“Nay, but thou did’st try,” said the poor creature, piteously. “Try and forgive me, Mas’ Cobbe, for I be a wicked wretch. I have cursed thee, and the curse has fallen back on me. Mace, thy child, be—”
“Stand aside, Master Cobbe,” cried Sir Mark, imperiously. “Now, knaves, do your work quickly. Round with the faggots. Pile them higher, man, the brushwood first and the charcoal last. Quick, we are wasting time.”
The founder and Master Peasegood were thrust aside, and a part of the crowd pushed forward to help to build up from a stack at hand the brushwood and faggots round the wretched woman, who hung forward with drooping head, apparently insensible now from weakness and dread; and at last all was ready.
A deep silence fell upon all. The morning sun shone more brightly than ever on the gay autumn woodlands, and the eager crowd that, open-mouthed and staring, awaited the fiery trial.
“Will she screech?” whispered one matron, who had brought a child in arms to see the show, and who kept handing her little one clusters of the great blackberries that grew so plentifully upon the banks, “because if she do I shouldn’t like to stay and hear her cry aloud.”
“Nay,” said another, “she’ll not squeal much; she’ll take something to keep away the pains.”
“Think she will?”
“Ay, that she will. She be an anointed witch. See how she lives. You never go to her place but there be meal in plenty, and sugar and bacon too. Where do it come from, eh?”
“Nay, I d’now.”
“She makes it all with spells, and calls up plenty for what she wants. Eh, but she be a clever one. I’ve met her o’ nights in the forest, going crouching along; and one night John Piper see her with a white sperrit, going along together hand in hand.”