Judge Bride: But did not your conscience hurt? Did you not know that you lived with this strange lover of yours in sin?Doll Bilby: I begged him to marry me. So he did.Judge Bride: A most virtuous and homely fiend. And did you find clerk or magistrate to register your vows?Doll Bilby: No, we married ourselves.Judge Bride: Ah, the Governor of Connecticut but recently gave you example.
Judge Bride: But did not your conscience hurt? Did you not know that you lived with this strange lover of yours in sin?
Doll Bilby: I begged him to marry me. So he did.
Judge Bride: A most virtuous and homely fiend. And did you find clerk or magistrate to register your vows?
Doll Bilby: No, we married ourselves.
Judge Bride: Ah, the Governor of Connecticut but recently gave you example.
And he pointed out to Judge Lollimour with much leisure how evil is bad example in high places. He questioned Doll further. She told him all there was to tell about the marriage, and it humiliated her to tell that she had accepted this fiend before marriage.
Judge Bride: Come, come, is it then so sorry a sin for two young people to be too hot and previous in their love? Surely honest marriage may be considered salve to such misconduct.
Judge Bride: Come, come, is it then so sorry a sin for two young people to be too hot and previous in their love? Surely honest marriage may be considered salve to such misconduct.
He glanced through his notes. There was not a sound in the room, not the scamper of a mouse, not the taking of breath, no sound except the fiery rustle of the flares and the crackle of the paper.
Judge Bride: Doll Bilby, I notice that the children spoke often of a pretty babe—which they called yours. Now to what do they refer?Doll Bilby: Sir, I cannot be sure.Judge Bride: You may guess, perhaps?Doll Bilby: Oh, sir, sir....
Judge Bride: Doll Bilby, I notice that the children spoke often of a pretty babe—which they called yours. Now to what do they refer?
Doll Bilby: Sir, I cannot be sure.
Judge Bride: You may guess, perhaps?
Doll Bilby: Oh, sir, sir....
Her eyes sought Mr. Zelley, but his face was in his hands.
Judge Bride: Speak freely.Doll Bilby: I think it was to my own babe they referred.Judge Bride: And where now is this child?Doll Bilby: It is not yet born.Judge Bride: And to whom the honour of its paternity?Doll Bilby: Who else would it be but the fiend who came to comfort me?Judge Bride: Do not hang your head, young Bilby, for to conceive is natural to woman. Rather should you redden and look down if after such expenditure of infernal ardour you had proved sterile. Conception is the glory of woman.
Judge Bride: Speak freely.
Doll Bilby: I think it was to my own babe they referred.
Judge Bride: And where now is this child?
Doll Bilby: It is not yet born.
Judge Bride: And to whom the honour of its paternity?
Doll Bilby: Who else would it be but the fiend who came to comfort me?
Judge Bride: Do not hang your head, young Bilby, for to conceive is natural to woman. Rather should you redden and look down if after such expenditure of infernal ardour you had proved sterile. Conception is the glory of woman.
He stood up and dismissed the hearing. Then Captain Buzzey in a great sweat of fear took the witch back to her cell, and all others went home. That night the Boston Judges lay at the Black Moon. The barmaid heard Judge Lollimour sayto Judge Bride, as these two sat by the hearth and drank their sack-posset: ‘Sir, this hearing is done as quickly as ever you prophesied. We will be back to Boston on the third day. I warrant the finding is more than any expected. There is enough against the wench to hang her three times over—but that is yet for the magistrates of the Superior Court to decide. We, at least, shall hold her without bail or bond.’ Then he said in wonder, ‘To think that God has vouchsafed to our eyes the sight of a woman who has embraced a demon....’ The Judges whispered. The barmaid would not repeat what they said.
