCH. could say were prompted by devils. We have seen thee, poor lad, with thy wits gone astray for a time, but all thy thoughts sought rather God's will in forbidden places, than lost the clew to them for one moment in hankering after the powers of darkness. Those days are long past; a future lies before thee. Think not of witches or of being subject to the power of witchcraft. I did evil to speak of it be- fore thee. Let Lois come and sit by thee, and talk to thee." Lois went to her cousin, grieved at heart for his depressed state of mind, anxious to soothe and com- fort him, and yet recoiling more than ever from the idea of ultimately becoming his wife—an idea to which she saw her aunt reconciling herself uncon- sciously day by day, as she perceived the English girl's power of soothing and comforting her cousin, even by the very tones of her sweet cooing voice. He took Lois's hand. "Let me hold it. It does me good," said he. "Ah! Lois, when I am by you I forget all my troubles: will the day never come when you will listen to the voice that speaks to me continually?" "I never hear it, Cousin Manasseh," she said, softly; "but do not think of the voices. Tell me of the land you hope to inclose from the forest— what manner of trees grow on it?" Thus, by simple questions on practical affairs, she led him back, in her unconscious wisdom, to the LOIS THE WITCH. 181 subjects on which he had always shown strong prac- tical sense. He talked on these with all due dis- cretion till the hour for family prayer came round, which was early in those days. It was Manasseh's place to conduct it, as head of the family—a post which his mother had always been anxious to as- sign to him since her husband's death. He prayed extempore; and to-night his supplications wander- ed off into wild, unconnected fragments of prayer, which all those kneeling around began, each accord- ing to her anxiety for the speaker, to think would never end. Minutes elapsed, and grew to quarters of an hour, and his words only became more em- phatic and wilder, praying for himself alone, and laying bare the recesses of his heart. At length his mother rose, and took Lois by the hand, for she had faith in Lois's power over her son, as being akin to that which the shepherd David, playing on his harp, had over King Saul sitting on his throne. She drew her toward him, where he knelt facing into the circle, with his eyes upturned, and the tranced agony of his face depicting the struggle of the troub- led soul within. "Here is Lois," said Grace, almost tenderly; "she would fain go to her chamber." (Down the girl's face the tears were streaming.) "Eise, and finish thy prayer in thy closet." But at Lois's approach he sprang to his feet— sprang aside. 182 LOIS THE "WITCH. "Take her away, mother! Lead me not into temptation. She brings me evil and sinful thoughts. She overshadows me, even in the presence of my God. She is no angel of light, or she would not do this. She troubles me with the sound of a voice bidding me marry her, even when I am at my pray- ers. Avaunt! Take her away!" He would have struck at Lois if she had not shrunk back, dismayed and affrighted. His moth- er, although equally dismayed, was not affrighted. She had seen him thus before, and understood the management of his paroxysm. "Go, Lois: the sight of thee irritates him, as once that of Faith did. Leave him to me." And Lois rushed away to her room, and threw herself on her bed, like a panting, hunted creature. Faith came after her slowly and heavily. "Lois," said she, " wilt thou do me a favor? It is not much to ask. Wilt thou arise before day- light, and bear this letter from me to Pastor Nolan's lodgings? I would have done it myself, but moth- er has bidden me to come to her, and I may be detained until the time when Hota is to be hung; and the letter tells of matters pertaining to life and death. Seek out Pastor Nolan wherever he may be, and have speech of him after he has read the letter." "Can not Nattee take it?" asked Lois. "No," Faith answered, fiercely. "Why should she?" LOIS THE WITCH. 183 But Lois did not reply. A quick suspicion dart- ed through Faith's mind, sudden as lightning. It had never entered there before. "Speak, Lois. I read thy thoughts. Thou wouldst fain not be the bearer of this letter?" "I will take it," said Lois, meekly. "It con- cerns life and death, you say?" "Yes," said Faith, in quite a different tone of voice. But, after a pause of thought, she added: "Then, as soon as the house is still, I will write what I have to say, and leave it here, on this chest; and thou wilt promise me to take it before the day is fully up, while there is yet time for action?" "Yes, I promise," said Lois. And Faith knew enough of her to feel sure that the deed would be done, however reluctantly. The letter was written—laid on the chest—and, ere day dawned, Lois was astir, Faith watching her from between her half-closed eyelids—eyelids that had never been fully closed in sleep the livelong night. The instant Lois, cloaked and hooded, left the room, Faith sprang up, and prepared to go to her mother, whom she heard already stirring. Nearly every one in Salem was awake and up on this aw- ful morning, though few were out of doors as Lois passed along the streets. Here was the hastily- erected gallows, the black shadow of which fell across the street with ghastly significance; now she had to pass the iron-barred jail, through the un- 184 LOIS THE WITCH. glazed windows of which she heard the fearful cry of a woman and the sound of many footsteps. On she sped, sick almost to faintness, to the widow woman's where Mr. Nolan lodged. He was already up and abroad—gone, his hostess believed, to the jail. Thither Lois, repeating the words "for life and for death!" was forced to go. Eetracing her steps, she was thankful to see him come out of those dismal portals, rendered more dismal for be- ing in heavy shadow, just as she approached. What his errand had been she knew not; but he looked grave and sad as she put Faith's letter into his hands, and stood before him quietly waiting until he should read it, and deliver the expected answer. But, instead of opening it, he held it in his hand, apparently absorbed in thought. At last he spoke aloud, but more to himself than to her: "My God! and is she then to die in this fearful delirium? It must be—can be—only delirium, that prompts suph wild and horrible confessions. Mis- tress Barclay, I come from the presence of the Indian woman appointed to die. It seems she considered herself betrayed last evening by her sentence not being respited, even after she had made confession of sin enough to bring down fire from heaven; and, it seems to me, the passionate, impotent anger of this helpless creature has turned to madness, for she appalls me by the additional revelations she has made to the keepers during the night—to me this LOIS THE WITCH. 185 morning. I could almost fancy that she thinks, by deepening the guilt she confesses, to escape this last dread punishment of all, as if, were a tithe of what she says true, one could suffer such a sinner to live. Yet to send her to death in such a state of mad ter- ror! What is to be done?" "Yet Scripture says that we are not to suffer witches in the land," said Lois, slowly. "True; I would but ask for a respite till the prayers of God's people had gone up for His mercy. Some would pray for her, poor wretch as she is. You would, Mistress Barclay, I am sure?" But he said it in a questioning tone. "I have been praying for her in the night many a time," said Lois, in a low voice. "I pray for her in my heart at this moment; I suppose they are bidden to put her out of the land, but I would not have her entirely God-forsaken. But, sir, you have not read my cousin's letter. And she bade me bring back an answer with much urgency." Still he delayed. He was thinking of the dread- ful confession he came from hearing. If it were true, the beautiful earth was a polluted place, and he almost wished to die, to escape from such pollution, into the white innocence of those who stood in the presence of God. Suddenly his eyes fell on Lois's pure, grave face, upturned and watching his. Faith in earthly good- ness came over his soul in that instant, "and he blessed her unaware." 186 LOIS THE WITCH. He put his hand on her shoulder with an action half paternal, although the difference in their ages was not above a dozen years, and, bending a little toward her, whispered, half to himself, "Mistress Barclay, you have done me good." "I," said Lois, half affrighted—" I done you good! How?" "By being what you are. But perhaps I should rather thank God, who sent you at the very mo- ment when my soul was so disquieted." At this instant they were aware of Faith standing in front of them with a countenance of thunder. Her angry look made Lois feel guilty. She had not enough urged the pastor to read his letter, she thought; and it was indignation at this delay in what she had been commissioned to do with the urgency of life or death that made her cousin lower at her so from beneath her straight black brows. Lois explained how she had not found Mr. Nolan at his lodgings, and had had to follow him to the door of the jail. But Faith replied, with obdurate contempt, "Spare thy breath, Cousin Lois. It is easy seeing on what pleasant matters thou and the Pastor Nolan were talking. I marvel not at thy forgetfulness. My mind is changed. Give me back my letter, sir; it was about a poor matter—an old woman's life. And what is that compared to a young girl's love?" Lois heard but for an instant—did not understand LOIS THE WITCH. 187 that her cousin, in her jealous anger, could suspect the existence of such a feeling as love between her and Mr. Nolan. No imagination as to its possibil- ity had ever entered her mind; she had respected him, almost revered him—nay, had liked him as the probable husband of Faith. At the thought that her cousin could believe her guilty of such treach- ery, her grave eyes dilated, and fixed themselves on the flaming countenance of Faith. That serious, unprotesting manner of perfect innocence must have told on her accuser, had it not been that, at the same instant, the latter caught sight of the crimson- ed and disturbed countenance of the pastor, who felt the veil rent off the unconscious secret of his heart. Faith snatched her letter out of his hands, and said, "Let the witch hang! What care I? She has done harm enough with her charms and her sorcery on Parson Tappau's girls. Let her die, and let all other witches look to themselves, for there be many kinds of witchcraft abroad. Cousin Lois, thou wilt like best to stop with Pastor Nolan, or I would pray thee to come back with me to breakfast." Lois was not to be daunted by jealous sarcasm. She held out her hand to Pastor Nolan, determined to take no heed of her cousin's mad words, but to bid him farewell in her accustomed manner. He hesitated before taking it, and when he did it was with a convulsive squeeze that almost made her start. Faith waited and watched all, with set lips 188 LOIS THE WITCH. and vengeful eyes. She bade no farewell; she spake no word; but, grasping Lois tightly by the back of the arm, she almost drove her before her down the street till they reached their home. The arrangement for the morning was this: Grace Hickson and her son Manasseh were to be present at the hanging of the first witch executed in Salem, as pious and godly heads of a family. All the other members were strictly forbidden to stir out until such time as the low-tolling bell an- nounced that all was over in this world for Hota, the Indian witch. When the execution was ended, there was to be a solemn prayer-meeting of all the inhabitants of Salem; ministers had come from a distance to aid by the efficacy of their prayers in these efforts to purge the land of the devil and his servants. There was reason to think that the great old meeting-house would be crowded, and when Faith and Lois reached home, Grace Hickson was giving her directions to Prudence, urging her to be ready for an early start to that place. The stern old woman was troubled in her mind at the antici- pation of the sight she was to see before many min- utes were over, and spoke in a more hurried and incoherent manner than was her wont. She was dressed in her Sunday best; but her face was very gray and colorless, and she seemed afraid to cease speaking about household affairs for fear she should have time to think. Manasseh stood by her, perfect- LOIS THE WITCH. 189 ly, rigidly still; he also was in his Sunday clothes. His face, too, was paler than its wont, but it wore a kind of absent, rapt expression, almost like that of a man who sees a vision. As Faith entered, still holding Lois in her fierce grasp, Manasseh started and smiled, but still dreamily. His manner was so peculiar that even his mother stayed her talking to observe him more closely; he was in that state of excitement which usually ended in what his mother and certain of her friends esteemed a pro- phetic revelation. He began to speak, at first very low, and then his voice increased in power: "How beautiful is the land of Beulah, far over the sea, beyond the mountains! Thither the angels carry her, lying back in their arms like one faint- ing. They shall kiss away the black circle of death, and lay her down at the feet of the Lamb. I hear her pleading there for those on earth who consent- ed to her death. Oh, Lois, pray also for me—pray for me, miserable!" When he uttered his cousin's name all their eyes turned toward her. It was to her that his vision related. She stood among them, amazed, awe- stricken, but not like one affrighted or dismayed. She was the first to speak: "Dear friends, do not think of me; his words may or may not be true. I am in God's hands all the same, whether he have the gift of prophecy or not. Besides, hear you not that I end where all 190 LOIS THE WITCH. would fain end? Think of him and of his needs. Such times as these always leave him exhausted and weary when he comes out of them." And she busied herself in cares for his refresh- ment, aiding her aunt's trembling hands to set be- fore him the requisite food, as he now sat tired and bewildered, gathering together with difficulty his scattered senses. Prudence did all she could to assist and speed their departure, but Faith stood apart, watching in silence with her passionate, angry eyes. As soon as they had set out on their solemn, fatal errand, Faith left the room. She had not tasted food or touched drink. Indeed, they all felt sick at heart. The moment as her sister had gone up stairs, Prudence sprang to the settle on which Lois had thrown down her cloak and hood: "Lend me your muffles and mantle, Cousin Lois. I never yet saw a woman hanged, and I see not why I should not go. I will stand on the edge of the crowd; no one will know me, and I will be home long before my mother." "No," said Lois, "that may not be. My aunt would be sore displeased. I wonder at you, Pru- dence, seeking to witness such a sight." And, as she spoke, she held fast her cloak, which Prudence vehemently struggled for. Faith returned, brought back possibly by the sound of the struggle. She smiled—a deadly smile. LOIS THE WITCH. 191 "Give it up, Prudence. Strive no more with her. She has bought success in this world, and we are but her slaves." "Oh, Faith," said Lois, relinquishing her hold of the cloak, and turning round with passionate re- proach in her look and voice, "what have I done that you should speak so of me—you, that I have loved as I think one loves a sister?" Prudence did not lose her opportunity, but has- tily arrayed herself in the mantle, which was too large for her, and which she had, therefore, consid- ered as well adapted for concealment; but, as she went toward the door, her feet became entangled in the 'unusual length, and she fell, bruising her arm pretty sharply. "Take care, another time, how you meddle with a witch's things," said Faith, as one scarcely believ- ing her own words, but at enmity with all the world in her bitter jealousy of heart. Prudence rubbed her arm and looked stealthily at Lois. "Witch Lois! witch Lois!" said she at last, soft- ly, pulling a childish face of spite at her. "Oh, hush, Prudence! Do not bandy such ter- rible words. Let me look at thine arm. I am sor- ry for thy hurt, only glad that it has kept thee from disobeying thy mother." "Away! away!" said Prudence, springing from her. "I am afeard of her in very truth, Faith. Keep between me and the witch, or I will throw a stool at her." 192 LOIS THE WITCH. Faith smiled—it was a bad and wicked smile— but she did not stir to calm the fears she had called up in her young sister. Just at this moment the bell began to toll. Hota, the Indian witch, was dead. Lois covered her face with her hands. Even Faith went a deadlier pale than she had been, and said, sighing, "Poor Hota! But death is best." Prudence alone seemed unmoved by any thoughts connected with the solemn, monotonous sound. Her only consideration was, that now she might go out into the streets and see the sights, and hear the news, and escape from the terror which she felt at the presence of her cousin. She flew up stairs to find her own mantle, ran down again, and past Lois, before the English girl had finished her prayer, and was speedily mingled among the crowd going to the meeting-house. There also Faith and Lois came in due course of time, but separately, not together. Faith so evidently avoided Lois, that she, humbled and grieved, could not force her company upon her cousin, but loitered a little behind, the quiet tears stealing down her face, shed for the many causes that had occurred this morning. The meeting-house was full to suffocation; and, as it sometimes happens on such occasions, the greatest crowd was close about the doors, from the fact that few saw, on their first entrance, where there might be possible spaces into which they could wedge themselves. Yet they were impatient X LOIS THE WITCH. , 193 of any arrivals from