Nothing could have exasperated Deliverance more than to see the fat Beadle enjoying the cookies she herself had helped to make, and so she cast such a resentful look at him that he drew quickly back into the corridor beyond her gaze. “If e’er I set eyes on a witch,” he muttered solemnly, “I have this time, for she has a glint in her een that makes my blood run cold.” At the moment her attention was attracted to the Beadle, Deliverance felt a hand clasp her left foot, and in another instant the jailer had snapped the iron ring around her ankle. The other end of the chain was fastened to the wall. The Beadle’s fat face appeared a moment at the side of the door. “A good day to ye, Mistress Deliverance Wentworth,” quoth he, “I must away to find my cows. Mistress Deliverance Wentworth, I say, ye had best confess when ye come to trial.” “Ay,” retorted Deliverance, “and ye had best be careful lest a witch get ye. Methinks I dreamed one had catched hold on ye by the hair o’ your head.” “An’ I ha’ heerd tell o’ evil spirits taking on the form o’ a cow,” put in the old jailer. He cackled feebly in such malicious fashion that Deliverance shuddered, and felt more fear of this old man with his bent back and toothless jaws than of the pompous Beadle. To her relief he did not address her, but left the cell, locking the door after him. All that day Deliverance waited eagerly, but her father did not come for her, and she feared he had been taken ill. She was confident Goodwife Higgins would come in his stead, and so sure was she of this that she slept sweetly, even on the musty straw the jailer had neglected to change. But when the second day passed, and then the third, and the fourth, until at last the Sabbath came again, and in all that time no one had come, nor sent word to her, she grew despondent, fearing the present and dreading the future under the terrible strain of hope deferred. The jailer would have naught to say to her. At last she ceased to expect any change, sitting listlessly on her straw bed, finding one day like another, waiting only for her trial to come. Chapter VI The Woman of Ipswich Those were terrible times in Salem. Day after day the same scenes were enacted. The judges with their cavalcade came in pomp from Ipswich, and rode solemnly down the street to the meeting-house. The people were as frantic now lest they or their friends be accused of witchcraft, as they had formerly been fearful of suffering from its spells.