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He’ll come here to me, Harry thought. Even now Peyto might be hiding in the abandoned mill on the Box they had used for their meetings these past weeks. “Aye - ” he cried, jumping up. “The Manor must be roused. I’ll set about it now. It horrifies me inexpressibly to hear that Peyto has lost his soul. How right you were, Father, to forbid me his foul company, and what a deluded fool I was!”

The harassed Winthrop heard nothing but proper sentiment in this speech; the women were exclaiming and shuddering, except Elizabeth, who guessed her husband’s motives well enough, and was frightened, while she rushed after him, whispering, “Oh, my dear, be careful!” He nodded, grabbed his cloak from a peg, and ran out to the stables, shouting for his horse.

When she returned to the group, she caught Jack looking at her. He shook his head imperceptibly, but he said nothing, and she noted that he made delays in joining Forth who had already gone to alert the servants. Pray God Sally holds her tongue about the message, thought Elizabeth, her heart thudding. She ran to the offices and found Sally alone crouched by a candle in the brewery, clumsily mending one of Elizabeth’s plain lawn collars.

“Would you like that collar for your own, Sal?” she whispered.

The girl goggled at her and finally said, “Yus, thot I would, ma’am.”

“Then say nothing of the message to Master Harry. You haven’t, have you?”

Sally shook her head. “Oi’d be afeared. Oi’m feared of going tew bed even - Oh, ma’am!”

“No, no - ” said Elizabeth urgently. “There’s no need to fear. Peyto’s no witch. Why, you
liked
him when he was here! It’s just those Boxford folk have gone mad!” This was a shrewd touch, since Sally came from Edwardstone which had a constant rivalry with Boxford.

The girl nodded slowly. “Oi won’t say naught. Oi’d never make tr-rouble for Marster Harry.”

“Good lass.” Elizabeth smiled at her. “And wear the collar on Sunday!”

She walked slowly back to the parlour, conscious now of the fluttering burden she carried, though her waist had thickened but little. The men had disappeared; Margaret was sitting by the fire, idle for once, her hands clasped en her belly where a dull pain mingled with the movements of her own child which had also lately quickened. Margaret was forty, had borne five children and buried one, Nathaniel, and she suffered many discomforts this time though she never complained.

“Sit down, Bess,” she said gently. “You look white. You must not let this horrible business upset you, it might mark the babe. Let us talk of other matters - or Mary, read aloud to us, dear. What have you there?”

Mary’s sober young face was bent close to her book, for she was short-sighted. She looked up and said, “ ‘Tis a description of New England by a Captain John Smith, a great warrior it seems. Brother John gave it to me, it tells of the very land we’re going to.”

Margaret had long since resigned herself to the move her husband so delighted in and she said, “That will be most interesting.”

Martha, who had been huddled nervously on a stool by the fire, brightened. She never found pleasure in reading herself, but she loved hearing stories. She took silks, needle, and a half-finished purse from her pocket and continued its embroidery. The purse was for Jack’s birthday gift in February, but she had told this to nobody.

“Captain Smith is writing - ” said Mary, “about the country of the Massachusetts - is that not where my father will go?” Margaret nodded, and the girl went on, “He says it

is the Paradise of all those parts. For, heere are many lies planted widi corne; groves, mulberries, salvage gardens, and good harbours -
”

She stopped, for they heard a sinister clamour outside, the hallooing of men, the barking of hounds, the thump of horses, all mingled with the long-drawn wailing of a horn.

The women looked towards the windows. “The hue and cry,” said Margaret faintly. “They’ve not caught him yet, then.”

“I pray they don’t,” said Elizabeth. It sounded like the howling stampede of great bloodthirsty beasts out there, and the beautiful fire-lit parlour suddenly seemed full of fear-stench.

“I know,” said Margaret. She reached to the table and poured cups of mead. “But Scriptures also say ‘Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.’ We
must
keep God’s Law. Perhaps some mead will strengthen us . . .” She gestured towards the cups. “And go on reading, Mary.”

The young girl obeyed, but Elizabeth stood up. “I’m sorry, my mother, I am too disquieted to stay. I’ll go to bed.”

She was in a fever of worry for Harry, and suddenly it occurred to her that if he needed her help she had best be alone in their bedroom. The hue and cry passed on towards Castlings Heath, and dwindled away while she sat waiting.

