Sarah Bishop (16 page)

"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.

T
HE 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."

"Did the animal act peculiar?"

"They all act peculiar, muskrats. There was one I caught last spring ..."

Mr. Morton suggested that he reply to the question.

"She talked to it."

"What did she say?"

"I don't remember exact, but things you say to people."

"She talked to it as if it were a person?"

"Yes, and the muskrat answered back. Not words, mind you, but squeaks. It made my scalp tingle to hear them talkin'."

"What else, Mr. Goshen, did thee observe while living in the cave on Long Pond that would lead thee to believe that Sarah Bishop is a witch?"

"The bat, mostly. A white bat."

"A white bat?"

"Yes, white as driven snow."

"White is an odd color for a bat, is it not?"

"Never saw one afore in my whole life. And I'm forty-two and have run onto lots in my time. Black and brown
sometimes, but nary a white one. Hope I never see one again."

"Did Sarah Bishop talk to the bat as she talked to the muskrat?"

"Sure."

"What else concerns the white bat?"

"She let it out as soon as the sun set and took it back in at crack of day."

"Where does thee think the bat went when she let it out?"

"No tellin'. They roam far. I saw it once. It was dusktime about two miles from here."

"Do they roam as far as Ridgeford?"

"Further, maybe."

Mr. Morton asked more questions of Sam Goshen, but when he began to ramble, he told him to sit down, and called upon the Indian. The Indian, whose name was Jim Mountain, testified that he had seen the bat and wanted to kill it, but that I had prevented him. He made up a long story about how he had actually seen it while he was camped near Ridgeford.

"Fire burning," he said. "Hot fire. Tall." He held his hands high, over his head. "Bat fly in fire. Through fire like nothing."

The wind had died down a little, but I could hear the stir of dry cornstalks. To the east the purple clouds had moved closer.

Two other people were called by Mr. Morton, a woman
and an old man. Both of them had seen the white bat flying at dusk. "Looked scary," the woman said. "It was white with a pink mouth." The old man had seen it three times, in the same evening that three people died.

Mr. Morton asked then if there was anyone who wished to testify in my behalf.

"I will," Isaac said and went over and stood in front of him. They looked at each other as if they had never met before in this life.

Mr. Cavendish was not listening. He was reading from a ledger he held in his lap. But the other men seated against the wall had their eyes fixed upon me. The faces of two of them were not unkindly, but quizzical as though they had not made up their minds. The faces of the other two were grim, dead set against me.

I looked away, out at the fields and the blue sky. I tried to pretend to myself that I was back on Long Pond, alone in the dugout, that geese were flying and swallows were making their nests and deer were grazing in the meadows. I couldn't. All I could see was Mr. Morton standing in front of me on his short, fat legs, mean-faced and unbending. I felt like fleeing, but I could not find the strength.

T
HE CURTAINS WERE
flapping again as Isaac started to speak and there was thunder far off in the east. One of the men sitting against the wall said he couldn't hear very well. Isaac raised his voice.

"This meeting is outside the law," he said. "As each of you—Seth Adams, Harold Stokes, Lem Baumgarden, David Smalley, our host, Mr. Charles Cavendish, and my father, Thomas L. Morton—as you all well know, you have no authority to set a fine, impose a sentence, or carry one out should it be imposed."

Mr. Morton was standing no more than two short paces from his son, but he was not listening. He was squinting at me with a look of pure hatred.

"What you six men
can
do," Isaac said, "is to drive an innocent girl from her home. Not by means that are humane or legal but only by means that are evil. If you do so, you are a set of fools and God will punish you."

He opened the Bible and read, "'Judge not, that ye be not judged. For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged: and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again.'"

Two of the men got up while he was talking and went
to a window. They glanced out at the darkening sky and came back to report that a storm was building. The other three went and looked out. Then the first two got up again and joined the others at the window. Now no one was listening to Isaac.

It made me angry. I was tempted to use the musket.

Isaac's father hadn't moved. He stood with his feet thrust apart and his head thrown back, looking at me. I acted as if I didn't see him.

The clouds must have moved fast, because suddenly the room grew dim. There was a flash of lightning, and thunder rumbled over the roof. All of the men ran outside. I could hear their excited voices in the street, but Mr. Morton still stood there, as if he were in a trance.

The room was quiet. The wind had ceased and the curtains had stopped flapping. Isaac opened the Bible. He waited until Mr. Morton turned his gaze from me, and their eyes met. Then he continued to read from Matthew.

There was the sound of raindrops on the roof, a dry sound, like pebbles falling. Isaac's father grew pale. Suddenly he raised his hands and let out a moan of thanksgiving.

Then he said, grasping Isaac by the shirt front, "You see, you see, we have brought the witch to justice. Now sweet rain falls upon us."

Another flash of lightning lit the room, thunder rolled, and the wind came up and blew the curtains straight out. Mr. Morton ran down the stairs. I heard him shouting.
Thunder rolled again and trailed away. The post rider galloped down the street, tethered his horse at the hitching rack, and ducked inside the tavern.

It rained for only a few minutes. Then the rain stopped and the sun came out bright and hot. There still was the sound of cornstalks rustling in the wind.

The men trooped silently up the stairs. Their clothes were damp from the shower. Mr. Morton took off his glasses and wiped them with a handkerchief. The post rider came in carrying the mail. He was spotted with rain and grime. Mr. Cavendish instructed a servant to bring him a drink. When it came, the rider swallowed it in one gulp and opened his pouch, which had two letters for Mr. Cavendish.

"The cost is one dollar," the post rider said.

"Fifty apiece?" Mr. Cavendish searched in his pockets and brought out a Continental bill. "One dollar. That's dear, young man."

The rider waved the bill away. "Hard cash, sir."

Mr. Cavendish went off to get the money and when he returned Isaac spoke to his father.

"A short while ago thee bragged that a witch had been brought to justice and thus 'sweet rain falls upon us.' I use thy exact words, sir. What does thee say now that the storm clouds passed over and have only spit upon the village of Ridgeford?"

Mr. Morton pounded a small fist on the billiard table. "More than ever, she's a witch."