Tales of Puritan Land
the window and made a halo around the face of the smiling babe. Mistress Dalton looked at the little thing in doubt; then glow of recognition came into her eyes, and with a sob of joy she caught the child to her breast, while Dalton embraced them both, deeply happy, for his wife had recovered her reason. In the midst of tears and kisses the woman started with a faint cry: she remembered that a poor old creature was about to expiate on the gallows a crime that had never been committed. She urged. her husband to ride with all speed to Justice Sewall and demand that Goody Cole be freed. This the goodman did, arriving at Newbury at ten o'clock at night, when the town had long been abed and asleep. By dint of alarms the justice's door he brought forth that worthy in gown and night-cap, and, after the case had been explained to him, he wrote order for Mistress Cole's release.
With this paper in his hand Dalton rode at once to Ipswich, and when the cock crew in the dawning the victim of that horrible charge walked forth, without her manacles. Yet dark suspicion hung about the beldam to the last, and she died, as she had lived, alone in the little cabin that stood near the site of the academy. Even after her demise the villagers could with difficulty summon courage to enter her cot and give her burial. Her body was tumbled into a pit, hastily dug near her door, and a stake was driven through the heart to exorcise the powers of evil that possessed her in life.
21