These learned men called for ink-horn, sand, and pens. By ten o’clock they had written thus:
Doll Bilby of Cowan Corners, (Essex County,) being this day brought before us upon suspicion of witchcraft and upon the specific charge of afflicting Labour and Sorrow Thumb, twin daughters of Deacon Ephraim Thumb, we heard the aforesaid, and seeing what we did see, together with hearing charges of the persons then present, we committed this same Doll Bilby (she denying the matter of fact, yet confessing herself a witch, also confessinghaving had carnal knowledge of a fiend, also to being at this time pregnant by him, also to being married to him by the ceremony of Max Pax Fax) unto their majesties’ jail at Salem, as per mittimus then given out in order to further examination.Adam BrideMagistratesRalph Lollimour
Doll Bilby of Cowan Corners, (Essex County,) being this day brought before us upon suspicion of witchcraft and upon the specific charge of afflicting Labour and Sorrow Thumb, twin daughters of Deacon Ephraim Thumb, we heard the aforesaid, and seeing what we did see, together with hearing charges of the persons then present, we committed this same Doll Bilby (she denying the matter of fact, yet confessing herself a witch, also confessinghaving had carnal knowledge of a fiend, also to being at this time pregnant by him, also to being married to him by the ceremony of Max Pax Fax) unto their majesties’ jail at Salem, as per mittimus then given out in order to further examination.
By eleven they slept upon their beds.
Doll having cooked her goose, now must sit to eat it. And one who later proves a warlock comes to sit by her side.
Next day Doll rose early, thinking she would be called again before the magistrates. Judge Bride had talked kindly to her and at the end nothing had been said about the Thumb twins. She had not guessed his mind to be made up against her.
She rose early, an hour before dawn, and by a rushlight prepared herself for court. The jailor, John Ackes, could watch her through a chink in the masonry. He saw her put on hat and cloak and set out wooden pattens. He ran in fear to the Black Moon where Mr. Zelley that nightlay, and begged him—if he dared—to come a-running, for he believed the witch was about to fly though the roof. She was all dressed and set to go.
Mr. Zelley went to the dungeon and found her waiting to be taken before the magistrates. He sat upon her straw bed by her side, and he took her hands. He said, ‘Poor child, lay by your hat and riding-gear, for ’tis all done.’
Done? She had thought they were but started. The matter of the Thumb twins was not yet proven—Judge Bride himself had confessed as much. Mr. Zelley said that now there was another warrant for her and anothermittimus. But Mr. Zelley must have heard Judge Bride say there was no offence in having seen a devil—had not even Christ talked with Lucifer? And obviously the magistrates had approved her marriage and had even forgiven her that she had been too pliant to her lover’s desires. How, therefore, could the Court be done with her—unless they were about to set her free?
‘You are to be held for a jury—a jury, my poor Doll, of your own angry neighbours, and for the February sessions of the Superior Court of Judicature.’ He explained that Judges Brideand Lollimour could only examine her and hold her over to a higher court. It is true they could have dismissed her as innocent—if it had pleased them; but they could not give sentence of death.... He wished her to think of death and it might be to prepare her mind and more especially her soul (if she had a soul) against this likely contingence.
‘Death?’ she said. ‘How can I die? God, God, oh, God! I do not want to die.’ At the first moment she was afraid of death like any other wicked woman. She closed her eyes and leaned back against the masonry of her cell, remaining a long, long time silent, but her lips moved. Mr. Zelley sat beside her. His head was in his hands. When next she spoke she had conquered fear of death. She spoke bravely in a clear, strong voice. Then she told Mr. Zelley more concerning the fiend whom Hell had sent to love her. She said that he had promised her that, when she should come to die, he would stand at her bed’s head. After death he would be with her and she with him forever and ever. She said boldly that she did not fear to die. But she flung herself to her knees and laid her tousled head in Mr. Zelley’s lap and then confessed that she had a mosthideous horror of gallows and halter. As he could he comforted her. Tears streamed from his eyes, though hers were always dry. He knelt and seemed to pray to God.
John Ackes at his chink saw him pray and heard his prayer. He said it was an unseemly prayer—not like those one hears in church—not like the majestic and awful utterances of Mr. Increase Mather. Zelley talked to God as you might talk to a friend. So many thought that it was not to the true God that he prayed, but to some demon whom he privately worshipped. When his own day came to hang, this thing was remembered against him.
