“Silence,” roared Master Mather, leaning far out over the stairs. “Away with him; he is bewitched like the woman and the maid. Away with them all to jail!” But the crowd was no longer with the great minister, the bubble of the witchcraft terror had burst. Murmurs and exclamations began, cries of “Good, good, Master Hugh!” “Good, brave Mistress Alisoun!” Then suddenly the murmurings grew into a rumble and the rumble into a mighty roar as the whole assembly surged forward. “Away with _him_,” they cried. “Away with the man who would have us shed innocent blood.” Master Cotton Mather was a brave man and one always firmly, nay, stubbornly loyal to his cause. But even he could see when such a cause had perished utterly and when it were better to pursue his object in some more hopeful place. Without another word he clapped on his rusty three-cornered hat, pocketed the great bundle of papers from which he had purposed to preach a memorable sermon on the evils of witchcraft, and, on the magistrate’s opening the door, passed into the meeting house, the skirts of his threadbare coat flapping behind him in his haste. And down the hill in the bright, joyful sunshine poured the crowd of village folk, laughing and shouting and bearing in their midst, Margeret, Amos, Alisoun and poor old Mother Garford weeping with joy. “And so,” said Alisoun, finishing her story amid the breathless interest of her three listeners, “it is recorded with great pride in the annals of Hopewell that, through all the panic of terror that swept across New England, we never had in our town another whisper of witchcraft, for in this place, at least, the Gospel of Fear had come to an end. Further, from that famous meeting onward, Master Cotton Mather’s authority concerning witches steadily declined and soon people throughout the Colonies would listen to him no more.” “And did Cynthia Turner marry Hugh Atherton?” inquired Elizabeth. “Yes, at almost the same time that I became Mistress Sheffield,” Alisoun answered, “and Hugh has been minister of Hopewell these many years now.” Stephen, round, rosy, cheery-hearted little Stephen, was the only one who made no immediate comment upon the story. He was lying upon the grass, his chin in his hand, his steady blue eyes staring out to sea. “Of what are you thinking, Stephen?” his mother inquired at last. “I was thinking,” he answered slowly, “that I should like to have lived in such stirring times and to have seen such adventures. And I should like, when I come to be a man, to be as bold a sailor as my father and my grandfather, and to have such steady courage as you and my grandmother. And I should like to be as well loved by all people as Master Simon, and to tend just such a garden out of which wondrous things should come.” “I should think then,” observed Elizabeth, with the air of wisdom that she loved to assume, “that you had better grow up to be a man to-morrow, for it will take you a very long lifetime to be all those things.”