1
The night crackles with Fire. Hell laughs and a Witch meets that which she long has sought.
Still in the month of May, catastrophe came to Cowan Corners. On three nights, consecutively, great fires broke out. The first took the noon-house of the Church. The second the ropewalk of Deacon Pentwhistle. The third took the barns, sheds, outhouses of Deacon Ephraim Thumb. This last fire was upon the thirty-first day of May and the morrow would be June.
The farm servants of Widow Bilby came up from the cow-sheds. They called to the window in the attic where Hannah slept (for since the nights were warm she preferred the desolation of an attic to the proximity of her detested companion), ‘Widow Bilby, Widow Bilby, there’s a great fire at our neighbour’s. Shall we not go to help?’ The widow told them to go and do their best, and God go with them. She, too, would follow soon. She got into her clothes, and Doll heard her stamping down the stairs and out of the house. Doll looked from her window and the sky was orange. She clutched her throat, for fire terrified her (because of her parents’ death), yet it fascinated her (because of her unnatural yearning for Hell).
Will she, nill she, the young woman dressed and, much perturbed, she reached the outskirts of the onlookers. With them she could not mingle, for they feared her, and she dreaded this same fear. She withdrew to a big straw stack, and beneath its overhanging top (for the cattle had rubbed against it) she found herself a hiding-place.
Every able man in the village was there, and half of the women. She saw Titus passing buckets and getting out gear, nor could she have looked at him without some slight regret, for he was a goodly, comely man and a young witch has an amorous eye. She heard the shouting, the running about, the snap and rustle of the flames. Sometimes other idle watchers came close to where she hid, and from their talk she learned that these three fires had all been started by a cat breathing fire. Widow Bilby had said that this same cat could be no other than her old tom, Gideon, now dead a three-month, thus maliciously returned from Hell. Doll heard her own name spoken and saw heads shaken. She also heard that Ahab was still within the vehemently burning barn. Because of his ferocity as well as because of his wanderings, he had lately been closely penned. So far no one had been able to loose him, although several had essayed to do so. The horses, savage with fear, had been moved far from the fire lest they, with the fondness of their kind, return to their accustomed stalls and perish. The cattle were running about the barnyard, where they interfered with the work, upsetting buckets, etc. Such swine as the Thumbs possessed burned to their deaths, their stench polluting the air. Doll sickened at the smell, for she never could forget the holocaust of Mont Hoël. Until the fire burst the ridgepole, the doves flew constantly from their cotes under the eaves. Some were so singed they fell to the muck of the yard and, trampled under foot, perished.
Just before the fall of the barn floor, Ahab was loosed. With sparks upon his coat, his eyes rolling most horribly, he came out of danger at a gallop. Seeing the crowd, he charged furiously, passing over the bodies of three, yet not staying to gore them, so intent was he on the men who ran. Wherever he went, the crowd melted and the shouting rose. Many believed it was this wicked bull, and not the Hell cat, that had set these fires, for now he seemed intent on guarding the fire and would let no one near it. Doll thought the creature was her friend—perhaps sometime he would become her familiar; but when she saw him coming for her on a brisk and determined trot she ran up the short ladder leaning against the straw stack, not relying unduly on either charms or friendship.
The same moment the roof fell and sparks flew up, rising into the night air an hundred feet and more, until the sky seemed filled with departing souls flying up and up to the Throne of God.
Doll, panting from her vexatious exercise upon the ladder and sweating from her recent fear, found herself upon the top of the straw stack. She was sprawled upon hands and knees. In the fury of the orange light (which with the fall of the roof suddenly was most horrible) she gazed about her. Then she saw she was not alone, for with her was a luggard fiend who stretched his length upon the straw. His eyes were red as though filled with blood. He wore (she said) a costume like a seaman’s, except that, where a seaman’s clothes are coarse, his were fine and dainty. For instance, the hoops in his ears were not of brass but jewels. She said he had a silk kerchief tied about his head. Upon his breast he bare—as if in mockery of that virgin whose worship the Catholics prefer to the worship of God—the very imp, the little servant, whom she had seen in Greene’s cold-cellar. She guessed he was her god, or a messenger from her god, so, crying out, ‘Master, master, you have come for me,’ she further prostrated herself before him. Now she was no more alone, for this fiend had come for her.
At first the demon made no response; then, after a little and with a few high but kindly words, he permitted her to approach. She said she could scarce believe that, after such long waiting and such unanswered prayers, he had at last come. ‘Oh, I have been lonely, lonely; I have had no one,’ and she sobbed (no tears came).
‘Why do you sob, Bilby’s Doll?’
‘Because I am happy at last.’
He reproved her gently because she had ever doubted his advent, which he said he had announced to her by the lighting of these three great fires. It was his will that turned her steps to the ladder and, as she became too intent upon the fire to notice the summons of his will, he loosed a fierce black bull who urged her up the humble ladder and into his presence.
‘And you really are from....’