the outside, and pushed and hustled Faith, and after her Lois, till the two were forced on to a conspicuous place in the very centre of the building, where there was no chance of a seat, but still space to stand in. Several stood around, the pulpit being in the middle, and already occupied by two ministers in Geneva bands and gowns, while other ministers, similarly attired, stood holding on to it, almost as if they were giving sup- port instead of receiving it. Grace Hickson and her son sat decorously in their own pew, thereby showing that they had arrived early from the exe- cution. You might almost have traced out the number of those who had been at the hanging of the Indian witch by the expression of their counte- nances. They were awe-stricken into terrible re- pose; while the crowd pouring in, still pouring in, of those who had not attended the execution, look- ed all restless, and excited, and fierce. A buzz went round the meeting that the stranger minister who stood along with Pastor Tappau in the pulpit was no other than Dr. Cotton Mather himself, come all the way from Boston to assist in purging Salem of witches. And now Pastor Tappau began his prayer, ex- tempore, as was the custom. His words were wild and incoherent, as might be expected from a man who had just been consenting to the bloody death of one who was, but a few days ago, a member of I 194 LOIS THE WITCH. his own family; violent and passionate, as was to be looked for in the father of children whom he believed to suffer so fearfully from the crime he would denounce before the Lord. He sat down at length from pure exhaustion. Then Dr. Cotton Mather stood forward; he did not utter more than a few words of prayer, calm in comparison with what had gone before, and then he went on to ad- dress the great crowd before him in a quiet, argu- mentative way, but arranging what he had to say with something of the same kind of skill which Antony used in his speech to the Eomans after Caesar's death. Some of Dr. Mather's words have been preserved to us, as he afterward wrote them down in one of his works. Speaking of those " un- believing Sadducees" who doubted the existence of such a crime, he said: "Instead of their apish shouts and jeers at blessed Scripture, and histories which have such undoubted confirmation that no man that has breeding enough to regard the common laws of human society will offer to doubt of them, it be- comes us rather to adore the goodness of God, who from the mouths of babes and sucklings has or- dained truth, and by the means of the sore-afflicted children of your godly pastor has revealed the fact that the devils have with most horrid operations broken in upon your neighborhood. Let us be- seech Him that their power may be restrained, and that they go not so far in their evil machinations as LOIS THE WITCH. 195 they did but four years ago in the city of Boston, where I was the humble means, under God, of loos- ing from the power of Satan the four children of that religious and blessed man, Mr. Goodwin. These four babes of grace were bewitched by an Irish witch; there is no end to the narration of the tor- ments they had to submit to. At one time they would bark like dogs, at another purr like cats; yea, they would fly like geese, and be carried with an incredible swiftness, having but just their toes now and then upon the ground, sometimes not once in twenty feet, and their arms waved like those of a bird. Yet at other times, by the hellish devices of the woman who had bewitched them, they could not stir without limping, for, by means of an invisi- ble chain, she hampered their limbs, or sometimes, by means of a noose, almost choked them. One in especial was subjected by this woman of Satan to such heat as of an oven, that I myself have seen the sweat drop from off her, while all around were moderately cold and well at ease. But, not to trouble you with more of my stories, I will go on to prove that it was Satan himself that held power over her; for a very remarkable thing it was that she was not permitted by that evil spirit to read any godly or religious book, speaking the truth as it is in Jesus. She could read Popish books well enough, while both sight and speech seemed to fail her when I gave her the Assembly's Catechism. 196 LOIS THE WITCH. Again, she was fond of that prelatical Book of Com- mon Prayer, which is but the Eoman mass-book in an English and ungodly shape. In the midst of her sufferings, if one put the Prayer-book into her hands, it relieved her. Yet, mark you! she could never be brought to read the Lord's Prayer, what- ever book she met with it in, proving thereby dis- tinctly that she was in league with the devil. I took her into my own house, that I, even as Dr. Martin Luther did, might wrestle with the devil and have my fling at him; but when I called my household to prayer, the devils that possessed her caused her to whistle, and sing, and yell in a dis- cordant and hellish fashion." At this very instant a shrill, clear whistle pierced all ears. Dr. Mather stopped for a moment: "Satan is among you," he cried. "Look to your- selves." And he prayed with fervor, as if against a present and threatening enemy; but no one heed- ed him. Whence came that ominous, unearthly whistle? Every man watched his neighbor. Again the whistle, out of their very midst, and then a bus- tle in a corner of the building; three or four people stirring, without any cause immediately perceptible to those at a distance, the movement spread, and, directly after, a passage even in that dense mass of people was cleared for two men, who bore forward Prudence Hickson, lying rigid as a log of wood, in the convulsive position of one who suffered from an LOIS THE WITCH. 197 epileptic fit. They laid her down among the minis- ters who were gathered round the pulpit. Her mother came to her, sending up a wailing cry at the sight of her distorted child. Dr. Mather came down from the pulpit and stood over her, exorcising the devil in possession as one accustomed to such scenes. The crowd pressed forward in mute horror. At length her rigidity of form and feature gave way, and she was terribly convulsed—torn by the devil, as they called it: By-and-by the violence of the at- tack was over, and the spectators began to breathe once more, though still the former horror brooded over them, and they listened as if for the sudden ominous whistle again, and glanced fearfully around, as if Satan were at their backs picking out his next victim. Meanwhile Dr. Mather, Pastor Tappau, and one or two others were exhorting Prudence to reveal, if she could, the name of the person, the witch, who, by influence over Satan, had subjected the child to such torture as that which they had just witnessed. They bade her speak in the name of the Lord. She whispered a name in the low voice of exhaustion. None of the congregation could hear what it was. But the Pastor Tappau, when he heard it, drew back in dismay, while Dr. Mather, knowing not to whom the name belonged, cried out, in a clear, cold voice, "Know ye one Lois Barclay? for it is she who hath bewitched this poor child." 198 LOIS THE WITCH. The answer was given rather by action than by word, although a low murmur went up from many. But all fell back, as far as falling back in such a crowd was possible, from Lois Barclay, where she stood, and looked on her with surprise and horror. A space of some feet, where no possibility of space had seemed to be not a minute before, left Lois standing alone, with every eye fixed upon her in hatred and dread. She stood like one speechless, tongue-tied, as if in a dream. She a witch! ac- cursed as witches were in the sight of God and man! Her smooth, healthy face became contracted into shrivel and pallor, but she uttered not a word, only looked at Dr. Mather with her dilated, terrified eyes. Some one said, "She is of the household of Grace Hickson, a God-fearing woman." Lois did not know if the words were in her favor or not. She did not think about them, even; they told less on her than on any person present. She a witch! and the silver-glittering Avon, and the drowning wom- an she had seen in her childhood at Barford—at' home in England—were before her, and her eyes fell before her doom. There was some commotion —some rustling of papers; the magistrates of the town were drawing near the pulpit and consulting with the ministers. Dr. Mather spoke again: "The Indian woman who was hung this morning named certain people whom she deposed to having LOIS THE WITCH. 199 seen at the horrible meetings for the worship of Satan, but there is no name of Lois Barclay down upon the paper, although we are stricken at the sight of the names of some—" An interruption—a consultation. Again Dr. Ma- ther spoke: "Bring the accused witch, Lois Barclay, near to this poor suffering child of Christ." They rushed forward to force Lois to the place where Prudence lay. But Lois walked forward of herself. "Prudence," she said, in such a sweet, touching voice that, long afterward, those who heard it that day spoke of it to their children, "have I ever said an unkind w fd to you, much less done you an ill turn? Speak, dear child. You did not know what you said just now, did you?" But Prudence writhed away from her approach, and screamed out as if stricken with fresh agony, "Take her away! take her away! Witch Lois, witch Lois, who threw me down only this morning, and turned my arm black and blue." And she bared her arm, as if in confirmation of her words. It was sorely bruised. "I was not near you, Prudence," said Lois, sadly. But that was only reckoned fresh evidence of her diabolical power. Lois's brain began to get bewildered. Witch Lois! she a witch, abhorred of all men! Yet she would try to think, and make one more effort. 200 LOIS THE WITCH. "Aunt Hickson," she said, and Grace came for- ward; "am I a witch, Aunt Hickson?" she asked; for her aunt, stern, harsh, unloving as she might be, was truth itself, and Lois thought—so near to delir- ium had she come—if her aunt condemned her, it was possible she might indeed be a witch. Grace Hickson faced her unwillingly. "It is a stain upon our family forever," was the thought in her mind. "It is for God to judge whether thou art a witch or not, not for me." "Alas! alas !" moaned Lois; for she had looked at Faith, and learned that no good word was to be expected from her gloomy face and averted eyes. The meeting-house was full of eager11. oiees, repress- ed, out of reverence for the place, into tones of earnest murmuring, that seemed to fill the air with gathering sounds of anger, and those who had at first fallen back from the place where Lois stood were now pressing forward and round about her, ready to seize the young friendless girl and bear her off to prison. Those who might have been— who ought to have been her friends, were either averse or indifferent to her, though only Prudence made any open outcry upon her. That evil child cried out perpetually that Lois had cast a devilish spell upon her, and bade them keep the witch away from her; and, indeed, Prudence was strangely con- vulsed when once or twice Lois's perplexed and LOIS THE WITCH. 201 -wistful eyes were turned in her direction. Here and there girls, women uttering strange cries, and apparently suffering from the same kind of convul- sive fit as that which had attacked Prudence, were centres of a group of agitated friends, who muttered much and savagely of witchcraft, and the list which had been taken down only the night before from Hota's own lips. They demanded to have it made public, and objected to the slow forms of the law. Others, not so much or so immediately interested in the sufferers, were kneeling around, and praying aloud for themselves and their own safety, until the excitement should be so much quelled as to enable Dr. Cotton Mather to be again heard in prayer and exhortation. And where was Manasseh? "What said he? You must remember that all the stir of the outcry, the accusation, the appeals of the accused, all seemed to go on at once amid the buzz and din of the people who had come to worship God, but remained to judge and upbraid their fellow-creature. Till now Lois had only caught a glimpse of Manasseh, who was apparently trying to push forward, but whom his mother was holding back with word and action, as Lois knew she would hold him back, for it was not for the first time that she was made aware how carefully her aunt had always shrouded his decent reputation among his fellow-citizens from the least suspicion of his seasons of excitement and incipient 12 202 LOIS THE WITCH. insanity. On such days, when he himself imagined that he heard prophetic voices and saw prophetic visions, his mother would do much to prevent any besides his own family from seeing him; and now Lois, by a process swifter than reasoning, felt cer- tain, from her one look at his face, when she saw it, colorless and deformed by intensity of expression, among a number of others all simply ruddy and angry, that he was in such a state that his mother would in vain do her utmost to prevent his making himself conspicuous. Whatever force or argument Grace used, it was of no avail. In another moment he was by Lois's side, stammering with excitement, and giving vague testimony, which would have been of little value in a calm court of justice, and was only oil to the smouldering fire of that audience. "Away with her to jail!" "Seek out the witch- es!" "The sin has spread into all households!" "Satan is in the very midst of us!" "Strike and spare not!" In vain Dr. Cotton Mather raised his voice in loud prayers, in which he assumed the guilt of the accused girl; no one listened; all were anxious to secure Lois, as if they feared she would vanish from before their very eyes; she, white, trembling, standing quite still in the tight grasp of strange, fierce men, her dilated eyes only wandering a little now and then in search of some pitiful face —some pitiful face that among all those hundreds was not to be found. While some fetched cords to LOIS THE WITCH. 203 bind her, and others, by low questions, suggested new accusations to the distempered brain of Pru- dence, Manasseh obtained a hearing once more. Addressing Dr. Cotton Mather, he said, evidently anxious to make clear some new argument that had just suggested itself to him: "Sir, in this matter, be she witch or not, the end has been foreshown to me by the spirit of prophecy. Now, reverend sir, if the event be known to the spirit, it must have been foredoomed in the councils of God. If so, why punish her for doing that in which she had no freewill?" "Young man," said Dr. Mather, bending down from the pulpit and looking very severely upon Manasseh, "take care; you are trenching on blas- phemy." "I do not care. I say it again. Either Lois Barclay is a witch, or she is not. If she is, it has been foredoomed for her, for I have seen a vision of her death as a condemned witch for many months past; and the voice has told me there was but one escape for her, Lois—the voice you know—" In his excitement he began to wander a little, but it was touching to see how conscious he was that by giving way he would lose the thread of the logical argument by which he hoped to prove that Lois ought not to be punished, and with what an effort he wrenched his imagination away from the old ideas, and strove to concentrate all his mind upon 204 LOIS THE WITCH. the plea that, if Lois was a witch, it had been shown him by prophecy; and if there was prophecy there must be foreknowledge; if foreknowledge, fore- doom; if foredoom, no exercise of free will, and, therefore, that Lois was not justly amenable to pun- ishment. On he went, plunging into heresy; caring not— growing more and more passionate every instant, but directing his passion into keen argument, des- perate sarcasm, instead of allowing it to excite his imagination. Even Dr. Mather felt himself on the point of being worsted in the very presence of this congregation, who, but a short half hour ago, look- ed upon him as all but infallible. Keep a good heart, Cotton Mather! your opponent's eye begins to glare and flicker with a terrible yet uncertain light; his speech grows less coherent, and his ar- guments are mixed up with wild glimpses at wilder revelations made to himself alone. He has touched on the limits—he has entered the borders of blas- phemy, and with an awful cry of horror and repro- bation the congregation rise up, as one man, against the blasphemer. Dr. Mather smiled a grim smile, and the people were ready to stone Manasseh, who went on, regardless, talking and raving. "Stay! stay!" said Grace Hickson, all the de- cent family shame which prompted her to conceal the mysterious misfortune of her only son from pub- lic knowledge done away with by the sense of the LOIS THE WITCH. 