Goody Greene assumed an attitude which seemed indeed to the girl one of mock piety. She rolled her eyes and said, ‘Always give thanks where thanks are due.’
Doll thought she was reproving her. ‘I will next time,’ she promised.
Then she went away.
CHAPTER V
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).