Chapter V
The Coming of the Town Beadle
The next morning, Goodwife Higgins and Deliverance heard steps coming around the side of the house.
“Who can it be at this hour o’ the dawning?” asked the goodwife. “It be but the half-hour past six o’ the minute-glass.”
“Ye don’t hear the tapping o’ a stick like as it might be Sir Jonathan, goody,” asked Deliverance, listening fearfully. “I like not his ruddy beard and his sharp, greeny-gray eyes.”
But as she spoke, the form of the Town Beadle with his Bible and staff of office darkened the doorway.
“Has our cow Clover gotten loose again?” cried Deliverance, remembering the meadow-bars were broken. One of the chief duties connected with the office of Beadle was to arrest stray cows and impose a fine on their owners.
Goodwife Higgins said never a word, only watched the Beadle, her face grown white.
“As much as three weeks ago and over,” continued Deliverance, deftly drying a pewter platter, “as I was cutting across the meadow to Abigail Brewster’s back door, I saw those broken bars. ‘Hiram’, says I to the bound boy, ‘ye had best mend those bars, or Clover and her calf will get loose and ye get your ears boxed for being a silly loon, and ye ken ye be that, Hiram.’ ‘I ken,’ says he. Hold your dish-cloth over the pan, goody,” she added, “it be dripping on the floor.”
While she spoke, the Beadle had been turning over the leaves of his Bible. He laid it open face downward on the table, to keep the place, while he carefully adjusted his horn-bowed spectacles on his nose. He cleared his throat.
“Peace be on this household,” he announced pompously, “and suffer the evil-doer to be brought out from his dark ways and hiding-place into the public highway where all may be warned by his example.” Having delivered himself of these words he raised the Bible and read a stretch therefrom. “Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live, neither wizards that peep and mutter.... Regard not them that have familiar spirits, neither seek after them to be defiled by them.” He closed the book and removed his spectacles. Then he lifted his staff and tapped Deliverance on the shoulder. “I arrest ye in the name of the law,” he cried in a loud voice, “to await your trial for witchery, ye having grievously afflicted your victim, Ebenezer Gibbs.”