"And no one else?" asked Brown.
"Truly, friends, you question me close, but I was alone."
"Husband," said Goody Brown, in a solemn whisper, "it might have been a witch gathering. Who knows?"
Jason Brown turned deadly white, and the hired man thrust the awl through his thumb.
"In that case you had better not speak of it," said the young man, with a shade of gravity. "It is almost as dangerous to be visited by witches as to join in their wicked rioting. I remember, at the last trial, it was set forth in evidence that the woods around here were given up to witchcraft: I for one do not believe it, but yet if you saw the faces?"
"We did! we did!"
"Crowned with eagles' plumes?"
"Yes, like savage Indians."
"But no Indian would dare flount his war plumes in this neighborhood. It is too near Boston for that."
"True, how is that possible? The tribes are quiet now," answered Brown, thoughtfully.