“Nay, nay,” protested the judge, “my flesh is weaker than my willing spirit, and, I fear me, wrought upon by a fair seeming and the vanity of outward show. But we must back to court, my good friend,” he added, addressing the schoolmaster.
So the two arose and donned their steeple-hats and took their walking-sticks, and arm-in-arm they went slowly down the middle of the street.
Cotton Mather, as he lunched, became absorbed in troubled thought. The conviction grew that it was his duty to investigate to the full and personally these rumours of the witch-maid. Also, he would seek to lead her to confession to the salvation of her own soul, and, further, that he might learn something regarding the evil ways of witches, and by some good wit turn their own methods against them to the establishment of the Lord.
Full of eager resolve, he did not finish his luncheon, but left the tavern and proceeded to the jail.
There he had the old jailer open the door of the cell very softly, that he might, by some good chance, surprise the prisoner in evil doing.
Quietly the old jailer swung open the door.
Cotton Mather saw a little maiden seated on a straw pallet, knitting. Some wisps of the straw clung to her fair hair, some to her linsey-woolsey petticoat. Where the iron ring had slipped on her white ankle was a red mark.
All the colour went from Deliverance’s face as she looked up and perceived her visitor. Before his stern gaze she trembled, and her head drooped, and she ceased her knitting. The ball of yarn rolled out from her lap over to the young minister’s feet.
She waited for him to speak. The moments passed and still he did not speak, and the torture of his silence grew so great that at last she lifted her head and met his glance, and out of her pain she was enabled to speak. “What would ye have with me, good sir?”
“I have come to pray with you, and to exhort you to confession,” he answered.