The witch-woman crouched upon her straw bed the while he prayed. She had put her hat on her head again and was wrapped in her scarlet riding-coat. She stared out of round cat’s eyes at the man who prayed for her.
Abortive attempts to save aSOULand more infernal manifestations of the Demon Lover.
Now was her physical body in sore plight, for she was bound in irons heavier than a strong man might bear. The jailors feared her, and, althoughan eye was forever at the chink, they did as little for her as might be. The Court permitted only these to go to her: her jailors; the two ministers of God, labouring in Salem, and Mr. Increase Mather whose mind was at that time big with a demonology. He wished to study and examine her. It was three weeks before Mr. Zelley got a permit from Boston to visit her. He guessed by the cold, tardy manner in which his request was answered that he himself had fallen into ill-repute. This was true. His people thought him a warlock and feared and hated him.
When twenty years later, in the days of the great witch-hunting and hanging in Salem, Mr. Zelley himself came to be tried, John Ackes was commanded to tell the Court (if he could remember) of what it was the witch and the warlock had talked through those long hours they had sat side by side upon the witch’s straw bed. He testified (swearing to his truth upon the Bible) that they talked but little. Zelley’s head was forever in his hands. He did not see the witch-woman’s face—nor her eyes. He did not see how constantly she gaped at empty corners; how she smiled and nodded into space; how sometimes she would close her eyes and raise hermouth for the empty air to kiss. All this she did behind Mr. Zelley’s back. They asked John Ackes if Mr. Zelley made no attempt to save the woman’s soul. No, he only sat. Sometimes he talked a little to Doll and sometimes he talked to one whom he designated as ‘god.’ But he did not really pray at all—not as Mr. Mather prayed—him you could hear through stone walls and up and down the street. The crowd would gather outside the jail when Mr. Mather prayed. He was a most fearful and righteous suppliant before the Throne of God. After his prayers the wonder was no lightning came to destroy the young witch where she sat—grimacing and leering at spectres. When one considered Mr. Mather, one could not say that Zelley prayed at all.
However, it was true that Zelley would sometimes seem to beg Doll Bilby to turn to God before it was too late. She would always explain to him that she wanted no other God than Lucifer and no Heaven, for where her parents were and her foster father and her dear husband—there with them was her Paradise, not in Heaven with the cold angels singing psalms forever to an angry and awful God; not in Heaven wheredoubtless Hannah Bilby would be found and all her cruel neighbours—no, no, a thousand times no. Hell was her true home—her Paradise.
Sometimes he would read to her from a stout big book, and John Ackes swore he thought it was a Bible, although it was possible that the book was a book of magic—perhaps this was even probable. Still the stories he read to her from this book sounded to him like Bible stories. What would he read to her? He read to her of Mary of Magdala, how she laid her head upon our Saviour’s feet and wiped them with her hair. He read to her the holy promises of John. It was evident, said John Ackes, that Zelley was not for a long time conscious of the fiend which lurked forever in the witch’s cell.
Towards the end no one but Mr. Zelley dared go to her dungeon. They were all afraid. It was remembered and marked against him that, where other and more godly men felt fear, he felt no fear. At last even Mr. Zelley knew that he and the witch were never alone. There was another and more awful presence about.
Now he would look up quickly from his reading and catch her eyes as they sought those of some one or something close behind his ownshoulder. When their eyes met, she would smile so softly and happily he knew that the invisible presence must be that of the one she loved. Mr. Zelley confessed that this consciousness of a third and unseen party in the cell sadly upset and confused him. He sweated, he could not read. One afternoon she gave him such close attention he decided that the fiend had left, so he closed his book and asked her abruptly if her demon lover had come back again. She was surprised that he asked this question. ‘Of course he is back,’ she said. ‘Now he will not leave me until the end.’ It was not he, she said, whom the Thumb twins saw at the trial, and Doll again wickedly said that perhaps that creature had been an angel. ‘My fiend never came near me as I stood all day on trial. Now he has sworn to stay with me. If I go to Gallows Hill, he will go with me. If I die here first, he will hold my hands.’
