When the excitement had subsided somewhat, Lord Christopher was seen to lean forward with renewed earnestness, raising his hand impressively.
“My dear people,” he said, and the great physician’s voice was tender as if speaking to sick and fretful children, “my dear people, God hath afflicted you more sorely with this plague of witchery than with the Black Plague itself. Yet it lies with you to check this foul disease. The Bible says, ‘Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.’ But it also commands, ‘Judge not, that ye be not judged.’ Abide by the latter injunction, that you save your souls from sin and let not your land run red with innocent blood. Let each one of you be so exalted in goodness that evil cannot enter into you. But, and my words on witchery impress you not, let me at least beseech you who are of man’s estate and have catched a child in sin, to remember that it but does as those around it, and is therefore to be dealt by tenderly.
“And yet another subject am I driven to speak to you upon.
“Mightily does it distress me that you do bring your children up in woeful ignorance of the Christmas-tide as we celebrate it in Merry England. ’Tis very dolorous that you should be so blinded as to think the proper observance of that Holy day bewrayeth a Popish tendency. Methinks it be a lack of good red blood that makes you all so sour and mealy-mouthed. Your Governor informs me that on that blessed day, sadly you wend your way to church, with downcast eyes as though you were sinners catched in naughtiness. There is great droning of psalms through your noses, which is in itself a sorry thing, and I doubt not, an unpleasant sound in the Lord’s ear. Whereas, in green old England, the little children carol all day long. But here not even your babes have sugar-plums. My stomach turns against you and your ways. How different is it in my castle across the seas! To the mantel above the blazing yule-log, my sweetest daughter pins her stocking. Outside, the snow snaps with the cold and the frost flowers whiten the window-pane. Then come the village lads and lassies singing, that we may open the window and fling out siller pieces, sometimes a bit of bright gold.
“Lastly, at the chiming of the midnight bells, troop in my servant-men and wenches. One and all we drink the hot-spiced glee-wine my sweet Elizabeth makes in the silver wassail bowl. And to every man and maid I give a piece of gold.
“I do beseech you, good people, to have remembrance after this, that Christmas is children’s day, and that to keep it with sadness and dolour, is an offence unto the Lord Christ, whose birth made that day, and who was said by those versed in wisdom, to have been when a child tender, holy, and gay, as it becometh all children to be. Therefore I would have you bestow these delights upon your children, for they are bowed by responsibilities beyond their years, and joy is checked in them, so that I oft catch myself sighing, for I have great pain not to see all children joyful and full of the vigour of life.
“Thus I would make an example of the little maid whom you have persecuted, that you may deal gently with children, remembering how near you were to shedding her innocent blood. I beseech you, by the grievous sin that you and your learned judges so nearly committed, to be tender with the poor children, knowing they speak the truth, unless you do so fright them that in bewilderment they seek to save themselves by a falsehood and know not into what evil they fall thereby. When you are tempted to severity, inquire well into the merits of the case, lest you do an injustice, keeping in mind the persecution of the little maid who hath saved England.”
Thus Lord Christopher ceased speaking.
In the years to come it was related that his speech was so affecting as to draw tears to the eyes of all, and that many a parent in Salem was known thereafter to refrain from harsh reproof of a child, because of the great physician’s words and the love that all learned to bear him during the weeks his illness forced him to remain in Salem.
Regarding his earnest request that Christmas be observed by them after his irreverend fashion, they did not condemn him for his Popish tendency, but winked at it, as it were, knowing he had other virtues to counterbalance this weakness. Being altogether charmed by him, they earnestly trusted that for his own good he might come round to their way of thinking.
During those few weeks his presence shed the only brightness in the panic-stricken town. While he was powerless to avert the awful condition, there were nevertheless many sad hearts which were made lighter, merely to visit him in his sick-room at the tavern. And the goodwives, finding their dainties did not please him as much as the sight of their little children, ceased not to send the former, but instead sent both.
When at last he was able to leave his room, Lord Christopher went one afternoon to Deliverance’s home.
Gladly he entered the forest road, thankful to leave the town behind him. The terrible trials still continued. Only that morning he had seen two persons hanged, and there was a rumour that a ship infected with smallpox had entered the harbour.
He walked slowly, leaning on his stick, for he was yet very lame. The greenness and peace of the majestic forest were grateful to him. Soon he came in sight of Master Wentworth’s home. In the open doorway he saw Deliverance seated at her spinning-wheel, singing as she guided the thread.
Already the roses bloomed again in the little maid’s face, and never was heart so free from sorrow as hers, save for that touch of yearning which came to her whenever her glance rested on her father, who, since his illness, was gentler and quieter than ever, seldom entering the still-room, and devoting many hours to sitting on the stoop, dreaming in the sunshine.
Master Ronald had not yet returned to Boston Town, loath to leave his little sister, still fearful for her safety, not knowing in which direction the wind of public opinion might veer.
