Every eye in the house turned on another, but no one spoke or offered to move. At length Katharine, who seemed in great anxiety lest any of them should have had the courage to go, went lightly up to her father, and said, “I will go, sir, if you please.”
“Do, my dear, and let some of the men go with you.”
“No, sir; none of the men shall go with me.”
“Well then, Keatie, make haste; light a candle, and I will go with you myself.”
“No—with your leave, father, if I go, I go alone; no one shall go with me.”
“And why, my love, may not I, your father, accompany you?”
“Because, should you go with me into the Old Room just now, perhaps you might never be yourself again.”
Here the goodwife uttered a smothered scream, and muttered some inarticulate ejaculations, appearing so much affected, that her daughter, dreading she would fall into a fit, flew to support her; but on this she grew ten times worse, screaming aloud, “Avoid thee, Satan! avoid thee, Satan! avoid thee, imp of darkness and despair! avoid thee! avoid thee!” And she laid about her violently with both hands. The servants, taking it for granted that she was bewitched, or possessed, fled aloof; but Walter, who knew better how matters stood with her mind than they, ran across the floor to her in such haste and agitation, that they supposed he was going to give her strength of arm, (his great expedient when hardly controuled,) but in place of that, he lifted her gently in his arms, and carried her to her bed, in the further end of the house.
He then tried to sooth her by every means in his power; but she continued in violent agitation, sighing, weeping, and praying alternately, until she wrought herself into a high nervous fever. Walter, growing alarmed for her reason, which seemed verging to a dangerous precipice, kept close by her bed–side. A little before midnight she grew calm; and he, thinking she had fallen asleep, left her for a short time. Unfortunately, her daughter, drawn toward her by filial regard and affection, softly then entered the room. Maron Linton was not so sound asleep as was supposed; she instantly beheld the approach of that now dreaded sorceress, and sitting up in her bed, she screamed as loud as she was able. Katharine, moved by a natural impulse, hasted forward to the couch to calm her parent; but the frenzied matron sprung from her bed, threw up the window, and endeavoured to escape; Katharine flew after her, and seized her by the waist. When Maron found that she was fairly in her grasp at such an hour, and no help at hand, she deemed all over with her, both body and soul; which certainly was a case extreme enough. She hung by the sash of the window, struggled, and yelled out, “Murder! murder! murder!—O Lord! O Lord!—save! save! save! save!—Murder! murder!” &c. At length Walter rushed in and seized her, ordering his weeping daughter instantly to bed.
Maron thanked Heaven for this wonderful and timely deliverance, and persuaded now that Providence had a special and peculiar charge over her, she became more calm than she had been since the first alarm; but it was a dreadful certainty that she now possessed, that unearthly beings inhabited the mansion along with her, and that her daughter was one of the number, or in conjunction with them. She spent the night in prayer, and so fervent was she in her devotions, that she seemed at length to rest in the hope of their final accomplishment. She did not fail, however, to hint to Walter that something decisive ought to be done to their daughter. She did not actually say that she should be burnt alive at a stake, but she spake of the trial by fire—or that it might be better to throw her into the lake, to make the experiment whether she would drown or not; for she well expected, in her own mind, that when the creature found itself in such circumstances, it would fly off with an eldrich laugh and some unintelligible saying to its own clime; but she was at length persuaded by her husband to intrust the whole matter to her reverend monitor, both as to the driving away the herd of Brownies, and the exorcism of her daughter.