LITTLE MAID AT THE DOOR
Joseph Bayley and his wife Ann came riding down from Salem village. They had started from their home in Newbury the day before, and had stayed overnight with their relative, Sergeant Thomas Putnam, in Salem village; they were on their way to the election in Boston. The road wound along through the woods from Salem to Lynn; it was some time since they had passed a house.
May was nearly gone; the pinks and the blackberry vines were in flower. All the woods were full of an indefinite and composite fragrance, made up of the breaths of myriads of green plants and seen and unseen blossoms, like a very bouquet of spring. The newly leaved trees cast shadows that were as much a part of the tender surprise of the spring as the new flowers. They flickered delicately before Joseph Bayley and his wife Ann on the grassy ridges of the road, but they did not remark them. Their own fancies cast gigantic projections which eclipsed the sweet show of the spring and almost their own personalities. That year the leaves came out and the flowers bloomed in vain for the people in and about Salem village. There was epidemic a disease of the mind which deafened and blinded to all save its own pains.
Ann Bayley on the pillion snuggled closely against her husband’s back; her fearful eyes peered at the road around his shoulder. She was a young and handsome woman; she had on her best mantle of sad-colored silk, and a fine black hood with a topknot, but she did not think of that.
“Joseph, what is that in the road before us?” she whispered, timorously.
He pulled up the horse with a great jerk.
“Where?” he whispered back.
“There! there! at the right; just beyond that laurel thicket. ’tis some what black, an’ it moves. There! there! Oh, Joseph!”
Joseph Bayley sat stiff and straight in his saddle, like a soldier; his face was pale and stern, his eyes full of horror and defiance.
“See you it?” Ann whispered again. “There! now it moves. What is it?”
“I see it,” said Joseph, in a loud, bold voice. “An’ whatever it be, I will yield not to it; an’ neither will you, goodwife.”
Ann reached around and caught at the reins. “Let us go back,” she moaned, faintly. “Oh, Joseph, let us not pass it. My spirit faints within me. I see its back among the laurel blooms. ’tis the black beast they tell of. Let us turn back, Joseph, let us turn back!”
“Be still, woman!” returned her husband, jerking the reins from her hand. “What think ye ’twould profit us to turn back to Salem village? I trow if there be one black beast here, there is a full herd of them there. There is naught left but to ride past it as best we may. Sit fast, an’ listen you not to it, whatever it promise you.” Joseph looked down the road towards the laurel bushes, his muscles now as tense as a bow. Ann hid her face on his shoulder. Suddenly he shouted, with a great voice like a herald: “Away with ye, ye cursed beast! away with ye! We are not of your kind; we are gospel folk. We have naught to do with you or your master. Away with ye!”
The horse leaped forward. There was a great cracking among the laurel bushes at the right, a glossy black back and some white horns heaved over thorn, then some black flanks plunged heavily out of sight.
“Oh!” shrieked Ann, “has it gone? Goodman, has it gone?”
“The Lord hath delivered us from the snare of the enemy,” answered Joseph, solemnly.
“What looked it like, Joseph, what looked it like?”
“Like no beast that was saved in the ark.”
“Had it fiery eyes?” asked Ann, trembling.
“’Tis well you did not see them.”
“Ride fast! oh, ride fast!” Ann pleaded, clutching hard at her husband’s cloak. “It may follow on our track.” The horse went down the road at a quick trot. Ann kept peering back and starting at every sound in the woods. “Do you mind the tale Samuel Endicott told last night?” she said, shuddering. “How on his voyage to Barbadoes he, sitting on the windlass on a bright moonshining night, was shook violently, and saw the appearance of that witch Goody Bradbury, with a white cap and a white neckcloth on her? It was a dreadful tale.”
“It was naught to the sight of Mercy Lewis and Sergeant Thomas Putnam’s daughter Ann, when they were set upon and nigh choked to death by Goody Proctor. Know you that within a half-mile we must pass the Proctor house?”
Ann gave a shuddering sigh. “I would I were home again,” she moaned. “They said ’twas full of evil things, and that the black man himself kept tavern there since Goodman Proctor and his wife were in jail. Did you mind what Goodwife Putnam said of the black head, like a hog’s, that Goodman Perley saw at the keeping-room window as he passed, and the rumbling noises, and the yellow birds that flow around the chimney and twittered in a psalm tune? Oh, Joseph, there is a yellow bird now in the birch-tree-see! see!”
They had come into a little space where the woods were thinner. Joseph urged his horse forward.
“We will not slack our pace for any black beasts nor any yellow birds,” he cried, in a valiant voice.
There was a passing gleam of little yellow wings above the birch-tree.
“He has flown away,” said Ann. “’Tis best to front them as you do, goodman, but I have not the courage. That looked like a common yellowbird; his wings shone like gold. Think you it has gone forward to the Proctor house?”
“It matters not, so it but fly up before us,” said Joseph Bayley.
He was somewhat older than Ann; fair-haired and fair-bearded, with blue eyes set so deeply under heavy brows that they looked black. His face was at once stern and nervous, showing not only the spirit of warfare against his foes, but the elements of strife within himself.
They rode on, and the woods grew thicker; the horse’s hoofs made only a faint liquid pad on the mossy road. Suddenly he stopped and whinnied. Ann clutched her husband’s arm; they sat motionless, listening; the horse whinnied again.
Suddenly Joseph started violently, and stared into the woods on the left, and Ann also. A long defile of dark evergreens stretched up the hill, with mysterious depths of blue-black shadows between them; the air had an earthy dampness.
Joseph shook the reins fiercely over the horse’s back, and shouted to him in a loud voice.
“Did you see it?” gasped Ann, when they had come into a lighter place. “Was it not a black man?”
“Fear not; we have outridden him,” said her husband, setting his thin intense face proudly ahead.
“I would we were safe home in Newbury,” Ann moaned. “I would we had never set out. Think you not Dr. Mather will ride back from Boston with us to keep the witches off? I will bide there forever, if he will not. I will never come this dreadful road again, else. What is that? Oh, what is that? ’tis a voice coming out of the woods like a great roar. Joseph! What isthat? That was a black cat run across the road into the bushes. ’twas a black cat. Joseph, let us turn back! No; the black man is behind us, and the beast. What shall we do? What shall we do? Oh, oh, I begin to twitch like Ann and Mercy last night! My feet move, and I cannot stop them! Now there is a pin thrust in my arm! I am pinched! There are fingers at my throat! Joseph! Joseph!”
“Go