‘From Hell,’ he said, and showed her his teeth that were white and strong as an animal’s. She shrank a little from him. He told her not to fear to approach and touch him, for he was in human guise. There was no sulphur on his person, no blasting fire in his hands. To prove his wholesome humanity he touched her wrist, and she experienced a shock of joy such as she had formerly experienced when her mother had led her to Satan in the heart of the oak wood. This joy she accounted a religious joy—such (so she explained to Mr. Zelley) as a Christian would experience at receiving the visitations of an angel.
Now was she no longer alone in this sad world, for her god (that is, Satan) had come to succour her, or had at least sent her a messenger. She asked him which he was, Satan or lesser demon. At the mention of Satan’s name, he bowed his head reverently. He admitted that he was but one of many fallen angels who had left Paradise with the Awful Prince. At first she was cast down, for she had hoped to hear that it was the Prince himself. But she looked again, and marked how handsome a man he was and of what a fine ruddy complexion. She saw how strong were his shoulders, and how arched and strong his chest. She was thankful then that Satan had not seen fit to send her merely some ancient hag or talking cat, ram, or little green bird, but this stalwart demon. She thought, ‘He can protect me even from the hate of Mrs. Hannah.’ She thought, in her utter and damnable folly, ‘He can protect me from the Wrath of God.’
The whole barn fell into the cellar hole. As she looked towards this glowing pit, she thought of that vaster and crueller bonfire in which her soul would burn forever. She thought well to ask him a little concerning those pains which she later must suffer. He laughed at her. There would be, he said, no pain. Those who served Satan faithfully in this world were never burned in Hell. Was not Satan King of Hell? Why should he burn those who loved and obeyed him? She was stuffed full of lunatic theology. The only souls that suffered in Hell were such of God’s subjects as had angered Him and yet had made no pact of service with Satan. These the devils burned—even as God ordered. It gave them a thing to do. He pointed out there were no angels in Hell watching out that God’s orders be fulfilled, so naturally the devils did not carry out the cruel sentences God meted out to true subjects of Satan. Again he said, ‘Why should they?’
She asked him of news concerning her father and mother—good witches whom the French had burned in Brittany. These he assured her roamed happily and at free will, finding cooling breezes even in Hell. When it pleased them, they sat and conversed with antiquity or with the greatest kings, princes, etc., who had ever lived in this world. But her mother was a kindly woman and got more pleasure out of good deeds than from idle conversation. Therefore Satan permitted her to go about among those who burn and give them water or fan away the smoke. Doll was convinced that the messenger had indeed seen her mother, whom she always remembered as a gentle and loving woman.
Was this kind mother aware of her daughter’s sufferings? Was it she who had thought to send him to comfort her? No, no. A mortal who is dead cannot see back into life. It was Satan himself who had pitied her and ordered him to her side. Him he bade her worship, ‘Truth in and humbly.’ At first she could not understand this reversal of many sacred phrases. Later she came to know this blasphemous jargon well. For every night she said Our Lord’s most holy prayer backwards—thereby addressing herself to Satan; but what came to her as punishment for this wicked practice we shall see.
He had about him a bottle of grog, and from this he baptized her, ‘Ghost holy and son, Father of name the in.’ Now he said she was no longer Bilby’s Doll. Now she was the Devil’s Doll. And he kissed her reverently upon the forehead. His pretty imp peeked out from within his blue blouse where he kept it. He bade her stroke it. This she did. She said it was a warm and gentle imp, with tired and thoughtful (but not malicious, as she had at first thought) eyes. It was well furred and, if it were not for its wise, sad face and minute black hands, she might have thought it indeed but an animal. She came to love this imp, playing with it and petting it. Its name, he said, was Bloody Shad. ‘Why,’ she said, ‘that is the name of one of the pirates that escaped.’ The fiend said he knew that fine fellow well. He had taken his nickname from the imp the young woman now held in her pretty little hands.
The fire was laid and the dawn gave more light than the embers. Birds shook the thin, watery air with their calling. A few men still stood about the fire. The one called to the other that Ahab was in a village garden devouring new-set cabbage plants and terrifying women. Doll leaned towards these men, listening to their news. As she turned back to inquire of her instructor the true status of Ahab in the community and in the Hierarchy of Hell, she found to her great sorrow that he was gone.
At the same time one of the barnyard fowls who the night before had suffered bitterly, being as he was a cock, struck a gallant attitude upon a heap of dung, and, lifting his head, greeted the coming day with a triumphant cock-a-doodle-doo. She heard the cocks on her own farm answer this challenge with distant fairy cries.
This was a new day, and with it came great hopes.
Later she was asked if she did not know that cocks crow at an earlier hour—for they generally begin before the light. Yes, this she knew. But her demon must have had the power to stay the crowing of the cocks, for he never remained later than the first cry from such a bird, yet often he stayed until the day was almost light—for instance, on that first meeting. It was light when he left, and yet no cock cried until he was gone.
Where did he go to?
He went back to Hell.