205 immediate danger to his life. "Touch him not. He knows not what he is saying. The fit is upon him. I tell you the truth before God. My son, my only son, is mad." They stood aghast at the intelligence. The grave young citizen, who had silently taken his part in life close by them in their daily lives—not mixing much with them, it was true, but looked up to, per- haps, all the more—the student of abstruse books on theology, fit to converse with the most learned ministers that ever came about those parts—was he the same with the man now pouring out wild words to Lois the witch, as if he and she were the only two present? A solution of it all occurred to them. He was another victim. Great was the power of Satan! Through the arts of the devil, that white statue of a girl had mastered the soul of Manasseh Hickson. So the word spread from mouth to mouth. And Grace heard it. It seemed a heal- ing balsam for her shame. With willful, dishonest blindness, she would not see—not even in her se- cret heart would she acknowledge that Manasseh had been strange, and moody, and violent long be- fore the English girl had reached Salem. She even found some specious reason for his attempt at sui- cide long ago. He was recovering from a fever, and, though tolerably well in health, the delirium had not finally left him; but since Lois came, how headstrong he had been at times! how unreasona- 206 LOIS THE WITCH. ble! how moody! What a strange delusion was that which he was under, of being bidden by some voice to marry her! How he followed her about, and clung to her, as under some compulsion of af- fection! And over all reigned the idea that, if he were indeed suffering from being bewitched, he was not mad, and might again assume the honorable po- sition he had held in the congregation and in the town when the spell by which he was held was de- stroyed. So Grace yielded to the notion herself, and encouraged it in others, that Lois Barclay had bewitched both Manasseh and Prudence. And the consequence of this belief was, that Lois was to be tried, with little chance in her favor, to see wheth- er she was a witch or no; and if a witch, whether she would confess, implicate others, repent, and live a life of bitter shame, avoided by all men, and cru- elly treated by most, or die impenitent, hardened, denying her crime upon the gallows. And so they dragged Lois away from the con- gregation of Christians to the jail to await her trial. I say " dragged her," because, although she was do- cile enough to have followed them whither they would, she was now so faint as to require extrane- ous force—poor Lois! who should have been car- ried and tended lovingly in her state of exhaustion, but, instead, was so detested by the multitude, who looked upon her as an accomplice of Satan in all his evil doings, that they cared no more how they 208 LOIS THE WITCH. of strange sympathy. Could it, oh God!—could it be true that Satan had obtained the terrific power over her and her will of which she had heard and read. Could she indeed be possessed by a demon and be indeed a witch, and yet till now have been unconscious of it? And her excited imagination recalled, with singular vividness, all she had ever heard on the subject—the horrible midnight sacra- ment, the very presence and power of Satan. Then remembering every angry thought against her neigh- bor, against the impertinences of Prudence, against the overbearing authority of her aunt, against the persevering crazy suit of Manasseh, the indignation —only that morning, but such ages off in real time —at Faith's injustice—oh, could such evil thoughts have had devilish power given to them by the fa- ther of evil, and, all unconsciously to herself, have gone forth as active curses into the world? And so on the ideas went careering wildly through the poor girl's brain—the girl thrown inward upon her- self. At length the sting of her imagination forced her to start up impatiently. What was this? A weight of iron on her legs—a weight stated after- ward by the jailer of Salem prison to have been "not more than eight pounds." It was well for Lois it was a tangible ill, bringing her back from the wild illimitable desert in which her imagination was wandering. She took hold of the iron, and saw her torn stocking—her bruised ankle, and began to LOIS THE WITCH. 209 cry pitifully, out of strange compassion with herself. They feared, then, that even in that cell she would find a way to escape. Why, the utter, ridiculous impossibility of the thing convinced her of her own innocence, and ignorance of all supernatural power; and the heavy iron brought her strangely round from the delusions that seemed to be gathering about her. No, she never could fly out of that deep dungeon; there was no escape, natural or supernatural, for her, unless by man's mercy. And what was man's mercy in such times of panic? Lois knew that it was nothing; instinct, more than reason, taught her that panic calls out cowardice, and cowardice cruel- ty. Yet she cried—cried freely, and for the first time, when she found herself ironed and chained. It seemed so cruel—so much as if her fellow-crea- tures had really learned to hate and dread her— her, who had had a few angry thoughts, which God forgive I but whose thoughts had never gone into words, far less into actions. Why, even now she could love all the household at home, if they would but let her; yes, even yet, though she felt that it was the open accusation of Prudence and the with- held justifications of her aunt and Faith that had brought her to her present strait. Would they ever come and see her? Would kinder thoughts of her, who had shared their daily bread for months and months, bring them to see her, and ask her wheth- 210 LOIS THE WITCH. er it were really she who had brought on the ill- ness of Prudence, the derangement of Manasseh's mind? No one came. Bread and water were pushed in by some one, who hastily locked and unlocked the door, and cared not to see if he put them within his prisoner's reach, of perhaps thought that physical fact mattered little to a witch. It was long before Lois could reach them, and she had something of the natural hunger of youth left in her still, which prompted her, lying her length on the floor, to weary herself with efforts to obtain the bread. After she had eaten-some of it the day began to wane, and she thought she would lay her down and try to sleep. But before she did so the jailer heard her singing the Evening Hymn— "Glory to thee, my God, this night, For all the blessings of the light." And a dull thought came into his dull mind that she was thankful for few blessings, if she could tune up her voice to sing praises after this day of what, if she were a witch, was shameful detection in abom- inable practices, and if not— Well, his mind stop- ped short at this point in his wondering contempla- tion. Lois knelt down and said the Lord's Prayer, pausing just a little before one clause, that she might be sure that in her heart of hearts she did forgive. Then she looked at her ankle, and the tears came into her eyes once again, but not so much because . LOIS THE WITCH. 211 she was hurt as because men must have hated her so bitterly before they could have treated her thus. Then she lay down and fell asleep. The next day she was led before Mr. Hathorn and Mr. Curwin, justices of Salem, to be accused legally and publicly of witchcraft. Others were with her, under the same charge. And when the prisoners were brought in, they were cried out at by the abhorrent crowd. The two Tappaus, Pru- dence, and one or two other girls of the same age were there, in the character of victims of the spells of the accused. The prisoners were placed about seven or eight feet from the justices, and the accu- sers between the justices and them; the former were then ordered to stand right before the justices. All this Lois did at their bidding, with something of the wondering docility of a child, but not with any hope of softening the hard, stony look of detestation that was on all the countenances around her, save those that were distorted by more passionate anger. Then an officer was bidden to hold each of her hands, and Justice Hathorn bade her keep her eyes continually fixed on him, for this reason—which, however, was not told to her—lest, if she looked on Prudence, the girl might either fall into a fit, or cry out that she was suddenly and violently hurt. If any heart could have been touched of that cruel multitude, they would have felt some compassion for the sweet young face of the English girl, trying so meekly to 212 LOIS THE WITCH. do all that she was ordered, her face quite white, yet so full of sad gentleness, her gray eyes, a little dilated by the very solemnity of her position, fixed with the intent look of innocent maidenhood on the stern face of Justice Hathorn. And thus they stood in silence one breathless minute. Then they were bidden to say the Lord's Prayer. Lois went through it as if alone in her cell; but, as she had done alone in her cell the night before, she made a little pause before the prayer to be forgiven as she forgave. And at this instant of hesitation—as if they had been on the watch for it—they all cried out upon her for a witch; and when the clamor ended, the jus- tices bade Prudence Hickson come forward. Then Lois turned a little to one side, wishing to see at least one familiar face; but when her eyes fell upon Prudence, the girl stood stock-still, and answered no questions nor spoke a word, and the justices de- clared that she was struck dumb by witchcraft. Then some behind took Prudence under the arms, and would have forced her forward to touch Lois, possibly esteeming that as a cure for her being be- witched. But Prudence had hardly been made to take three steps before she struggled out of their arms, and fell down writhing as in a fit, calling out with shrieks, and entreating Lois to help her, and save her from her torment. Then all the girls be- gan " to tumble down like swine" (to use the words of an eye-witness), and to cry out upon Lois and her LOIS THE WITCH. 213 fellow-prisoners. These last were now ordered to stand with their hands stretched out, it being imag- ined that if the bodies of the witches were arranged in the form of a cross they would lose their evil power. By-and-by Lois felt her strength going, from the unwonted fatigue of such a position, which she had borne patiently until the pain and weari- ness had forced both tears and sweat down her face, and she asked in a low, plaintive voice if she might not rest her head for a few moments against the wooden partition. But Justice Hathorn told her she had strength enough to torment others, and should have strength enough to stand. She sighed a little, and bore on, the clamor against her and the other accused increasing every moment; the only , way she could keep herself from utterly losing con- sciousness was by distracting herself from present pain and danger, and saying to herself verses of the Psalms, as she could remember them, expressive of trust in God. At length she was ordered back to jail, and dimly understood that she and others were sentenced to be hanged for witchcraft. Many peo- ple now looked eagerly at Lois, to see if she would weep at this doom. If she had had strength to cry, it might—it was just possible that it might—have been considered a plea in her favor, for witches could not shed tears; but she was too' exhausted and dead. All she wanted was to lie down once more on her prison-bed, out of the reach of men's 214 LOIS THE WITCH. cries of abhorrence, and out of shot of their cruel eyes. So they led her back to prison, speechless and tearless. But rest gave her back her power of thought and suffering. Was it indeed true that she was to die? She, Lois Barclay, only eighteen, so well, so young, so full of love and hope as she had been till but these little days past! What would they think of it at home—real, dear home at Barford, in England? There they had loved her; there she had gone about singing and rejoicing all the day long in the pleasant meadows by the Avon side. Oh, why did father and mother die, and leave her their bidding to come here to this cruel New England shore, where no one had wanted her, no one had cared for her, and where now they were going to put her to a shameful death as a witch? And there would be no one to send kindly messages by to those she should never see more. Never more! Young Lucy was living, and joyful—probably thinking of her, and of his declared intention of coming to fetch her home to be his wife this very spring. Possibly he had forgotten her; no one knew. A week be- fore, she would have been indignant at her own distrust in thinking for a minute that he could for- get. Now, she doubted all men's goodness for a time; for those around her were deadly, and cruel, and relentless. Then she turned round, and beat herself with an- LOIS THE WITCH. 215 gry blows (to speak in images) for ever doubting her lover. Oh, if she were but with him! Oh, if she might but be with him! He would not let her die, but would hide her in his bosom from the wrath of this people, and carry her back to the old home at Barford. And he might even now be sailing on the wide blue sea, coming nearer, nearer every mo- ment, and yet be too late after all. So the thoughts chased each other through her head all that feverish night, till she clung almost de- liriously to life, and wildly prayed that she might not die—at least not just yet, and she so young! Pastor Tappau and certain elders roused her up from a heavy sleep late on the morning of the fol- lowing day. All night long she had trembled and cried, till morning light had come peering in through the square grating up above. It soothed her, and she fell asleep, to be awakened, as I have said, by. Pastor Tappau. "Arise!" said he, scrupling to touch her, from his superstitious idea of her evil powers. "It is noonday." "Where am I?" said she, bewildered at this un- usual wakening, and the array of strange faces all gazing upon her with reprobation. "You are in Salem jail, condemned for a witch." "Alas! I had forgotten for an instant," said she, dropping her head upon her breast. "She has been out on a devilish ride all night 218 LOIS THE WITCH. to the slight ankle; the two hands held together as if to keep down a convulsive motion. "Look!" said one of these; "she is weeping. They say no witch can weep tears." But another scoffed at this test, and bade the first remember how those of her own family, the Hick- sons, bore witness against her. Once more she was bidden to confess. The charges, esteemed by all men (as they said) to have been proven against her, were read over to her, with all the testimony borne against her in proof thereof. They told her that, considering the godly family to which she belonged, it had been decided by the magistrates and ministers of Salem that she should have her life spared if she would own her guilt, make reparation, and submit to penance; but that if not, she, and others convicted of witchcraft along with her, were to be hung in Salem market- place on the next Thursday morning (Thursday being market-day). And when they had thus spoken, they waited silently for her answer. It was a minute or two before she spoke. She had sat down again upon the bed meanwhile,-for indeed she was very weak. She asked, "May I have this handkerchief unbound from my eyes? for indeed, sirs, it hurts me." The occasion for which she was blindfolded be- ing over, the bandage was taken off, and she was allowed to see. She looked pitifully at the ste*rn LOIS THE WITCH. 219 faces around her, in grim suspense as to what her answer would be. Then she spoke: "Sirs, I must choose death with a quiet con- science, rather than life to be gained by a lie. I am not a witch. I know not hardly what you mean when you say I am. I have done many, many things very wrong in my life, but I think God will forgive me them for my Savior's sake." "Take not His name on your wicked lips," said Pastor Tappau, enraged at her resolution of not confessing, and scarcely able to keep himself from striking her. She saw the desire he had, and shrank away in timid fear. Then Justice Hathorn solemn- ly read the legal condemnation of Lois Barclay to death by hanging as a convicted witch. She mur- mured something which nobody heard fully, but which sounded like a prayer for pity and compas- sion on her tender years and friendless estate. Then they left her to all the horrors of that solitary, loathsome dungeon, and the strange terror of ap- proaching death. Outside the prison walls, the dread of the witches and the excitement against witchcraft grew with fearful rapidity. Numbers of women, and men too, were accused, no matter what their station of life and their former character had been. On the other side, it is alleged that upward of fifty persons were grievously vexed by the devil, and those to whom he had imparted of his power for vile and wicked 220 LOIS THE WITCH. considerations. How much, of malice—distinct, un- mistakable personal malice, was mixed up with these accusations, no one can now tell.. The dire statistics of this time tell us that fifty-five escaped death by confessing themselves guilty, one hundred and fifty were in prison, more than two hundred accused, and upward of twenty suffered death, among whom was the minister I have called Nolan, who was traditionally esteemed to have suffered through hatred of his co-pastor. One old man, scorning the accusation, and refusing to plead at his trial, was, according to the law, pressed to death for his contumacy. Nay, even dogs were accused of witchcraft, suffered the legal penalties, and are re- corded among the subjects of capital punishment. One young man found means to effect his mother's escape from confinement, fled with her on horse- back, and secreted her in the Blueberry Swamp, not far from Taplay's Brook, in the Great Pasture; he concealed her here in a wigwam which he built for her shelter, provided her with food and clothing, and comforted and sustained her until after the de- lusion had passed away. The poor creature must, however, have suffered dreadfully, for one of her arms was fractured in the all but desperate effort of getting her out of prison. But there was no one to try and save Lois. Grace Hickson would fain have ignored her alto- gether. Such a taint did witchcraft bring upon a LOIS THE WITCH. 