The Witch

by Mary Johnston

Ans. No.

Qu. Then you do not believe in the Trinity?

Ans. No.

There were other questions—a number of them—and the answers. But the very beginning was enough—enough. Master Clement, sitting rigidly, stared at the opposite wall. A sentence formed itself clearly before his eyes, the letters well made, of a red colour. Only the last of the three words wavered a little. CONVICTED AND HANGED. Or it might be CONVICTED AND BURNED. The first two words stood steady, and above them the name, GILBERT ADERHOLD.

The concern was now to prove the sorcery—and to take all confederates in the net—to lop Satan in all his members.

The minister stared at the wall. Another name formed itself as though it were stained there—MOTHER SPURAWAY....

Master Clement sat rigid, trying to place other names beside this one. It was his sincere belief that there were others. The probable diabolical activities at the Oak Grange—the coming to Hawthorn, after so long and godly an immunity, of the late sickness—the varied and mysterious happenings, losses, and attacks with which village and countryside were beginning to buzz—this final heinous Satan-revenge and attempt upon the godliest and most greatly promising young man of whom he had any knowledge—back again, and above all, to the blasphemer, the atheist, the idolater, and denier now fast in gaol!—Master Clement was firm in his belief that so frightful and important a round of occurrences pointed to many and prime agents of evil, though always that unbeliever yonder would prove the ring-leader, the very lieutenant of Satan himself! Hawthorn made a narrow stage for such a determined and concentrated presence and effort on the part of the Prince of the Power of the Air. But Master Clement’s was a narrow experience and a mind of one province. To him, truly, the stage seemed of the widest, and the quarry worthy Apollyon’s presence in person.

The atheist and sorcerer himself—Mother Spuraway—who else? The minister thought of old Dorothy at the Grange. There existed a presupposition of contamination. On the other hand, so far as he knew, there had never gone out a word against her; she had seemed a pious, harmless soul, trudging to church in all weathers. That in itself, though, the Devil was wont to use as a mask. Witness the atheist and sorcerer at church! Nay, was it not known that sometimes Satan came himself to listen and to confound, if he might, the preacher, making him tame and cold in his discourse; or razing from his memory that which he had carefully prepared; or putting into his mind, even while he preached, worldly and wicked and satiric thoughts; or during a sermon of so great power that all who heard should be lifted to the courts of heaven, stuffing the mind of the congregation with a like gallimaufrey?

The minister sat stiffly, staring at the wall. Dorothy’s name did not form itself there before him, but neither did he wholly dismiss it from mind. He put it, as it were, on the wall at right angles, marked, “To be further thought on.” Then what other name or names for the main wall?... Old Marget Primrose was dead. He thought of two or three old and solitary women, and of the son of one of the Grange tenants—a silent and company-shunning youth who had gotten his letters somehow, and went dreaming through the woods with a book. Once Master Clement, meeting him by the stream-side, had taken his book from him and looking at it found it naught but idle verse; moreover, it seemed that it was Master Gilbert Aderhold’s book, and that the youth went at times to the Grange for instruction.... All these, the boy with the itch for learning, and the two or three women he relegated to the wall with old Dorothy.

There was one other—there was Grace Maybank. She was not old, but Satan, though for occult reasons he oftenest signed them old, signed them young as well, and though he gave preferment to the ugly and the bent, would take good looks when they were at hand. Satan had already signed Grace in another department of the Kingdom of Evil-doing. The minister rose, and going to a press that stood in the room, took from it a book in which was entered, among other things, cases of church discipline. He found the page, the date several years back. Grace Maybank, Fornicatress. Stood before the congregation, two Sundays in each month for three months in succession. Texts preached from on these Sundays, for the warning of sinners.... And again, Grace Maybank, her infant being born, stood with it in her arms before the congregation, Sunday, June the ——.