The constable had his hand upon the old woman’s arm and dragged her along, she being lame and stumbling. Behind them marched the constable’s helpers, a self-constituted posse. Here was the father of the afflicted boy, and Lukin the carter, and a ditcher whose arm was palsied, and one or two others. A dozen boys brought up the rear. One had run ahead to cry to the village what was happening. Everybody was coming to door and window, out of doors, into the street. Voices buzzed and clacked. The witch fever was mounting, mounting, hardening the heart, confusing the head!
When Mother Spuraway saw the minister and the squire, for all she was as old and spare and feeble as a dried reed, she broke from the constable, and, running to them, fell upon her knees and raising her clasped hands began at once to protest her innocence and to beg for mercy.
The squire spoke to the North End farmer. “They’re bringing your son in?”
“Aye, sir. His mother and sister and my son that’s married and his wife and my niece and Humphrey Tanner. He’s twisting fearful, and he sees the dog come day and come night!”
“Your worship, your worship!” cried the old woman on her knees. “I never could abide dogs—Is it likely I’d trouble a child?—Oh, Master Clement—”
The squire was speaking with the constable and the farmer, the whole company of witch-takers hearkening to him rather than to Mother Spuraway. Had she not kept up a like babble clean from her own hut to Hawthorn? But the witch and straightening out the two walls were Master Clement’s concern. Not always subtle, he was subtle when it came to playing the inquisitor. When the rôle fell to him, it was as though he had suddenly endued himself with a mantle that fitted. Had he lived in a Catholic country, had he been born and baptized there into an unquerying group, it is not unlikely that sooner or later he would have found employment in the Holy Office, unlikelier yet that he would not have served with zeal and a consciousness of high devoir done that King in heaven. In a vast range of relations starkly literal, he was capable when it came to theological detection, of keen and imaginative work. The churchyard yews somewhat cut off the village street; the small present crowd were attending to the squire. Master Clement put some questions. Mother Spuraway, who was now moaning and rocking herself, roused as best she could to answer. Associates? She had no associates. What, in God’s name, should she have associates for? The leech? Well, the leech had taken her trade, that was all the association there—
“Ha!” said Master Clement. “The same trade! She hath said that far!”
Mother Spuraway looked at him and shrank affrighted. “My trade was to gather good herbs and make sick folk well. I meant that I was a leech as well as he.”
“Leechcraft is not for women,” answered Master Clement. “But leechcraft was not his main trade. His trade is in souls to Satan, his own soul and others. I fear me that thou art indentured to that same master and may well speak of this atheist and sorcerer as thy fellow trafficker! Tell me what others thou art concerned with—”