221 whole family, that generations of blameless life were not at that day esteemed sufficient to wash it out.. Besides, you must remember that Grace, along with most people in her time, believed most firmly in the reality of the crime of witchcraft. Poor for- saken Lois believed in it herself, and it added to her terror; for the jailer, in an unusually communi- cative mood, told her that nearly every cell was now full of witches, and it was possible he might have to put one, if more came, in with her. Lois knew that she was no witch herself, but not the less did she believe that the crime was abroad, and largely shared in by evil-minded persons who had chosen to give up their souls to Satan; and she shuddered with terror at what the jailer said, and would have asked him to spare her this companion- ship if it were possible. But, somehow, her senses were leaving her, and she could not remember the right words in which to form her request until he had left the place. The only person who yearned after Lois—who would have befriended her if he could—was Ma- nasseh—poor mad Manasseh. But he was so wild and outrageous in his talk that it was all his moth- er could do to keep his state concealed from public observation. She had for this purpose given him a sleeping potion; and, while he lay heavy and in- ert under the influence of the poppy-tea, his mother bound him with cords to the ponderous antique 222 LOIS THE WITCH. bed in which he slept. She looked broken-hearted while she did this office, and thus acknowledged the degradation of her first-born—him of whom she had ever been so proud. Late that evening Grace Hickson stood in Lois's cell, hooded and cloaked up to her eyes. Lois was sitting quite still, playing idly with a bit of string which one of the magistrates had dropped out of his pocket that morning. Her aunt was standing by her for an instant or two in silence before Lois seemed aware of her presence. Suddenly she look- ed up, and uttered a little cry, shrinking away from the dark figure. Then, as if her cry had loosened Grace's tongue, she began: "Lois Barclay, did I ever do you any harm?" Grace did not know how often her want of loving kindness had pierced the tender heart of the stran- ger under her roof, nor did Lois remember it against her now. Instead, Lois's memory was filled with grateful thoughts of how much that might have been left undone by a less conscientious person her aunt had done for her, and she half stretched out her arms as to a friend in that desolate place while she answered, "Oh no, no, you were very good—very kind!" But Grace stood immovable. "I did you no harm, although I never rightly knew why you came to us." "I was sent by my mother on her death-bed," LOIS THE WITCH. 223 moaned Lois, covering her face. It grew darker every instant. Her aunt stood still and silent. "Did^any of mine ever wrong you?" she asked, after a time. "No, no—never, till Prudence said— Oh, aunt, do you think I am a witch?" And now Lois was standing up, holding by Grace's cloak, and trying to read her face. Grace drew herself ever so little away from the girl, whom she dreaded, and yet sought to propitiate. "Wiser than I, godlier than I, have said it. But oh, Lois, Lois, he was my first-born. Loose him from the demon, for the sake of Him whose name I dare not name in this terrible building, filled with them who have renounced the hopes of their bap- tism; loose Manasseh from his awful state, if ever I or mine did you a kindness!" "You ask me for Christ's sake," said Lois. "I can name that holy name—for oh, aunt, indeed and in holy truth I am no witch, and yet I am to die— to be hanged! Aunt, do not let them kill me. I am so young, and I never did any one any harm that I know of." "Hush! for very shame! This afternoon I have bound my first-born with strong cords to keep him from doing himself or us a mischief, he is so phren- sied. Lois Barclay, look here"—and Grace knelt down at her niece's feet, and joined her hands as if in prayer—" I am a proud woman, God forgive me! 224 LOIS THE WITCH. and I never thought to kneel to any save to Him. 'And now I kneel at your feet, to pray you to re- lease my children, more especially my son Manas- seh, from the spells you have put upon them. Lois, hearken to me, and I will pray to the Almighty for you, if yet there may be mercy." "I can not do it; I never did you or yours any wrong. How can I undo it? How can I?" And she wrung her hands in intensity of conviction of the inutility of aught she could do. Here Grace got up, slowly, stiffly, and sternly. She stood aloof from the chained girl, in the remote corner of the prison cell, near the door, ready to make her escape as soon as she had cursed the witch, who would not, or could not, undo the evil she had wrought. Grace lifted up her right hand, and held it up on high as she doomed Lois to be accursed forever for her deadly sin, and her want of mercy even at this final hour. And, lastly, she summoned her to meet her at the judgment-seat, and answer for this deadly injury done to both souls and bodies of those who had taken her in, and received her when she came to them an orphan and a stranger. Until this last summons Lois had stood as one who hears her sentence and can say nothing against it, for she knows all would be in vain. But she raised her head when she heard her aunt speak of the judgment-seat, and at the end of Grace's speech LOIS THE WITCH. 225 she too lifted up her right hand, as if solemnly pledging herself by that action, and replied, "Aunt, I will meet you there; and then you will know my innocence of this deadly thing. God have mercy on you and yours!" Her calm voice maddened Grace, and, making a gesture as if she plucked up a handful of dust off the floor and threw it at Lois, she cried, "Witch! witch! ask mercy for thyself; I need not your prayers. Witches' prayers are read back- ward. I spit at thee, and defy thee!" And so she went away. Lois sat moaning that- whole night through. "God comfort me! God strengthen me!" was all she could remember to say. She just felt that want, nothing more—all other fears and wants seemed dead within her. And when the jailer brought in her breakfast the next morning, he re- ported her as " gone silly;" for, indeed, she did not seem to know him, but kept rocking herself to and fro, and whispering softly to herself, smiling a little from time to time. But God did comfort her, and strengthen her too. Late on that Wednesday afternoon they thrust an- other "witch" into her cell, bidding the two, with opprobrious words, keep company together. The new-comer fell prostrate with the push given her from without; and Lois, not recognizing any thing but an old ragged woman lying helpless on her K 2 LOIS THE WITCH. face on the ground, lifted her up, and lo! it was Nattee—dirty, filthy indeed, mud-pelted, stone- bruised, beaten, and all astray in her wits with the treatment she had received from the mob outside. Lois held her in her arms, and softly wiped the old brown wrinkled face with her apron, crying over it as she had hardly yet cried over her own sorrows. For hours she tended the old Indian woman—tend- ed her bodily woes; and as the poor scattered senses of the savage creature came slowly back, Lois gath- ered, her infinite dread of the morrow, when she too, as well as Lois, was to be led out to die, in face of all that infuriated crowd. Lois sought in her own mind for some source of comfort for the old wom- an, who shook like one in the shaking palsy at the dread of death—and such a death! When all was quiet through the prison, in the deep dead midnight, the jailer outside the door heard Lois telling, as if to a young child, the mar- velous and sorrowful story of one who died on the cross for us and for our sakes. As long as she spake the Indian woman's terror seemed lulled, but the instant she paused for weariness Nattee cried out afresh, as if some wild beast were following her through the dense forests in which she had dwelt in her youth. And then Lois went on, saying all the blessed words she could remember, and com- forting the helpless Indian woman with the sense of the presence of a Heavenly Friend; and in com- LOIS THE WITCH. 227 forting her Lois was comforted; in strengthening her Lois was strengthened. The morning came, and the summons to come forth and die came. They who entered the cell found Lois asleep, her face resting on the slumber- ing old woman, whose head she still held in her lap. She did not seem clearly to recognize where she was when she awakened; the "silly" look had returned to her wan face; all she appeared to know was that somehow or another, through some peril or another, she had to protect the poor Indian wom- an. She smiled faintly when she saw the bright light of the April day, and put her arm round Nat- tee, and tried to keep the Indian quiet with hush- ing, soothing words of broken meaning, and holy fragments of the Psalms. Nattee tightened her hold upon Lois as they drew near the gallows, and the outrageous crowd below began to hoot and yell. Lois redoubled her efforts to calm and encourage Nattee, apparently unconscious that any of the op- probrium, the hootings, the stones, the mud, was directed toward her herself. But when they took Nattee from her arms, and led her out to suffer first, Lois seemed all at once to recover her sense of the present terror. She gazed wildly around, stretched out her arms as if to some person in the distance, who was yet visible to her, and cried out once with a voice that thrilled through all who heard it, "Mother!" Directly afterward the body 228 LOIS THE WITCH. of Lois the Witch swung in the air, and every one stood, with hushed breath, with a sudden wonder, like a fear of deadly crime fallen upon them. The stillness and the silence were broken by one crazed and mad, who came rushing up the steps of the ladder, and caught Lois's body in his arms, and kissed her lips with wild passion. And then, as if it were true what the people believed, that he was possessed by a demon, he sprang down, and rushed through the crowd, out of the bounds of the city, and into the dark, dense forest, and Manasseh Hick- son was no more seen of Christian men. The people of Salem had awakened from their frightful delusion before the autumn, when Captain Holdernesse and Ealph Lucy came to find out Lois, and bring her home to peaceful Barford, in the pleasant country of England. Instead, they led them to the grassy grave where she lay at rest, done to death by mistaken men. Ealph Lucy shook the dust off his feet in quitting Salem with a heavy, heavy heart, and lived a bachelor all his life long for her sake. Long years afterward Captain Holdernesse sought him out, to tell him some news that he thought might interest the grave miller of the Avonside. Captain Holdernesse told him that in the previous year—it was then 1713—the sentence of excommu- nication against the witches of Salem was ordered, in godly sacramental meeting of the Church, to be LOIS THE WITCH. . 229 erased and blotted out, and that those who met to- gether for this purpose "humbly requested the merciful God would pardon whatsoever sin, error, or mistake was in the application of justice, through our merciful High-priest, who knoweth how to have compassion on the ignorant, and those that are out of the way." He also said that Prudence Hickson —now woman grown—had made a most touching and pungent declaration of sorrow and repentance before the whole Church for the false and mistaken testimony she had given in several instances, among which she particularly mentioned that of her cousin, Lois Barclay. To all which Ealph Lucy only an- swered, "No repentance of theirs can bring her back to life." Then Captain Holdernesse took out a paper, and read the following humble and solemn declaration of regret on the part of those who signed it, among whom Grace Hickson was one: "We, whose names are undersigned, being, in the year 1692, called to serve as jurors in court of Salem on trial of many who were by some suspect- ed guilty of doing acts of witchcraft upon the bodies of sundry persons, we confess that we ourselves were not capable to understand, nor able to with- stand, the mysterious delusions of the powers of darkness and prince of the air, but were, for want of knowledge in ourselves, and better information 230 LOIS THE WITCH. from others, prevailed with to take up with such evidence against the accused as, on further consider- ation and better information, we justly fear was in- sufficient for the touching the lives of any (Deut., xvii., 6), whereby we fear we have been instru- mental, with others, though ignorant and unwit- tingly, to bring upon ourselves and this people of the Lord the guilt of innocent blood, which sin, the Lord saith in Scripture, he would not pardon (2 Kings, xxiv., 4), that is, we suppose, in regard of his temporal judgments. We do, therefore, sig- nify to all in general (and to the surviving sufferers in special) our deep sense of, and sorrow for, our errors in acting on such evidence to the condemn- ing of any person, and do hereby declare that we justly fear that we were sadly deluded and mis- taken, for which we are much disquieted and dis- tressed in our minds, and do therefore humbly beg forgiveness, first of God, for Christ's sake, for this our error, and pray that God would not impute the guilt of it to ourselves nor others; and we also pray that we may be considered candidly and aright by the living sufferers, as being then under the power of a strong and general delusion, utterly unac- quainted with, and not experienced in, matters of that nature. "We do heartily ask forgiveness of you all, whom we have justly offended; and do declare, according to our present minds, we would none of LOIS THE WITCH. 231 us do such things again on such grounds for the whole world; praying you to accept of this in way of satisfaction for our offense, and that you would bless the inheritance of the Lord, that he may be entreated for the land. "Foreman, Thomas Fisk, &c." To the reading of this paper Ealph Lucy made no reply save this, even more gloomily than before: "All their repentance will avail nothing to my Lois, nor will it bring back her life." Then Captain Holdernesse spoke once more, and said that on the day of the general fast, appointed to be held all through New England, when the meeting-houses were crowded, an old, old man, with white hair, had stood up in the place in which he was accustomed to worship, and had handed up into the pulpit a written confession, which he had once or twice essayed to read for himself, acknowledging his great and grievous error in the matter of the witches of Salem, and praying for the forgiveness of God and of his people, ending with an entreaty that all then present would join with him in prayer that his past conduct might not bring down the dis- pleasure of the Most High upon his country, his family, or himself. That old man, who was no oth- er than Justice Sewall, remained standing all the time that his confession was read; and at the end he said, "The good and gracious God be pleased to 232 LOIS THE WITCH. save New England, and me and my family." And then it came out that for years past Judge Sewall had set apart a day for humiliation and prayer, to keep fresh in his mind a sense of repentance and sorrow for the part he had borne in these trials, and that this solemn anniversary he was pledged to keep as long as he lived, to show his feeling of deep hu- miliation. Ealph Lucy's voice trembled as he spoke: "All this will not bring my Lois to life again, or give me back the hope of my youth." But, as Captain Holdernesse shook his head (for what word could he say, or how dispute what was so evidently true?), Ealph added, "What is the day, know you, that this justice has set apart?" "The twenty-ninth of April." "Then on that day will I, here at Barford, in England, join my prayers as long as I live with the repentant judge, that his sin may be blotted out and no more had in remembrance. She would have willed it so." THE CROOKED BRANCH. Not many years after the beginning of this cen- tury, a worthy couple of the name of Huntroyd oc- cupied a small farm in the North Eiding of York- shire. They had married late in life, although they were very young when they first began to "keep company" with each other. Nathan Huntroyd had been farm-servant to Hester Eose's father, and had made up to her at a time when her parents thought she might do better; and so, without much con- sultation of her feelings, they had dismissed Nathan in somewhat cavalier fashion. He had drifted far away from his former connections, when an uncle of his died, leaving Nathan—by this time upward of forty years of age—enough money to stock a small farm, and yet have something over to put in the bank against bad times. One of the conse- quences of this bequest was, that Nathan was look- ing out for a wife and housekeeper in a kind of dis- creet and leisurely way, when, one day, he heard that his old love, Hester, was—not married and flourishing, as he had always supposed her to be— but a poor maid-of-all-work in the town of Eipon; for her father had had a succession of misfortunes, 234 THE CROOKED BRANCH. which had brought him in his old age to the work- house; her mother was dead; her only brother struggling to bring up a large family; and Hester herself, a hard-working, homely-looking (at thirty- seven) servant Nathan had a kind of growling satisfaction (which only lasted for a minute or two, however) in hearing of these turns of Fortune's wheel. He did not make many intelligible remarks to his informant, and to no one else did he say a word. But, a few days afterward, he presented him- self, dressed in his Sunday best, at Mrs. Thompson's back door in Eipon. Hester stood there, in answer to the good sound knock his good sound oak stick made; she with the light full upon her, he in shadow. For a moment there was silence. He was scanning the face and figure of his old love, for twenty years unseen. The comely beauty of youth had faded away entirely; she was, as I have said, homely-looking, plain-fea- tured, but with a clean skin, and pleasant, frank eyes. Her figure was no longer round, but tidily draped in a blue and white bedgown, tied round her waist by her white apron-strings, and her short red linsey petticoat showed her tidy feet and ankles. Her former lover fell into no ecstasies. He simply said to himself, "She'll do," and forthwith began upon his business. "Hester, thou dost not mind me. I am Nathan, as thy father turned off at a minute's notice for -. 