Thus it came about that Garde, having exhausted the small supply of simples possessed by herself and Goodwife Phipps, went to Goody Dune’s and there witnessed the work of a witch-hunting mob.
It was a warm, summery morning, fit jewel for the year’s diadem of things beautiful. Cries, yells, of pretended fear, and harsh, discordant prayers, screamed into the air, assailed Garde’s ears before she could yet see the little flower-surrounded hut where Goody lived. She felt a sudden misgiving strike through her heart as she hastened onward.
She came upon the scene in a moment. Nearly fifty men and boys, with a sprinkling of mere girls and one or two women, were storming the small stronghold of the old wise woman, who had done so much for those afflicted by ailments and troubles. Indeed in the crowd there were many citizens who had blessed her name and the wisdom by which she had mended their bodily woes. But all now were mad with excitement. Some were purposely frothing at the mouth. A dozen leaped frantically about, declaring they were being pinched and bitten by the demons that Goody was actuating to malice. Young boys slily put nails and pins in their mouths and then spat them forth, to show what evils were then and there being perpetrated upon them.
The tidy little garden was trampled to pitiable wreckage of flowers and vines. The house was being boldly entered by a few lusty knaves, with Psalms Higgler and Isaiah Pinchbecker in their midst. Sounds of wild beating, upon the pans and kettles inside, made half the assembled people turn pale with self-induced fear, which they loved to experience.
Suddenly Goody’s old black cat came bounding forth. The men, boys and women fell down in affright, screaming that the devil was upon them. To add to their horror and superstitious dismay, the jackdaw, Rex, came flying out. He perched for a moment on the ridge and then circled once or twice about the house. He was wounded, for the ruffians in the cottage had beaten him savagely, with sticks and whips. He was bedraggled; for they had thrown water upon him. His feathers were all awry. He was altogether a sorry spectacle.
“B-u-h-h—it’s cold,” called the bird. “Fools, fools, fools!” and flapping his ragged wings so that they clapped against his sides as he flew, he started straight for the woods and was soon out of sight.
If the witch-hunters had been smitten with delightful fear before, they were appalled by this terrible bird. They fell down upon their knees and wept and prayed and made a thousand and one mysterious signs by which evil could be averted. Those who knew in their hearts that the whole thing, up to this, had been humbug and fraud, now quaked with a fear that was genuine. The devil himself had said some horrible, unthinkable rigmarole which would doubtless cast a spell upon them such as they would never be rid of again in their lives. Their children would be born with fishes’ tails, with asses’ legs, with seven heads. Above the wails of anguish, which arose on the air, came the shouts of the captors of Goody Dune. They were now seen dragging her forth with hooks, which were supposed to insulate the operator from the evils which a witch could otherwise pronounce upon her enemies with dire and withering effect. And then it was seen what the shouting of triumph was.
Each of the captors bore a Bible in his hand from which he read, haphazard, at the top of his voice as he walked, thus disinfecting himself, or fumigating himself, as it were, to prevent him from catching the evil which was hovering about the witch, like an aureole of dangerous microbes of the devil’s own breeding.
No sooner did old Goody’s well-known form appear than the fanatics in the garden fled in a panic for the gate, howling and wailing their prayers more loudly than before, but pushing and jostling one another and falling endways, as they tried to run and to look behind them at the same time. They must see everything, whatever the cost.
The men were seen to be armed with pitchforks. There is nothing in the way of a weapon which your devil so abhors as a pitchfork, in the hands of any one save himself.