Shudderingly, the jailer reached in past Sir Jonathan, pulled the door to and locked it. Then, grown too weak to hold the lantern, he set it on the floor, and leant against the wall, his knees knocking together even more violently than before. “Oh, miserable doubter that I ha’ been!” he chattered, “’t be a judgment come upon me.”
Sir Jonathan leant against the wall on the opposite side of the corridor, with his knees shaking also. “Since it troubles you, goodman,” he said, “I shall not persist in entering, although I cling to the opinion that when one is sufficient exalted in spiritual things, the Devil has no power over him.”
“I ha’ been a miserable doubter,” chattered the jailer; “the Lord ha’ mercy on my soul!”
From the cell came again that terrible cry, a wailing, mournful sound, so wild and eerie as to strike terror to stouter hearts.
“The witch be calling on her Master, Satan,” chattered the jailer.
“Ay, pray,” muttered Sir Jonathan; “you must have an ill conscience, goodman, to be so afeared. But let me haste away; the time waxes apace and the night watchman will be making his rounds.”
Perhaps it was part of his punishment that from that hour Sir Jonathan was never free from dread. He, who originally had no faith in witchcraft and secretly laughed at it, although he falsely testified to his belief in it, was doomed, henceforth, to start at his own shadow, to cower in bed, to ever after keep a night-light burning. He hurried along in the silver moonlight which fell whitely on the pebbled street, a solitary black figure with flapping cape and steeple-hat.
Suddenly, he drew back with a shrill cry, startled by his own shadow flung ahead of him as he turned a corner. So, cowering and starting, he reached his room and crept into his bed, there to fall into an uneasy slumber, which the taper’s pale flame was as ineffectual to calm as the light of truth to reach his darkened heart.
Meanwhile, an indignant kitten stood gasping and sneezing, nearly choked by the straw under which it had lain.
Ah! how its little mistress held it to her breast and soothed it and kissed it, weeping for thanksgiving that she had been spared a visit from Sir Jonathan. There were hours, however, in the long unhappy night, when not even the kitten nestled in her arms could comfort Deliverance,—hours when all the bright days of her life came trooping through her fancy, to be realized no more.