236 THE CROOKED BRANCH. "I have pleased mysel', and thee too, I hope. Is it a month's wage and a month's warning? To- day is the eighth. July eighth is our wedding-day. I have no time to spend a-wooing before then, and wedding must na take long. Two days is enough to throw away at our time o' life." It was like a dream; but Hester resolved not to think more about it till her work was done; and when all was cleaned up for the evening, she went and gave her mistress warning, telling her all the history of her life in a very few words. That day month she was married from Mrs. Thompson's house. The issue of the marriage was one boy, Benjamin. A few years after his birth, Hester's brother died at Leeds, leaving ten or twelve children. Hester sorrowed bitterly over this loss; and Nathan show- ed her much quiet sympathy, although he could not but remember that Jack Eose had added insult to the bitterness of his youth. He helped his wife to make ready to go by the wagon to Leeds. He made light of the household difficulties which came thronging into her mind after all was fixed for her departure. He filled her purse, that she might have wherewithal to alleviate the immediate wants of her brother's family. And as she was leaving, he ran after the wagon. "Stop! stop!" he cried. "Het- ty, if thou wilt—if it wunnot be too much for thee —bring back one of Jack's wenches for company, THK CROOKED BRANCH. 237 like. We've enough and to spare; and a lass will make the house winsome, as a man may say." The wagon moved on, while Hester had such a silent swelling of gratitude in her heart as was both thanks to her husband and thanksgiving to God. And that was the way that little Bessy Eose came to be an inmate of the Nab-end Farm. Virtue met with its own reward in this instance, and in a clear and tangible shape, too, which need not delude people in general into thinking that such is the usual nature of virtue's rewards. Bessy grew up a bright, affectionate, active girl—a daily comfort to her uncle and aunt. She was so much a darling in the household, that they even thought her wor- thy of their only son Benjamin, who was perfection in their eyes. It is not often the case that two plain, homely people have a child of uncommon beauty, but it is sometimes, and Benjamin Huntroyd was one of these exceptional cases. The hard-working, labor-and-care-marked farmer, and the mother, who could never have been more than tolerably comely in her best days, produced a boy who might have been an earl's son for grace and beauty. Even the hunting squires of the neighborhood reined up their horses to admire him as he opened the gates for them. He had no shyness, he was so accustomed to admiration from strangers, and adoration from his parents from his earliest years. As for Bessy Eose, he ruled imperiously over her heart from the 238 THE CBOOKED BKANCH. time she first set eyes on him; and as she grew older, she grew on in loving, persuading herself that what her uncle and aunt loved so dearly it was her duty to love dearest of all. At every unconscious symptom of the young girl's love for her cousin, his parents smiled and winked: all was going on as they wished; no need to go far afield for Benjamin's wife. The household could go on as it was now; Nathan and Hester sinking into the rest of years, and relinquishing care and authority to those dear ones, who, in process of time, might bring other dear ones to share their love. But Benjamin took it all very coolly. He had been sent to a day-school in the neighboring town —a grammar-school, in the high state of neglect in' which the majority of such schools were thirty years ago. Neither his father nor his mother knew much of learning. All that they knew (and that directed their choice of a school) was that they could not, by any possibility, part with their darling to a boarding-school; that some schooling he must have, and that Squire Pollard's son went to Highminster Grammar School. Squire Pollard's son, and many another son destined to make his parents' hearts ache, went to this school. If it had not been so ut- terly bad a place of education, the simple farmer and his wife might have found it out sooner. But not only did the pupils there learn vice, they also learned deceit. Benjamin was naturally too clever -.. THE CROOKED BRANCH. 239 to remain a dunce, or else, if he had chosen so to be, there was nothing in Highminster Grammar School to hinder his being a dunce of the first water. But, to all appearance, he grew clever and gentlemanlike. His father and mother were even proud of his airs and graces when he came home for the holidays, taking them for proofs of his refinement, although the practical effect of such refinement was to make him express his contempt for his parents' homely ways and simple ignorance. By the time he was eighteen, an articled clerk in an attorney's office at Highminster—for he had quite declined becoming a "mere clodhopper," that is to say, a hard-work- ing, honest farmer like his father—Bessy Bose was the only person who was dissatisfied with him. The little girl of fourteen instinctively felt there was something wrong about him. Alas! two years more, and the girl of sixteen worshiped his very shadow, and would not see that aught could be wrong with one so soft-spoken, so handsome, so kind as Cousin Benjamin; for Benjamin had dis- covered that the way to cajole his parents out of money for every indulgence he fancied was to pre- tend to forward their innocent scheme, and make love to his pretty cousin Bessy Rose. He cared just enough for her to make this work of necessity not disagreeable at the time he was performing it, but he found it tiresome to remember her little claims upon him when she was no longer present. The 240 THE CROOKED BRANCH. letters he had promised her during his weekly ab- sences at Highminster, the trifling commissions she had asked him to do for her, were all considered in the light of troubles, and, even when he was with her, he resented the inquiries she had made as to his mode of passing his time, or what female ac- quaintances he had in Highminster. When his apprenticeship was ended, nothing would serve him but that he must go up to London for a year or two. Poor Farmer Huntroyd was be- ginning to repent of his ambition of making his son Benjamin a gentleman. But it was too late to re- pine now. Both father and mother felt this, and, however sorrowful they might be, they were silent, neither demurring nor assenting to Benjamin's prop- osition when first he made it. But Bessy, through her tears, noticed that both her uncle and aunt seemed unusually tired that night, and sat hand-in- hand on the fireside settle, idly gazing into the bright flame, as if they saw in it pictures of what they had once hoped their lives would have been. Bessy rattled about among the supper-things as she put them away after Benjamin's departure, making more noise than usual—as if noise and bustle was what she needed to keep her from bursting out cry- ing—and, having at one.keen glance taken in the position and looks of Nathan and Hester, she avoid- ed looking in that direction again, for fear the sight of their wistful faces should make her own tears overflow. 242 THE CROOKED BRANCH. putting down her apron, her face all aflame, and her eyes swollen up, "I dunnot see harm in it. Lads aren't like lasses, to be teed to their own fireside like th' crook yonder. It's fitting for a young man to go abroad and see the world afore he settles down." Hester's hand sought Bessy's, and the two women sat in sympathetic defiance of any blame that should be thrown on the beloved absent. Nathan only said, "Nay, wench, dunna wax up so; whatten's done 's done, and, worse, it's my doing. I mun needs make my bairn a gentleman, and we mun pay for it." "Dear uncle,he wunna spend much, I'll answer for it; and I'll scrimp and save i' th' house to make it good." "Wench," said Nathan, solemnly, "it were not paying in cash I were speaking on; it were paying in heart's care and heaviness of soul. Lunnon is a place where the devil keeps court as well as King George, and my poor chap has more nor once welly fallen into his clutches here. I dunno what he'll do when he gets close within sniff of him." "Don't let him go, father," said Hester, for the first time taking this view. Hitherto she had only thought of her own grief at parting with him. "Father, if you think so, keep him here, safe under our own eye." THE CROOKED BBANCH. 243 "Nay," said Nathan, "he's past time o' life for that. Why, there's not one on us knows where he is at this present time, and he not gone out of our sight an hour. He's too big to be put back i' th' go-cart, mother, or kept within doors with the chair turned bottom upward." "I wish he were a wee bairn lying in my arms again. It were a sore day when I weaned him; and I think life's been gettin' sorer and sorer at ev- ery turn he's ta'en toward manhood." "Coom, lass, that's noan the way to be talking. Be thankful to Marcy that thou'st getten a man for thy son as stands five foot eleven in's stockings, and ne'er a sick piece about him. We wunnot grudge him his fling, will we, Bess, my wench? He'll be coming back in a year, or maybe a bit more, and be a' for settling in a quiet town like, wi' a wife that's noan so fur fra' me at this very min- ute. An' we oud folk, as we get into years, must gi' up farm, and tak a bit on a house near Lawyer Benjamin." And so the good Nathan, his own heart heavy enough, tried to soothe his womenkind. But of the three, his eyes were longest in closing, his apprehen- sions the deepest founded. "I misdoubt me I hanna done well by th' lad. I misdoubt me sore," was the thought that kept him awake till day began to dawn. "Summat's wrong about him, or folk would na look at me wi' such 244 THE CROOKED BRANCH. piteous-like een when they speak on him. I can see th' meaning on it, thof I'm too proud to let on. And Lawson, too, he holds his tongue more nor he should do when I ax him how my lad's getting on, and whatten sort of a lawyer he'll mak. God be marciful to Hester an' me if th' lad's gone away! God be marciful! But maybe it's this lying wak- ing a' the night through that maks me so fearfu'. Why, when I were his age, I daur be bound I should ha' spent money fast enoof, i' I could ha' come by it. But I had to am it; that maks a great differ'. Well! It were hard to thwart th' child of our old age, and we waitin' so long for to have 'un." Next morning Nathan rode Moggy, the cart-horse, into Highminster to see Mr. Lawson. Any body who saw him ride out of his own yard would have been struck with the change in him which was visible when he returned—a change more than a day's unusual exercise should have made in a man of his years. He scarcely held the reins at all. One jerk of Moggy's head would have plucked them out of his hands. His head was bent forward, his eyes looking on some unseen thing with long unwinking gaze. But, as he drew near home on his return, he made an effort to recover himself. "No need fretting them," he said; "lads will be lads. But I didna think he had it in him to be so thowtless, young as he is. Well, well, he'll maybe THE CROOKED BRANCH. 245 get more wisdom i' Lunnon. Anyways it's best to cut him off fra such evil lads as Will Hawker, and suchlike. It's they as have led my boy astray. He were a good chap till he knowed them—a good chap till he knowed them." But he put all his cares in the background when he came into the house-place, where both Bessy and his wife met him at the door, and both would fain lend a hand to take off his great-coat. "Theer, wenches, theer, ye might let a man alone for to get out on's clothes! Why, I might ha' struck thee, lass." And he went on talking, trying to keep them off for a time from the subject that all had at heart. But there was no putting them off forever; and, by dint of repeated questioning on his wife's part, more was got out than he had ever meant to tell—enough to grieve both his hearers sorely; and yet the brave old man still kept the worst in his own breast. The next day Benjamin came home for a week or two before making his great start to London. His father kept him at a distance, and was solemn and quiet in his manner to the young man. Bes- sy, who had shown anger enough at first, and had uttered many a sharp speech, began to relent, and then to feel hurt and displeased that her uncle should persevere so long in his cold, reserved man- ner, and Benjamin just going to leave them. Her aunt went, tremblingly busy, about the clothes- THE CROOKED BRANCH. 247 Many a day after he was gone did she look earnest- ly in the little oblong looking-glass which hung up against the wall of her little sleeping-chamber, but which she used to take down in order to examine the eyes he had praised, murmuring to herself, "Pretty soft gray eyes! pretty soft gray eyes!" until she would hang up the glass again with a sudden laugh and a rosy blush. In the days when he had gone away to the vague distance and vaguer place—the city called London— Bessy tried to forget all that had gone against her feeling of the affection and duty that a son owed to his parents, and she had many things to forget of this kind that would keep surging up into her mind. For instance, she wished that he had not objected to the home-spun, home-made shirts which his mother and she had had such pleasure in getting ready for him. He might not know, it was true—and so her love urged—how carefully and evenly the thread had been spun; how, not content with bleaching the yarn in the sunniest meadow, the linen, on its re- turn from the weaver's, had been spread out afresh on the sweet summer grass, and watered carefully night after night when there was no dew to perform the kindly office. He did not know—for no one but Bessy herself did—how many false or large stitches, made large and false by her aunt's failing eyes (who yet liked to do the choicest part of the stitching all by herself), Bessy had unpicked at 248 THE CROOKED BRANCH. night in her own room, and with dainty fingers had restitched, sewing-eagerly in the dead of night. All this he did not know, or he could never have complained of the coarse texture, the old-fashioned make of these shirts, and urged on his mother to give him part of her little store of egg and butter money in order to buy newer-fashioned linen in Highminster. When once that little precious store of his moth- er's was discovered, it was well for Bessy's peace of mind that she did not know how loosely her aunt counted up the coins, mistaking guineas for shillings, or just the other way, so that the amount was sel- dom the same in the old black spoutless teapot. Yet this son, this hope, this love, had still a strange power of fascination over the household. The even- ing before he left, he sat between his parents, a hand in theirs on either side, and Bessy on the old creepie- stool, her head lying on her aunt's knee, and look- ing up at him from time to time, as if to learn his face off by heart, till his glances, meeting hers, made her drop her eyes and only sigh. He stopped up late that night with his father, long after the women had gone to bed, but not to sleep; for I will answer for it the gray-haired moth- er never slept a wink till the late dawn of the au- tumn day, and Bessy heard her uncle come up stairs with heavy, deliberate footsteps, and go to the old stocking which served him for bank, and count out THE CROOKED BRANCH. 251 in hand, and shivered, and sighed, and did not speak many words, or dare to look at each other; and then Hester had said, "We mauna tell th' lass. Young folks' hearts break wi' a little, and she'd be apt to fancy it were true." Here the old woman's voice broke into a kind of piping cry, but she struggled, and her next words were all right. "We mauna tell her; he's bound to be fond on her, and maybe, if she thinks well on him, and loves him, it will bring him straight." "God grant it!" said Nathan. "God shall grant it," said Hester, passionately moaning out her words, and then repeating them, alas! with a vain repetition. "It's a bad place for lying is Highminster," said she at length, as if impatient of the silence; "I nev- er knowed such a place for getting up stories; but Bessy knows naught on, and nother you nor me belie'es 'em: that's one blessing." But if they did not in their hearts believe them, how came they to look so sad and worn beyond what mere age could make them? Then came round another year, another winter, yet more miserable than the last. This year, with the primroses, came Benjamin—a bad, hard, flippant young man, with yet enough of specious manners and handsome countenance to make his appearance striking at first to those to whom the aspect of a 252 THE CROOKED BRANCH. London fast young man of the lowest order is strange and new. Just at first, as he sauntered in with a swagger, and an air of indifference, which was partly assumed, partly real, his old parents felt a simple kind of awe of him, as if he were not their son, but a real gentleman; but they had too much fine instinct in their homely natures not to know, after a very few minutes had passed, that this was not a try-prince. "Whatten ever does he mean," said Hester to her niece, as soon as they were alone, "by a' them maks and wearlocks? And he minces his words as if his tongue were clipped short, or split like a magpie's. Hech! London is as bad as a hot day i' August for spoiling good flesh, for he were a good- looking lad when he went up, and now look at him, with his skin gone into lines and flourishes, just like the first page on a copy-book!" "I think he looks a good deal better, aunt, for them new-fashioned whiskers," said Bessy, blush- ing still at the remembrance of the kiss he had given her on first seeing her—a pledge, she thought, poor girl, that, in spite of his long silence in letter- writing, he still looked upon her as his troth-plight wife. There were things about him which none of them liked, although they never spoke of them, yet there was also something to gratify them in the way in which he remained quiet at Nab-end, in- stead of seeking variety, as he had formerly done, THE CBOOKED BRANCH. 