fear of deadly crime,
fallen upon them.

The stillness and the silence were broken by one crazed and mad, who
came rushing up the steps of the ladder, and caught Lois's body in his
arms, and kissed her lips with wild passion. And then, as if it were
true what the people believed, that he was possessed by a demon, he
sprang down, and rushed through the crowd, out of the bounds of the
city, and into the dark dense forest, and Manasseh Hickson was no more
seen of Christian man.

The people of Salem had awakened from their frightful delusion before
the autumn, when Captain Holdernesse and Ralph Lucy came to find out
Lois, and bring her home to peaceful Barford, in the pleasant country
of England. Instead, they led them to the grassy grave where she lay at
rest, done to death by mistaken men. Ralph Lucy shook the dust off his
feet in quitting Salem, with a heavy, heavy heart; and lived a bachelor
all his life long for her sake.

Long years afterwards, Captain Holdernesse sought him out, to tell him
some news that he thought might interest the grave miller of the
Avonside. Captain Holdernesse told him that in the previous year, it
was then 1713, the sentence of excommunication against the witches of
Salem was ordered, in godly sacramental meeting of the church, to be
erased and blotted out, and that those who met together for this
purpose 'humbly requested the merciful God would pardon whatsoever sin,
error, or mistake was in the application of justice, through our
merciful High Priest, who knoweth how to have compassion on the
ignorant, and those that are out of the way.' He also said that
Prudence Hickson--now woman grown--had made a most touching and pungent
declaration of sorrow and repentance before the whole church, for the
false and mistaken testimony she had given in several instances, among
which she particularly mentioned that of her cousin Lois Barclay. To
all which Ralph Lucy only answered:

'No repentance of theirs can bring her back to life.'

Then Captain Holdernesse took out a paper, and read the following
humble and solemn declaration of regret on the part of those who signed
it, among whom Grace Hickson was one:

'We, whose names are undersigned, being, in the year 1692, called
to serve as jurors in court of Salem, on trial of many who were by
some suspected guilty of doing acts of witchcraft upon the bodies
of sundry persons; we confess that we ourselves were not capable to
unde