"No doctor! no woman!" said she; "if my drink could not save me, what would
a doctor's foolish pills and powders do? And a woman! If old Martha
Denton, the witch, were alive, I would be glad to see her. But other
women! Pah! Ah! Ai! Oh! Phew! Ah, Seppy, what a mercy it would be now if I
could set to and blaspheme a bit, and shake my fist at the sky! But I'm a
Christian woman, Seppy,--a Christian woman."

"Shall I send for the minister, Aunt Keziah?" asked Septimius. "He is a
good man, and a wise one."

"No minister for me, Seppy," said Aunt Keziah, howling as if somebody were
choking her. "He may be a good man, and a wise one, but he's not wise
enough to know the way to my heart, and never a man as was! Eh, Seppy, I'm
a Christian woman, but I'm not like other Christian women; and I'm glad
I'm going away from this stupid world. I've not been a bad woman, and I
deserve credit for it, for it would have suited me a great deal better to
be bad. Oh, what a delightful time a witch must have had, starting off up
chimney on her broomstick at midnight, and looking down from aloft in the
sky on the sleeping village far below, with its steeple pointing up at
her, so that she might touch the golden weathercock! You, meanwhile, in
such an ecstasy, and all below you the dull, innocent, sober humankind;
the wife sleeping by her husband, or mother by her child, squalling with
wind in its stomach; the goodman driving up his cattle and his
plough,--all so innocent, all so stupid, with their dull days just alike,
one after another. And you up in the air, sweeping away to some nook in
the forest! Ha! What's that? A wizard! Ha! ha! Known below as a deacon!
There is Goody Chickering! How quietly she sent the young people to bed
after prayers! There is an Indian; there a nigger; they all have equal
rights and privileges at a witch-meeting. Phew! the wind blows cold up