It was near midnight when Harry came stamping into their room; the sleet had changed to snow, and he shook flakes off his shoulders, crying loudly, “No, Bess - alack, we haven’t found the skulking bastard yet! But no doubt will, as soon as it’s light!”

She saw that this was for the benefit of his brothers in the passage; and when Harry had shut and bolted their door, he held his raw hands to the fire murmuring, “I’ve got him safe. ‘Twas a near thing. The hue and cry went by us, but I had him on the saddle with me, covered by my cloak. They never saw.”

“Where is he now?” she whispered, helping to pull off the sodden boots.

“D’you remember the old attic we used to climb to from the bakehouse?”

“To be sure, and the hours I lurked there the day your father flogged me - Oh, Harry - you’ve never put him
there?
In this very house?” She sank down on the hearth settle and began to laugh hysterically.

“Hush!” he said. “There’s naught for merriment. He’s half froze, starved, he’s hurt his foot, and I know not how to free him either. I must fetch him food tonight, since all day the bakehouse is in use.”

“There was a little door bolted, behind that suit of armour, I remember - ” she said. “It must lead to the other attics. Let’s try and get it open now.”

Harry bent to hug her. “That’s my plucky girl. I told Peyto you’d be with us. He’s - he’s much afraid of burning, poor little wag.”

During the days that they managed to tend Peyto, Harry and Elizabeth were nearer in spirit than they had ever been, or were to be again, and both of them enjoyed the perils of their adventure, though well aware of the gipsy’s pathos and continuing danger.

The hidden door was warped, cobwebbed, and the bolt rusted so fast that it had to be shattered, but Harry nonetheless managed to open it and then it was easier to visit Peyto. The servants who slept in the far attic chambers complained of noises and footsteps in the night Upon hearing of this from Sally, Elizabeth said anxiously, “Oh, I
hope
it is not old Adam Winthrop the first, who is ‘walking’ again. ‘Tis supposed to be bad luck to those who see him!” That disposed of all nosiness on the part of the servants, and as for the family, Margaret and the younger members had never heard of that particular attic, while John Winthrop had long forgotten its existence, nor had reason to remember it now.

Boxford and Groton folk, having beat over every foot of ground for miles, came to the reasonable conclusion that the Devil had again saved his own. In fact Goody Biggs’s young daughter said she had seen Peyto flying past her window on a broomstick before dissolving into a ball of fire, so there could be little doubt how he got away.

There remained only one thing the uneasy townsfolk could do to insure themselves against further malignant sorcery. On the third day after Peyto’s disappearance they gathered around a pyre of burning faggots in the market place and solemnly burned Peyto’s familiar, the little black donkey. There were several who were enraged when they found the donkey already dead in the stable before the burning, because someone had stabbed it to the heart, but more were secretly relieved. Many folk who did not mind a bull- or bear-baiting, because it was sport, were squeamish about the agonies of fire. The minister, Mr. Grant, read the old form of exorcism over the donkey’s ashes, and said a very fine prayer of his own. The landlord of the Fleece invited all to open house, and it was generally admitted that the whole grievous matter were best forgotten now. In a day or so Reynolds, Biggs, and others of the erstwhile emigrants sheepishly returned to Groton Manor and asked Governor Winthrop to reinstate their names for the Plantation, whereat he was much pleased and relieved.

But in the meantime Peyto still lay hidden in the attic by the bakehouse. Besides injuring his foot he had caught a fearful cold the night of his escape, and spent the time shivering and coughing with his face muffled by the
velvet robes of a long-dead Winthrop, so that no untoward sound might be heard.

Elizabeth smuggled to him flaxseed poultices and infusions of camomile, along with all the food she or Harry dared sneak from the pantries. Peyto gradually improved and might soon escape to the North where he wanted to go, but there were difficulties. His wrenched or broken foot - Elizabeth was not sure which - would not permit of his walking far yet, and neither she nor Harry had any money to give him, let alone the means of getting him some sort of mount.

It was on Christmas Eve, and Peyto had been there a week, when Elizabeth retired very early and requested that supper be sent up to her room. Sally brought her a jug of wine, half a cold duck, and a large plum pasty garnished with holly, at which Elizabeth stared with astonished pleasure.

“It was Cook, ma’am, what made thot little ould Christmas pie,” said Sally defensively, “Being new to the Manor ways, and more’n half Papist if you arsk me.”

“It’s all right, Sal. I’m glad to have it!”