Zelley asked her if she could really see this demon. For instance, was he at that very moment in the room? Oh, yes. He sat yonder by the cupboard. His head, she said, rested upon his bosom. ‘Last night I had a fearful fit of terror. I thought I could not face the gallows.He held me in his arms and sang to me until sunrise. Now he sleeps.’
‘Is he now in seaman’s clothes and has he the likeness of proper man?’ (Mr. Zelley whispered. He feared to wake the demon.)
‘No. He has returned in shape of true fiend. For he is horned, naked, scaly, black. His feet are cloven. He has vast leathery bat-pinions. His tail is long and spiked.’
‘How, then, can you know that this is your own fiend and not another one?’
‘By his eyes and by his loving voice. These things have not changed.’
‘How is it he returned to you? In what manner did he make himself manifest?’
‘You recall that day after the trial when you came to me and let me know beyond a doubt that I must die? All the next day I felt him in the cell with me. Then little by little he took visible form. At first he was a vapour that seemed to rise between the flags of the dungeon floor, and then I could see the shadow of his great and most awful form—a transparent shadow through which one could look, even as one looks through smoke. But daily he gained more and more in body and he now is as hardand sturdy as mortal man. At first seeing horns, tail, and so fearsome a scaly black body, I cried out in my disappointment and despair. I, in my simplicity, had imagined he would always be to me as he had been—shaped, dressed, and coloured like comely, mortal man. He seemed monstrous to me—more likely to inspire fear than love. At last I could see his eyes and they were unchanged. And his voice (for, having gained complete actuality, he could speak) was the same. So I knew him as my own husband, and now I love him more in his present infernal majesty than I did in seaman’s form. This shape is fairer to me.’ (Thus twenty years later Mr. Zelley testified in court as to his conversation with Doll Bilby.)
On being pressed, Mr. Zelley confessed still further. He said he asked her why it was that no one—not even the jailors—dared go to her cell. Did they fear the spectral presence? She was amazed that he had heard no gossip. Surely the village must by now be buzzing with the tricks her demon had performed. Had he not heard what had befallen her peeping jailors? They used (to her unutterable torment and vexation) to watch her through a chink in the masonry.But the demon punished them by blowing into their eyes. This had given them the pink-eye. Surely he must have noticed that her jailors suffered from pink-eye? Now that she mentioned it he said he believed he had noticed it. And she was to tell him further. Why did the great Mr. Mather come no more? She clapped her hands, laughing and purring. Her demon had hated Mr. Mather so bitterly, and had so resented his long, loud prayers, that he had several times been on the point of strangling him. In his utter foolishness the man had dared to read the story of Tobit to her—how Sara was beloved of the fiend Asmodeus and how this fiend strangled her many husbands upon their marriage beds, but how at the last this fine fiend Asmodeus had been driven to farthest Egypt by the stench of a burning fish’s liver. This story the wicked witch claimed to be utterly false—it made no jot of difference to her that it was found in Holy Writ. She said it was a black lie that did much to minimize that dignity of Prince Asmodeus—who was a close friend to her own lover. She put up her hand and whispered to Mr. Zelley that, although her fiend had never told her his own true name, she had reason to suspect thathe himself was none other than this same Asmodeus, for he was touchy beyond all reason for the dignity of the Prince and he had told her at some length how dull, tedious, and complaining a woman Sara had been, and how gladly her lover had surrendered her in the end to the young Jew. The burning fish’s liver had never driven him forth—he went as it pleased himself. The stench had almost expelled the bride from her bridal chamber, but it had had no effect upon the stalwart demon Prince.
Mr. Mather had insisted on reading this story thrice over to her, and on the last reading he had also endeavoured to burn the large liver of a cod-fish. Then her husband rushed at the fire. His tail stood up rigid in rage; he shook his horns like an angry bull; he rustled his vast pinions, and, as he snuffed out the fire that made the stench with his two horny hands, Mr. Mather looked up and of a sudden saw him there and was close to dying of terror. Doll begged the fiend again to assume invisibility and not to strangle the distinguished Divine. So Mr. Mather went away and never came again. But surely, surely Mr. Zelley had heard this thing spoken of? And how her demon had served thetwo Salem clergymen—the tricks he had put on them—surely these things were common gossip? No, of these things he had heard never a word. No one gossiped with him—now.
