Master Simon’s farseeing eyes had certainly discerned the truth when he said that a garden only came to its own when tended by the children’s children of the man who planted it. Fair as were the flowers and shrubs in his own time, they grew steadily more beautiful as the years passed, until people of Hopewell would always bring their visitors from afar to see such glories of leaf and blossom. Long after Master Simon had slipped away to walk in the brighter garden of Paradise, long after the place belonged to Margeret and then to her children, the villagers would still speak of it as Master Simon’s Garden.
The hawthorn bush that had come from England as a tiny sprig and that had been just tall enough to shade Margeret as she sat on the grass playing with her dolls, was, when her children came to frolic about it, a great round tower of thorny strength where they could play king-of-the-castle to their heart’s content. The hedges about the Queen’s Garden, when Margeret’s daughter, Alisoun, was eighteen, were so high above the girl’s golden-brown head that her finger-tips could scarcely touch the top. And by the time Alisoun herself was married to Master Gilbert Sheffield and had children of her own, the big, over-hanging, linden tree had grown to resemble a whole forest of slender trunks springing from one root, and sending forth, in June, such clouds of fragrance that people passing in the lane outside would stop to sniff and smile. The trailing roses, also, had grown thick and close about the sundial, nearly hiding the words that Master Simon had carved there so long ago.
The level sunshine of a late summer afternoon was slanting across the rows of blooming flowers and shining like a halo behind Alisoun Sheffield’s bent head as she sat under the linden tree with her children about her. It was just so that Margeret Radpath had sat with her father to hear the story that had to do with Master William Shakespeare and good Queen Bess and the steadfast courage of Robin Radpath, Master Simon’s father. Quite as attentive as Margeret had been, were those who listened to-day, Anna, the daughter nearly grown, Elizabeth, many years younger and Stephen, youngest and most eagerly interested of all. The same tale was telling now and added to it were accounts of Master Simon’s far journey among the Indians, of the coming of the Jesuit priest and of the stormy meeting in the little school house when Master Simon walked abroad for the last time. Alisoun Sheffield had also a story to tell of her own youth and of that perilous season when the last flood of terror of the Gospel of Fear swept over the land and the cry of “Witches! Witches!” resounded throughout New England. At that time men and women everywhere were accused of dabbling in the black arts and were dragged to trial just as had been the free-thinkers and dissenters of an earlier generation. Neighbour began to regard neighbour with suspicion and the question, “What is to become of us?” was the one thought in every frightened heart.
Alisoun and Margeret Bardwell, so Alisoun told the tale, were working in the garden on just such a sunny summer day as this, when there came running through the gate young Amos Bardwell, Alisoun’s nephew, who dwelt with them and was the greatest mischief-maker in Hopewell. His mouth and eyes were round with wonder, his yellow hair was ruffled and full, strange to say, of dust and cobwebs.
“Oh, oh,” he cried. “What do you think? They have taken old Mother Garford for a witch; there is a whole crowd of men shouting and praying and of women pretending they cannot bear to look but hurrying after just the same, and they are bringing her up to the jail. She is weeping and crying for mercy but nobody listens. Come quick, both of you, I am going back to watch again.”
“Stop, Amos.” Never had Alisoun heard her mother’s voice sound so tense or so stern. “Now tell me all of this matter and—wait, how in the world came these cobwebs in your hair?”
The boy hung his head. His excited enthusiasm seemed suddenly to have fled from him.
“Richard and Thomas Porter and I,” he explained slowly, “we could not see the witch’s face for the crowd, since all were so tall and we so little. So Richard said he knew a famous way and showed us how to get into the jail before the others came, and how to climb up upon a beam in the public corridor so that we could see her plain as she passed below. But the wood was rotten and just as we were settled it gave a great crack, so down we scrambled in a hurry, I can tell you, lest it fall with us. We slipped out before any one found us and the crowd, coming in, passed so close that we saw the witch after all. I think the beam must have fallen in the end, for later we heard a great crash within and a cry went up from all the people. Oh, but you should have seen the witch, she looked—”
“That is enough,” said Margeret, stopping him abruptly. “She looked as would any old woman who was frightened and in trouble. Suppose I were to be dragged to prison for a witch, Amos?”
“You—you a witch!” The little boy cried out in horror at the very thought.
“As much a witch as old Mother Garford,” returned Margeret, “and so, since she has ever been a good friend to us, we must go up to the meeting house to-morrow and testify in her behalf.”
For such an errand Amos was willing enough; it was Alisoun who hung back, trembling and tearful. It was revealed that she and her friend, Cynthia Turner, had gone to Mother Garford some weeks before, to buy a love charm, just as had so many of the other maids of Hopewell long before the rumours of witchcraft arose. Cynthia had wished to make more certain of the heart of Hugh Atherton, the lad who was studying at Harvard College to be a minister, while Alisoun wished to assure the safe return of the young ship’s captain, Gilbert Sheffield, from his long voyage to the West Indies. The charm, in her eyes, had proved to have no magic power whatever, so she had nearly forgotten the whole matter.
