The Witch of Blackbird Pond - Elizabeth George Speare [70]
There was a murmur along the benches. Kit's hands felt icy, but she kept her eyes steadily on the magistrate.
"Mistress Tyler, you are accused by Adam Cruff with the following actions. Firstly that you were the familiar friend and companion of the Widow Hannah Tupper of Blackbird Pond, an alleged witch who has within the past week disappeared in a suspicious manner. Such friendship is a lawful test of guilt, inasmuch as it is well known that witchcraft is an art that may be learned and conveyed from one person to another, and that it has often fallen out that a witch, upon dying, leaveth some heir to her witchcraft.
"Secondly, that you are guilty of actions and works which infer a court with the devil, which have caused illness and death to fall upon many innocent children in this town."
The clerk sat down. Captain Talcott eyed the girl before him. Quite plainly he had a distaste for the duty at hand, but his stern soldierly countenance did not soften.
"Mistress Tyler," he said, "you have heard the complaints against you. We will proceed with the first accusation. Is it true that you were a friend and companion of the Widow Tupper?"
For a moment Kit feared that her voice would not come. "Yes, sir," she managed shakily.
"Is it true that on sundry occasions during the summer you have entered her house and visited with her?"
"Yes, sir."
"Is it true that you were also acquainted with a certain cat which the widow entertained as a familiar spirit?"
"It—it was just an ordinary cat, sir, like any cat."
"You will answer yes or no. Is it true that you have engaged with the Widow Tupper in various enchantments with the direct intent of causing mischief to certain people?"
"Oh no, sir! I don't know what you mean by enchantments."
"Do you deny that on a certain day in August last, on passing the pasture of Goodman Whittlesley you cast a spell upon his cattle so that they were rooted to the ground where they stood and refused to answer his call or to give any milk on that evening?"
"I—I don't understand, sir. How could I do such a thing?"
"Goodman Whittlesley, will you repeat your complaint for this assembly?"
Her head reeling, Kit stood helpless as, one after the other, they rose and made their complaints, these men and women whom she scarcely recognized. The evidence rolled against her like a dark wave.
One man's child had cried aloud all night that someone was sticking pins into him. Another child had seen a dark creature with horns at the foot of her bed. A woman who lived along South Road testified that one morning Kit had stopped and spoken to her child and that within ten minutes the child had fallen into a fit and lain ill for five days. Another woman testified that one afternoon last September she had been sitting in the window, sewing a jacket for her husband, when she had looked up and seen Kit walking past her house, staring up at the window in a strange manner. Whereupon, try as she would, the sleeve would never set right in the jacket. A man swore he had seen Kit and Goody Tupper dance round a fire in the meadow one moonlit night, and that a great black man, taller than an Indian, had suddenly appeared from nowhere and joined in the dance.
Matthew Wood leaped suddenly to his feet. "I protest this mockery!" he roared, in a voice that silenced every whisper. "Not one word of this nonsense could be proved in the Court of Assistants. There is not one shred of lawful evidence in the lot! I beg you, Sam Talcott, make an end of it!"
"Do I infer that you are willing to vouch for your niece's good character, Matthew Wood?"
"Certainly. I will vouch for it."
"We are to understand then that these visits to the Widow Tupper were taken with your approval?"
Taken aback, Matthew glared at the magistrate. "No, I had no knowledge of them," he admitted.
"Did