Sarah Bishop

  Carts and horses stood to one side in an oak grove. The Quakers were gathered by the house. Young Mr. Morton glanced at the musket and hesitated. Then he took my arm and started to lead me through the crowd, but I slipped away from him and found a place in the back.

  He went up the steps and stood on the porch. Someone rang a bell, a small bell that scarcely made a sound. I was used to Sabbath bells that stirred you up inside. Mr. Morton held up his hands. It was a sign, I thought, for everyone to sing, as they always did the first thing in any church I had ever gone to. But there was only a big silence. People bowed their heads and prayed. I was the only one who didn't.

  After the prayer ended, everyone stood around in silence, thinking his own thoughts, talking to himself, I guess, for it was very quiet.

  Isaac Morton's father was standing not far away, close enough for me to see him crane his neck every once in a while. He didn't look at the musket because I held it behind me. He looked at me. He had eyes that stuck out of his head, like a frog's. They were cold, too, like a frog's eyes. I moved away where he couldn't see me.

  After the long silence, he slid through the crowd and climbed up on the porch and stood beside his son. They talked for a few minutes; then he turned to the gathering and asked for their attention.

  He had a croaking voice, like the frogs on Long Pond. It boomed out over the crowd, quieting them, even the children who were fidgeting. He spoke about the drouth and how it had lasted since the first days of August.

  "Crops have withered in the fields," he said. "Grapes upon the vine. The sun has risen, and the sun has gone down, each day in cloudless skies."

  He paused and gazed above him at the wide blue sky. People followed his gaze. The sun poured down upon us. There was not a cloud in sight.

  "Calamity," he said, "has come upon us while we were deep sunk in selfish thoughts. Heedless of God's words, as we were, it has visited us while we slept."

  He stopped to drink from a cup his son handed him.

  "The day has come for repentance," he said, speaking slowly in his booming voice. "And I, Thomas Morton, will be the first to repent, sinner that I am. Henceforth, from this day forward and forever, my two Negro slaves, Sue Curry and Amy Byrd, shall be free. From this moment on they may do as God wills them, without let or hindrance."

  He paused, and his gaze traveled aimlessly over the crowd.

  "If there are any," he said, "who like me have held slaves, who do own them now, I call upon you to follow my example."

  A hush fell over the gathering. Two men moved out and went up on the porch and spoke a few words, freeing their slaves. He waited for others. When no one else came forward, he held up his hands and thanked God for the souls that had been freed.

  Then he said, "We have seventy-three Friends here this morning. If not for the sickness that prevails, we would have twice that number. But many are frightened. Many are ill. Many are attending those who are ill. Some, alas, are dead."

  A woman cried out in a grieving voice.

  "Yet, dear people," Mr. Morton said, "the burdens of drouth and sickness that have been placed heavily upon our shoulders are not God's will alone. There is some evil presence among us in this village of Ridgeford, a malevolent spirit, call it what you will, that threatens our fortunes and our very lives."

  Thomas Morton stood on the porch gazing down at us. The hot sun glinted on his sweating face. His gaze shifted back and forth, as if the evil presence he spoke about were somewhere near at hand, within the sound of his voice.

  He never looked in my direction once. And yet I had the feeling that these threatening words were meant for me. He went on about the drouth and the sickness. The people grew restless. There were moans and painful words. I put the musket under my arm. Quietly, I made my way out of the crowd.

  I reached the road that led to the village. A wind had sprung up, and on it I could hear Mr. Morton's booming voice. I thought I heard him speak my name.

  I began to run. I heard footsteps. A hand reached out and grasped my arm.

  37

  AT FIRST, I thought it was Isaac Morton who held me. He had seen me leave and start down the road. I was ready to pull myself loose, without ever turning around.

  "A moment, Sarah Bishop," a voice said. "I would have a word."

  The man wore a red coat with two rows of brass buttons down the front. He is an officer, a British officer who has come to arrest me, I thought.

