“Oh, Mistress Alisoun, sweet Mistress Alisoun,” she cried; “tell the truth and save me if you can.”
Alisoun climbed a step higher and took the old woman’s shaking hand in hers.
“Yes,” she said, able to speak clearly at last, “the truth will save you and it is the truth that I am going to tell.”
Master Mather bent upon her a threatening, scowling countenance.
“What had she to do with the accused witch?” he wished to know.
She had bought a charm, a love charm, Alisoun told him. After the first plunge it seemed not hard at all to speak out.
“And had she been alone when she bought it? Where was the charm now? Had it had effect?”
“There was one with me whose name I cannot tell,” Alisoun answered. “Nor do I know where the charm is now. In my belief it had no atom of magic power nor any effect.”
“Have you or that other become engaged to wed since receiving it?” Master Mather pursued relentlessly.
“Yes, the other has plighted her troth and is soon to be married,” Alisoun was forced to admit.
“And the charm,” he insisted, “you say you know not where it is?”
“See you not, good people,” he cried, turning triumphantly to the crowd. “The talisman has done its work and then has vanished, yet the maid claims there is no witchcraft here. Surely she is bewitched herself or else is in league with the accused woman and her sorcery.”
“No, no,” exclaimed Alisoun, all trace of her terror gone, “you shall hear my story before you judge. I went to Mother Garford, whom people call the Wise Woman, to buy a love charm, that much is true. It was folly I know, and I blush for it, but maids in this village have done the same thing for many and many a year before this. The charm that Mother Garford gave us, a little, round, white stone, she said had no power alone, but must be joined with neat, well-ordered ways, with cheerful faces and clean, shining houses to give it any potency.”
The women in the crowd looked at each other. This sounded, surely, more like ordinary common sense than like witchcraft.
“I was to keep the stone for seven days and then give it to my friend,” Alisoun went on, “but with every day I grew to hate myself and it the more. Upon the last one I went for a long walk upon the beach, to think the matter out, once and for all. Suddenly my scorn of my own folly grew so great that I plucked the charm from my pocket and flung it into the sea. A moment later, however, I regretted what I had done, for now the talisman was gone forever and Cyn—that other would be sorely disappointed. Since I could not bear the shame of asking Mother Garford for another, I picked up a pebble from the beach where lay ten thousand just like the one I had flung away, and where, I doubt not, the Wise Woman had found it in the first place. And the next day I gave the stone to my comrade for a charm.”