Free Familiar Spirits by Leonard Tourney Page A

he had been a party at their meeting.
    Matthew returned to the parlor, where he found the members of the family conferring quietly. “In the resurrection,” Jane Crispin was saying to her sister, “we shall see him as he was—in a body made perfect of its deformities.”
    “Yes, made perfect,” said Margaret absently. Her gray eyes were cavernous with fatigue and grief.
    Jane rose and with a glance at her husband indicated it was time for them to go. There was a short exchange of farewells, and then Matthew followed the Crispins to the door. Before he could leave, however, John Waite took him aside and whispered confidentially, “I gather you found the servants sufficiently communicative?” The nephew’s expression suggested he would have been interested in just what the two girls had told Matthew, but Matthew felt no obligation to gratify the young man’s curiosity. He confirmed only that he had spoken with both and that they had answered his questions to his satisfaction. John Waite seemed disappointed but said nothing further.
    When Matthew went into the street, he saw that Arthur had returned from his dinner and had resumed his station. He waved to him and then said good-bye to the Crispins, whose own departure from the house had been delayed by Jane Crispin’s having to run back inside. Some last word about funeral arrangements, she had said upon rejoining Matthew and her husband.
    “You were best to look out for your sister-in-law,” Matthew advised Crispin. “It’s quiet enough now, but I can’t promise it will remain so.”
    “Never fear, Mr. Stock. My wife and I will keep a faithful watch on Margaret and her house. We can depend on your help too, can’t we?”
    Matthew assured both of them he would do what he could. “Over there stands Arthur Wilts,” Matthew said, pointing to his deputy watching them from the opposite side of the street. Now that things were quiet again, Arthur was obviously suffering from the tedium of his assignment. “If there’s trouble, he’ll come to fetch me. I’ll be at my shop.”
    No sooner had Matthew said this than he saw two of the town’s aldermen approaching. They cast unpleasant looks at the Crispins and then informed Matthew that the magistrate, who had been away from home when the morning’s trouble started, had now returned and been apprised of it. Matthew was to come with them to the manor house at once to make a full report.

•SIX-

    Joan’s   husband had been gone nearly an hour when the women descended upon her in a flutter of excited talk. They were her friends—her gossips, as Matthew was fond of terming them in his droll humor: Alisoun Monks, the scrivener’s wife; Elizabeth James, a plump loquacious person who had persisted in her widowed state for such a long time that hardly anyone in town could now remember her husband; and tall, stately Mary Carew, who put on airs and whose husband, like Matthew, was a clothier.
    The women brought the news. They had been hurrying on their way to visit Joan when they were attracted by the crowd outside the Waite house. Curious, the women had mingled long enough to be witnesses to the extraordinary manifestation of Satanic power that was now the talk of Chelmsford. In fact, as their subsequent accounts to Joan revealed, none of the women had seen the apparition that was said to have shown itself in the upstairs window. What Mrs. Carew had seen was the terrified expression of a poor woman’s face who had seen it, and that was sufficient testimony for her.
    The other two women fell into agreement, the way in a team of three horses running abreast all stumble if one does.
    “Oh, it was a dreadful sight,” exclaimed the widow James, pressing a plump white hand to her ample bosom. “A most awful and portentous visage.”
    She made a face to emphasize her horror and the other women looked on sympathetically. “Just imagine it,” she
    said, “in broad daylight with a