Harvest

The next day, Walter persuades John Carr to talk honestly with him. He’s the only villager who’s still kind towards him. Walter urges him to open up and tell the whole story, and after he reassures John that he’s not deceiving the villagers in any way, John explains that the sidemen kept them waiting outside the house, refusing to let them see Master Kent or Master Jordan. Instead, Mr. Baynham came to the door and suggested cryptically that there’s “witchery about.” Walter is surprised because no one has mentioned witchcraft before, and worried because such an accusation always brings serious punishment.

When Mr. Baynham says tauntingly that the three women in custody are “she-devils” and that they might soon be burned, the villagers lose their temper and begin to make their own accusations. John says heavily that they didn’t do Walter “any favors,” but they “had to take care of our own.” Walter is unsurprised he’s no longer included in the category “our own.”

According to John Carr, the villagers suggested that Mr. Quill, whom they’ve renamed the “Chart-Maker,” is somehow in league with the three strangers, who arrived at the same time he did. His kind behavior to Mistress Beldam and the young man proves they’re scheming together. Moreover, since Walter now spends too much time with the Chart-Maker and didn’t even come to the manor house when his own paramour was inside, they’ve accused him of being the Chart-Maker’s accomplice. With so many more logical culprits to pursue, the villagers assume that Jordan will free the women.

John suggests that Walter flee the village, as Brooker Higgs and the Derby twins have already done. Indeed, Walter is worried for himself and all the villagers. He refers to the community as “a moonball that’s been kicked, just for the devilry, by some vexatious foot.”

Soon afterwards, Master Kent visits Walter in his cottage to present his own version of events. He spent the night locked in his room, but he heard Jordan’s men torturing Anne and Kitty and probably raping them until they confessed to witchcraft. Master Kent supposes that Jordan allowed his men to do whatever they wanted to the women as long as they produced a confession. He tells Walter that Jordan “means to shear us all, then turn us into mutton.”

Master Kent is evidently ashamed to have been powerless to stop the men, but Walter imagines they were especially cruel to Anne and Kitty because they were away from their own homes and families, and in charge of someone else for the first time in their lives.

Master Kent says that Kitty Gosse identified herself as a witch while trying to spare Anne and Lizzie. Moreover, she said that all three of them were only followers and named half a dozen other villagers. Master Kent believes she chose people who were not relative or close friends. Walter is surprised to learn she didn’t name him.

However, the men weren’t satisfied with the names of “followers,” and demanded to know the leader. Master Kent heard Anne Rogers name “the gentleman,” and imagines she mimicked Mr. Quill’s walk to implicate him.

The sidemen brought these confessions to Master Jordan, who was smoking downstairs. Next, they brought in the confused Lizzie Carr and induced her to corroborate the women’s testimony by saying that Mr. Quill “made me Queen and tried to put his hand on me.”

However, when they looked for Mr. Quill, they couldn’t find him. By that time, he was with Walter at the pillory. However, the men interpret the tools of his craft—pestles, paints, and books about plants—as evidence of sorcery.

By the time the villagers approached the manor house, Anne and Kitty had already confessed and it was too late. In any case, their accusations were in line with Anne and Kitty’s confessions, implicating Mr. Quill and connecting him to the strangers. Master Kent says that Mr. Quill is still at large, but that Jordan’s men are searching for him now.