258 by constantly stealing off to the neighboring town. His father had paid all the debts that he knew of soon after Benjamin had gone up to London, so there were no duns that his parents knew of to alarm him and keep him at home. And he went out in the morning with the old man, his father, and lounged by his side, as Nathan went round his fields, with busy yet infirm gait, having heart, as he would have expressed it, in all that wasjMj»g on, because at length his son seemed to take^MKiterest in the farming affairs, and stood patiently by his side while he compared his own small galloways with the great short-horns looming over his neigh- bor's hedge. "It's a slovenly way, thou seest, that of selling th' milk; folks don't care whether it's good or not, so that they get their pint-measure full of stuff that's watered afore it leaves th' beast, instead o' honest cheating by the help o' th' pump. But look at Bes- sy's butter, what skill it shows! part her own man- ner o' making, and part good choice o' cattle. It's a pleasure to see her basket, a' packed ready for to go to market, and it's noan o' a pleasure for to see the buckets fu' of their blue starch-water as yon beasts give. I'm thinking they crossed th' breed wi' a pump not long sin'. Hech! but our Bessy's a cleaver canny wench. I sometimes think thou'lt be for gie'ing up th' law, and taking to th' oud trade, when thou wedst wi' her." This was intend- 254 THE CROOKED-BRANCH. ed to be a skillful way of ascertaining whether there was any ground for the old farmer's wish and prayer that Benjamin might give up the law, and return to the primitive occupation of his father. Nathan dared to hope it now, since his son had never made much by his profession, owing, as he had said, to his want of a connection; and the farm, and the stock, and the clean wife too, were ready to his hand ;^B| Nathan could never safely rely on him- self in t^ most unguarded moments to reproach his son with the hardly-earned hundreds that had been spent on his education. So the old man lis- tened with painful interest to the answer which his son was evidently struggling to make, coughing a little, and blowing his nose before he spoke. "Well, you see, father, law is a precarious liveli- hood; a man, as I may express myself, has no chance in the profession unless he is known— known to the judges, and tiptop barristers, and that sort of thing. Now, you see, my mother and you have no acquaintance whom you may call exactly in that line. But luckily I have met with a man —a friend, as I may say, who is really a first-rate fellow, knowing every body, from the lord chancel- lor downward, and he has offered me a share in his business—a partnership, in short—" He hesitated a little. "I'm sure that's uncommon kind of the gentle- man," said Nathan. "I should like for to thank THE CROOKED BRANCH. 255 him mysen; for it's not many as would pick up a young chap out o' th' dirt, as it were, and say, 'Here's hauf my good fortune for you, sir, and your very good health.' Most on 'em, when they're get- tin' a bit o' luck, run off wi' it to keep it a' to them- selves, and gobble it down in a corner. What may be his name, for I should like to know it?" "You don't quite apprehend me, father. A great deal of what you've said is true to the 1^B| Peo" pie don't like to share their good luck, as you say." "The more credit to them as does," broke in Nathan. "Ay, but, you see, even such a fine fellow as my friend Cavendish does not like to give away half his good practice for nothing. He expects an equiv- alent." "An equivalent," said Nathan: his voice had dropped down an octave. "And what may that be? There's always some meaning in grand words, I take it, though I'm not book-larned enough to find it out." "Why, in this case the equivalent he demands for taking me into partnership, and afterward relin- quishing the whole business to me, is three hundred pounds down." Benjamin looked sideways from under his eyes to see how his father took the proposition. His father struck his stick deep down in the ground, and, leaning one hand upon it, faced round at him. 256 THE CROOKED BRANCH. "Then thy fine friend may go and be hanged. Three hunder pound! I'll be darned an' danged too if I know where to get 'em, if I'd be making a fool o' thee an' mysen too." He was out of breath by this time. His son took his father's first words in dogged silence; it was but the burst of surprise he had led himself to ex- pect, and did not daunt him for long. "I should think, sir—" "' Sir!' whatten for dost thou 'sir' me? Is them your manners? I'm plain Nathan Huntroyd, who never took on to be a gentleman; but I have paid my way up to this time, which I shannot do much longer, if I'm to have a son coming an' asking me for three hunder pound, just meet same as if I were a cow, and had nothing to do but let down my milk to the first person as strokes me." "Well, father," said Benjamin, with an affecta- tion of frankness, "then there's nothing for me but to do as I have often planned before—go and emi- grate." "And what V said his father, looking sharply and steadily at him. "Emigrate. Go to America, or India, or some colony where there would be an opening for a young man of spirit." Benjamin had reserved this proposition for his trump card, expecting by means of it to carry all before him. But, to his surprise, his father plucked 258 THE CROOKED BRANCH. he nor thee as 'll see the sight o' three hunder pound o' my money. I'll not deny as I've a bit laid up agin a rainy day; it's not so much as thatten, though, and a part on it is for Bessy, as has been like a daughter to us." "But Bessy is to be your real daughter some day, when I've a home to take her to," said Benja- min; for he played very fast and loose, even in his own mind, with his engagement with Bessy. Pres- ent with her, when she was looking her brightest and best, he behaved to her as if they were engaged lovers; absent from her, he looked upon her rather as a good wedge, to be driven into his parent's fa- vor on his behalf. Now, however, he was not ex- actly untrue in speaking as if he meant to make her his wife, for the thought was in his mind, though he made use of it to work upon his father. "It will be a dree day for us, then," said the old man. "But God 'll have us in his keeping, and 'll may-happen be taking more care on us i' heaven by that time than Bess, good lass as she is, has had on us at Nab-end. Her heart is set on thee, too. But, lad, I hanna gotten the three hunder; I keeps my cash i' the stocking, thou knowest, till it reaches fifty pound, and then I takes it to Eipon Bank. Now the last scratch they'n gi'en me made it just two hunder, and I hanna but on to fifteen pound yet i' the stocking, and I meant one hunder and the red cow's calf to be for Bess, she's ta'en such pleasure like i' rearing it." THE CROOKED BRANCH. 259 Benjamin gave a sharp glance at his father to see if he was telling the truth; and, that a suspicion of the old man, his father, had entered into the son's head, tells enough of his own character. "I canna do it—I canna do it, for sure—although I shall like to think as I had helped on the wed- ding. There's the black heifer to be sold yet, and she'll fetch a matter of ten pound; but a deal on't will be needed for seed-corn, for the arable did but bad last year, and I thought I would try—I'll tell thee what, lad, I'll make it as though Bess lent thee her hunder, only thou must give her a writ of hand for it, and thou shalt have a' the money i' Eipon Bank, and see if the lawyer wunnot let thee have a share of what he offered thee at three hunder for two. I dunnot mean for to wrong him, but thou must get a fair share for the money. At times I think thou'rt done by folk; now, I wadna have you cheat a bairn of a brass farthing; same time, I wad- na have thee so soft as to be cheated." To explain this, it should be told that some of the bills which Benjamin had received money from his father to pay had been altered so as to cover other and less creditable expenses which the young man had incurred; and the simple old farmer, who had still much faith left in him for his boy, was acute enough to perceive that he had paid above the usual price for the articles he had purchased. After some hesitation, Benjamin agreed to receive 260 THE CROOKED BRANCH. this two hundred, and promised to employ it to the best advantage in setting himself up in business. He had, nevertheless, a strange hankering after the additional fifteen pounds that was left to accumu- late in the stocking. It was his, he thought, as heir to his father, and he soon lost some of his usual complaisance for Bessy that evening, as he dwelt on the idea that there was money being laid by for her, and grudged it to her even in imagination. He thought more of this fifteen pounds that he was not to have, than of all the hardly-earned and humbly- saved two hundred that he was to come into posses- sion of. Meanwhile Nathan was in unusual spirits that evening. He was so generous and affectionate at heart that he had an unconscious satisfaction in having helped two people on the road to happiness by the sacrifice of the greater part of his property. The very fact of having trusted his son so largely seemed to make Benjamin more worthy of trust in his father's estimation. The sole idea he tried to banish was, that, if all came to pass as he hoped, both Benjamin and Bessy would be settled far away from Nab-end; but then he had a child-like reliance that " God would take care of him and his missus somehow or anodder. It wur o' no use looking too far ahead." Bessy had to hear many unintelligible jokes from her uncle that night, for he made no doubt that Benjamin had told her all that had passed, whereas, THE CROOKED BRANCH. 261 the truth was, his son had said never a word to his cousin on the subject. When the old couple were in bed, Nathan told his wife of the promise he had made to his son, and the plan in life which the advance of the two hund- red was to promote. Poor Hester was a little startled at the sudden change in the destination of the sum, which she had long thought of with secret pride as "money i' th' bank." But she was will- ing enough to part with.it, if necessary, for Benja- min. Only how such a sum could be necessary was the puzzle. But even this perplexity was jos- tled out of her mind by the overwhelming idea, not only of " our Ben" settling in London, but of Bessy going there too as his wife. This great trouble swallowed up all care about money, and Hester shivered and sighed all the night through with dis- tress. In the morning, as Bessy was kneading the bread, her aunt, who had been sitting by the fire in an unusual manner for one of her active habits, said, "I reckon we maun go to th' shop for our bread, an' that's a thing I never thought to come to so long as I lived." Bessy looked up from her kneading, surprised: "I'm sure I'm noan going to eat their nasty stuff. What for do ye want to get baker's bread, aunt? This dough will rise as high as a kite in a south wind." 262 THE CROOKED BRANCH. "I'm not up to kneading as I could do once; it welly breaks my back; and when thou'rt off in London, I reckon we maun buy our bread, first time in my life." "I'm not a going to London," said Bessy, knead- ing away with fresh resolution, and growing very red either with the idea or the exertion. "But our Ben is going partner wi' a great Lon- don lawyer, and thou know'st he'll not tarry long but what he'll fetch thee." "Now, aunt," said Bessy, stripping her arms of the dough, but stil lnot looking up, "if that's all, don't fret yourself. Ben will have twenty minds in his head afore he settles eyther in business or in wedlock. I sometimes wonder," she said, with in- creasing vehemence, "why I go on thinking on him, for I dunnot think he thinks on me when I'm out o' sight. I've a month's mind to try and forget him this time when he leaves us—that I have!" "For shame, wench! and he to be planning and purposing all for thy sake. It wur only yesterday as he wur talking to thy uncle, and mapping it out so clever; only thou seest, wench, it'll be dree work for us when both thee and him is gone." The old woman began to cry the kind of tearless cry of the aged. Bessy hastened to comfort her; and the two talked, and grieved, and hoped, and planned for the days that now were to be, till they ended, the one in being consoled, the other in being secretly happy. THE CROOKED BRANCH. 263 Nathan and his son came back from High- minster that evening with their business transacted in the roundabout way which was most satisfactory to the old man. If he had thought it necessary to take half as much pains in ascertaining the truth of the plausible details by which his son bore out the story of the offered partnership as he did in trying to get his money conveyed to London in the most secure manner, it would have been well for him. But he knew nothing of all this, and acted in the way which satisfied his anxiety best. He came home tired, but content; not in such high spirits as on the night before, but as easy in his mind as he could be on the eve of his son's departure. Bessy, pleasantly agitated by her aunt's tale of the morning of her cousin's true love for her—what ardently we wish we long believe—and the plan which was to end in their marriage—end to her, the woman, at least—Bessy looked almost pretty in her brightj blushing comeliness, and more than once, as she moved about from kitchen to dairy, Benjamin pull- ed her toward him and gave her a kiss. To all such proceedings the old couple were willfully blind; and, as night drew on, every one became sadder and quieter, thinking of the parting that was to be on the morrow. As the hours slipped away, Bessy, too, became subdued, and by-and-by her sim- ple cunning was exerted to get Benjamin to sit down next his mother, whose very heart was yearn- 264 THE CROOKED BRANCH. ing after him, as Bessy saw. When once her child was placed by her side, and she had got possession of his hand, the old woman kept stroking it, and murmuring long-unused words of endearment, such as she had spoken to him while he was yet a little child. But all this was wearisome to him. As long as he might play with, and plague, and caress Bessy, he had not been sleepy; but now he yawned loudly. Bessy could have boxed his ears for not curbing this gaping; at any rate, he need not have done it so openly—so almost ostentatiously. His mother was more pitiful. "Thou'rt tired, my lad!" said she, putting her hand fondly on his shoulder; but it fell off as he stood up suddenly and said, "Yes, deuced tired. I'm off to bed." And with a rough, careless kiss all round, even to Bessy, as if he was "deuced tired" of playing the lover, he was gone, leaving the three to gather up their thoughts slowly and follow him up stairs. He seemed almost impatient at them for rising betimes to see him off the next morning, and made no more of a good-by than some such speech as this: "Well, good folk, when I next see you, I hope you will have merrier faces than you have to-day. Why, you might be going to a funeral; it's enough to scare a man from the place: you look quite ugly to what you did last night, Bess." He was gone; and they turned into the house, THE CROOKED BRANCH. 265 and settled to the long day's work without many words about their loss. They had no time for un- necessary talking, indeed, for much had been left undone, during his short visit, that ought to have been done, and they had now to work double tides. Hard work was their comfort for many a long day. For some time Benjamin's letters, if not frequent, were full of exultant accounts of his well-doing. It is true that the details of his prosperity were some- what vague, but the fact was broadly and unmistak- ably stated. Then came longer pauses; shorter letters, altered in tone. About a year after he had left them Nathan received a letter which bewilder- ed and irritated him exceedingly. Something had gone wrong—what, Benjamin did not say—but the letter ended with a request, that was almost a de- mand, for the remainder of his father's savings, whether in the stocking or the bank. Now the year had not been prosperous with Nathan; there had been an epidemic among cattle, and he had suffered along with his neighbors; and, moreover, the price of cows, when he had bought some to re- pair his wasted stock, was higher than he had ever remembered it before. The fifteen pounds in the stocking which Benjamin left had diminished to little more than three; and to have that required of him in so peremptory a manner! Before Na- than imparted the contents of this letter to any one (Bessy and her aunt had gone to market on a neigh- M 266 THE CROOKED BRANCH. bor's cart that day), he got pen and ink and paper, and wrote back an ill-spelt, but very implicit and stern negative. Benjamin had had his portion, and if he could not make it do, so much the worse for him; his father had no more to give him. That was the substance of the letter. - The letter was written, directed, and sealed, and given to the country postman, returning to High- minster, after his day's distribution and collection of letters, before Hester and Bessy came back from market. It had been a pleasant day of neighborly meeting and social gossip; prices had been high, and they were in good spirits, only agreeably tired, and fall of small pieces of news. It was some time before they found out how flatly all their talk fell on the ears of the stay-at-home listener. But when they saw that his depression was caused by some- thing beyond their powers of accounting for by any little every-day cause, they urged him to tell them what was the matter. His anger had not gone off. It had rather increased by dwelling upon it, and he spoke it out in good resolute terms; and, long ere he had ended, the two women were as sad, if not as angry, as himself. Indeed, it was many days before either feeling wore away in the minds of those who entertained them. Bessy was the soonest comfort- ed, because she found a vent for her sorrow in ac- tion—action that was half as a kind of compensa- tion for many a sharp word that she had spoken THE CROOKED BRANCH. 