For such an errand Amos was willing enough; it was Alisoun who hung back, trembling and tearful. It was revealed that she and her friend, Cynthia Turner, had gone to Mother Garford some weeks before, to buy a love charm, just as had so many of the other maids of Hopewell long before the rumours of witchcraft arose. Cynthia had wished to make more certain of the heart of Hugh Atherton, the lad who was studying at Harvard College to be a minister, while Alisoun wished to assure the safe return of the young ship’s captain, Gilbert Sheffield, from his long voyage to the West Indies. The charm, in her eyes, had proved to have no magic power whatever, so she had nearly forgotten the whole matter.
“It may be,” said Margeret, when she had heard her daughter’s confession, “that by telling your story before the people you can prove that Mother Garford’s spells are of an innocent kind and so can clear her. Can you do that, my child?”
“Oh, no, mother! Oh, no, no!” cried Alisoun wildly. “To stand up before them all and confess that I bought a charm to bring Gilbert Sheffield safe home? Oh, never, never! You will not make me, mother?”
“No, I will not force you,” said Margeret, “but shall an old woman die disgraced for want of a word to save her when that word can be spoken, even at the cost of pain and humiliation? Go down into the garden and take counsel with yourself. You shall act in the matter only as you choose.”
Margeret went into the house, taking Amos with her, and left Alisoun to make her decision alone. There, as the dusk fell, she walked among the flowers, back and forth through the calm, quiet, sweet-smelling garden. Here dwelt the memory of Master Simon, of all the good that he had done and of the courage of her own father and mother in those stirring early days. Could she follow them, could she dare to be as brave as they?
She was in the garden a long, long time; so long that the stars had come out when she went in at last, and a black silent bat flitted past her as she stood on the doorstep. She found that Margeret had put the excited Amos to bed and was singing him to sleep.
“I will do it, mother,” she said simply. Margeret kissed her and answered quietly,
And for that night the matter was laid to rest.