“Hardly, I think, true firelight: a red and strange light.—It was well after the hour when the leech had been taken from this Oak Grange?”
“Aye, Your Honour. ’Twas close to dark.”
“With the constable and his men, and Master Carthew riding a part of the way, he must then have been upon the Hawthorn road, his face set to this gaol?”
“He must have been so, sir, but—”
“We are coming to that. It is a fact, is it not, that witches and warlocks are able to transport themselves, with their master Satan’s aid, through the air—and that so swiftly that you cannot see their flight?”
“Oh, yes, Your Honour,” said Will. “They fly in sieves, and sometimes they steal bats’ wings.”
“Very well. Now you and your mother opened this cottage gate and went up the path to the door, and to reach that you had to pass the window. As you did that, passing close, you naturally put forehead to the frame, and looked within, and the place being filled with that red light—”
“It wasn’t very bright,” said Will. “It was like a faggot had parted on the hearth, and there was now a dancing light, and now it was dark. There was nothing clear, and we heard naught because it was lightning and thundering—”
“And you saw—”