ROUND ABOUT OUR COAL FIRE.
In a bustling New England village there lived, not many years ago, a poor, infirm, deformed little old woman, who was known to the middle-aged people living there and thereabout as 'Aunt Hannah.' The younger members of the little community had added another and very odious title to the 'Aunt'—they called her 'Aunt Hannah, the Black Witch.' Not that she was of negro blood. Her pale, pinched and patient face was white as the face of a corpse; so, also, was her thin hair, combed smoothly down under the plain cap she always wore. Very white indeed she was, as to face, and hair, and cap, but otherwise she was all and always black, especially so as regarded an ugly pair of gloves, which were never removed from her hands, so far as the youngsters were aware, and which added to the fearfully mysterious aspect of those members. Exactly what they covered, the children never knew, but they saw that one hideous glove enclosed something like a gigantic, withered bird's claw, while within the other there musts have been a repulsive and horrid knob, without proper form, and lacking any remotest attempt at thumb and fingers.
These shapeless members, forever covered from the world, wrought fearful images in the minds of the children, and their youthful imaginations conjured up all sorts of uses to which such strange members might be applied. Upon one point they were agreed. There was no doubt in any little head among them that Aunt Hannah had at some time sold herself to Satan, and that he had placed this deformity upon her as a mark of ownership. Then she had a humped back, poor woman, the result of the cruel weight of many weary years; and she leaned upon an old-fashioned staff with a curved and crutch-like handle; and her bleared eyes were bent forever on the ground; and her thin lips twitched convulsively, and she muttered to herself as she crawled about the village [pg 156] streets; and it was said by those who knew, that she was nearly a hundred years of age. So the youngsters called her the 'Black Witch,' and sometimes hooted after her in the streets, or hobbled on before her with bowed heads and ridiculous affectation of infirmity. Thanks to her evil name, none of them ever ventured to actually assault the poor old creature, and their taunts she bore with patient meekness, going ever quietly upon her accustomed, peaceful way.
The older villagers regarded her with a pity that was half pity and half disgust. Those fearful hands they never could forget, nor the bowed figure, nor the strange working of the lips. Therefore, they held her in a sort of dreading, but still her lonely life, and her patient, uncomplaining spirit, moved their hearts. Then a vague tradition—nothing more, for neither kith nor kin had ancient Hannah—a vague tradition said that she had once been very beautiful; that when she was in her fresh and lovely youth, some strange misfortune had fallen upon her, and that she had worn since then—most innocently—the mark of a direful tragedy. One lady, old, nearly, as Aunt Hannah, but upon whom there had never fallen any blight of poverty or wrong, loved the poor creature well, and she only, of all the inhabitants of the village, frequently entered the cottage where the 'Black Witch' dwelt. This lady, it was said, had known her when both were young, and carried forever locked in her heart the story of that saddened youth. None called good Mrs. Marjoram a witch. Her face was clear, her smile bright, her eyes sparkling, and she bore her years with an upright and cheerful carriage.
The little, one-storied house where Aunt Hannah dwelt was situated in a hollow just out of the village, in the shadow of a grove of tangled hemlocks and pines. It consisted of two rooms only, with an unfinished attic overhead; and before her door the poor old soul might be seen any pleasant day, sitting meekly in the sun. She could neither knit nor sew as other old women do, but she sat there waiting patiently for the time when her kind Father should call her home, to lose forever the blackness that clung to her in this weary world.
She did not live here entirely alone, for, true to the universal reputation of witches, she kept, not one cat only, but several; all black cats, too. It was the only fancy she indulged in, the only luxury she allowed herself, and it was sad that this harmless freak should cost her so many taunts. Sometimes the boys tried to kill her cats, aided in the murderous attempt by the village dogs, but no dog ever came back scatheless from those sharp and spiteful claws. Hence the boys were certain as to the witchcraft, and 'knew' that these savage animals were true imps of Satan.
This weak and defenceless creature, living thus apart from human companionship, was supported on a small annuity, paid her quarterly by a very honest company, that would have been ruined with many such venerable clients. On pleasant days she crept about the town to do her meagre marketing, or crawled to the paupers' pew in the old brick meeting-house. During the warm summer weather her scant life was somewhat cheered, and a faint attempt at joyousness sometimes winked in her old eyes, but with the winter's cold came the cruel cramps and rheumatism, the sleepless nights and painful days. Then Mrs. Marjoram frequently drove to her door, carrying medicines and nourishing food,—over and above all, bringing cheerful words and a warm and hearty smile.
One winter Mrs. Marjoram was taken ill, and, being so very old, her life was despaired of. During this sickness there came a great fall of snow, piling up four or five feet on the level, and driving and drifting into the hollows, so that for several days the less frequented roads in that part of the country were impassible. And now, when Mrs. Marjoram, but for her own sad plight, would have thought of poor Aunt Hannah, there was no one enough interested to give her loneliness a moment's consideration, till, one morning, one street lad cried out suddenly to [pg 157] another that Aunt Hannah must be buried alive!
Buried alive? The men, suddenly summoned from their business or their leisure, hardly thought that possible in the deep hollow, filled nearly to the level with heavily packed and frozen snow.
Men walked out on the firm crust till they were directly over the spot where, full twenty feet below, stood Aunt Hannah's little house. And they shook their heads mournfully at the sickening thought of what must lie below them.
It was a good day's work for twenty men to open a gradually descending way to the lonely house,—a good day's work; so that when they reached the door—finding it locked inside—they sent back to the village for lanterns and candles before bursting it in.
The sight that startled and horrified them after they had forced the door, they never liked to speak of. The sounds from the furious, spitting and snarling cats they never forgot.
Her disfigured and mutilated remains were decently interred, and when the spring-time carried away the snow, they leveled the house with the ground. But, though they buried her out of their sight and pulled down the rotten cottage she had inhabited for so many weary years, the fearful memory of her evil name and dreadful end remained, and nearly all the village came to regard her as, in very truth, a witch.
Only Mrs. Marjoram took from the cottage with pious love an ancient and much-thumbed book, on whose fly-leaf was written 'Jason Fletcher, His Bible.' Then, having no longer any reason to conceal the early history of the deceased, she related to the village gossips—as a warning against trusting too fully to evil appearances—the following