That is the way an older man takes it.

“Now, devil fly away with that prying wench of a Deliverance Dobbins!” ejaculated M. Picot, stamping about.  “Oh, I’ll cure her fanciful fits!  Pish!  Pish!  That frump and her fits!  Bad blood, Ramsay; low-bred, low-bred!  ’Tis ever the way of her kind to blab of aches and stuffed stomachs that were well if left empty.  An she come prying into my chemicals, taking fits when she’s caught, I’ll mix her a pill o’ Deliverance!” And M. Picot laughed heartily at his own joke.

The next morning I was off to the trade.  Though I hardly acknowledged the reason to myself, any youth can guess why I made excuse to come back soon.  As I rode up, Rebecca stood at our gate.  She had no smile.  Had I not been thinking of another, I had noticed the sadness of her face; but when she moved back a pace, I flung out some foolishness about a gate being no bar if one had a mind to jump.  Then she brought me sharp to my senses as I sprang to the ground.

“Ramsay,” she exclaimed, “M.  Picot and Mistress Hortense are in jail charged with sorcery!  M. Picot is like to be hanged!  An they do not confess, they may be set in the bilboes and whipped.  There is talk of putting Mistress Hortense to the test.”

“The test!”

’Twas as if a great weight struck away power to think, for the test meant neither more nor less than torture till confession were wrung from agony.  The night went black and Rebecca’s voice came as from some far place.

“Ramsay, you are hurting—­you are crushing my hands!”

Poor child, she was crying; and the words I would have said stuck fast behind sealed lips.  She seemed to understand, for she went on: 

“Deliverance Dobbins saw strange things in his house.  She went to spy.  He hath crazed her intellectuals.  She hath dumb fits.”

Now I understood.  This trouble was the result of M. Picot’s threat; but little Rebecca’s voice was tinkling on like a bell in a dome.

“My father hath the key to their ward.  My father saith there is like to be trouble if they do not confess—­”

“Confess!” I broke out.  “Confess what?  If they confess the lie they will be burned for witchcraft.  And if they refuse to confess, they will be hanged for not telling the lie.  Pretty justice!  And your holy men fined one fellow a hundred pounds for calling their justices a pack of jackasses——­”

“Sentence is to be pronounced to-morrow after communion,” said Rebecca.

“After communion?” I could say no more.  On that of all days for tyranny’s crime!

God forgive me for despairing of mankind that night.  I thought freedom had been won in the Commonwealth war, but that was only freedom of body.  A greater strife was to wage for freedom of soul.

CHAPTER IV

REBECCA AND JACK BATTLE CONSPIRE