And there were many fordways to be crossed, so that he was carried up stream and down stream to find the most shallow places. Twice the streams were so swollen that the soldiers had to make rude bridges before Lord Christopher could be taken across.
Shortly before midnight, to the relief of all, the moon arose, breaking through light clouds.
Abigail first perceived it behind five tall pine trees.
“Master Ronald,” she cried excitedly, “there be a witch’s cottage back of those five pines.”
“Nonsense,” answered the student, glancing around him sharply.
“But I be sure o’ it,” averred Abigail. “I saw an old goody with a gobber tooth, cooking a witch-cake in a weamy-wimy hut, near five pine trees. And just beyond I drew her water in a bucket, at a spring.”
Master Ronald, great as was his anxiety to press forward to Salem, nevertheless turned his horse’s head and went up beyond the pines until he came to the spring. “Here is your spring, Mistress Abigail,” he said, drawing rein and laughing with gay scorn; “come now, show me the old hag and her hut.”
He looked back and saw the little maid’s face white in the moonlight. “I ken not where it can be now,” she said in a fearful whisper, “but it was there.” She pointed to an empty space of ground where some flowers could be seen in the silver moonshine, but there was neither hut nor any sign of human habitation.
As the student observed these flowers a strange uneasiness took possession of him. A climbing rose stood upright in the air with naught to cling to, while the other flowers seemed to follow a pathway to an invisible dwelling.