“It may be,” said Margeret, when she had heard her daughter’s confession, “that by telling your story before the people you can prove that Mother Garford’s spells are of an innocent kind and so can clear her. Can you do that, my child?”
“Oh, no, mother! Oh, no, no!” cried Alisoun wildly. “To stand up before them all and confess that I bought a charm to bring Gilbert Sheffield safe home? Oh, never, never! You will not make me, mother?”
“No, I will not force you,” said Margeret, “but shall an old woman die disgraced for want of a word to save her when that word can be spoken, even at the cost of pain and humiliation? Go down into the garden and take counsel with yourself. You shall act in the matter only as you choose.”
Margeret went into the house, taking Amos with her, and left Alisoun to make her decision alone. There, as the dusk fell, she walked among the flowers, back and forth through the calm, quiet, sweet-smelling garden. Here dwelt the memory of Master Simon, of all the good that he had done and of the courage of her own father and mother in those stirring early days. Could she follow them, could she dare to be as brave as they?
She was in the garden a long, long time; so long that the stars had come out when she went in at last, and a black silent bat flitted past her as she stood on the doorstep. She found that Margeret had put the excited Amos to bed and was singing him to sleep.
“I will do it, mother,” she said simply. Margeret kissed her and answered quietly,
“I thought that you would!”
And for that night the matter was laid to rest.
The public examination of Mother Garford was to be held at the meeting-house next morning, at such an early hour that many of the people on the outlying farms must tumble out of their beds long before sun-up if they were to be there in time to get good places and hear every word that passed.
“If this foul witch be disposed of quickly,” they said to one another piously, “it may be that the good Lord will see our right intentions and not visit us with another.”
It was, therefore, the idea of all of Hopewell that Mother Garford should be condemned at once. That there was doubt of her guilt was a thought that had not entered the mind of any one in that hurrying crowd.
As Alisoun and her mother crossed the garden on their way up to the meeting-house with Amos running impatiently on ahead, the girl hung back to take one last look at the flowers in all their beauty and brightness on that radiant Spring morning. It seemed to her scarcely possible that she could go through the ordeal before her, or ever come back to be lighthearted and happy in that dear place again. Although the blue May sky was without a cloud, the very sunshine seemed cold and dull as though the terror of her shy, shrinking spirit had cast a blight over everything.
As she looked down the hillside toward the shining bay she saw suddenly a white sail rise above the headland and, standing breathless with hope and fear, she watched a great vessel round the point, turn slowly and, with all its high-towering sails set to catch the light wind, stand in toward the wharf. Alisoun could not mistake that tall bow and broad, heavy stern. It was the Margeret, one of her father’s ships, home from the West Indies and bringing Gilbert Sheffield to be another witness of what she must do that day.
When they reached the meeting-house, the doors were only just being unlocked, but already the space at the foot of the steps was packed and breathless. Their little party would never have been able to come near the stairs leading up to the entrance had not Margeret, who was esteemed as a great person in the village, been granted room by those who stood in the way. By squeezing and slipping in and out, the three managed finally to make their way close up to the foot of the stairs. Above them stood the magistrates, the chief men of the church and a stranger, all waiting for the doors to open. The newcomer was a tall man with greyish hair, stooped shoulders and a deeply lined face; he wore a rusty black coat whose pockets bulged with papers. This, as every one knew, was the great Master Cotton Mather, the famous minister, who knew more of witches and their evil ways than did any other living man. It was a great honour that he had come to Hopewell to save them in their danger and to help in the trial and conviction of their witch.
The chief magistrate had, with some difficulty, drawn the big iron key from his coat-tail pocket and was inserting it in the lock. Mother Garford, weeping and trembling was being half led, half dragged up the stairs by a self-important bailiff. Every head turned in startled surprise when, of a sudden, a voice cried to the magistrate to stop.
Margeret Bardwell had pushed her way through the crowd and was standing on the stairs below them. She was speaking in a clear, steady voice that carried to the ears of all the waiting people.
“Hold,” she cried. “Before we desecrate our meeting house with the trial of an innocent old woman who is no more of a witch than you or I, you must hear what we three Bardwells have to say. I would that there were four of us, and that my husband, who has gone to sea, were here to stand by me, but as it is you must pause in your folly and listen to a woman.”
“What—what—what?” exclaimed the magistrate. “Who is it dares to speak thus? Oh—Mistress Bardwell, perhaps I heard amiss. It cannot be that you defend this woman!”
Wonder and consternation became visible on every upturned face, only Master Cotton Mather remained unmoved.
“It is well known,” he pronounced in his slow, precise tones, “that in many cases witches and sorcerers are able to bewitch others into speaking in their favour against all sense and reason. So it must be with this poor lady, but yet we will hear her.”
“I wish to say,” continued Margeret, “that there is no real evidence against Mother G............