“I will come as soon as I can,” said Abigail. “I would have come before this to-day, but some horrid boys were playing ball in Prison Lane, and I was afeared lest they should see me climb the tree, and suspicion summat.” For the next hour, the two little maids planned a course of action which they fondly hoped would free Deliverance. “Happen like ye have seen my father, lately?” asked Deliverance, very wistfully, just before they said good-by. “So sad he looks,” answered Abigail; “shall I whisper to him that I have talked with ye?” “Nay,” said Deliverance, “wait until ye have returned from Boston Town with good news. Speaking o’ news, did ye hear whether or no a woman by the name o’ Hobbs was hanged last week?” “That I did,” replied Abigail. “Father taked me to the hanging. A most awful old witch was she, for sure, with bones like to come through her skin. A judgment o’ God’s it was come upon her.” “Oh, Abigail,” wailed Deliverance, “she was no witch. She said many holy words for me and prayed God forgive her judges. She was in this cell with me.” “They shut a witch in with ye!” cried Abigail, aghast; “she might have cast a spell on ye.” “She cast no spell on me,” answered Deliverance, sadly. “Go now, lest ye be missed, and forget not to bring me the paper, quill, and ink-horn.” Ere Abigail could reply there were heavy footsteps in the corridor. They paused at the door. “Get ye gone quick, Abigail,” whispered Deliverance, “some one be coming in. Oh, make haste!” With wildly beating heart she lay down on the straw and shut her eyes. She heard the jailer speaking to some one as he unlocked the door. Unable to control her curiosity as to the identity of this second person, she opened her eyes, but closed them again spasmodically. Of the two persons standing on the threshold, one was the bent old jailer: the other—she quivered with dread. Through her shut lids she seemed to see the familiar figure in its cape of sable velvet, the red beard, the long nose beneath the steeple-crowned hat. The jailer had begun to have doubts regarding the justice of the law, and his heart was in a strange ferment of dissatisfaction, for he thought the Devil had taken upon himself the names and forms of people doubtless innocent. Moreover, the witch looked so like his own little granddaughter that he grumbled at permitting Sir Jonathan to disturb her. “Let the poor child sleep,” he said, “child o’ the Devil though she be. Witch or no, I say, let her sleep if she can after such a day as this. Be no disturbing her, Sir Jonathan. Ye can come again i’ the morning, sith ye have gotten permission o’ the magistrate.”