267 when her cousin had done any thing to displease her on his last visit; and half because she believed that he never could have written such a letter to his father, unless his want of money had been very pressing and real, though how he could ever have wanted money so soon, after such a heap of it had been given to him, was more than she could justly say. Bessy got out all her savings of little presents of sixpences and shillings ever since she had been a child—of all the money she had gained for the eggs of two hens called her own; she put the whole to- gether, and it was above two pounds—two pounds five and sevenpence, to speak accurately—and, leav- ing out the penny as a nest-egg for her future sav- ings, she made up the rest in a little parcel, and sent it, with a note, to Benjamin's address in London: "From a well-wisher. "]> Benjamin,—Unkle has lost 2 cows and a vast of monney. He is a good deal Angored, but more Troubled. So no more at present. Hopeing this will finding you well As it leaves us. Tho' lost to Site, To Memory Dear. Eepayment not kneeded. "Your effectonet cousin, "Elizabeth Bose." When this packet was once fairly sent off, Bessy began to sing again over her work. She never ex- 268 THE CROOKED BRANCH. pected the mere form of acknowledgment; indeed, she had such faith in the carrier (who took parcels to York, whence they were forwarded to London by coach), that she felt sure he would go on purpose to London to deliver-any thing intrusted to him, if he had not full confidence in the person, persons, coach and horses, to whom he committed it; there- fore she was not anxious that she did not hear of its arrival. "Giving a thing to a man as one knows," said she to herself, "is a vast different thing to pok- ing a thing through a hole into a box, th' inside of which one has never clapped eye* on; and yet let- ters get safe some ways or another." ;(This belief in the infallibility of the post was destined to a shock before long.) But she had a secret yearning for Benjamin's thanks, and some of the. old words of love that she had been without so long. Nay, she even thought—when day after day, week after week, passed by without a line—that he might be winding up his affairs in that weary, wasteful London, and coming back to Nab-end to thank her in person. One day—her aunt was up stairs, inspecting the summer's make of cheeses, her uncle out in the fields —the postman brought a letter into the kitchen to Bessy. A country postman, even now, is not much pressed for time, and in those days there were but few letters to distribute, and they were only sent out from Highminster once a week into the district in which Nab-end was situated, and on those occa- THE CROOKED BRANCH. 269 sions the letter-carrier usually paid morning calls on the various people for whom he had letters. So half standing by the dresser, half sitting on it, he began to rummage out his bag. "It's a queer-like thing I've got for Nathan this time. I am afraid it will bear ill news in it, for there's 'Dead Letter Of- fice' stamped on the top of it." "Lord save us!" said Bessy, and sat down on the nearest chair, as white as a sheet. In an instant, however, she was up, and, snatching the ominous letter out of the man's hands, she pushed him before her out of the house, and said, "Be off wi' thee, afore aunt comes down;" and ran past him as hard as she could, till she reached the field where she ex- pected to find her uncle. "Uncle," said she,breathless, "what is it? Oh> uncle, speak! Is he dead?" Nathan's hands trembled, and his eyes dazzled. "Take it," he said, "and tell me what it is." "It's a letter—it's from you to Benjamin,it isl- and there's words written" on it, 'Not known at the address given;' so they've sent it back to the writer —that's you, uncle. Oh, it gave me such a start, with them nasty words written outside!" Nathan had taken the letter back into his own hands, and was turning it over, while he strove to understand what the quick-witted Bessy had picked up at a glance. But he arrived at a different con- clusion. 270 THE CROOKED BRANCH. "He's dead!" said he. "The lad is dead, and he never knowed how as I were sorry I wrote to 'un so sharp. My lad! my lad!" Nathan sat down on the ground where he stood, and covered his face with his old withered hands. The letter returned to him was one which he had written, with infinite pains and at various times, to tell his child, in kind- er words and at greater length than he had done before, the reasons why he could not send him the money demanded. And now Benjamin was dead —nay, the old man immediately jumped to the con- clusion .that his child had been starved to death, without money, in a wild, wide, strange place. All he could say at first was, "My heart, Bess—my heart is broken." And he put his hand to his side, still keeping his shut eyes covered with the other, as though he never wished to see the light of day again. Bessy was down by his side in an instant, holding him in her arms, chaf- ing and kissing him. "It's noan so bad, uncle—he's not dead—the let- ter does not say that—dunnot think it. He's flitted from that lodging, and the lazy tykes dunna know where to find him, and so they just send y' back th' letter, instead of trying fra' house to house, as Mark Benson would. I've always heard tell on south country folk for laziness. He's noan dead, uncle; he's just flitted, and he'll let us know afore long where he's getten to. Maybe it's a cheaper place, THE CROOKED BRANCH. 271 for that lawyer has cheated him, ye reck'let, and he'll be trying to live for as little as he can, that's all, uncle. Dunnot take on so, for it doesna say he's dead." By this time Bessy was crying with agitation, al- though she firmly believed in her own view of the case, and had felt the opening of the ill-favored let- ter as a great relief.- Presently she began to urge, both with word and action upon her uncle, that he should sit no longer on the damp grass. She pull- ed him up, for he was very stiff, and, as he said, "all shaken to dithers." She made him walk about, repeating over and over again her solution of the case, always in the same words, beginning again and again, "He's noan dead—it's just been a flit- ting," and so on. Nathan shook his head, and tried to be convinced; but it was a steady belief in his own heart, for all that. He looked so deathly ill on his return home with Bessy (for she would not let him go on with his day's work) that his wife made sure he had taken cold, and he, weary and indifferent to life, was glad to subside into bed and the rest from exertion which his real bodily illness gave him. Neither Bessy nor he spoke of the let- ter again, even to each other, for many days, and she found means to stop Mark Benson's tongue, and satisfy his kindly curiosity by giving him the rosy side of her own view of the case. Nathan got up again, an older man in looks and 272 THE CROOKED BRANCH. constitution by ten years for that week of bed. His wife gave him many a scolding on his imprudence for sitting down in the wet field, if ever so tired. But now she, too, was beginning to be uneasy at Benjamin's long-continued silence. She could not write herself, but she urged her husband many a time to send a letter to ask for news of her lad. He said nothing in reply for some time; at length he told her he would write next Sunday afternoon. Sunday was his general day for writing, and this Sunday he meant to go to church for the first time since his illness. On Saturday he was very per- sistent against his wife's wishes (backed by Bessy as hard as she could) in resolving to go into High- minster to market. The change would do him good, he said. But he came home tired, and a little mysterious in his ways. When he went to the shippon the last thing at night, he asked Bessy to go with him and hold the lantern while he looked at an ailing cow; and when they were fairly out of earshot of the house, he pulled a little shop-parcel from his pocket and said, "Thou'lt put that on ma Sunday hat, wilt 'ou, lass? It'll be a bit on a comfort to me; for I know my lad's dead and gone, though I dunna speak on it, for fear o' grieving th' old woman and ye." "I'll put it on, uncle, if— But he's noan dead." (Bessy was sobbing.) "I know—I know, lass. I dunnot wish other THE CROOKED BRANCH. 273 folk to hold my opinion, but I'd like to wear a bit o' crape, out o' respect to my boy. It 'ud have done me good for to have ordered a black coat, but she'd see if I had na on my wedding-coat Sundays, for a' she's losing her eyesight, poor old wench! But she'll ne'er take notice o' a bit o' crape. Thou'lt put it on all canny and tidy." So Nathan went to church with a strip of crape, as narrow as Bessy durst venture to make it, round his hat. Such is the contradictoriness of human nature, that, though he was most anxious his wife should not hear of his conviction that their son was dead, he was half hurt that none of his neighbors noticed his sign of mourning so far as to ask him for whom he wore it. But after a while, when they never heard a word from or about Benjamin, the household wonder as to what had become of him grew so painful and strong that Nathan no longer kept his idea to him- self. Poor Hester, however, rejected it with her whole will, heart, and soul. She could not and would not believe—nothing should make her be- lieve—that her only child Benjamin had died with- out some sign of love or farewell to her. No argu- ments could shake her in this. She believed that, if all natural means of communication between her and him had been cut off at the last supreme mo- ment—if death had come upon him in an instant, sudden and unexpected—her intense love would M2 274 THE CROOKED BRANCH. have been supernaturally made conscious of the blank. Nathan at times tried to feel glad that she could still hope to see the lad again; but at other moments he wanted her sympathy in his grief, his self-reproach, his weary wonder as to how and what they had done wrong in the treatment of their son, that he had been such a care and sorrow to his par- ents. Bessy was convinced, first by her aunt, and then by her uncle—honestly convinced—on both sides of the argument, and so, for the time, able to sympathize with each. But she lost her youth in a very few months; she looked set and middle-aged long before she ought to have done, and rarely smiled and never sang again. All sorts of new arrangements were required by the blow which told so miserably upon the energies of all the household at Nab-end. Nathan could no longer go about and direct his two men, taking a good turn of work himself at busy times. Hester lost her interest in her dairy, for which, indeed, her increasing loss of sight unfitted her. Bessy would either do field-wprk, or attend to the cows and the shippon, or churn, or-make cheese; she did all well, no longer merrily, but with something of stern clev- erness. But she was not sorry when her uncle, one evening, told her aunt and her that a neighboring farmer, Job Kirkby, had made him an offer to take so much of his land off his hands as would leave him only pasture enough for two cows, and no ara- 276 THE CROOKED BRANCH. more nor me, who never gave in to's death. It 'll be liken to a resurrection to our Nathan." Farmer Kirkby, then, took by far the greater part of the land belonging to Nab-end Farm; and the work about the rest, and about the two remain- ing cows, was easily done by three pairs of willing hands, with a little occasional assistance. The Kirk- by family were pleasant enough to have to deal with. There was a son—a stiff, grave bachelor, who was very particular and methodical about his work, and rarely spoke to any one. But Nathan took it into his head that John Kirkby was looking after Bessy, and was a good deal troubled in his mind in consequence; for it was the first time he had to face the effects of his belief in his son's death; and he discovered, to his own surprise, that he had not that implicit faith which would make it easy for him to look upon Bessy as the wife of another man than the one to whom she had been betrothed in her youth. As, however, John Kirkby seemed in no hurry to make his intentions (if, indeed, he had any) clear to Bessy, it was only now and then that this jealousy on behalf of his lost son seized upon Nathan. But people, old, and in deep, hopeless sorrow, grow irritable at times, however they may repent and struggle against their irritability. There were days when Bessy had to bear a good deal from her uncle; but she loved him so dearly and respected THE CROOKED BRANCH. 277 him so much that, high as her temper was to all other people, she never returned him a rough or impatient word; and she had a reward in the con- viction of his deep, true affection for her, and her aunt's entire and most sweet dependence upon her. One day, however—it was near the end of No- vember—Bessy had had a great deal to bear, that seemed more than usually unreasonable, on behalf of her uncle. The truth was, that one of Kirkby's cows was ill, and John Kirkby was a good deal about in the farm-yard; Bessy was interested about the animal, and had helped in preparing a mash over their own fire, that had to be given warm to the sick creature. If John had been out of the way, there would have been no one more anxious about the affair than Nathan, both because he was naturally kind-hearted and neighborly, and also be- cause he was rather protid of his reputation for knowledge in the di'seases of cattle. But because John was about, and Bessy helping a little in what had to be done, Nathan would do nothing, and chose to assume that " nothing to think on ailed th' beast, but lads and lasses were allays fain to be feared on something." Now John was upward of forty, and Bessy nearly eight-and-twenty, so the term lads and lasses did not exactly apply to their case. When Bessy brought the milk in from their own cows, toward half past five o'clock, Nathan bade her 278 THE CROOKED BRANCH. make the doors, and not be running out i' the dark and cold about other folks' business; and, though Bessy was a little surprised and a good deal annoy- ed at his tone, she sat down to her supper without making a remonstrance. It had long been Nathan's custom to look out the last thing at night, to see "what mak' o' weather it wur;" and when, toward half past eight, he got his stick and went out—two or three steps from the door, which opened into the house-place where, they were sitting—Hester put her hand on her niece's shoulder and said, "He's gotten a touch o' the rheumatics, as twinges him and makes him speak so sharp. I didna like to ask thee afore him, but how's yon poor beast?" "Very ailing, belike. John Kirkby wur off for th' cow-doctor when I came in. I reckon they'll have to stop up wi't a' night." Since their sorrows, her uncle had taken to read- ing a chapter in the Bible aloud the last thing at night. He could not read fluently, and often hes- itated long over a word, which he miscalled at length; but the very fact of opening the book seem- ed to soothe those old bereaved parents, for it made them feel quiet and safe in the presence of God, and took them out of the cares and troubles of this world into that futurity which, however dim and vague, was to their faithful hearts as a sure, and certain rest. This little quiet time—Nathan sitting with his horn spectacles; the tallow candle be- THE CROOKED BRANCH. 279 tween him and the Bible, and throwing a strong light on his reverent, earnest face; Hester sitting on the other side of the fire, her head bowed in at- tentive listening, now and then shaking it, and moaning a little, but when a promise came, or any good tidings of great joy, saying "Amen" with fer- vor; Bessy by her aunt, perhaps her mind a little wandering to some household cares, or it might be on thoughts of those who were absent—this little quiet pause, I say, was grateful and soothing to this household as a lullaby to a tired child. But this night Bessy—sitting opposite to the long low win- dow, only shaded by a few geraniums that grew in the sill, and to the door alongside that window, through which her uncle had passed not a quarter of an hour before—saw the wooden latch of the door gently and almost noiselessly lifted up, as if some one were trying it from the outside. She was startled, and watched again intently; but it was perfectly still now. She thought it must have been that it had not fallen into its proper place when her uncle had come in and locked the door. It was just enough to make her uncomfort- able, no more; and she almost persuaded herself it must have been fancy. Before going up stairs, however, she went to the window to look out into the darkness; but all was still: nothing to be seen —nothing to be heard. So the three went quietly up stairs to bed. THE CROOKED BRANCH. 