One of the torchbearers gave ground a little. "She do look mortal young.
But where be the witch, then?"
Audrey strove to shake herself free. "The old woman left me alone in the
house. She went to--to the northward."
"She lies!" cried the ferryman, addressing himself to the angry throng.
The torches, flaming in the night wind, gave forth a streaming, uncertain,
and bewildering light; to the excited imaginations of the rustic avengers,
the form in the midst of them was not always that of a young girl, but now
and again wavered toward the semblance of the hag who had wrought them
evil. "Before the child died he talked forever of somebody young and fair
that came and stood by him when he slept. We thought 't was his dead
mother, but now--now I see who 't was!" Seizing the girl by the wrists, he
burst with her through the crowd. "Let the water touch her, she'll turn
witch again!"
The excited throng, blinded by its own imagination, took up the cry. The
girl's voice was drowned; she set her lips, and strove dumbly with her
captors; but they swept her through the weed-grown garden and broken gate,
past the cedars that were so ragged and black, down to the cold and deep
water. She thought of the night upon the river and of the falling stars,
and with a sudden, piercing cry struggled fiercely to escape. The bank was
steep; hands pushed her forward: she felt the ghastly embrace of the
water, and saw, ere the flood closed over her upturned face, the cold and
quiet stars.
So loud was the ringing in her ears that she heard no access of voices
upon the bank, and knew not that a fresh commotion had arisen. She was
sinking for the third time, and her mind had begun to wander in the Fair
View garden, when an arm caught and held her up. She was borne to the
shore; there were men on horseback; some one with a clear, authoritative
voice was now berating, now good-humoredly arguing with, her late judges.
The man who had sprung to save her held her up to arms that reached down
from the bank above; another moment and she felt the earth again beneath
her feet, but could only think that, with half the dying past, these
strangers had been cruel to bring her back. Her rescuer shook himself like
a great dog. "I've saved the witch alive," he panted. "May God forgive and
your Honor reward me!"
"Nay, worthy constable, you must look to Sathanas for reward!" cried the
gentleman who had been haranguing the miller and his company. These
gentry, hardly convinced, but not prepared to debate the matter with a
justice of the peace and a great man of those parts, began to slip away.
The torchbearers, probably averse to holding a light to their own
countenances, had flung the torches into the water, and now, heavily
shadowed by the cedars, the place was in deep darkness. Presently there
were left to berate only the miller and the ferryman, and at last these
also went sullenly away without having troubled to mention the witch's
late transformation from age to youth.