GOODY RICKBY But thou toldst me they had discovered—
DICKON A scarecrow in a mirror. Well? The glass is bewitched; that’s all.
GOODY RICKBY All? Witchcraft is hanging—that’s all! Come, how shall the mirror help us?
DICKON ’Tis very simple. The glass is bewitched. Mistress Rachel—mind you—shall admit it. She bought it of you.
GOODY RICKBY Yea, of me; ’twill be me they’ll hang.
DICKON Good! then the glass is bewitched. The glass bewitches the room; for witchcraft is catching and spreads like the small-pox. Ergo, the distorted image of Lord Ravensbane; ergo, the magical accompaniments of the ballad; ergo, the excited fancies of all the persons in the room. Ergo, the glass must needs be destroyed, and the room thoroughly disinfected by the Holy Scriptures. Ergo, Master Dickonson himself reads the Bible aloud, the guests apologize and go home, the Justice squirms again in his merry dead past, and his fair niece is wed to the pumpkin.
RAVENSBANE Hideous! Hideous!
GOODY RICKBY Your grateful servant, Devil! But the mirror was bought of me—of me, the witch. Wilt thou be my hangman, Dickon?
DICKON Wilt thou give me a kiss, Goody? When did ever thy Dickon desert thee?
GOODY RICKBY But how, boy, wilt thou—