  I glanced about in terror. There was heavy underbrush on both sides of the road and a thick stand of trees beyond. If I only could get loose, I would disappear into the trees and run. I wouldn't stop running until I reached home and barred the door behind me.

  The man wore a brass badge with a single word stamped across it. The word started with a "C"; the rest was blurred.

  He said, "I am Constable Hawkins. I wish to detain you for a short while. Be calm."

  A two-horse wagon drove up and stopped. In it was a youth with a nose peeling from the sun. The constable hustled me into the wagon and climbed up beside me. We drove to the far side of the village, across a stream that was mostly dry, to a run-down building standing among tall weeds. Here, Constable Hawkins took me by the arm and led me through a battered doorway.

  "Our jail burned down last week," he apologized. "We have to use this old mill until we build a new one. Who knows when that will be?" He pointed to a bench. "Please seat yourself yonder."

  "Why?" I shouted. "Why am I here?"

  "You're here for protection," the constable said. He spoke gently, as if I were a child. "Be calm. I'll be coming back shortly, once the Meeting's over. When the people settle down. Right now they're pretty riled up about one thing and another. People dying and the two-headed calf that Coleman's heifer had. And the blue dog that was whelped over on the Thompson farm just yesterday noon. Not to mention the jail burning down. And it was a beauty if ever I saw one."

  He backed out the door and closed it. I heard him fumbling with a key.

  "You are locking the door!" I cried. "Why?"

  "I've told you already. For protection. People are in a bad mood."

  He rattled the door. I heard him walk away and the wagon start off at a clip. Was it possible that there were people in the village of Ridgeford who honestly thought I was a witch?

  A bedraggled girl, a year or two older than I, sat astride the far end of the bench. She was knitting when I came in. She had stopped and now examined me through strands of tangled hair.

  "I don't believe in witches and all that foolishness," she said. "Do you?"

  I sat down on the bench and tried to answer but my teeth were clenched with fright.

  "A chancy world," someone crouching in the shadows said.

  I hadn't seen her before and didn't see much of her now, except that she was a crone, stooped and old.

  The mill was small. A set of worn grinding stones lay on their sides. There was a window high up. Through it I saw arching trees and white clouds. The constable had told me twice to be calm. I tried to be.

  "I didn't know that witches were flying around nowadays. Thought they were all burned up long ago," the old woman murmured.

  "Not all," the bedraggled girl said. "You look like a witch yourself."

  The crone thought about this for a while, clucked to herself, and went on. "Grandmother was a witch. That was north of here, in Dedham, near Boston. They took her clothes off and beat her with a whip that had five braided tails. They beat her bloody. Drove her out of Boston city, as far as Dedham. She's buried there somewhere, my grandmother, without a stone to mark her."

  I sat frozen to the bench. The two went on talking. After a while the crone fell asleep and the girl again took up her knitting. A woodpecker was hammering away at the side of the mill. He finally drilled a hole in the wood and a beam of light came through. The pecking stopped. Then the bird flew back and put an acorn into the hole, thinking to store it there, I guess, but it fell through and lit at my feet.

  I sat quietly on
the bench and tried to get my thoughts together. I had believed that Isaac Morton had asked me to the Meeting because he felt that I was godless and needed to be converted. I was wrong. He had invited me here to cause trouble. To have me run out of Ridgeford, out of the country.

  I got to my feet and began to pace up and down. I carried the musket cocked on my shoulder. If Constable Hawkins had come back then, I think I would have put a ball in his carcass.

  The girl said, "You make me nervous, walking around with that musket on your shoulder."

  The crone laughed, a stringy laugh, and said, "Pretty quick, ducky darling, you'll be mounting that gun and be flying away like a true witch."

  I aimed the musket over my head and pulled the trigger. The sound shook the building. Smoke billowed. Now there was a hole in the roof. The two left me alone.

  I sat and thought about Long Pond. The mallards and brown-breasted pintails and ruddies, feeding in the marshes. The browsing deer and the sly fox that came for food every morning at dawn. The acorns that needed to be gathered and the blueberries that should be picked before the jaybirds got to them.

