The MS. in a Red BoxHamilton, John A. (John Arthur)
History
The MS. in a Red Box
Hamilton, John A. (John Arthur)
Axholme, Isle of (England) -- History -- Fiction
"The ease it is to my mind that they are gone, nobody knows. No more
foreign mounseers and madams for the White Hart. Good English meat
they wouldn't have; but she makes a mess with eggs and scraps--pudding
you couldn't call it. And he gathers dandelion and dock-cress and
goosefoot, and the like o' that, which she cooks 'em, or he mixes 'em
wi' oil, and eats 'em raw. It turned my stomach to see it. And their
manners wasn't English. Too civil by half. 'If you please,' and 'May
I trouble you?' and 'Would you be so good?' whenever she wanted
anything. Didn't grumble or make a fuss about the reckoning--that I
will say for her. Then their jabber-jabber between themselves! It
give me the creeps to hear 'em. Such a clat as he made wi' dirt, and
stones, and weeds, and rubbish, which schoolmaster says wizards and
witches always do; and he had a big book full of gipsy-marks, which
young madam called his brewing Bible; and, believe me or believe me
not, he read it back'ards way, as 'tis well beknown witches do read the
Lord's Prayer so, when they want to raise the devil. Schoolmaster he
says they are both deep in witchcraft, and young madam worse than the
old mounseer, for all her prettiness and her smooth-spoken ways. And
certain sure it is that she gave Mat something to drink that cured him
of the ague quicker than ever he was cured afore."
As soon as Dame Hind paused for breath, Mr. Butharwick reproved her.
Doctor Goel, he assured her, was a man of great learning, of perfect
integrity, and the intimate friend of the best and greatest man in the
world.
I broke in, hotly indignant that Mistress Goel should be accused of so
foul a crime. We might have spared our breath, for the hostess replied
by shaking her head sorrowfully, and declaring her assurance that we
were both bewitched. So saying, she swung out of the room, and left us
to our wine. I had tried to remove the suspicion of the woman, gross
and ignorant though she was, fearing that her tongue might work
mischief, and now began to pluck some comfort out of the removal of my
lady to Castle Mulgrave, where she would be in safety from the fury of
folk always ruthless against one believed to be guilty of witchcraft.
It is no wonder that the people should be fierce against those who ally
themselves with the enemy of mankind, but their terror often blinds
them to evident tokens of innocence, and I cannot but be afraid that
many persons have suffered torture and death who were falsely accused
of the monstrous wickedness. Perhaps I have been led to think so only
because the crime was laid to the charge of one so pure and kind as
Mistress Goel.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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