281 facing the fire, on the side opposite to the -window and outer door, were two other doors: the one on the right led into a kind of back kitchen, and had a lean-to roof, and a door opening on to the farm-yard and back premises; the left-hand door gave on the stairs, underneath which was a closet, in which va- rious household treasures were kept, and beyond that the dairy, over which Bessy slept, her little chamber window opening just above the sloping roof of the back kitchen. There were neither blinds nor shutters to any of the windows, either up stairs or down; the house was built of stone, and there was heavy frame-work of the same material round the little casement windows, and the long, low win- dow of the house-place was divided by what, in grander dwellings, would be called mullions. By nine o'clock this night of which I am speak- ing all had gone up stairs to bed; it was even later than usual, for the burning of candles was regarded so much in the light of an extravagance that the household kept early hours even for country-folk. But somehow, this evening, Bessy could not sleep, although, in general, she was in deep slumber five minutes after her head touched the pillow. Her thoughts ran on the chances for John Kirkby's cow, and a little fear lest the disorder might be epidemic, and spread to their own cattle. Across all these homely cares came a vivid, uncomfortable recollec- tion of the way in which the door-latch went up 284 THE CROOKED BRANCH. "Front door is open, say'st thou?" said John, arming himself with a pitchfork, while the cow- doctor took some other implement. "Then I reck- on we'd best make for that way o' getting into th' house, and catch 'em all in a trap." "Eun! runl" was all Bessy could say, taking hold of John Kirkby's arm, and pulling him along with her. Swiftly did the three run to the house, round the corner, and in at the open front door. The men carried the horn lantern they had been using in the shippon, and, by the sudden oblong light that it threw, Bessy saw the principal object of her anxiety, her uncle, lying stunned and help- less on the kitchen floor. Her first thought was for him; for she had no idea that her aunt was in any immediate danger, although she heard the noise of feet, and fierce subdued voices up stairs. "Make th' door behind us, lass. We'll not let 'em escape!" said brave John Kirkby, dauntless in a good cause, though he knew not how many there might be above. The cow-doctor fastened and locked the door, saying "There!" in a defiant tone, as he put the key in his pocket. It was to be a struggle for life or death, or, at any rate, for effect- ual capture or desperate escape. Bessy kneeled down by her uncle, who did not speak nor give any sign of consciousness. Bessy raised his head by drawing a pillow off the settle and putting it under him; she longed to go for water into the 286 THE CROOKED BRANCH. glaring at her like some wild beast—Bessy could not fail to shrink from the vision that her fancy presented. And still the struggle went on up stairs; feet slipping, blows sounding, and the wrench of intentioned aims, the strong gasps for breath, as the wrestlers paused for an instant. In one of these pauses Bessy felt conscious of a creeping movement close to her, which ceased when the noise of the strife above died away, and was resumed when it again began. She was aware of it by some subtle vibration of the air rather than by touch or sound. She was sure that he who had been close to her one minute as she knelt, was, the next, pass- ing stealthily toward the inner door which led to the staircase. She thought he was going to join and strengthen his accomplices, and with a great cry she sprang after him; but, just as she came to the doorway, through which some dim portion of light from the upper chambers came, she saw one man thrown down stairs with such violence that he fell almost at her very feet, while the dark, creep- ing figure glided suddenly away to the left, and as suddenly entered the closet beneath the stairs. Bes- sy had no time to wonder as to his purpose in so doing, whether he had at first designed to aid his accomplices in their desperate fight or not. He was an enemy, a robber, that was all she knew, and she sprang to the door of the closet, and in a trice had locked it on the outside. And then she stood 288 THE CROOKED BRANCH. ken," said John, nodding toward the man still lying on the ground. Bessy felt almost sorry for him as they handled him—not over gently—and bound him, only half conscious, as hardly and tightly as they had done his fierce, surly companion. She even felt so sorry for his evident agony, as they turn- ed him over and over, that she ran to get him a cup of water to moisten his lips. "I'm loth to leave yo' with him alone," said John, "though I'm thinking his leg is broken for sartain, and he can't stir, even if he comes to hissel, to do yo' any harm. But we'll just tak off this chap, and mak sure of him, and then one on us 'll come back to yo', and we can, maybe, find a gate or so for yo' to get shut on him out o' th' house. This felly's made safe enough, I'll be bound," said he, looking at the burglar, who stood, bloody and black, with fell hatred on his sullen face. His eye caught Bessy's as hers fell on him with dread so evident that it made him smile, and the look and the smile prevented the words from being spoken which were on Bessy's lips. She dared not tell, before him, that an able-bodied accomplice still remained in the house, lest, somehow, the door which kept him a prisoner should be broken open, and the fight re- newed; so she only said to John as he was leaving the house, "Thou'll not be long away, for I'm afeard of being left wi' this man." "He'll noan do thee harm," said John. THE CROOKED BRANCH. 289 "No; but I'm feared lest he should die. And there's uncle and aunt. Come back soon, John." "Ay, ay!" said he, half pleased; "I'll be back, never fear me." So Bessy shut the door after them, but did not lock it for fear of mischances in the house, and went once more to her uncle, whose breathing, by this time, was easier than when she had first returned into the house-place with John and the doctor. By the light of the fire, too, she could now see that he had received a blow on the head which was proba- bly the occasion of his stupor. Bound this wound, which was bleeding pretty freely, Bessy put cloths dipped in cold water, and then, leaving him for a time, she lighted a candle, and was about to go up stairs to her aunt, when, just as she was passing the bound and disabled robber, she heard her name softly, urgently called: "Bessy! Bessy!" At first the voice sounded so close that she thought it must be the unconscious wretch at her feet. But once again that voice thrilled through her: "Bessy! Bessy! for God's sake, let me out!" She went to the stair-closet door and tried to speak, but could not, her heart beat so terribly. Again, close to her ear: "Bessy! Bessy! they'll be back directly; let me out, I say! For God's sake, let me out!" And he began to kick violently against the panels. N THE CROOKED BRANCH. 291 help his faint exertions to walk up stairs; and, by the time he was there, sitting panting on the first chair she could find, John Kirkby and- Atkinson returned. John came up now to her aid. Her aunt lay across the bed in a fainting-fit, and her un- cle sat in so utterly broken-down a state that Bessy feared immediate death for both. But John cheer- ed her up, and lifted the old man into his bed again, and, while Bessy tried to compose poor Hester's limbs into a position of rest, John went down to hunt about for the little store of gin, which was al- ways kept in a corner cupboard against emergen- cies. "They've had a sore fright," said he, shaking his head, as he poured a little gin and hot water into their mouths with a teaspoon, while Bessy chafed their cold feet; "and it and the cold have been welly too much for 'em, poor old folk!" He looked tenderly at them, and Bessy blessed him in her heart for that look. "I maun be off. I sent Atkinson up to th' farm for to bring down Bob, and Jack came wi' him back to th' shippon for to look after t'other man. He began blackguarding us all round, so Bob and Jack were gagging him wi' bridles when I left." "Ne'er give heed to what he says," cried poor Bessy, a new panic besetting her. "Folks o' his sort are allays for dragging other folks into their mischief. I'm right glad he were well gagged." 292 THE CKOOKED BRANCH. "Well, but what I were saying were this. At- kinson and me will tak t'other chap, who seems quiet enough, to th' shippon, and it 'll be one piece o' work for to mind them and the cow; and I'll sad- dle old bay mare and ride for constables and doctor fra' Highminster. I'll bring Dr. Preston up to see Nathan and Hester first, and then I reckon th' broken-legged chap down below must have his turn, for all as he's met wi' his misfortunes in a wrong line o' life." "Ay," said Bessy. "We maun ha' the doctor, sure enough, for look at them how they lie—like two stone statues on a church monument, so sad and solemn." "There's a look o' sense come back into their faces, though, sin' they supped that gin and water. I'd keep on a bathing his head and giving them a sup on't fra' time to time, if I was you, Bessy." Bessy followed him down stairs, and lighted the men out of the house. She dared not light them carrying their burden even until they passed round the corner of the house, so strong was her fearful conviction that Benjamin was lurking near, seeking again to enter. She rushed back into the kitchen, bolted and barred the door, and pushed the end of the dresser against it, shutting her eyes as she pass- ed the uncurtained window for fear of catching a glimpse of a white face pressed against the glass, and gazing at her. The poor old couple lay quiet THE CROOKED BRANCH. 293 and speechless, although Hester's position had slight- ly altered: she had turned a little on her side to- ward her husband, and had laid one shriveled arm around his neck. But he was just as Bessy had left him, with the wet cloths around his head, his eyes not wanting in a certain intelligence, but sol- emn, and unconscious to all that was passing around as the eyes of death. His wife spoke a little from time to time—said a word of thanks, perhaps, or so; but he, never. All the rest of that terrible night Bessy tended the poor old couple with constant care, her own heart so stunned and bruised in its feelings that she went about her pious duties almost like one in a dream. The November morning was long in coming; nor did she perceive any change, either for the worse or the better, before the doctor came, about eight o'clock. John Kirkby brought him, and was full of the capture of the two burglars. As far as Bessy could make out, the participation of that unnatural Third was unknown. It was a relief, almost sickening in the revulsion it gave her from her terrible fear, which now she felt had haunt- ed and held possession of her all night long, and had, in fact, paralyzed her from thinking. Now she felt and thought with acute and feverish vividness, owing, no doubt, in part, to the sleepless night she had passed. She felt almost sure that her uncle (possibly her aunt too) had recognized Benjamin; 294 THE CROOKED BRANCH. but there was a faint chance that they had not done so, and wild horses should never tear the secret from her, nor should any inadvertent word betray the fact that there had been a third person concern- ed. As to Nathan, he had never uttered a word. It was her aunt's silence that made Bessy fear lest Hester knew, somehow, that her son was concerned. The doctor examined them both closely; looked hard at the wound on Nathan's head; asked ques- tions which Ilester answered shortly and unwilling- ly, and Nathan not at all, shutting his eyes as if even the sight of a stranger was pain to him. Bes- sy replied in their stead to all that she could answer respecting their state, and followed the doctor down stairs with a beating heart. When they came into the house-place, they found John had opened the outer door to let in some fresh air, had brushed the hearth and made up the fire, and put the chairs and table in their right places. He reddened a lit- tle as Bessy's eye fell upon his swollen and battered face, but tried to smile it off in a dry kind of way: "Yo' see, I'm an ould bachelor, and I just thought as I'd redd up things a bit. How dun yo' find 'em, doctor?" "Well, the poor old couple have had a terrible shock. I shall send them some soothing medicine to bring down the pulse, and a lotion for the old man's head. It is very well it bled so much; there might have been a good deal of inflammation." And 296 THE CBOOKED BBANCH. "He'll barely have his leg well enough to stand his trial at York Assizes; they're coming off in a fortnight from now." "Ay, and that reminds me, Bessy, yo'll have to go witness before Justice Eoyds. Constables bade me tell yo', and gie yo' this summons. Dunnot be feared; it will not be a long job, though I'm not saying as it'll be a pleasant one. Yo'll have to answer questions as to how, and all about it; and Jane" (his sister) "will come and stop wi' th' oud folks; and I'll drive yo' in the shandry." No one knew why Bessy's color blenched^and her eye clouded. No one knew how she appre- hended lest she should have to say that Benjamin had been of the gang, if, indeed, in some way the law had not followed on his heels quick enough to catch him. But that trial was spared her. She was warned by John to answer questions, and say no more than was necessary, for fear of making her story less clear; and as she was known, by character at least, to Justice Eoyds and his clerk, they made the ex- amination as little formidable as possible. When all was over, and John was driving her back again, he expressed his rejoicing that there would be evidence enough to convict the men, without summoning Nathan and Hester to identify them. Bessy was so tired that she hardly under- stood what an escape it was—how far greater than even her companion understood. THE CROOKED BRANCH. 299 the evidence of the parents, who, as the prisoners had said, must have recognized the voice of the young man, their son; for no one knew that Bessy, too, could have borne witness to his having been present; and, as it was supposed that Benjamin had escaped out of England, there was no exact betrayal of him on the part of his accomplices. Wondering, bewildered, and weary, the old cou- ple reached York, in company with John and Bessy, on the eve of the day of trial. Nathan was still so self-contained that Bessy could never guess what had been passing in his mind. He was almost passive under his old wife's trembling caresses; he seemed hardly conscious of them, so rigid was his demeanor. She, Bessy feared at times, was becoming child- ish, for she had evidently so great and anxious a love for her husband that her memory seemed go- ing in her endeavors to melt the stoniness of his aspect and manners; she appeared occasionally to have forgotten why he was so changed, in her pite- ous little attempts to bring him back to his former self. "They'll, for sure, never torture them when they see what old folks they are!" cried Bessy on the morning of the trial, a dim fear looming over her mind. "They'll never be so cruel, for sure!" But "for sure" it was so. The barrister looked up at the judge, almost apologetically, as he saw 800 THE CROOKED BBANCH. how hoary-headed and woeful an old man was put into the witness-box when the defense came on, and Nathan Huntroyd was called on for his evidence. "It is necessary, on behalf of my clients, my lord, that I should pursue a course which, for all other reasons, I deplore." "Go on," said the judge. ""What is right and legal must be done." But, an old man himself, he covered his quivering mouth with his hand as Na- than, with gray, unmoved face, and solemn, hollow eyes, placing his two hands on each side of the wit- ness-box, prepared to give his answers to questions, the nature of which he was beginning to foresee, but would not shrink from replying to truthfully; "the very stones" (as he said to himself, with a kind of dulled sense of the Eternal Justice) "rise up against such a sinner." "Your name is Nathan Huntroyd, I believe?" "It is." "You live at Nab-end Farm?" "I do." "Do you remember the night of November the twelfth?" "Yes." "You were awakened that night by some noise, I believe. What was it?" The old man's eyes fixed themselves upon his questioner with the look of a creature brought to bay. That look the barrister never forgets. It will haunt him till his dying day. 302 THE CROOKED BRANCH. he would come back to us, like the Prodigal i' th' Gospels." (His voice choked a little, but he tried to make it steady, succeeded, and went on.) "She said if I wadna get up she would, and just then I heerd a voice. I'm not quite mysel, gentlemen; I've been ill and i' bed, an' it makes me trembling- like. Some one said, 'Father, mother, I'm here, starving i' the cold; wunnot yo' get up and let me in?'" "And that voice was—" "It were like our Benjamin's. I see whatten yo're driving at, sir, and I'll tell yo' truth, though it kills me to speak it. I dunnot say it were our Ben- jamin as spoke, mind yo'—I only say it were like—" "That's all I want, my good fellow. And on the strength of that entreaty, spoken in your son's voice, you went down and opened the door to these two prisoners at the bar, and to a third man?" Nathan nodded assent, and even that counsel was too merciful to force him to put more into words. "Call Hester Huntroyd." An old woman, with a face of which the eyes were evidently blind, with a sweet, gentle, careworn face, came into the witness-box, and meekly courtesied to the presence of those whom she had been taught to respect—a presence she could not see. There was something in her humble, blind aspect, as she stood waiting to have something done to her —what, her poor troubled mind hardly knew—that THE CROOKED BRANCH. 303 touched all who saw her inexpressibly. Again the counsel apologized, but the judge could not reply in words; his face was quivering all over, and the jury looked uneasily at the prisoners' counsel. That gentleman saw that he might go too far, and send their sympathies off on the other side; but one or two questions he must ask. So, hastily recapitulat- ing much that he had learned from Nathan, he said, "You believed it was your son's voice asking to be let in?" "Ay! Our Benjamin came home, I'm sure; choose where he is gone." She turned her head about, as if listening for the voice of her child in the hushed silence of the court. "Yes, he came home that night, and your hus- band went down to let him in?" "Well, I believe he did. There was a great noise of folk down stair." "And you heard your son Benjamin's voice among the others?" "Is it to do him harm, sir?" asked she, her face growing more intelligent and intent on the business in hand. "That is not my object in questioning you. I believe he has left England, so nothing you can say will do him any harm. You heard your son's voice, I say?" "Yes, sir, for sure I did." "And some men came up stairs into your room? What did they say?" 3' >