  The woodpecker went on storing acorns that fell through on the floor. After a while I heard a horseman on the road. Then a wagon drew up. Then Constable Hawkins unlocked the door. Behind him stood Isaac Morton, his hat askew, as if he had ridden hard.

  38

  CONSTABLE HAWKINS SMILED. "I told you to calm yourself, that I'd be coming back," he said. "I needn't have brought you here in the first place, but I was scared the crowd would get at you."

  Isaac Morton said. "I feared for thee, Sarah. I still do. Not for thy life now, not for that, but for other things. I'll tell thee."

  He led me to his horse, which had been ridden fast and was unsaddled. "I borrowed her," he said. He made a step with his hands, gave me a boost, and I swung up in front. "She belongs to Jason Sharp. Someday I'll take her back. That is, if Jason pays the bill he's been owing for two years next month."

  I had ridden sidesaddle on the farm, but not astride while my dress hiked up and my legs stuck out both sides. We went straight down the street, with people staring. We stopped at the tavern, and Isaac tied up the mare to the hitching post.

  Mr. Cavendish, the tavernkeeper, walked past. It surprised me when he nodded to us in a pleasant way.

  "He's with us," Isaac said. "It was Mr. Cavendish who settled the hotheads this morning. When they took to shouting and carrying on, he rose up and shamed them quiet. That was when thee was sitting there in jail, Sarah."

  A cloud hid the sun but passed on, leaving the sky hot and brassy-looking.

  "I am loath to say that my father, unlike Mr. Cavendish, does not like thee," Isaac said. "He has not liked thee from the beginning. Since the time when thee first came to the store. Thy hair was short, unwomanly. He did not admire that. Thee had a wild look in thy eyes, as if thee had seen a ghost. And that made him suspicious. Then there was the musket and thee saying, 'It's none of your business,' or something like that."

  "I could have said this to your father because it wasn't any of his business. And it isn't now."

  "Another thing. I have already mentioned it. He knew about the paper the British tacked up on the notice board. That struck him hard, since he is a staunch King's man. But there is more than the way thee looks and the musket and the way thee talks and the paper on the notice board. The Indian who was by thy place and claimed he owned it came into the store and told my father that thee had run him off. What's more, the Indian reported that thee had a bat up there in the cave and thee treated it like a person. Thee even talked to it."

  "I did talk to it."

  Isaac looked puzzled. "Anyway, the bat got Father to thinking even more. Then this morning when thee came, he started in on me. He said that I should not have invited thee to the Meeting."

  "I am sorry you did invite me. And that I ever went to the Meeting."

  "I am not. I am glad thee came. But we are in trouble."

  "Not you."

  "The two of us."

  "I'll leave now and go back to Waccabuc. You'll not be responsible for me."

  "They will reach thee, Sarah. Witch-hunting disappeared years ago, almost everywhere except in Ridgeford. Here they still believe in them. Whenever something bad happens, like drouth or a plague of crickets, they blame it on a witch. And they search until they find one."

  "Who are these searchers?"

  "My father is one," Isaac said. "He and the rest will search until they find someone they think is a witch. It happened six years ago. That spring we were burdened with a drouth and crickets; not so bad as this one, but bad. They snooped around day and night until they located an old woman—her name was Melanie Medwick. She looked like a witch, owned seven cats, four of them black, and lived alone in the abandoned mill you were in today. They tied her to the tail of a cart and whipped her out of Ridgeford. As a matter of fact, the drouth ended when they got rid of Melanie Medwick. That made them believe in witches all the more."

  "These men are not the whole village," I said.

  "But they rule it, Sarah. And they will try to hound thee as they did Melanie Medwick. Most likely they'll meet tomorrow. It's like a trial, though it isn't legal. They'll call witnesses. They'll pass sentence. If it goes against thee, then they'll try to run thee off Long Pond and keep thee from ever setting foot in the village."

  "They can't run me off."