It was then at that moment he first came to know he was under suspicion. Doll knew this too. She told him how she had never heard that the Thumb twins were bewitched until the very day Captain Buzzey rode up and accused her of their bewitchment. She said she pitied Mr. Zelley and he said his life grew strange. Every one in all the world was far removed, and even God had turned His face away from him. He said (foolishly) that all his life he had felt that if he believed in witches, demons, etc., he could not believe in God; for that God Whom he worshipped would not tolerate such evil things. Yet now had he seen the proof that such things were true—and, if true, where, then, was that great and good God whom he had long worshipped? ‘My Doll,’ he said, ‘you have taken away my reason and my God—now I have nothing. I have not even one man I may call “friend.”’
She comforted him, not by words, but by putting her small hands (now thin as a bird’s claws) upon his bent head. She kissed his forehead.He got up and went away. He did not stay as he should have stayed with his flock in Cowan Corners. He slept at the Black Moon, for such was the bewitchment that Doll had set upon him he must see her again and that early upon the next day.
The Labours of a Witch and the Prayers of the Godly.
The year was nine days old and no more. Then was Doll Bilby taken in labour and brought prematurely to bed.
The Salem midwife—ancient Nan Hackett—would have none of her, and it seemed that, whatever it was she must bear, she should bear alone. Nor did she ask for mortal aid. She was content with that phantom which stood night and day (as many saw) at her bed’s head. Mr. Zelley remembered that Goody Goochey, when first she came to Cowan Corners, had served the beginning as well as the end of life—that is, she had been a midwife as well as a layer-out of the dead. He went to the woman and begged her, in pity’s name and partly commanded her in the name of the General Court, to get herself to Salem jail and there give such service as might be.
She was afraid. She did not wish to be midwife to a witch and the first to welcome a black imp into the world. She drank three piggins of ale and took a leather bottle of brandy with her. She set upon her thumbs and fingers those iron rings with which she was accustomed to guard herself against the ghosts of the dead. She thought, after all, is not a live imp of greater danger to a good Christian’s soul than the body of a dead church elder? Mr. Zelley went with her to the jail.
The witch at the moment was not in pain. She lay with eyes black as the pits of Hell. Her white mouth was open. She roused herself a little and made Mr. Zelley a brief speech in which she said that she had, as he knew, sought God and spiritual peace, and now, let him look into her face and say that she had failed to find either. It was true, said Mr. Zelley. Her face was fulfilled of heavenly peace. He left her without a word.
Outside he found a conclave of idle men and women who laughed and joked coarsely. One big ruddy wench (who had already borne, to the embarrassment of the community, three fatherless children) was crying out loudly thatGod knew it was enough for woman to give birth to human child, which is round and sleek as a melon. God help the witch now in labour with an imp, for it would come into the world with spiked tail and horns. Such a thing would be the death of any mortal woman. All were afraid. Some believed a clap of thunder would come down from Heaven and destroy the woman. Others that a fiend would rise up from Hell to succour her. Some said that the witches and warlocks for an hundred miles had gathered together and now, mounting broomsticks, were about to charge down upon Salem. One said, ‘Have you not heard? Judge Bride has suffered an apoplexy. Judge Lollimour is at death’s door.’ This was not so.
Another said Captain Tom Buzzey’s hands (those hands that had held the witch) had withered. They had shrivelled to the size of a child’s. This was not so.
All said the witch is in labour. She’s with child by the Devil. God will burn her soul in Hell. This was so.
The day wore on. The sun, as sometimes may be in the midst of winter, was so warm the snow melted and water dripped from the eavesof the jail. It was tender as a day in spring. Planks and rugs were laid in the slush, for certain clergymen came to pray and must have dry land to kneel upon. They prayed that God recollect the number of good, pious Christian people there were at Salem and not destroy all, for they feared His wrath might blast the whole village. God made no sign, but the water dripped from the eaves and a sweet spring fragrance rose from the melting snow.
