The soldier, with a gruff assent, put the stocking and note in his pocket. He turned away, no longer caring to look into those blue, beseeching eyes, which filled him with tormenting misgivings.
“Come, come,” he cried to the Beadle, “it waxeth past time. Let an ill duty be done quickly, say I.” He strode out of the cell and down the corridor.
The Beadle reached in and touched Deliverance’s shoulder with his staff of office. “Step forth,” he commanded, “and follow yon soldier, and I will come up behind.”
Suddenly the little maid bent down and lifted something from the straw pallet. As she turned they saw she held a little black kitten, curled in slumber, against her breast.
The old jailer shuddered and muttered a prayer, and the Beadle’s fat face grew white. They believed that she, after the manner of witches, had summoned an imp from Hell to bear her company.
Close to the prison door was drawn a rude cart, with a stool fastened to the floor in the back. The driver, indifferent through much similar experience, sat nodding on the seat. The soldier who had preceded Deliverance, waited to assist her in the cart, which was too high a step for a little maid. He lifted her in bodily, kitten and all, keeping his eyes turned from her face.
The driver clucked to his horse, the soldier mounted his and rode ahead, and the Beadle walked pompously at the side of the cart, moving slowly down the street.
All Salem had gathered to behold this hanging, which was of awful import to the townspeople, brought to a frantic belief that Satan had taken possession of the heart of one of their children, known and loved by them all her life. A strange, sad thing it was that the Devil should have taken on himself the guise of a motherless young maiden.
So although the crowd through which the cart passed was large, but little noisy demonstration was made, and few curses or mutterings heard. Several boys who ventured to call jeeringly, were sternly hushed. In the throng there was only one near friend to the prisoner. This was Goodwife Higgins, who plodded bare-headed beside the cart, weeping. Neither her father nor brother was to be seen. All night following the trial, Master Wentworth had wandered in the fields in a drenching rain, and had returned home to succumb to an illness, from which he daily grew weaker, lying unconscious this very morning.