Elizabeth ate moderately, then dumped the remains in a basket. She made sure that everyone was busy with supper below, including Harry, whose rather tipsy laugh she heard. She sneaked along the passages and up the little stairs that twisted around the kitchen chimney. She groped her way to the concealed door, and crept in to Peyto who was crouched by the old chest, mournfully flexing his injured foot. There was light from a lantern Harry had brought him, and in consequence they had shrouded the small gable window with some Winthrop wife’s moth-eaten green cloak. Peyto had also made use of the chest’s contents to cover his nakedness, but the Elizabethan crimson doublet and breeches engulfed the little man. They had cut all his hair off when they searched him for witch marks, so that now, with his round head, cropped ears and sad dark eyes, he looked like a costumed monkey Elizabeth had once seen at the Bartholomew Fair in London.

“Cheer up, Peyto - ” she said. “Look what I brought you!” She gave him the food, stuck a branch of holly in her hair, and another in the slash of his doublet. “ Tis Christmas Eve!”

“Well I know it, Mistress - and I think I’m not like to see another.”

“Nonsense! We’ll get you safe away from here!”

Tears glittered in his eyes as he looked up at her. “Ye’ve been good, Mistress . . . and my dear master.” To her dismay, he suddenly crumpled with his face on his arm and his shoulders heaved. “Would that I had my cards - ” he moaned. “My tarot that they took from me and burned up like my poor donkey. But I must’ve read the cards wrong on All Hallow’s Eve. Could I cast them again on Christmas Eve I’d know surer.”

“What do you mean?” she cried. “Oh, Peyto, did the cards show you this dreadful trouble for you?”

He shook his head. “Never can I read them for me. It was for
him.”

“For Harry?” she asked sharply. “What did you see?”

Again he shook his head. “Naught, naught.” He spoke with almost sullen misery.

She looked at him, frowning, while foreboding gripped her.

“Wait!” he cried, suddenly grabbing her left hand. “Mayhap I can tell something from this!” He turned her palm over and stared at it by the lantern light. “My mother taught me this way too, though for long I’ve not used it.” He stared at her palm, took the right one, and peered at them both, muttering, while she waited uneasily. He let her hands drop. “It was true what I saw before.”

“What?” she whispered, shrinking.

“Death,” said Peyto, staring into the shadows of the attic. “Oh, not yours - death around ye, by water - by sickness - by madness - by bullets - by fire!”

“I’ll not believe it!” she cried angrily. “Before God, Peyto, I believe you are in league with the Devil. We should have let you burn!”

“Nay, nay, Mistress - ” said the little man sadly. “ ‘Tis not the Devil gives my people a look at the future, ‘tis the ancient art we’ve never lost ... But there’s more than death and violence in your hands, Mistress - there’s love and far places and strivings - ever striving for something ye cannot have. Freedom. Ye’ll hanker after freedom, like my own people who cannot
live
cribbed and cabined.”

He reached out and took her right hand again, staring at the pink palm and its mesh of lines. “Ye’ll get what ye want in the end,” he whispered, “but ye won’t know it at first - for it’ll not be what ye thought to be seeking all the long years - all the long years .. .” he repeated, running his dirty brown finger down her lifeline.

The door swung open and Harry stuck his head in. ‘‘What’s ado here?” he cried laughing, “You graceless knave, you hold my wife’s hand behind my back?”

“Oh, hush !” Elizabeth said, for Harry’s voice was loud and thickened by drink. He stumbled a little as he stooped to get through the door. “Peyto has been telling my fortune, and a most horrid one if

is too.”

“But ye’ll be happy in the end,” said the gipsy earnestly.

“And I?” Harry stuck his big hand under Peyto’s nose. “Read me money and land, my boy! And plenty of merriment, children too - a round dozen of ‘em - eh, Bess, my beauty?”

But Peyto turned away. “I’m weary, Master,” he said. He rested his chin on his knees and closed his eyes. Harry felt irritation. Peyto had lost all his gaiety and impudence, had become limp as a snared rabbit, and what was to be done with him anyway?

The problem was solved almost at once. “Hist!” whispered Elizabeth. As Harry started to speak she put her hand over his mouth. They all heard approaching footsteps. Peyto sucked in his breath, and hobbled frantically to an angle behind the chimney where he hid. The other two waited, until the little door opened and Jack walked in carrying a candle. “So - ” he said looking calmly at Harry and Elizabeth, at the disordered robes on the floor, at the remains of food. “I might have guessed this sooner, but I fear my childhood play is long behind me. Where is he?”