The multitude gaped and feared. Sometimes they smelt sulphur, saltpeter, brimstone, and the stench as of a sloughing serpent. They heard the crying of a phantom voice and the swishing of a thousand brooms. So they waited through the day expecting every moment to see crabbed Goody Goochey hobble out with a black imp upon a blanket to show them.
There was no sound from the cell. Not one cry nor moan from the witch, not one word from Goochey. The jailors would open the door. It stuck. Their keys would not fit it. They could not open the door, and believed devils were holding it fast. They dared not peek in the chink because of their pink-eye.
By sundown most went home.
Mr. Zelley opens a Dungeon Door, and what came of it.
The next day dawned cold and grey over an icy sea, and the gulls and terns came in from the harbour crying and lamenting. There was now no tenderness in the air, and the water that had but yesterday melted under the rays of a genial sun froze to glassy ice. A wind sharp as needles came in off the sea and few if any watched the night out on their knees beside the dungeon walls. As soon as it was possible to see six feet ahead, the multitude again began to assemble, but this time they came without laughter or conversation. They were shrouded in hoods, shawls, etc., for warmth, and seemed a spectral band. Now and then one or another of them would raise a pious voice in prayer, lamentation, or thanksgiving, but for the most part they stood bowed and mute. All night there had been no sound from the witch’s cell—never a sound. Who was there so bold as to enter in to her and bring back a report, for John Ackes’s hand shook so he could not manage the key? Some said Mr. Zelley would go—he had no normal, wholesome fear of witches or demons. Others said, ‘Where does helie to-night?’ Others, ‘Go, run and fetch him’; and a boy (it was Widow Hannah’s bonded boy Jake Tulley) said the man lay at the Black Moon and that he would run and fetch him. This he did.
Mr. Zelley came in a steeple hat and a greatcoat. He spoke to no one. No one spoke to him. He entered the jail and took the cell key from Ackes, and, after some shaking and effort, he turned the lock and pushed hard on the door, which swung in so suddenly he almost fell on his knees beside that straw bed where he had sat so many wicked hours with the witch-girl. A hundred had crowded down the passage and into the doorway after Mr. Zelley. All stopped at the threshold of the cell. They stood agape, some filled with curiosity, some with fear, others with pious ejaculations and elevated thoughts.
Goody Goochey (who indeed proved to be no woman, but a man) lay in a drunken fit in a corner. His face was purple and his throat twisted and bruised as though he had been half strangled—which he always averred to his dying day was the truth, for he had seen the scaly black demon come at him with great hands outstretched to his throat, and that was the last hecould really remember until certain ones tumbled him out into the snow. He was sure, however, that, as he lay thus almost unconscious in a corner, a great concourse of spectrals and infernals had filled the cell. They had danced, sung, and made much of the witch, praising her, encouraging her, etc. Because the man was known to be an impostor (he had for many years made all think him a woman) and because of his swinish, drunken ways, many did not believe what he said.
All could see that Bilby’s Doll was dead. She lay with her round eyes open to the ceiling, and her expression was one of peace and content. Whatever she might have borne was dead within her.
WithoutHELLwhere isHEAVEN?And without a Devil where isGOD?Also the last of Doll Bilby and an end to these instructions.
There are court records, affidavits, etc.; there are diaries, letters and such; there is the memory of old gaffers and goodies to prove that once Doll Bilby flourished. But of physical, inanimate objects nothing that was associated with her evil life and awful end now exists. The house shelived in mysteriously rotted and fell into the cellar hole. The grave they dug her is now lost under a ploughed field (a sterile field that yields little). Where the dungeon was now is a brick house, a fine big house of red bricks had out from England. No one will live there. Yet any gamin, for a copper penny, and any courting couple, for wanton pleasure, will show you the very spot in the white birch thicket where Doll met her demon lover night after night under the moonlight, in that world of witchery which none to-day will ever see. For in those days there were sights and wonders that will not come again. In those days God was nearer to man than He is to-day, and where God is there also must be His Evil Opponent—the Prince of Lies, for show me Paradise, and there, around a corner, I will show you Hell.
Finis coronat opus
Demon and woman laying down