  "Not legally. But they'll get at thee somehow. Thee will not be able to buy salt or flour or powder for thy musket in Ridgeford. If thee was living in a house, they would come in the night and burn it. Many people will not speak to thee on the street. Some of the children will throw rocks at thee. They will find ways, surely enough, to get rid of thee."

  "I'll not leave Long Pond."

  "They are mean people, Sarah."

  "I'll never leave," I said. "Should I speak out tomorrow?"

  "Yes," Isaac said. "We shall both speak out."

  After he left I went to the kitchen. For helping her with supper, Mrs. Thorpe gave me a place to stay. I never thought once that night of leaving Ridgeford, not before I had stood up and faced these men.

  39

  THE MEETING BEGAN just past noon in the tavern, in a room upstairs where people played billiards. It was a big room with the billiard table in the center and chairs around two of the sides. There were many windows, some of them looked out upon the street and others upon a grove of elm trees and cornfields that stretched beyond.

  The sun was beating down through a pearly haze on the dusty street when Isaac left the store and we met in front of the tavern. I thought it was a bad idea for us to meet together, boldly that way, but Isaac said not to mind.

  They knew we were coming, because he had told his father. They were at the windows, looking down, when we climbed the steps.

  Isaac took a Bible from his pocket. "I am going to read from Matthew," he said. "They have forgotten Matthew. And about thee, my advice is, be patient, speak softly, and tell the truth as thee knows it. Also, thee might do well to leave the musket in the hallway as thee goes in."

  There were six of them sitting in a stiff row against the far wall, with all the windows open and the hot wind billowing the curtains back and forth. Off in the corner I saw Constable Hawkins and two men. One was the Indian who had come to Long Pond, the one I had run off. The other man was Sam Goshen.

  Mr. Morton rose and said a short prayer. When he got through he glanced at me, then at the musket I still held in my hand. I was standing beside his son in the doorway. He said something to the other five men and they all stared at the musket. Then he motioned us into the room.

  "Sarah Bishop," he said at once, "it is unusual for us to listen to words of the accused, but thee is of a tender age, and we wish to be fair and hear thee out."

  "Thank you," I said, trying hard to swallow my anger.

  "Thee is charged," he began, "with witchery of an evil nature. Said witchery has brought upon the God-fearing village of
Ridgeford drouth that has laid waste our fields. It has brought into our midst a sickness, rampant sorrow, pain, and death." He paused to glance at his watch. "Does thee deny these charges?"

  "Yes," I said. "I do deny them wholly."

  "Proceed."

  "I am not a witch. I live alone and mind my own business."

  "Thee lives in a cave somewhere near?"

  "On Long Pond."

  "Why does thee live in a cave?" he asked in his raspy voice.

  "Because it is comfortable."

  "Why does thee not live in Ridgeford, like other God-fearing people?"

  "Because I like Long Pond better."

  "Why does thee choose to live alone?"

  Memories flooded in upon me. I couldn't speak. The room was silent. A hot wind came through the east windows. Far off I could see clouds that were fleecy above and purple below. Isaac looked at me, hoping that I would answer, but I couldn't.

  "Is that all thee wishes to say?" Mr. Morton asked.

  I nodded. Words would not come.

  He turned to the two men seated in the far corner. "Sam Goshen, will thee please step forward."

  Goshen rose and with a limping gait took up a position in front of Mr. Morton.

  "Goshen, did thee for a matter of five or six weeks spend time in the cave owned, at least lived in, by Sarah Bishop, who stands there?"

  Sam Goshen touched his forelock and bowed. "Yes, sir, I remember I did live in the aforementioned cave, the one on Long Pond."

  "What did thee observe while there? Anything out of the ususal?"

  "Everything was strangelike, sir."

  "Be explicit, please."

  "Well, one thing, she always had that musket to her shoulder. Except when she was asleep, and then she had it tucked away under herself and her hand tight on a half-cocked trigger."

  Goshen took time to think.

  "Go on," Mr. Morton said.

  "For another thing, she had a muskrat running around. It only had three paws and was no good for nothin' except maybe a pelt."