University of Virginia Library

“SCENE IV.

—The Highway.
“Enter Gideon, Topsfield and Braybrook, L. H.
“Topsfield.
The panther has escaped us, for the first time
“Of many years.

“Braybrook.
I'm glad he did, our guns could ne'er
“Have reached him, and when he went, Thomas,
“He dived into the earth, as in a great trap.

[Cross. to R.
“Topsfield.
No, no—he vanished through the sassafras,
“But whither, I cannot tell. Gideon!
“Awake!—The air is supernatural
“You breathe to-day.

“Gideon.
Are these the same cedar woods
“We passed before?

“Topsfield.
The very same, what now?

“Gideon.
There seems a tinge of darkness crept among
“These leaves since this way we sped, an hour
“Or two ago: are they not blacker?

“Topsfield.
Lighter, for has not the sun had strength since then!
“Where 's your old keen eyesight, Gideon,
“That used to spy, and note them, the young lizards
“Far off through the summer grass. They 're lighter.

“Gideon.
Then there 's calamity at hand that colors everything.
“In the stream which ran here once, you said
“One Mother Obinson was drowned: a witch
“You called her.

“Topsfield.
Such was she held.

“Gideon.
Believe you, Thomas, witches have ever walked
“This earth of ours? In powers that vex the air
“With fear, assemblying at the dead night,
“On hills and woody slaunts?

“Topsfield.
The sages of the neighborhood, the elders
“And the men of worth, have always so accounted,
“And I am often moved by what I see
“Abroad, to like belief.

“Gideon.
All acts have one side to the light,
“And one away: next the sun we should stand
“Whene'er we judge, for light and truth are twine.
“Oh, there have been doings dark as night
“And close as death, murders and deadliest crimes
“Which the clear eye of day has seen not!
“Acts to outface the bloody wolf, and scare
“The ravenous lion with his unappeasable mane!
“Night's ear hath many counsels of the dark;
“She hears the whispers of the self-reproached
“And blacker grows.

“Topsfield.
And this is witchcraft?

“Gideon.
Tormented by the secret spirit of their crime,
“Poor aged women fly to woods and wildernesses
“To be free of the oppressive eye of man,
“Speak strangely to themselves, and in the racking
“Of the guilty pang, cry out 'gainst who is nearest,
“They know not what!—And this is all their craft
“Of witchery. A deadly arrow in the blood
“In Nature's depth, and not beyond it.
“Believe it not, believe it not! Clear, crystal and unstained,
“The gracious Power upholds this round of earth;
“New found and beautiful, no foul nor ugly thing
“Hath power, I'm sure, in this new land—goblin
“Nor witch.

[Cross to R.
“Topsfield.
The business hath a guilty front,
“Howe'er you turn it.

“Gideon.
It has, it has.—
“How slow you step, we'll not be home by midnight,
“And this cap of flowers I 've gathered, will fade
“To dust, if we 're no fresher in our walk.

“Braybrook.
I am a-weary and must rest,
“This mighty match-lock sweats me, though it be
“A great gun.

“Topsfield.
[Looking strangely at Gideon.]
Tarry here, Simon—Gideon,
“Do you go on, who have a nimbler spirit,
“And we may overtake you.

[Cross to C.
“Gideon.
A minute's start,
“And I'll be home an hour before you.
[Exit Gid. R. H.

“Topsfield.
You are in fear, Simon—
“Your eyes have been as big as pigeon's eggs,
“Or great green plums, for half the morning hunt—
“Why shake you yet?

“Braybrook.
Why, Gideon Bodish, you see,
“Is not out of sight.

“Topsfield.
I'm something in a maze
“Myself. He hankered more for wood-flowers
“Than hunted panthers.

“Braybrook.
How greedily, he snapped
“Each strange one!

“Topsfield.
Gideon was always curious,
“In field and wood, and often asked of all of us,
“The names they went by with the Indians:
“You recollect old Tituba, the shrivelled squaw,
“Who wigwam'd gloomily, by the wood's edge,
“Some summers past? Often, in coming from the fields,
“I 've seen their white and dusky face as one,
“In close discourse.

“Braybrook.
Thomas, you 're pale,
“As though you walked away with Gideon.

“Topsfield.
I am with him, as much now, as with you:
“For still I think how, ever in his speech
“There lived and moved, as in the river-stream
“The fish, darkly and yet swift-gliding,
“Old Ambla's form.

“Braybrook.
He meant her, in what he said?

“Topsfield.
I fear he did.

“Braybrook.
You see it 's coming night,
“And when the wolf begins to howl, over
“In the wilderness, a house is better than a tree.

“Topsfield.
Look you again—do you see Gideon
“Any longer that way?

“Braybrook.
[Cross to R.]
He 's out of sight and out of company.

“Topsfield.
Then we'll go on.

[Exeunt, R. H.