This imp was much offended by her, for it scolded her in strange languages, and its eyes were red with hate. So in terror she, who thought herself brave enough to stand up before Lucifer, fled from the littlest of his servants. This servant she saw again, and the next time without fear.
She ran to Goody Greene, crying she had seen a terrible thing.
‘Hush,’ said Greene; ‘you saw a skull or two, or a snake skin....’
‘No, no, no, it was alive. It was a little imp.’
‘You dreamed it—or it may have been a cat. Cats get into my cellar for the sake of the fats.’
‘It was not a cat.’
But Greene knew it was not an imp.
At the end Doll was cast down because Greene trusted her so little she would not confess the truth, even when she had seen the actual fact of the imp’s body, had heard it chatter. She was distressed, picked up her bonnet and put it on her head. There was much work to do, she said. Mrs. Hannah was plucking geese, and she must be back in time to rub ointment on them where they bled.
‘Doll,’ said Greene, ‘I heard you cry out to God for help when you saw the cat in the cellar.’
‘I forgot myself,’ murmured Doll, and was ashamed that in her extremity she had called upon God and not upon the Foul Fiend she had sworn to worship. She guessed this was the reason both for the imp’s rage and Greene’s mistrust. ‘I will not forget again,’ she said.