Читать книгу Ye Lyttle Salem Maide. A Story of Witchcraft онлайн

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The soldiers stacked their firearms and sat in a body on the men’s side of the church. Their scarlet uniforms made an unusual amount of colour in the sober meeting-house.

The long hours dragged wearily.

Little children nodded, and their heads fell against their mothers’ shoulders, or dropped into their laps. Sometimes they were given lemon drops or sprigs of sweet herbs. One solemn little child, weary of watching the great cobwebs swinging from the rafters, began to count aloud his alphabet, on ten moist little fingers. He was sternly hushed.

The tithing-man ever tiptoed up and down seeking to spy some offender. When a woman or maid grew drowsy, he brushed her chin with the end of his wand which bore a fox’s tail. But did some goodman nod, he pricked him smartly with the thorned end.

Deliverance loved the singing, and her young voice rang out sweetly as she stood holding her psalm-book, her blue eyes devoutly raised. And the armed watchman pacing the platform above the great door, his keen glance sweeping the surrounding country for any trace of Indians or Frenchmen, joined lustily in the singing.