Glancing up from his book this afternoon, as he lay on the grass, under the shade of a tree, he saw Lord Christopher approaching. So he rose quickly, and went down to the gate to greet the great physician.
And the two, Lord Christopher leaning heavily on the student’s arm, for he was wearied by his walk, went up the path to where little Deliverance sat spinning.
Lord Christopher had a long talk with Master Wentworth this afternoon and at the end of their conversation, the latter called his children to him.
“Ronald,” he said, “and you, my little Deliverance, Lord Christopher urges me to return to England where he promises me, my lad, that you shall have all advantage in the way of scholarly pursuits, and that you, Deliverance, shall be brought up to be his daughter’s companion. What say you both? The question is one which you must decide. I,” he added sadly, yet with a wondrous sweetness in his face, “will not abide many years longer with you; and my future is not in England, but in a fairer land, and the sea I must cross greater than the one you know, so I would fain leave you with a protector in this harsh world.”
A long silence followed his words. Then Ronald spoke. “Sir, I have none other wish than to continue in this country in which I was born and which has ever been my home. Surely I know the constant toil, the perils from savages and wild beasts, the stern laws we Puritans have made for each little sin, alas! the hardships too often known, and the gloom of our serious thought which o’ershadows all. Yet through this sombre sky, the sun will shine at last as brightly as it shines in England. In the University that has nourished in me patriotism and liberty of thought, I have grown to believe that here in this wilderness is the basis for a greater England than the England across the seas.”
The student’s face glowed with ardour, his eyes were brilliant as if he saw visions the others comprehended not.
“And you, Deliverance,” asked her father, tenderly.
Now the little maid’s fancy had woven a picture of herself in a court dress of crimson velvet, her hair worn high, a lace collar falling on her shoulders, a rose in her hand such as was carried by the little court lady of the miniature. But her imagination, which had soared so high, sank at Ronald’s words.
“What say you, little mistress?” asked Lord Christopher; “and your brother will not go, being such a young prig as to prefer this uncomfortable country in which to air his grand notions. Will you not go with me?”
Deliverance sighed and sighed again. She glanced at her father’s delicate hands, so transparent in the sunlight, and a prophetic sadness reminded her of the time when she and Ronald would be left alone in the world. Her glance travelled to her brother’s rapt, almost transfigured, countenance. Although she felt no sympathy with his over-strange university views, yet the thought of leaving him alone in this country while she abided in luxury in England, smote her heart with a sense of guilt, so that she moved over to him and slipped her hand in his and rested her head against his shoulder.
“Good sir,” she said, “I will remain with Ronald and with father, but with all my heart I thank you for your kindness and desire that I might be the companion of your sweetest daughter.”
And none of the three knew that through a blinding mist of tears she saw vanish forever the dream of a velvet gown with immoderate slashed sleeves.
So Lord Christopher went far away, but he did not go alone. He bore with him a hunchback of Ipswich whose mother had been hanged as a witch on Gallows’ Hill. Thus it sometimes happens that they who have had least to do with a brave deed do, by some happy chance, reap the richest benefit of another’s nobility. And thus it was with this little Hate-Evil. He found himself no longer alone in the world. There in London he developed into a scholar, becoming a poet of much fame, one who, honoured in the court, was not less revered by the common people, that so poor and deformed a body carried so great a soul. And at last he ceased to be known by his stern New England appellation of Hate-Evil and was called by the sweeter name of Content.
Yearly from England came a gift to Deliverance from Lord Christopher’s fair daughter Elizabeth, in memory of the loyal service she had rendered England in regaining the precious powder.
Within a few months, Abigail received a small package containing a string of gold beads and a rare and valuable book entitled: “The Queen’s Closet Opened: having Physical and Chirurgical Receipts: the Art of Preserving Conserving and Candying & also a Right Knowledge of Perfuming & Distilling: the Compleat Cook Expertly Prescribing the most ready wayes whether French, Italian or Spanish, for the dressing of Flesh and Fish & the ordering of Sauces & making of PASTRY.”
On the fly-leaf was written a recipe for pumpkin-pie, which the great physician had himself compounded while in America, and which to this day is handed down by the descendants of Abigail Brewster. Also, he wrote a letter to the little girl who had so bravely journeyed to Boston Town to save her friend.
“For,” he wrote, “fame is a fickle jade, & as often passes over as she rewards those who are brave & so while some of us serve but as instruments to further others’ brave actions yet, than loyal friendship, there is no truer virtue & I speak with authority on the subject, having had sad experience.”
Those who read the letter knew he referred to Sir Jonathan Jamieson, who on the day of Lord Christopher’s speech disappeared from Salem. For many years he was not heard of, until at last news came that he lived in great opulence among the Cavaliers of Virginia, and had written a most convincing book upon “Ye Black Art & Ye Ready Wayes of Witches.”
THE END.